Posted on 05/20/2009 8:14:17 AM PDT by freespirited
Although President Obama has spent much of his time in office moving away from the policies of his predecessor, on immigration enforcement, he has embraced several Bush administration initiatives, and the changes he has promised to make are couched in nuance.
In recent days, for example, the administration has announced it will expand a $1.1 billion program begun under President George W. Bush to check the immigration status of virtually all people booked into local jails over the next four years. Obama will continue a "zero-tolerance" program that charges and jails any illegal immigrant caught crossing parts of the U.S.-Mexico border. And the administration will resume construction of a $8 billion "virtual" fence of tower-mounted sensors and cameras along the border.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced only one formal change from Bush administration policy: limiting controversial raids at workplaces. Under the new policy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators must give priority to prosecuting employers and can arrest workers only when officials have secured indictments, warrants or a commitment by prosecutors to target managers first.
At a news conference April 29, Obama said a stay-the-course strategy on aggressive border enforcement is needed to build public support for his pledge to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. ...
Obama advisers say more changes are coming to Bush's immigration policies, which they argue were ineffective because they were heavy-handed and lacking nuance. Still, Obama's effort to chart a course through the political minefield of immigration -- as Americans are losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month -- risks offending both sides, angering immigrant advocates who expected more tangible changes while failing to satisfy those who want tighter immigration controls.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So many of them have "gone back home" around here that one quite popular and profitable "Latino Quicky Mart" shut down this weekend.
Even check-ins to hospital emergency rooms are way down.
Obama can probably ride this out to the end of the recession/depression (and the return of full employment) and thereby evade all involvement in the issue.
Same reporter on same story from yesterday, and same deceit. He cites Doris Meissner, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for our open borders during the 1990s, when she was Clinton’s INS head.
When he rides it out, he might be riding it out on a rail prepared for him by the immigration advocacy lobby and La Raza. They are still trying to get him to go all out for amnesty this year.
“He cites Doris Meissner, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for our open borders during the 1990s,...”
...and who was responsible for allowing the 9/11 terrorists to enter the USA and receive multiple driver’s licenses and certification to learn to fly airplanes as they planned their attack on this nation. Yet this incompetent affirmative action hire is still at the government trough, sucking up a hefty salary on the taxpayer’s dime.
She is actually at the (open borders) Migration Policy Institute (funded by the United Nations, Carnegie, Ford foundations) and is an advisor to BO, but is not in the government. Her deputy and co-conspirator at INS, Alex Aleinikoff, headed up BO’s transition team for immigration policy. But yes you are right about her abysmal track record and the contributions she has made to undermining our national security. That anyone should cite or quote her opinion on anything relating to immigration is an outrage. She was an utter and deliberate failure at INS.
ping
The NAFBPO sent out the following article which details the fact that Obama’s new strategy at the border (stopping our guns & money from going down there instead of the crime coming here) isn’t working out so well.
Border agents doubt checks make a dent in smuggling
[snip]President Barack Obama this spring promised his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, that the U.S. would fight two of the biggest contributions American residents make to the drug cartels Calderon has vowed to eradicate: cash and weapons, the latter hard to come by in Mexico.
For the past five weeks, hundreds of agents participating in a newly intensified $95 million outbound inspection program have been stepping into southbound traffic lanes, stopping suspicious-looking cars and trucks.
The Associated Press fanned out to the busiest crossings along the Mexican border - San Diego, Nogales, El Paso and Laredo - to see how effective the inspections are.
The findings? Wads of U.S. currency headed for Mexico, wedged into car doors, stuffed under mattresses, taped onto torsos, were sniffed out by dogs, seized by agents and locked away for possible investigations. No guns were found as the reporters watched; they rarely are.
“I do not believe we can even make a dent in (southbound smuggling) because that assumes the cartels are complete idiots, which they’re not. Why in the world would they try to smuggle weapons and currency through a checkpoint when there are so many other options?” said Border Patrol Agent T.J. Bonner, president of the agents’ union.
A fine mess our incompetent government has gotten us into.
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