MEXICALI, Mexico — Arrests of illegal migrants trying to cross the southern U.S. border have plummeted to levels not seen since the early 1970s, according to tallies released by the Department of Homeland Security last week, a historic shift that could reshape the debate over immigration reform.
The Border Patrol apprehended 327,577 illegal crossers along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30, numbers not seen since Richard Nixon was president, and a precipitous drop from the peak in 2000, when 1.6 million unauthorized migrants were caught. More than 90 percent of the migrants apprehended on the southwest border are Mexican.
The number of illegal migrants arrested at the border has been dropping over the past few years but appears to be down by more than 25 percent this year...[Full Article]
By J. D. Heyes September 19 - The federal government has a little cash flow problem, which has led to somewhat of a national debt in the neighborhood of $14 trillion. A big part of that problem has to do with a government addicted to spending and a large portion of the workforce unable to find employment... Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/#ixzz1YP5lVS1X
Whether or not illegal aliens are doing jobs Americans won’t do, they’re certainly getting benefits Americans don’t get. This is the finding of a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report stating that a whopping 70 percent of illegal-immigrant households with children receive handouts via a government program. The rate for immigrant households with children overall (both legal and illegal) is 57 percent, versus only 39 percent for such native households.
This puts the lie to open-border advocates’ claim that immigration is a net plus for our nation. While this might have been true prior to the nanny state’s rise, when immigrants had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, today’s statist, entitlement culture has changed that equation. As pressing one for English and Mexican flags waved in street protests evidence, many today come here not to assimilate but because “America, land of the free” has come to mean free stuff for non-Americans...[Full Article]
An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce -- at times even stop -- arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever told FoxNews.com that a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol told him as recently as this month that the federal agency’s office on Arizona's southern border was under orders to keep apprehension numbers down during specific reporting time periods.
“The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back,” Dever said in an interview with FoxNews.com. “He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.”
Dever said his recent conversation with the Border Patrol supervisor was the latest in a series of communications on the subject that he has had with various federal agents over the last two years. Dever said he plans to relay the substance of these conversations when he testifies under oath next month before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs...[Full Article]
The exchange happened during a town hall event sponsored by the Spanish-language television network Univision at a Washington, D.C., school.
A student, who appeared via Skype, asked: “My question for the president is, why [is the government] saying that deportations have stopped -- or the detention of many students like me, why is it that we are still receiving deportation letters like this one?”
Obama answered, “We have redesigned our enforcement practices under the law to make sure that we’re focusing primarily on criminals, and so our deportation of criminals are up about 70 percent. Our deportation of non-criminals are down, and that’s because we want to focus our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community.
“And for a young person like that young woman that we just spoke to who’s going to school, doing all the right things, we want them to succeed," Obama said.
"I have been such a strong proponent of the DREAM Act--why I reiterated during my State of the Union speech that we need to pass the DREAM Act," said Obama. “We came close in the December. It almost happened.”
The president later added, “America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce the law.”...[Full Article]
[Webmaster - "Non-criminal" illegal aliens? That is an oxymoron.]
Washington (CNSNews.com) – An illegal alien apprehended by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency during the last fiscal year had an estimated 84 percent chance of never being prosecuted, according to figures compiled by the office of Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas)...[Full Article]
The controversial 'virtual fence' on the US border with Mexico has been scrapped after the project was dogged by technical problems, financial over-runs and schedule delays.
The Secure Border Initiative-network (SBInet)- a high-tech surveillance system of video cameras, radar, sensors and other technologies designed to catch illegal immigrants and smugglers trying to cross the border - has been cancelled by the Obama administration.
Crossing the line: Signs for the US border in Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California
The fence, which covers just 53 miles in two regions of Arizona of the 2,000-mile border, has cost taxpayers nearly $1billion dollars since its inception in 2005, according to a homeland security report.
Janet Napolitano, US Homeland Security Secretary, cited the project's high cost and persistent technical problems as among the reasons behind the decision...
Oct. 16: Maria Gianni, an illegal immigrant, poses for a portrait at a phone bank in Seattle being used by OneAmerica Votes.
SEATTLE -- When Maria Gianni is knocking on voters' doors, she's not bashful about telling people she is in the country illegally. She knows it's a risk to advertise to strangers that she's here illegally -- but one worth taking in what she sees as a crucial election.
The 42-year-old is one of dozens of volunteers -- many of them illegal immigrants -- canvassing neighborhoods in the Seattle area trying to get naturalized citizens to cast a ballot for candidates like Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who is in a neck-to-neck race with Republican Dino Rossi...
Canada has announced a new biometrics system to protect its borders from illegal immigrants.
Canada to use biometrics to secure its borders
Canada Immigration has announced a new five-year plan to institute a secure, biometrics-based border entry system to protect the nation from illegal immigrants.
According to Karen Shadd, spokeswoman for the federal immigration office, Visa applicants in Canada will be required to provide biometric information in the form of fingerprints and a photograph to acquire a digital Visa, the Canadian Visa Bureau reports.
Shadd told the news source, "biometric verification significantly reduces the chance that one individual could pose as or be mistaken for another individual. Biometrics will bolster Canada’s existing measures to reduce identity fraud and enhance the safety and security of Canadians."
According to the Toronto Sun, the new program, which could show dividends as early as next year, will put Canada's border security in line with other nations such as the United States and UK.
Greg Cox of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the news source that the biometric program will reduce fraud and enhance the law enforcement office's ability to screen criminals applying for Visas.
Recently, India, Costa Rica and Gambia have announced new plans to use biometrics to protect their borders from foreign nationals who may enter the country illegally. Movements to use biometrics in immigration and border patrol are spreading across other parts of the globe as well, with New Zealand instituting a fingerprinting policy for foreigners entering the country.
President Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, speaks to The Associated Press during an interview in her home in Boston, in this 2009 file photo. Onyango said this week that the United States has an "obligation" to grant her citizenship.
(Josh Reynolds/AP Photo)
President Barack Obama's aunt, who lived for years illegally in Boston before being granted asylum in May, said the United States has an "obligation" to grant her citizenship.
"If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen," Zeituni Onyango told WBZ-TV in an interview that first aired Monday...
http://www.StandWithArizona.com Zeituni Onyango's arrogance and contempt for America is breathtaking. She came illegally, lived in public housing for years, collected welfare, even got $51k in disability. And still she is angry at America. This case is beyond depressing. And it underlines what many eople see today: that in the old days, immigrants came to America to lend a hand to our growing nation. But far too many today merely come for a handout. And their arrogance and sense of entitlement is a symptom of the broken borders and lawlessness we have permitted, which lets anybody in, asks nothing of them, and gives charity to the lazy while so many deserving citizens are forgotten. And where is the multi-millionaire Obama in all this? His Aunt, whom he spoke lovingly about in his book, STILL does not work, STILL receives disability, still claims to have "no money".
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decided to stop deporting foreign nationals who may be eligible for a green card and who have no criminal record, TheMiami Herald reports. The policy shift might affect tens of thousands of those married or related to a U.S. citizen or a legal resident who has filed petitions for immigration.
The change was outlined in an Aug. 20 memo that ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton sent to the agency's principal legal adviser and to the head of enforcement and removal operations...
An estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008—including thousands in Texas—were the offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center.
The analysis doesn't offer a state-by-state breakdown.
However, the Dallas Morning News recently reported that 60,000 to 65,000 babies are born each year to the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants who live in Texas.
Illegal immigrants make up slightly more than 4 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. But because those immigrants are relatively young and have high birthrates, their children make up a much larger share of both the newborn population (8 percent) and the child population (7 percent of those younger than age 18) in this country.
These figures are based on data from the Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, and are complemented by the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of demographic characteristics of the illegal immigrant population.
The Pew Hispanic Center analysis finds that nearly 79 percent of the 5.1 million children (younger than 18) of illegal immigrants were born in this country and, therefore, are U.S. citizens. In total, 4 million U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants lived in this country in 2009, alongside 1.1 million foreign-born children of illegal immigrants...
As Republicanmembers of Congress press for changes to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that would prevent automatic citizenship for babies born to illegal immigrants, opponents insist the debate is not really about babies.
Instead, they say it is about politics and votes – not fixing the immigration system.
Still, the debate could resonate in Texas, where not only 1.5 million illegal immigrants are estimated to reside but at least 60,000 babies are added to their households annually.
Parkland Memorial Hospitaldelivers more of those babies than any other hospital in the state. Last year at Parkland, 11,071 babies were born to women who were noncitizens, about 74 percent of total deliveries. Most of these women are believed to be in the country illegally...
The Obama administration announced Monday that National Guard troops will begin to be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border on August 1st "as part of the administration's unprecedented efforts to combat the transnational criminal organizations that smuggle weapons, cash and people" on the border.
President Obama said in May that up to 1,200 National Guard troops would be deployed to the border to provide support in the fight against illegal immigration and criminal activity along the border.
According to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense, the largest chunk of National Guard troops - 524 - are being deployed to Arizona, which has become the focus of the debate over immigration thanks to its controversial immigration law.
Federal officials said California and Texas are getting more than 200 troops each, while 72 are being deployed in New Mexico and 130 are "serving as command and control and other support."
The Obama administration says the troops will be in place for a year. They "will provide direct support to federal law enforcement officers and agents working in high-risk areas to disrupt criminal organizations seeking to move people and goods illegally across the Southwest border," according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
According to the Associated Press, the troops will be fully deployed by September...
PHOENIX (AP) - The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner's office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday.
The bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been brought to the office of Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks since July 1. At that rate, Parks said the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005 since his office began tracking them in 2000...
