Free Republic

The No. 2 official at the Homeland Security Department meddled in three high-profile immigration cases, giving special treatment to applications from wealthy and well-connected immigrants after calls from major Democrats despite the objections of career employees, the department’s inspector general concluded in a report Tuesday. Alejandro Mayorkas, who was elevated from head of the department’s legal immigration agency to be deputy secretary while the investigation was ongoing, also angered many of his colleagues by getting involved in the cases, and “created an appearance of favoritism and special access” for the wealthy immigrants, the inspector general concluded. Inspector General John Roth...

Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News. “It is shocking,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican. “Particularly when you have F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies...

ABC-TV reports on suspicious visas being fast-tracked -- and the role top Democrat, Harry Reid, played. Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted DHS concerns that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News. “It is shocking,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa...

Federal agents in Los Angeles are investigating an L.A. shipping firm and its Iranian-born owner who for years have participated in and promoted an obscure U.S. immigration program -- allowing the company to recruit wealthy foreign investors to receive visas and potentially Green Cards, law enforcement sources told ABC News. Whistleblowers inside the federal agency that oversees the immigration have been deeply frustrated by an inability to de-certify the company, even after they became aware of the investigation and saw the company’s name surface in an alarming internal Department Homeland Security memo. The memo outlines concerns that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards...

Harry Reid loves the EB-5 program — and now we know why. The visa grants residency status for those who invest $500,000 or more in a US venture, assuming that the applicant can pass a background check for emigration. DHS supposedly prevents fraud and worse by conducting these background checks, but it turns out that Reid’s only interested in another kind of check entirely. ABC News’ Nightline did an exposé of the EB-5 program, showing that officials twist arms (or have theirs twisted) to bypass the background checks in order to get favored individuals into the US (via Daniel...

Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News.

As the year comes to an end, two disturbing stories illustrate how the Obama administration is deliberately compromising national security by drastically expanding a fraud-infested program that lets rich foreigners buy U.S. visas and losing track of 96% of the illegal immigrants recently ordered deported. This is outrageous by any standards. In the first case, an obscure program known as EB-5 that lets wealthy foreign investors essentially buy their way into the United States has skyrocketed under Obama. The capital area’s conservative newspaper published a distressing story this week that reveals the visa program has mushroomed under Obama despite its...

South Dakota state Rep. Stace Nelson (R) met with a handful of national conservative groups last week in Washington — an indication they continue to search for a challenger to former Gov. Mike Rounds (R) in the state’s open Senate race. The Republican primary field is already wide, and a bruising contest could jeopardize a pickup that is crucial to GOP efforts to take back the Senate in 2014. Nelson met with Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) office, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth. “To say things went well is an understatement,” Nelson told The Hill....

Public Policy Polling’s newest South Dakota Senate poll finds that Mike Rounds’ support has dropped all the way down to 35% in the wake of voter anger over the EB-5 scandal, and that Rick Weiland continues to be better liked and within single digits of Rounds. Key findings from the poll include: -Rounds is at just 35% to 28% for Weiland, 24% for Larry Pressler, and 8% for Gordon Howie. A majority of South Dakotans have a negative opinion of Rounds, with just 41% rating him favorably to 51% with an unfavorable opinion. Weiland’s favorability, at a positive 42/38 spread,...

Former Gov. Mike Rounds has acknowledged he made an inaccurate statement in written testimony he sent to lawmakers last week, and now he wants to change that testimony. Rounds sent a letter Thursday to state Sen. Larry Tidemann, R-Brookings, the chairman of the Legislature’s Operations and Audit Committee. In the letter, Rounds seeks permission to amend one of his earlier written responses to the committee’s questions about state involvement in the federal EB-5 immigrant-investor program. In the answers Rounds sent to legislators last week, he wrote that “the governor’s office was not served” with papers regarding an EB-5 related lawsuit...

Silverio Lopez and his son Antonio run their Tequila Cabresto brand out of their house in Southwest Detroit. They say about 60 restaurants in and around the city carry their brand of small batch, craft tequila. They also own a rim and tire shop just down the street. In total, they employ close to ten people. Silverio emigrated from Mexico in the early ‘80s. He says there were many reasons for settling down and starting a business in Detroit. “The properties were cheap, the rent was cheaper, plus we had family here already,” he said through Antonio, who translated from...