Posted tagged ‘Deportation’

BREAKING: Sessions Announces Illegal Aliens Who Illegally Re-Enter The U.S. Will Be Charged With a Felony

April 11, 2017

BREAKING: Sessions Announces Illegal Aliens Who Illegally Re-Enter The U.S. Will Be Charged With a Felony, Town HallKatie Pavlich, April 11, 2017

Speaking from the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced major changes to Justice Department protocol when it comes to charging and prosecuting illegal aliens. 

“For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned:  This is a new era.  This is the Trump era.  The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws and the catch and release practices of old are over,” Sessions said.

Here are the details (bolding is mine): 

Starting today, federal prosecutors are now required to consider for prosecution all of the following offenses:

  • The transportation or harboring of aliens.  As you know too well, this is a booming business down here.  No more.  We are going to shut down and jail those who have been profiting off this lawlessness — people smuggling gang members across the border, helping convicted criminals re-enter this country and preying on those who don’t know how dangerous the journey can be.
  • Further, where an alien has unlawfully entered the country, which is a misdemeanor, that alien will now be charged with a felony if they unlawfully enter or attempt enter a second time and certain aggravating circumstances are present.
  • Also, aliens that illegally re-enter the country after prior removal will be referred for felony prosecution — and a priority will be given to such offenses, especially where indicators of gang affiliation, a risk to public safety or criminal history are present.
  • Fourth:  where possible, prosecutors are directed to charge criminal aliens with document fraud and aggravated identity theft — the latter carrying a two-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Further, Sessions said prosecuting those who assault federal law enforcement officers will be a priority.

“If someone dares to assault one of our folks in the line of duty, they will do federal time for it,” Sessions said.

The Attorney General also emphasized the administration’s focus on dismantling violent cartels and dangerous gangs inside America cities.

“When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean?  We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders.  Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings,” Sessions said. “With the President’s Executive Orders on Border Security, Transnational Criminal Organizations and Public Safety as our guideposts, we will execute a strategy that once again secures the border; apprehends and prosecutes those criminal aliens that threaten our public safety; takes the fight to gangs like MS-13 and Los Zetas; and makes dismantlement and destruction of the cartels a top priority.”

DHS: Hamas-Tied NJ Imam Must Prove Why He Shouldn’t Be Deported

December 7, 2016

DHS: Hamas-Tied NJ Imam Must Prove Why He Shouldn’t Be Deported, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, December 7, 2016

Evidence being used against him in the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to deport him is the product of torture and is not credible, a Hamas-connected imam testified Tuesday in a Newark, N.J. immigration court.

Mohammad Qatanani is imam at the Islamic Center of Passaic County. Immigration officials have been fighting to deport him since 2006, alleging he failed to disclose connections with Hamas when he applied for permanent residency. When he came to the United States 10 years earlier, he claimed he had never been arrested or belonged to any terrorist groups.

That history makes Qatanani subject to deportation, DHS says.

Tuesday’s hearing centered on Qatanani’s October 1993 arrest and conviction by an Israeli military court on charges he provided support to Hamas. He claims Israeli authorities detained him and never charged him.

“No lawyer prior to 2008 ever told me that I had a conviction,” Qatanani said.

U.S. Immigration Judge Judge Alberto Reifkohl ruled in 2008 that the bulk of the evidence and testimony introduced by the Department of Homeland Security was not credible and granted Qatanani permanent residency, better known as a “green card.”

The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals sent the case back to Reifkohl in October 2009, finding that he erred rejecting the credibility of evidence and government testimony.

In addition, DHS attorneys bolstered some of the evidence obtained from Israeli officials, including two confessions which include statements Qatanani made about his Hamas connection. Three additional witness statements came from people who told Israeli officials that Qatanani recruited them to join Hamas

Qatanani claims he never was given translations of the Hebrew-language Israeli court records and never knew what they alleged. “There is no confession to my understanding” Qatanani said Tuesday.

He also disputed that the signatures on the documents were his, saying instead they were “similar” to his signature. DHS evidence was able to match the fingerprints on the documents to Qatanani.

He claims he was mistreated in Israeli custody, but never signed any documents he thought were confessions, describing them as “finishing papers.”

The legal standard in immigration court is less stringent than a criminal conviction. This means DHS only needs to show that Qatanani had associations with Hamas that he hid on his visa application. Under immigration law, the Qatanani has the burden of proof to show he is not a terrorist, said Department of Homeland Security Deputy Chief Counsel Chris Brundage.

It’s impossible for Qatanani to get around the fact he lied when he said he never had been arrested, Brundage said.

No ruling was issued before the hearing recessed. It is scheduled to resume next month.

Jeff Sessions Full Interview on Fox & Friends | Fox Bews (8/25/2016)

August 25, 2016

Jeff Sessions Full Interview on Fox & Friends | Fox Bews (8/25/2016) via YouTube

Trump Castigated for Acknowledging Immigration Threats

July 29, 2016

Trump Castigated for Acknowledging Immigration Threats, Front Page MagazineMichael Cutler, July 29, 2016

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There have been no shortage of participants of the Democratic Convention who have dismissed the concerns articulated by Donald Trump in his acceptance speech and elsewhere, as painting a fearful and dark image about America today.

When Donald Trump  provided the transcript of his acceptance speech to the media, it was heavily footnoted to verify the claims he made, as the Washington Times reported, “Donald Trump promises ‘the truth, and nothing else,’ releases speech transcript with 282 footnotes.”

The concerns voiced by Mr. Trump were based on reality, a reality that Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others, would rather the American people not know.

On a personal note, fifteen years ago I was diagnosed as having aggressive form of prostate cancer.  That diagnosis was dark and frankly, disconcerting.  However, because of that diagnosis, I immediately sought an effective treatment.  I was fortunate because my cancer was successfully treated.

Had I not immediately sought effective treatment I would not be here today.

Donald Trump has accurately diagnosed America’s serious and indeed, potentially fatal ailments beginning with the Damoclean Sword of terrorism that hovering over our heads.  Our safety and wellbeing is also threatened by crime, record levels of drug addiction, poverty, unemployment, a faltering economy, suppressed wages and a shrinking middle class that are not fantasies but are the realities America and Americans face each day.

These concerns certainly paint a dark image, but it is an entirely accurate image and after more than seven years, the current administration bears the responsibility for the situation we are in.

However just as my cancer was treatable, America’s ills are treatable, if and only if our next president and other elected politicians are willing to acknowledge the threats and challenges and then swiftly devise and implement effective strategies to effectively mitigate them.

Donald Trump has properly identified the nexus between failures of the immigration system and the problems we face.  This is not to say that immigrants are the problem but that failures of the immigration system have resulted in the entry of aliens criminals, terrorists and huge numbers of foreign workers who displace American workers.

Furthermore there is a world of difference between immigrants and illegal aliens.

Contrary to the claims of Trump’s critics that he has offered no solutions, he advocated securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws that make no distinction about race, religion or ethnicity.  They were enacted to protect national security and the lives and livelihoods of Americans.

Trump has called for ending the admission of Syrian refugees and, in fact, any alien who cannot be vetted.  This is sensible given the threats posed by ISIS and other terror organizations.  This is consistent with our laws and precedents.  Indeed, after our embassy was seized in Tehran, President Carter barred the entry of Iranians.

These are practical solutions and do not involve bigotry but commonsense.

The Obama administration implemented the DACA (Deferred Action- Childhood Arrival) program that has provided  hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens with lawful status and employment authorization.  Mr. Obama claimed to have done this because “Congress had failed to act.”

In reality, Congress did act.  It voted against the DREAM Act.  Hence, acted against what Obama wanted.  The DREAM Act would have created a dangerous program that would simply encourage still more illegal immigration, flood the labor pool with still more foreign workers under the auspices of the “DREAM Act” and, while Obama and advocates for the DREAM Act claimed that this was about children, the age cutoff for aliens who would participate in this ill-conceived program was 31.  (They simply had to claim that they entered the United States as teenagers.)

The Labor Department has falsely claimed that our unemployment rate stands at approximately 5% while utterly ignoring the tens of millions of working age Americans who have left the workforce.

Mr. Obama has complained about violence in the inner cities and connects the violence to high poverty rates while ignoring that as his second term as president draws to a close, our borders have never been more porous and that he has provided lawful immigration status to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enabling them to compete with desperate American workers.  He ignores the great increase of the number of Americans now on food stamps or that the middle class is shrinking.

Obama’s failures to secure our borders have facilitated the smuggling of record quantities of heroin into the United States.  There is a clear nexus between violent crime, gangs and drug addiction and drug trafficking.

Obama has released record numbers of what he deemed “non-violent” federal drug offenders from prison and more than 100,000 criminal aliens from custody.  Generally federally prosecuted drug offenses involve large quantities of drugs and almost invariably when individuals engage in large-scale drug crimes they are armed- often heavily armed.

The drug trade is a violent trade where extreme violence is routinely used to make certain that none of those who work for the drug gangs steal drugs or money or cooperate with law enforcement.  Extreme violence is also a tactic of the drug gangs to control turf.

It must also be noted that many of the key players in drug gangs are aliens who were sent to the United States by the leaders of Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO’s) who employ them to maintain iron-fisted control over their operations in the United States.  Leaders of DTO’s have generally known the people they send to the United States for many years and also know where their family members live back in their home countries.  If an employee of a DTO betrays his/her employer, their family members will pay the price with their lives.

Although Obama and his supporters frequently claim that his administration has deported more illegal aliens than any previous administration, their statistics are bogus.  They claim that aliens who are denied entry at ports of entry or aliens simply turned around at the border by the Border Patrol were deported (removed).  This is the equivalent of claiming that a police officer who writes a parking ticket has made an arrest.

On July 24, 2016 Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, participated in a joint interview by Scott Pelley, correspondent for CBS News’ program, 60 Minutes.  That interview has been posted under the title, “The Democratic Ticket: Clinton and Kaine.”

During that interview, when asked about her goals Clinton said, in part,

“I want an economy that creates more jobs. And that’s a lot of jobs. I want an economy that gets back to raising incomes for everybody. Most Americans haven’t had a raise. I want an economy that’s going to help lift millions of people out of poverty. Because, given the great recession, we have fallen back in the wrong direction.”

During his acceptance speech as Vice-Presidential candidate at the DNC Tim Kaine often spoke in Spanish and repeatedly invoked the three word phrase, “Si se puede” which means “Yes, we can.”  This phrase is associated with the activist movement to provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with a pathway to citizenship and is the precise opposite of Trump’s position.

Both Clinton and Kaine have promised to legalize a population of tens of millions of illegal aliens, giving them an equal standing in the already overflowing labor pool of unemployed Americans.  On July 25, 2016 The Washington Times reported, “Tim Kaine promises bill to legalize illegal immigrants in ‘first 100 days’.”

Inasmuch as labor is a commodity, flooding the labor pool with millions of authorized workers will drive down wages and displace still more American and lawful immigrant workers.

It is absolutely impossible to provide lawful status to millions of illegal aliens and then magically put unemployed Americans to work and increase the wages of the workers.  Additionally, each month the United States admits a greater number of authorized foreign workers than the number of new jobs that is created.

It has been said that you don’t bring sand to the beach.

When you find a hole in the bottom of the boat, it would be insane to believe that drilling more holes in the bottom of that boat would enable the water to escape.  The rational and obvious approach would be to seal that hole.

America does not have a shortage of workers, it has a shortage of jobs.  Flooding America with still more foreign workers is the equivalent of drilling more holes in the bottom of that boat.

Additionally, there would be no way to conduct interviews interviews or field investigations of these millions of illegal aliens whose true identities or dates of entry could not be determined and who entered the United States surreptitiously, evading the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens whose presence would undermine national security, public safety, public health and the lives and livelihoods of Americans.

This violates commonsense and the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and would do irreparably undermine national security and public safety as would Hillary Clinton’s stated plans to greatly increase the number of Syrian Refugees who are admitted into the United States when the Director of the FBI and other high-ranking Obama administration officials have unequivocally testified before Congress that these refugees cannot be vetted.

Although never discussed, it is vital to note that if millions of illegal aliens were granted lawful status they would immediately be legally eligible to bring all of their spouses and minor children to the United States.  This would flood our nation’s schools with millions of additional children, most of whom cannot read, write or speak English.  Several years ago the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report that noted that it costs 20% to 40% more to teach a child who lacks English language proficiency.  Imagine the impact this would have on American children- especially those who attend schools that are already struggling to provide their students with a good education.

As the title of one of my recent articles noted, “‘It’s the Immigration Problem, Stupid’ – Secure borders are synonymous with safety and that’s what Americans want in 2016.”

Germany’s Migrant Deportation Plan: “Political Charade”

February 1, 2016

Germany’s Migrant Deportation Plan: “Political Charade” Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, February 1, 2016

♦ N24 television has reported that up to 50% of “asylum seekers” have gone into hiding and their whereabouts are unknown. They presumably include economic migrants and others who are trying to avoid deportation if or when their asylum applications are rejected.

♦ Tens of thousands of migrants destroyed their passports and other identity documents before arriving in Germany. It may take years for German authorities to determine the true identities of these people and their countries of origin.

♦ Even if Germany sends these individuals back to the countries where they first entered the EU (usually Greece, Hungary or Italy), with a borderless Europe, migrants can easily make their way back to Germany.

♦ German authorities are downplaying migrant lawlessness, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiment.

♦ Migrants are still coming to Germany at the rate of about 2,000 per day.

♦ “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.” – Development Minister Gerd Müller.

After three months of political infighting, Germany’s coalition government has announced new measures aimed at making it easier to deport migrants who are convicted of committing crimes.

The measures emerged in response to voter outrage over the sexual assaults of hundreds of women by migrants in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve — and alleged attempts by the government and the news media to cover up the crimes.

Known as the Asylum Package II (Asylpaket II), the draft law was announced by the cabinet on January 28 and must now be approved by the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, for it to come into effect.

A central feature of the plan involves increasing the number of migrant reception centers to five, up from two today. The centers would supposedly fast-track legitimate asylum requests submitted by people who can prove they are fleeing war-zones.

The centers would also step up efforts to weed out fraudulent applications submitted by economic migrants who are posing as asylum seekers. The stated aim is to eventually deport those who arrived in Germany under false pretenses.

In addition, the plan would introduce a two-year waiting period for legitimate refugees who want to bring family members to Germany. Exceptions would be made for those who can prove that their family members are being “personally, urgently persecuted.”

The government also said that it would try to limit migration from North Africa by declaring Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as so-called safe countries, where there is no armed conflict or threat of violence, persecution or torture. This would make it virtually impossible for asylum applications from those countries to be approved.

Critics of the plan say it is more of a political charade than substance and will do little to alleviate Germany’s migration crisis.

First, the German government has lost track of the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of migrants who entered the country in 2015. N24 television has reported that up to 50% of “asylum seekers” have gone into hiding; their whereabouts are unknown. They presumably include economic migrants and others who are trying to avoid deportation if or when their asylum applications are rejected. The Saarbrücker Zeitung reported that up to 30% of the migrants being sheltered in the eastern German states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt have “simply vanished.” Separately, German authorities estimate that hundreds of thousands of migrants have entered the country without being registered and whose whereabouts are unknown.

Second, tens of thousands of migrants destroyed their passports and other identity documents before arriving in Germany. It may take years for German authorities to determine the true identities of these people and their countries of origin. This will complicate — and delay — many deportations. Even if Germany sends these individuals back to the countries where they first entered the European Union (usually Greece, Hungary or Italy), with a borderless Europe, migrants can easily make their way back to Germany.

Third, the legal hurdles to deportation from Germany are high. German law states that migrants who commit crimes can only be deported if they are sentenced to prison terms of three years or more. In practice, this rarely happens for most petty crimes. The government is contemplating a change to Section 60 of the Residency Law (Aufenthaltsgesetz) to make it possible to deport migrants sentenced for prison terms of one year. But even if migrants are sentenced for crimes, they cannot be deported to countries that the German government deems “unsafe.” Moreover, migrants cannot be deported to countries where they may face the death penalty.

To many critics, it looks as if the German justice system is being disabled by political correctness. Although migrants are driving a surge in violent crime in cities and towns across Germany, German authorities are downplaying the lawlessness, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiment.

A confidential police document leaked to the Rheinischen Post revealed that in 2014, a record-breaking 38,000 asylum seekers in Germany were accused of committing crimes in the country. Analysts believe this figure — which works out to more than 100 crimes a day — is only a fragment: many crimes are not made public.

In Hamburg, police are fighting a losing battle against purse-snatchers. Each year, more than 20,000 purses — roughly 55 a day — are stolen. According to Norman Großmann, the director of the federal police inspector’s office in Hamburg, 90% of the purses are stolen by males between the ages of 20 and 30 who come from North Africa or the Balkans.

In a bestselling new book about the failure of multiculturalism in Germany, Tania Kambouri, a German police officer, describes the breakdown of the German justice system and how German judges are reluctant to punish migrants, including repeat offenders.

Fourth, the German government’s decision to deny asylum requests submitted by migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will have little effect in practice. Out of one million migrants who entered Germany in 2015, fewer than 20,000 are believed to have come from those three countries.

Meanwhile, a new poll published by the news magazine, Focus, shows that nearly half the Germans want Chancellor Angela Merkel to resign because of her open-door migration policy: in 2015, it allowed more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter the country.

Still, Merkel steadfastly continues to refuse to implement the one policy that could prevent the migrant crisis from becoming even worse: closing the German borders to keep the migrants out.

Despite snow, ice and freezing temperatures across much of Europe, migrants are still coming to Germany at the rate of about 2,000 per day. More than 54,500 people reached Europe by sea during January 2016, including 50,668 through Greece, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that 1.3 million asylum seekers would enter the European Union annually during 2016 and 2017.

In a January 9 interview with Bild, Development Minister Gerd Müller warned that the biggest refugee movements to Europe are still to come. He said that only 10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

Separately, Germans face being denied visa-free travel to the United States, as U.S. security officials become increasingly alarmed at the proliferation of fake passports that could be used by terrorists. According to a report by Politico:

“In the aftermath of Paris, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security became so worried about the implications for screening travelers to America that it gave France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Greece a February 1 deadline to fix “crucial loopholes” or lose access to the U.S. visa waiver program. The program allows about 20 million people per year from 38 countries, most of them in Europe, to enter the United States for business or pleasure without a visa.”

1451Left: A new poll shows that nearly half the Germans want Chancellor Angela Merkel to resign because of her open-door migration policy. Right: Interpol has data on 250,000 stolen or lost Syrian and Iraqi passports, including passports that are blank.

According to Politico, in the last five years the number of lost and stolen passports in the EU has doubled. The number of forged passports in the Middle East is also a rising concern. Interpol has data on 250,000 stolen or lost Syrian and Iraqi passports, including passports that are blank.