India has condemned US authorities for tagging Indian students who, it says, were duped by a fake university.
External Affairs Minister SM Krishan said Indian students were "not criminals" and that radio collars put around their ankles must be removed.
US authorities have shut down the Tri-Valley University near San Francisco, accusing it of an immigration fraud.
The university has more than 1,500 students and reports say nearly 95% of them are from India.
Most of the students are reported to be from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and many of them now face deportation.
In the state capital, Hyderabad, members of the All India Students' Federation have demonstrated against the Tri-Valley University near the US consulate.
"We demand that the US government initiate severe action against those officials responsible for this inhuman act," Mr Krishna told reporters in the southern city of Bangalore on Sunday.
"Indian students are not criminals. The radio collars should immediately be removed," he said.
"We have conveyed to the US authorities that the students, most of who are victims themselves, must be treated fairly and reasonably," the ministry said in a statement.
The students have been forced to wear radio collars around their ankles so that the US authorities can keep track of their movements.
Monday, January 31, 2011
The DREAM Act Amnesty Expands
More ICE Fail
A merchant shot and killed two employees of a rival souvenir shop at San Francisco's Fisherman Wharf because the victims were selling counterfeit purses identical to ones he was offering, police said today.The victims, a man and a woman, were killed in the store where they worked at 269 Jefferson St. The male victim was identified as Qiong Han Chu, 30, and the woman was Feng Ping Ou, 30. Both lived in San Francisco, the medical examiner's office said.The shooting happened at about 8:20 p.m. at a business that sells souvenirs and luggage, police said. The gunman shot both Chu and Ou in the chest, authorities said.
The suspect, 56-year-old Hong Ri Wu of San Francisco, was arrested at the scene and booked on suspicion of two counts of murder, investigators said.
A woman who answered the phone today at Wu's home said, "We don't know, sorry," before hanging up. Interim Police Chief Jeff Godown said the shooting was the result of a "business dispute." Other police sources said Wu and the victims all sold counterfeit purses and that the violence was an outgrowth of a longtime rivalry. One investigator said Wu resented the competition.
In a brief telephone interview today, Chu's father, speaking in his native Taishan dialect, said Wu had apparently traveled to mainland China in hopes of obtaining fake name-brand merchandise to sell. But he was unable to get enough goods and had fallen behind on his rent, said the father, who did not want his name used.
The father declined to speak further, saying he was too upset.
Ted Kim, the owner of Grace Land Shirts and Gifts, said of Wu, "I know him very well. He's a very kind man, actually. I'm really surprised." But over the past few days, Wu seemed out-of-sorts and tired, Kim said. "I'm sure they have a competition with each other," he said of the two businesses.
The store where the shootings happened sits between Joe's Crab Shack and Pearl Factory. There is no permanent sign out front. It has a green awning, a roll-up door and a sign that reads, "Original Discount Perfume." [This just screams counterfeit goods. ed.]
Wu's store is in an alley next to the victims' shop. It has no sign and is only six feet wide, and Wu set up a single glass table behind a sliding, accordion-style door, merchants said.
Competition among stores in the area can be fierce, so employees are pressured to make brisk sales, merchants say.
Sometimes the competition skirts the law. Last year, federal authorities raided eight Fisherman's Wharf shops, seizing more than 200,000 counterfeit retail items valued at $100 million. Eleven defendants have been charged with conspiracy.
"There is a slight competition," said Eric Manley, 32, who works at Wharf T-Shirts. "If someone has a hot item, they hang it out in front of the store. In three or four months, everyone will have that item."
In a brief telephone interview today, Chu's father, speaking in his native Taishan dialect, said Wu had apparently traveled to mainland China in hopes of obtaining fake name-brand merchandise to sell. But he was unable to get enough goods and had fallen behind on his rent, said the father, who did not want his name used.
Fat Ugly Leftists Are Revolting
Saturday, January 29, 2011
More Lawlessness From The Obama Regime
The Barack Obama administration has decided to lift a ban preventing Muslim Scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian currently living in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and the grandson of the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization for Hamas and some of the groups that recently merged into al-Qaeda, including Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad.Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the George W. Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism. The administration later dropped the terror endorsement claim and linked the ban to $1,336 in donations Ramadan made between 1998 and 2002 to a Swiss charity that was later blacklisted by the US.Although the White House asked the court last March to uphold the Bush-era entry ban on Ramadan, the administration has now decided to lift the ban and possibly allow both Ramadan and South African Muslim activist Professor Adam Habib onto American soil. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the government no longer views Ramadan or Habib as representing threats to the United States. “The next time Professor Ramadan or Professor Habib apply for a visa, they will not be found inadmissible on the basis of the facts that led to denial when they last applied.”
(B) TERRORIST ACTIVITIES-
(i) IN GENERAL.-Any alien who-
(I) has engaged in a terrorist activity,
(II) a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity (as defined in clause (iii)),
(III) has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity,
(IV) is a representative (as defined in clause (iv)) of a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary under section 219 which the alien knows or should have known is a terrorist organization, or
(V) is a member of a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary under section 219,
is inadmissible. An alien who is an officer, official, representative, or spokesman of the Palestine Liberation Organization is considered, for purposes of this Act, to be engaged in a terrorist activity.
(ii) TERRORIST ACTIVITY DEFINED.-As used in this Act, the term "terrorist activity" means any activity which is unlawful under the laws of the place where it is committed (or which, if committed in the United States, would be unlawful under the laws of the United States or any State) and which involves any of the following:
(I) The highjacking or sabotage of any conveyance (including an aircraft, vessel, or vehicle).
(II) The seizing or detaining, and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain, another individual in order to compel a third person (including a governmental organization) to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the individual seized or detained.
(III) A violent attack upon an internationally protected person (as defined in section 1116(b)(4) of title 18, United States Code) or upon the liberty of such a person.
(IV) An assassination.
(V) The use of any-
(a) biological agent, chemical agent, or nuclear weapon or device, or
(b) explosive or firearm (other than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property.
(VI) A threat, attempt, or conspiracy to do any of the foregoing.
(iii) ENGAGE IN TERRORIST ACTIVITY DEFINED.-As used in this Act, the term "engage in terrorist activity" means to commit, in an individual capacity or as a member of an organization, an act of terrorist activity or an act which the actor knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support to any individual, organization, or government in conducting a terrorist activity at any time, including any of the following acts:
(I) The preparation or planning of a terrorist activity.
(II) The gathering of information on potential targets for terrorist activity.
(III) The providing of any type of material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, false documentation or identification, weapons, explosives, or training, to any individual the actor knows or has reason to believe has committed or plans to commit a terrorist activity.
(IV) The soliciting of funds or other things of value for terrorist activity or for any terrorist organization.
(V) The solicitation of any individual for membership in a terrorist organization, terrorist government, or to engage in a terrorist activity.
(iv) REPRESENTATIVE DEFINED.-As used in this paragraph, the term 'representative' includes an officer, official, or spokesman of an organization, and any person who directs, counsels, commands, or induces an organization or its members to engage in terrorist activity.
Here we have it, a lawless Regime, and one from top to bottom, impeachable. Let's see if the Republicans have the courage to protect Americans from Ramadan and Habib.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
$12K To Deport One Illegal Alien
Washington (AP) - A high-level immigration official says it costs $12,500 to arrest, detain and deport each person removed from the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy director Kumar Kibble has announced that cost at a House subcommittee hearing. Wednesday's hearing focused on whether the Obama administration is doing enough to round up people working illegally in the U.S. ICE deported almost 393,000 people from the U.S. in 2010. At $12,500 per person the cost to remove them was almost $5 billion.
An estimated 11 million people are in the U.S. without proper documentation.
Expedited removal is the process by which a non-U.S. citizen [sic. Or national. More accurately any alien.] can be denied entry and physically removed from a U.S. Port of Entry (“POE”) upon seeking admission to the United States. Orders of expedited removal are issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) officials at a POE. The expedited removal process can only be used in certain situations when CBP officers have determined that an individual is inadmissible for one, or a combination of, the following reasons:Fraud or misrepresentation
[INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i)];
Falsely claiming U.S. citizenship [INA
Section 212(a)(6)(C)(ii)];
An intending immigrant who is not in possession
of a valid unexpired immigrant visa or other suitable entry document [INA
Section 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I)];
A nonimmigrant who is not in possession of a
passport valid for a minimum of six (6) months from the date of the expiration
of the initial period of stay [INA Section 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(II)(i)]; or
A nonimmigrant who is not in possession of a valid nonimmigrant visa or border
crossing card at the time of application for admission [INA Section
212(a)(7)(A)(i)(II)(ii)].
Most expedited orders that are seen in our office involve some type of fraud or misrepresentation charge. On occasion, we do see expedited orders issued on Section 212(a)(7) grounds only. Individuals facing expedited removal do not have a right to counsel or to a hearing before an immigration judge. CBP officials at the U.S. POE conduct the expedited removal process completely and exclusively. [sic. Expedited Removal applies to many classes of aliens already in the United States and is administered by ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol, not just CBP Office of Field Operations (Ports-of-Entry).] The process is usually completed within a matter of hours.
Expedited removal carries a five (5) year bar to re-entering the U.S. This means that individuals issued orders of expedited removal cannot re-enter the U.S. for a minimum period of five (5) years from the date of expedited removal unless they apply for and are granted permission to reapply for admission to the U.S. (Form I-212).
If the basis of the expedited removal falls under INA § 212(a)(6)(C), then a lifetime bar to entry also applies. Individuals in this situation will require permission to reapply (I-212) plus the appropriate fraud waiver to enter the U.S. within five (5) years of the expedited removal order.
Sergy Kirov And Gabrielle Giffords
Kirov was an early Bolshevik, in fact, one of the Old Bolsheviks, and a follower of the man of steel himself. However, after Kirov became a power in his own right after aiding Stalin in his purge of Trotsky, he broke with Stalin, or more accurately, Stalin broke with him as Stalin could not countenance any power base other than his own. Of course, all this is Aliens v. Predators, Crips v. Bloods, but it is telling of the mind of the modern American leftist who is at heart a Stalinist.
Like Stalin, the left cannot abide by any opposition to the Dear Leader, the smallest slight or hint of opposition defines one as a Right Opportunist. As an aside, there is never any longer any Left Deviationism except for that of the Devil himself, Lev Bronstein. He is still cursed to this day by the left, and in times past by even his hagiographer, Isaac Deutscher, for the temerity of opposing Stalin's strategic alliance with Hitler, and, as claim, obtaining breathing space for the Revolution and trapping the German legions in Mother Russian.
It is said that Kirov placed a bulls eye on himself when at the 1934 Party Congress, he received fewer no votes than Stalin. Similarly, Giffords was "bulls eyed" by the Daily Kos and became dead woman walking with the radical left when the Daily Kos again identified her as "dead" to the left for daring to vote against Nancy Pelosi for the Minority Leader position.
The parallels continue with Giffords having her own Vania Zaporozhets in the clownish Sheriff Clarence Dupnik who blamed the "opposition" for a murder which the Stalinist left was responsible. Just as Stalin and his henchmen were to blame. Remember Loughner was a loser pot smoking hippie 9/11 Truther.
Initially, a Communist Party communiqué reported that Nikolaev had confessed his guilt, not only as an assassin, but an assassin in the pay of a 'fascist power', receiving money from an unidentified 'foreign consul' in Leningrad. 104 defendants who were already in prison at the time of Kirov's assassination and who had no demonstrable connection to Nikolayev were found guilty of complicity in the 'fascist plot' against Kirov, and summarily executed.
In another parallel, Jerad Loughner was a mentally ill loser, unable to live in society and similarly, the Kirov assassin, Leonid Nikolaev, was similarly disposed; anti-social, a failure, and undoubtedly mentally ill as well.
Various accounts of his life agree that he was an expelled Party member and failed junior functionary with a murderous grudge and an indifference towards his own survival. He was unemployed, with a wife and child, and in financial difficulties.
The final parallel is equally interesting. Nikolaev was well known to the NKVD, just as Loughner was to law enforcement in Pima County, but inexplicably unmolested for his crimes, just as Nikolaev was.
Leonid Nikolaev was well-known to the NKVD, which had arrested him for various petty offences in recent years.
Gun nuts like to speak to the left about "No More Free Wacos." Given the continued Stalinist tendencies of the left, they may get their chance to shoot it out.
Of course the goal of the left was the removal of any opposition from the public square, just as the Kirov murder was to be the beginning of the Great Purge, ending any opposition to the Great Leader. And it clearly exposes the true nature of the left in America; deeply hateful, mentally unbalanced, vindictive, and with murder on their minds.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
More Traitorous Immigrants
All the voices of the members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors can be heard opening meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance — all but one.
Newly elected Supervisor Jane Kim stands with her colleagues, but does not speak the words. Nor does she place her right hand over her heart during the recitation. She is the only one of the 11-member board who doesn’t say the pledge.
Kim’s objection to the pledge, she says, is that the ideals it speaks of are not reality, specifically its conclusion, which says “with liberty and justice for all.” Kim says the nation is just not there yet.
“I don’t believe we are a nation with liberty and justice for all — yet,” Kim told The San Francisco Examiner on Tuesday. “So a lot of my work is motivated by wanting to be a part of achieving that ideal.”
Kim said the question of whether she should recite the pledge is something she’s thought about since high school. “It’s a very personal decision for me,” said Kim, who represents District 6.
District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who sits next to Kim during the meetings, doesn’t have any problem with Kim’s silence. “To me, it’s a way about reminding myself about our country and the liberties and democracy that we enjoy,” he said. “But there are many, many ways of reminding ourselves of why we love our country.”
Kim says her refusal to say the pledge should in no way be a judgment of her patriotism. “I think I am very loyal the country,” she said. “I’ve expressed my patriotism through my years of doing organizing work, being a civil-rights lawyer and being a public servant now.”
The act of saying the pledge is part of the Board of Supervisors Rules of Order: “The President shall lead the Board and the audience in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.” There is no rule about whether members actually have to say it. Not reciting it is considered one’s right to freedom of speech.
The Pledge of Allegiance is no stranger to controversy. It has sparked a number of heated debates, including whether students can be forced to say it, and the addition of the phrase “under God.” Kim’s predecessor, Chris Daly, would say the pledge but not utter the words “under God.”
Kim also is not the first Bay Area politician to object to the ritual. In the early ’70s, the Berkeley City Council stopped reciting the pledge after Vietnam War protesters elected to the council abolished it. Berkeley later restored the recitation of the pledge in the mid-’80s.
Look Who's Coming To Dinner
U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California inside the trunk of a BMW, according to court documents.
Said Jaziri, the former Imam of a Muslim congregation in Montreal, was hidden inside a car driven by a San Diego-area man who was pulled over by U.S. Border Patrol agents near an Indian casino east of San Diego. Jaziri allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling group $5,000 to get him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a “safe place anywhere in the U.S.”
The arrest marks the unexpected resurfacing of the 43-year-old cleric, whose protracted legal battle to avoid deportation drew headlines in Canada. A Tunisian immigrant, Jaziri was deported for failing to disclose a criminal conviction in France while applying for refugee status in the mid-1990s.
But Jaziri’s supporters said he was targeted for his fundamentalist views: Jaziri backed Sharia law for Canadian Muslims and led protests over the publication of the prophet Muhammad cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2006.
Jaziri is being held as a material witness in the criminal case against the BMW’s driver, Kenneth Robert Lawler, who has been charged with immigrant smuggling. He is at the San Luis Detention Facility near Yuma, Ariz., according to his attorney, Wayne Charles Mayer. His bond has been set at $25,000.
In Quebec’s large Muslim community, Jaziri stood out for his outspoken views, and though his mosque was small, he drew outsized media attention for his strict interpretation of the Koran. Jaziri labeled homosexuality a sin and pushed for government subsidies to build a large mosque for Montreal’s growing Muslim population...According to the court documents, a Mexican foot guide led Jaziri and a Mexican immigrant over the fence near Tecate and he trekked overnight through the rugged back country, to a road where drivers frequently pick up immigrants for smuggling runs into San Diego.
Border Patrol agents, alerted by fire fighters who saw the immigrants get in the trunk, pulled the car over near the Golden Acorn Casino, about 50 miles east of San Diego. He told agents that his journey to the border had been a long one. He took a flight from Africa to Europe, then to Central America and Chetumal, Mexico, on the Mexico-Belize border, where he took a bus to Tijuana.
“His nickname in Quebec was the controversial imam,” said Lise Garon, a professor of communications at Laval University in Quebec City, adding that his case tapped into the anti-immigrant mood in the community. “I think he was deported because people hated his ideas.”
Jaziri opposed his deportation to Tunisia because of fears he would be tortured by the government. His case drew support from Muslim organizations and Amnesty International. It’s unclear what his treatment was like in Tunisia.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Torture Does Work
Mr. Ghailani’s lawyers had argued for leniency, citing what they say was the torture that Mr. Ghailani suffered while he was being detained in a “black site” run by the C.I.A. after his capture. They contended that he had also provided “extraordinarily valuable information and intelligence” while in the agency’s custody.
Monday, January 24, 2011
White Crime Wave In San Francsico
Still Behind The Eightball
PLEASANTON -- A Pleasanton university that catered to mostly online students is being called a sham by federal prosecutors who say the university was a front to illegally provide immigration status to foreign nationals.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Wednesday were at the Tri-Valley University campus on Boulder Court in Pleasanton and executed search warrants at three other properties owned by school founder Susan Su, including one in the gated Ruby Hill community.
The complaint, filed by the U.S. District Attorney's Office [sic It is the United States Attorney's Office. ed.] on Wednesday, claims Su was part of an elaborate scheme to defraud, using false statements and misrepresentations to the Department of Homeland Security.
"Since its inception ... Tri-Valley University has been a sham university, which Su, and others, have used to facilitate foreign nationals in illegally acquiring student immigration status that authorizes them to remain in the United States," the complaint reads.
According to the complaint, Su and Tri-Valley University have made millions of dollars in tuition fees for issuing the visa-related documents, enabling foreign nationals to obtain illegal student immigration status.
Calls to Tri-Valley University were not returned.
ICE began its investigation in May 2010. The institution received is approval to issue visas in February 2009 and had the approval for about 30 students. In May 2009 the school had 11 active students that had received F-1 visas, and 939 by May 2010.
According to the complaint, more than 95 percent of students were from India. For more than half of them, the university reported their address was a single apartment in Sunnyvale. The apartment manager told ICE agents that four university students lived there from June 2007 to August 2009 and none since.
Investigators believe TVU reported that most of its students live at the apartment to conceal they don't live in the state.
For a student to maintain the immigration status, they must show proof they are making reasonable process toward completing coursework and physically attend classes.
One of the school's professors, who did not want his name used, said Thursday he was shocked by the investigation. He said he taught online courses out of his home since 2009 and he said his experience with the university has been positive.
"I teach high quality courses and my students are good students and that's all I can tell you," he said.
He said classes were supposed to restart Jan. 10 after winter break, but there was a delay. He said he got an email from Su on Thursday that said classes would begin soon.
Importing Traitors
Why that is insulting enough, what is not well known is that Lang Lang who supposedly loves his motherland so much, actually lives in New York. What is not know is his immigration status. That is not to imply that he is an illegal alien, but unless his is employed in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa, it is most likely that he is at minimum a legal permanent resident, or very likely, a citizen of the U.S. That is the usual route for musicians, actors, and other in the entertainment industry. They present themselves as some exotic foreigner, but want that security of an American passport. Sort of like Vanessa Redgrave, Salma Hayek, and Eva Longoria, three actresses who hate this country. Redgrave is a true alien but was frequently in the U.S., Hayek is an America hating illegal alien (unlawfully naturalized), and Longoria learned to hate America here and considers herself to be Mexican. Which, of course, she is, as Mexicans born abroad are still Mexicans under Mexican law.
Which brings us to Lang Lang, the over-rated Chinese pianist. Even if he is a legal immigrant, or a legal non-immigrant, he is obviously not loyal to the United States. He has not abjured his alleigance to China and publically insulted the United States. It is clear that he does not suffer from dual loyalties, but of no loyalty to the United States, as do most immigrants, whether they are cheering for the Mexican soccer team, spying for Red China, or executing terrorist attacks. Immigrants are not acculturated or loyal to the U.S. It is time that the naturalization process delve into an immigrants attitudes to America. Love it or leave, voluntarily or not.
UPDATE:
He expressed this idea more frankly in a later blog post, writing: “Playing this song praising China to heads of state from around the world seems to tell them that our China is formidable, that our Chinese people are united; I feel deeply honored and proud.”
In a statement, Lang said “I selected this song because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody.”
He also said “America and China are my two homes. I am most grateful to the United States for providing me with such wonderful opportunities, both in my musical studies and for furthering my career. I couldn’t be who I am today without those two countries.”
The Campaign Against Secure Communities Continues
Obstacles to community policing. Unlike the 287(g) program, Secure Communities does not require an MOA between ICE and the local jail, sheriff, or police department. Nonetheless, there are still concerns about local police being seen as immigration agents. If ICE maintains a presence—even a technological presence—in a local jail, the public will likely associate the local law-enforcement agency with immigration enforcement.
Essentially, DHS’ message is this: Being an immigrant makes you a criminal. This dangerous conflation not only promotes abusive policing practices, such as racial profiling, but also creates divisions and distrust in communities. It hurts public safety because immigrant communities are less likely to report crimes or cooperate with police for fear of deportation. It also disturbingly dehumanizes people who are an integral part of our communities and our national identity.
A woman calls police because she is the victim of a domestic violence incident. Police arrive, but the attacker accuses the woman of being the aggressor. Unable to sort out blame, police arrest both people.Charges are dropped against the woman, but because of a new federal program that The City has been forced to participate in, her fingerprints are sent through a federal database.
Federal immigration officials find out she is an undocumented immigrant who they have been trying to deport and demand the sheriff keep her in custody. Within weeks, a victim of domestic violence is being deported because she reported the incident to police.That precise scenario has played out at least three times in recent months in Northern California, according to Angela Chan, a San Francisco police commissioner and immigration attorney. She and other local law enforcement officials worry such cases will deter the reporting of domestic violence by undocumented immigrants.
And it appears there is no solution. Sheriff Michael Hennessey has attempted to opt out of the federal Secure Communities program, which since June has required his office to turn over every fingerprint taken to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Although there was hope new California Attorney General Kamala Harris could find a legal way for the department to not participate, Hennessey said last week his office has been informed there is no legal way to opt out.
The program conflicts with San Francisco’s long-standing sanctuary ordinance, which has protected undocumented immigrants who are arrested but not charged, or only charged with a misdemeanor. Also, Hennessey expressed frustration with the way the program has been implemented.
“It’s just been one disaster after another in terms of how they’ve rolled this out,” he said. “It’s the worst rollout of a federal program since the Susan B. Anthony dollar.”
Acting police Chief Jeff Godown described the program as a messy situation. “The SFPD is not in the immigration business,” he said. “Would I like to opt out of it? The answer is yes.”
Chan said she knows of three victims of domestic violence, two of whom are her clients, who are now being deported. One case, involving a person Chan identified only as M.H., a Japanese national married to a U.S. citizen — and the mother of his 1-year-old daughter — was arrested and turned over to the ICE after calling police during a physical altercation.Her daughter has been turned over to foster care, and M.H. is in custody and fighting
deportation. Chan said the case, which predated Secure Communities by several weeks, is becoming more common with the program.
ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said she was not familiar with that or the other cases and would not comment on specifics. She said the Secure Communities program is intended to help federal officials catch serious criminals.
“Our goal is to protect public safety,” Haley said. “That’s where our priority is.”
Thursday, January 20, 2011
More Obama Amnesty
The Obama administration plans to intensify a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants with the establishment of an audit office designed to bolster verification of company hiring records.In an interview, John Morton, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said the Employment Compliance Inspection Center would "address a need to conduct audits even of the largest employers with a very large number of employees." The office would be announced Thursday, he said.
Mr. Morton said that the center would be staffed with specialists who will pore over the I-9 employee files collected from companies targeted for audits. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010, ICE conducted audits of more than 2,740 companies, nearly twice as many as the previous year. The agency levied a record $7 million in civil fines on businesses that employed illegal workers. Enforcement activity during the Bush administration focused on high-profile raids in which thousands of illegal immigrants were arrested and placed in deportation proceedings. Relatively few companies and their executives were prosecuted.In contrast, the Obama administration has made employers the center of its immigration policy with "silent raids." Critics say the policy has penalized small employers while failing to target larger employers.Mr. Morton said the new center would have the "express purpose" of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. "We wouldn't be limited by the size of a company," he said. The audits, which have affected garment
makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of every illegal immigrant on a company's payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can't attract American workers even during an economic downturn.
Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees' hiring documents were suspect. The company declined to comment for this article.
Tom Roach, an immigration attorney in Pasco, Wash., said a client lost more than half of his workforce last year owing to an audit. "He had paid every nickel of taxes on them," he said. But the employees had presented social-security cards that the landscape company couldn't discern were fake, said Mr. Roach.
Small business owners, in particular, say they don't have the ability to police their workers. They also fear discrimination suits, as some companies have experienced, for demanding additional documents from workers whom they suspect are in the country illegally.
Angelo Paparelli, an immigration attorney in New York and southern California, said:
"We need to take employers out of the business of performing government functions, like playing immigration police." "Ultimately, it is in a company's best financial interest to proactively comply with the law now rather than to face potential fines or criminal prosecution for noncompliance in the future," an ICE spokeswoman said.
Mr. Morton said ICE was also seeking to expand a program enabling businesses to work with the federal government to ensure they are employing people authorized to work in the U.S. Called IMAGE, or ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers, the voluntary program includes training and assessments to help a company guard against hiring illegal employees.
Mr. Morton will also announce Thursday that Tyson Foods, Inc., which employs 100,000 people and has fought immigration troubles in the past, has joined the program, agreeing to an audit of "a certain portion of existing records." The poultry processor, which says it has already taken steps to maintain a legal workforce, also agreed to establish an internal auditing process, Mr. Morton said.
Mr. Morton suggested Tyson could pave the way for other big companies to join the program. Tyson faced federal human-smuggling charges in a high-profile trial that resulted in acquittal in 2003.
"We...believe this partnership will enhance our ability to collaborate with government officials on immigration-related matters," said Tyson Chief Human Resources Officer Ken Kimbro.
"Tyson realized that employment of unauthorized workers posed a risk to their operations and stepped forward to manage that risk," says Mark Reed, a former immigration agent who runs Border Management Strategies, a consulting firm which has advised Tyson.
Since ICE initiated the IMAGE program in 2006, only 115 companies have signed on, with many reluctant to open their books to government scrutiny and to invest in training and new systems to bolster their employer-verification process, experts say.
About 11 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., according to government estimates. Without them, experts say, such industries as construction, lodging and agriculture would be forced to radically change how they operate—sharply boosting costs for consumers or curtailing the services they provide.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
White Man Arrested For Car Theft
Federal prosecutors want video footage that Josh Wolf recorded at a demonstration in San Francisco in July 2005. Wolf says he's a journalist who shouldn't be forced to turn over his work. A blogger who once described himself as "an artist, an activist, an anarchist and an archivist," Wolf has now spent more than two months in a California prison for contempt of court.
Wolf is 24 years old, with big black sideburns and hipster glasses. He mostly covers left-wing activism. Sometimes he sells his footage of rallies and protests to local TV stations, which he refers to as "the corporate media." The video that landed him in jail shows protesters in San Francisco rallying against a global economic summit. Many of the demonstrators are masked and call themselves anarchists. In the edited footage that Wolf posted on his Web site, protesters drag newspaper boxes into the street and spray paint the side of a bus. His video also shows a police officer wrestling a man to the ground. The request for Wolf's unedited footage came as part of a federal investigation into an alleged assault on an officer and an attempt to set a police car on fire at the July demonstration. Wolf refused. He said he doesn't have any relevant footage. What he does have, according to his attorney, Martin Garbus, is footage of demonstrators taking off their masks and identifying themselves. Garbus believes his client is being forced to serve as an arm of the government.
The Obama Regime Continues To Implement The Dream Act
Congress failed again last month to corral the needed votes to put the DREAM Act back on the table -- and the fallout looks something like this: Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Lee was on a successful trajectory; she had graduated from Lowell High School - the city's most prestigious public high school - last year and was planning to study social work at UC-Berkeley.That was until she found out that she and her 16-year-old brother, Felix, a junior at Lowell, are being deported Jan.19. after a decade of living in San Francisco. The two teens and their mother, Melissa, lost their claim for asylum and are now being forced to go back to Peru.The DREAM ACT, about which we wrote a cover story last summer, would give immigrants who came to the United States as children and attend college or join the military, a pathway to citizenship. The two Lee teenagers and their mother were granted a humanitarian stay until this month -- and immigrant activists are hoping this gives them enough time to help. Mission Dolores church, where the family has attended services for years, contacted immigration activists who are packing the pressure on authorities to grant the family another stay while they pursue other avenues of becoming legal residents.
An undocumented student who was slated for deportation back to Peru this month was granted a six-month reprieve on Thursday, according to the San Francisco Appeal.
Elizabeth Lee, 18, was detained with her 16-year-old brother and mother by U.S. Immigration and Customs officials following her mother's arrest in June. Lee has been accepted to UC Berkeley.
ABC Local News reports that the Lee family fled discrimination in Peru and came to live in California in 2000. Lee only learned of her illegal status in 2006, when her mother was arrested for the first time and she was placed in foster care.
Lee family lawyer Jaclyn Shull-Gonzalez sees the extension as an opportunity to build a case for the family -- she told the San Francisco Chronicle, "we were hopeful we would get more time for them, and we did," adding, "If the Dream Act had happened, we wouldn't need to do this."
ABC Local News reported that Lee addressed supporters from her church and school in a rally held in her family's honor last week. "I'm very nervous about what's going to happen because if it doesn't work out, I have to go back to Peru and I have no one there," she said. "I have no family, no friends."
The three of them fought to stay in the United States by filing a plea for asylum. But the asylum case was denied in 2008, and two years later, Melissa Lee was arrested a second time.
Elizabeth Lee, 18, and her 16-year-old brother were brought to the U.S. from Peru by their mother 10 years ago, seeking asylum from racial discrimination."I didn't really understand what it was to be undocumented until 2006 when mom was suddenly arrested by immigration and my brother and I found ourselves in foster care," said Elizabeth Lee.
The Lee family came to the United States in 2001 on tourist visas and overstayed their permit having applied for political asylum. The application was denied in 2008 and two years later her mother was arrested for a second time. A deportation date was set for the whole family to January 19 2011.
I hope this will be a step forward toward better times for us," said a soft-spoken Elizabeth Lee, 18, standing on the steps of the Mission Dolores Basilica, the church her family has attended since she came to San Francisco at age 9. "Everything is stacked against you when you're undocumented. I feel very grateful and happy today."
Elizabeth holds no ties to her native Peru and speaks hardly any Spanish.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Obama Regime Does Racial Profiling
HOUSTON - When it comes to selling weaponry to the drug thugs of Mexico, Houston gun dealer Carter's Country has been labeled a profit hungry merchant willing to turn a blind eye to bad guys south of the border.
A Washington Post investigative story linked 115 firearms confiscated over the past two years by Mexican authorities waging the drug war to Carter's Country outlets. That makes the largest independent gun dealer in the region among the biggest sources of fire power for the murderous cartels.
It certainly looks bad, until you hear a different side of the story.
"Let me tell you something about Carter's Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get go," says attorney Dick Deguerin who represents Carter's Country owner, Bill Carter.
Deguerin says the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked Carter's Country to complete transactions, even when sales people strongly suspected the weapons were headed to Mexican drug gangs.
"They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9 millimeter guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It's all profiling, but they went through with it," said Deguerin.
"They reported them promptly, either while the transaction was going on or soon there after. They did this for months and months and months. Went through with the sales because the ATF told them to go through with the sales," he added.
Deguerin say at the ATF's request, Carter's Country employees followed some customers into parking lots and recorded license plate numbers.
"If the ATF had used the information that Carter's Country developed for them they could have stopped these guns from going across the border," insists Deguerin.
A spokesperson for ATF would neither confirm nor deny the co-operation agreement with Carter's Country, but did say "I don't think we would issue a blanket directive.”
That's left Deguerin's client feeling unjustly vilified and betrayed.
The Post reported 60,000 U.S. guns have been confiscated in Mexico over the past four years, contributing to 30,000 deaths.