Free Republic

For the first time in California's history, the state has appointed an undocumented resident to a statewide post, announcing the decision just a day after President Donald Trump attacked its immigration approach during a visit to San Diego. The decision made by the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday saw Lizbeth Mateo, a 33-year-old attorney and immigrant rights activist, appointed to serve on a committee that helps increase college access for students from low-income or underserved communities. In announcing the decision, Senate President pro tempore Kevin de León appeared to recognize the move as an act of defiance in the face...

The DACA problem Much hay has been made over DACA by the Democrats: how Trump is heartless; how Congress absolutely positively must pass legislation extending DACA; not to mention how Congress must reform immigration generally. If someone doesn't reinstate DACA, so say the activists, all those children could be deported, in time. Their DREAM of becoming naturalized citizens will die. Immigration reform, the whole package, is stalled in gridlock, so the clock is against them. (Even as the Federal Courts have temporarily put up a blockade against completely terminating the DACA program I see another answer, one that doesn't open...

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) announces the creation of a new immigration data portal. The portal consolidates government agencies’ most recent immigration statistics in one location, allowing easy access to detailed information on a multitude of key topics in immigration such as crime, illegal immigration, and labor.

BRENTWOOD, N.Y. — The old minivan appeared near the school on a Tuesday morning, its Illinois plates the only thing out of place in the blue-collar suburbs of central Long Island. But as backpack-toting teenagers passed by on their way to Brentwood High, the van’s doors suddenly swung open. Out sprang members of the violent street gang MS-13, armed with baseball bats. They attacked three 16-year-old students they suspected of being rivals before driving off. When police spotted the van in the same neighborhood the following afternoon and surrounded it at gunpoint, the MS-13 members were in the midst of...

Sessions spoke at an event for California law enforcement and a day after the Justice Department announced it was filing a lawsuit against the “sanctuary city” state over three pieces of legislation that it said interferes with federal immigration policy. ~~~~~~~~~ Sessions said that while America admits the highest number of legal immigrants in the world, the American people deserve a legal, rational immigration system that protects the nation and preserves the national interest. “It cannot be the policy of a great nation to reward those who unlawfully enter its country with legal status, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, and...

"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." — President Richard Nixon Early in the residency of Barack Obama, some activists pressured him to stop deporting illegals... But Obama was a smart lawyer surrounded by other smart lawyers. He even boasted that he had been a Constitutional law professor. He had actually just been a part-time and untenured instructor, but he still knew that the president had no authority to ignore the immigration laws. According to the New York Times and Washington Post, he clearly said so... at least 17 times. But then he did it anyway. ......

Illegal immigrant “Dreamers” said they staged a sit-in to block the entrance to the Democratic National Committee’s offices in Washington on Monday in order to show they blame Democrats as well as Republicans for missing President Trump’s March 5 deadline for action. Immigrant-rights activists who are U.S. citizens and who are supporting the Dreamers will also cancel their membership in the Democratic Party in order to make their point, the organizations said. ~snip~ The protesters said they expect Congress to pass a “clean” bill granting perhaps 2 million illegal immigrants citizenship rights — without agreeing to any other provisions such...

Stuart Varney: There Is No Penalty For Illegals Voting In California… VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEv02zSjjwM&feature=youtu.be _______ Leftist politicians driving rift within California: Varney _______________

"What's a good amount of bail money to bring to a CNN Town Hall where Marco Rubio will be speaking? Asking for a friend."

They aren’t calling him “Lyin’ Ted” anymore. Sen. Ted Cruz’s stock is rising among members of President Trump’s base who feel double-crossed after the president offered amnesty to illegals in the immigration debate. Some who opposed Mr. Cruz in his 2016 run for the White House are even clamoring for the Texas Republican to mount a primary challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020. The newfound esteem for Mr. Cruz, whom Mr. Trump dubbed “Lyin’ Ted” when they battled for the 2016 Republican nomination, is coming from people who were die-hard supporters of the president. “Ted Cruz has kept his word...

A group of Republicans who have decided not to run for re-election told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the Republican Party has changed, and not for the better. Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) complained about the GOP’s narrowing focus and the perception that the Republicans must pledge loyalty to the president instead of to GOP principles. […] Royce said he always considered the Republican Party to be “a big tent party” with room “for a lot of different viewpoints.” He said part of the answer is for...

To see how protracted and insane the immigration debate has become among amnesty proponents, look no further than the drama which engulfed LULAC over the last two weeks. LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, is one of the oldest Hispanic advocacy groups in the country. The groupÂ’s president, Roger Rocha, issued an open letter in support of President TrumpÂ’s Four Pillar immigration proposal, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA and DACA-eligible illegal aliens in the country. RochaÂ’s letter reluctantly acquiesced to the PresidentÂ’s demands for stricter enforcement of our borders, including the wall,...

In the end, 14 GOP senators rejected Trump's proposal, helping make it the least popular of the Senate’s competing measures.

The Schumer-Rounds-Collins immigration bill would be a total catastrophe. @DHSgov says it would be “the end of immigration enforcement in America.” It creates a giant amnesty (including for dangerous criminals), doesn’t build the wall, expands chain migration, keeps the visa... lottery, continues deadly catch-and-release, and bars enforcement even for FUTURE illegal immigrants. Voting for this amendment would be a vote AGAINST law enforcement, and a vote FOR open borders. If Dems are actually serious about DACA, they should support the Grassley bill!

The Senate on Thursday rejected immigration legislation crafted by centrists in both parties after President Trump threatened to veto the bill if it made it to his desk. In a 54-45 vote, the Senate failed to advance the legislation from eight Republican, seven Democratic and one Independent senators. It needed 60 votes to overcome a procedural hurdle.

President Trump issued his first veto threat of the immigration debate on Thursday, with the White House saying the plan being offered by Senate Democratic leaders and a handful of GOP rebels would make border security worse, not better. In a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House said the plan would prevent agents from going after illegal immigrants unless they arrive after June 30, 2018. Analysts have said that creates an incentive for people to flood the border now, hoping to get into the U.S. before the deadline — and it also protects perhaps 10 million...

A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal on immigration Wednesday as President Trump attempted to preemptively undercut the proposal by delivering an ultimatum: Pass my plan or risk a veto. The self-dubbed “Common Sense Caucus” of senators late Wednesday circulated legislation that would fulfill Trump’s calls to grant legal status to 1.8 million young immigrants and would appropriate $25 billion for southern border security construction projects over the next decade — not immediately, as Trump wants. The bill also would curb family-based immigration programs, but not to the extent Trump is seeking, and would not end a diversity visa...

The Senate shot down Sen. John McCain’s latest immigration legalization proposal Thursday as lawmakers finally began their long-awaited floor fight over the fate of “Dreamers.” Mr. McCain and Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat, had proposed an amnesty for perhaps 3 million illegal immigrants in exchange for a study of border security and a promise of action by 2021. But the plan had been rejected by President Trump and garnered only 52 votes in support, which was well shy of the 60 senators had set as the needed threshold for action. Votes were expected in quick succession on a plan to...

President Trump on Wednesday called on lawmakers to oppose a series of bipartisan efforts to address immigration and resolve the fate of the so-called “Dreamers,” demanding fealty to his hard-line approach even as more moderate senators converged on a narrower approach. Senators in both parties are racing against a self-imposed, end-of-the-week deadline to write legislation that could win broad support by increasing border security while at the same time offering a path to citizenship for immigrants brought to the United States as children. Members of a bipartisan group calling itself the Common Sense Coalition said they have reached a deal...

The President will veto the Senate Democrats’ draft amnesty bills, a White House official told Axios.com. The site reported late on February 13: A senior administration official said Tuesday night that President Trump “will veto any bill that doesn’t advance his common-sense immigration reforms” — a hardening of the White House bargaining position as the Senate begins an epic debate … In discussing the White House’s strategic thinking, the administration official asserted confidence on immigration, saying Democrats who resist Trump’s approach will “be walking into a political suicide march.”