Here’s a long-overdue New Year’s resolution for America: bring back the draft to fight the war and keep the peace in Iraq . . . but only for able-bodied Iraqis already in the United States, especially those here based on asylum claims.
While the United States expends increasing amounts of blood and treasure to make Iraq safe for democracy (among other things), the federal immigration bureaucracy is also keeping a back-door open for able-bodied Iraqis to flee their native country and remain in the United States to pursue applications for asylum and adjustments of status in potentially unlimited numbers.
Here’s the problem: whether under an outright grant of refugee status, or simply under the pretense of filing for asylum, the federal government permits able-bodied Iraqi-born citizens to hide out in the United States while American soldiers are fighting and dying in their stead.
Has anyone in government thought this through yet?
One would assume that as part of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the U.S. military would want to help find and train new recruits for the Iraqi National Guard or Iraqi police forces to help keep peace in the newly-liberated land.
So why not start with the fresh Iraqi recruits right in our own backyard?
Able-bodied Iraqi refugees and asylum applicants just so happen to have been born in Iraq. They would supposedly have an interest in the success of the new Iraqi government (much more so than the average American, at least). And they even speak the language!
So how about it, Mr. President? How about helping the morale of the American troops in Iraq by sending all able-bodied Iraqis—starting with current asylum-seekers and those previously granted asylum—out on the next plane to Baghdad to defend their homeland?
Amazingly, no one in the media has yet to report on the lesser-known counterpart to "Operation Iraqi Freedom"—that is, the ongoing "Operation Iraqi Asylum" in the United States.
So who in the federal government is granting asylum to Iraqi nationals in this time of unprecedented war waged for their liberation?
Read the full story -- posted in the Juan Mann Archive on VDARE.com -- 12/26/05 - Why Haven’t You Heard Of “Operation Iraqi Asylum”?
With just four shopping days left before Christmas, there’s a question on every immigration patriot’s lips: will America ever get to unwrap its H.R. 4437 Christmas presents? . . . or will the Senate Grinches steal them first?
The House of Representatives delivered the biggest sack full of immigration law enforcement goodies America has seen in ten years, by approving a heavily-amended version of H.R. 4437 on Friday, December 16.
Even without the border fence, it was an unexpected early Christmas present.
About the successfully hard-fought provision for building a fence along the entire southern border, Rep. Tom Tancredo said it best: "What would be the best Christmas present to the American people is pictures of concrete being poured." ["Mexico Criticizes U.S. Immigration Bill Focusing Mostly on Border Security," by Ioan Grillo, Associated Press, December 16, 2005.]
The House passed H.R. 4437 in record time—just nine business days from start to finish.
The "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" was introduced on December 6 by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wisconsin), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. The committee approved it two days later. The House debated a fistful of amendments to the bill on December 15 and 16 before calling it quits on a final version.
But [like Diggers Realm] I have just one question here: what exactly is in this bill?
The immigration reform group Numbers USA made an heroic effort covering the H.R. 4437 debate last week on an up-to-the-minute web page. But without the actual text of the amendments, us average citizens had no way of knowing whether the executive summaries of the bill actually amend the Immigration Act as promised, or whether the bill is just a lot of unenforceable hot air. (The text finally became available today [PDF] — Monday, December 19).
How was the man in the street expected to know what their elected representatives are really voting for?
The reality is that we weren’t supposed to know. We’re just supposed to take the Congressional staffers’ summaries at face value, read the newspaper headlines and feel good (or bad, as the case may be).
Anyone capable of reading the Immigration Act and connecting the dots — and finding out what the bill really says — need not apply. Congress to citizens so inclined: "Go away kid, you bother me!"
But even without the full text of H.R. 4437, I could tell you what’s NOT in the bill. I’ll even do it blindfolded, if you like:
To find out what the EOIR is (Hint: the Department of Justice’s dreaded Executive Office for Immigration Review) and why its head should be chopped off instead being soothed, read my absolutely definitive essay.
Basically, it’s the bone in the throat of our deportation process.
Furthermore, I can tell you one flaw that IS in the bill:
- As I wrote last week, H.R. 4437 actually undercuts the 1996 expedited removal authority already on the books. The new bill only allows the summary removal of illegal aliens found within 100 miles of a land border within 14 days of entry. . . the same standard already implemented in limited regulations by the Department of Homeland Security.
The "border crackdown" hype of H.R. 4437 conceals its destruction of the nationwide summary removal authority already on the books. H.R. 4437 institutionalizes the "get 100 miles past the border and you’re home free" game once and for all.
Here's a quick history lesson: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and its various amendments, make up the spaghetti bowl of arcane language, convoluted standards and perverse incentives that make up the law of the land for immigration enforcement.
The last attempts by Congress at amending the Act for “reform” were in 1996 as a belated reaction to the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center. Congress passed some very enforcement-minded legislation three years after the bombing called the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996." President Clinton signed the "anti-terrorism" immigration bill on April 24, 1996.
But during the second session of the 104th Congress, later that same year, Congress passed more changes called the "Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996." The IIRIRA was signed by President Clinton on September 30, 1996, and became effective on April 1, 1997.
The IIRIRA cut back on relief available for criminal aliens and known foreign terrorists, and called for the mandatory detention of more classes of convicted criminals who are foreign nationals. It also created the valuable expedited removal proceedings of Immigration Act Section 235(b), which allowed the summary removal of illegal aliens found anywhere in the United States within two years of entering illegally.
So without knowing the truth of what’s actually in the Immigration Act – or what’s really in the mysterious H.R. 4437 amendments as they're being debated – how would the American people ever know any better?
[Original posting in the Juan Mann Archive on VDARE.com]
[From my latest posting on VDARE.com]
Don’t blink. The next major immigration bill in Congress may pass the House of Representatives before you know it.
The "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005"—H.R. 4437 [PDF]—was introduced on December 6 by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wisconsin), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. The committee promptly approved the bill two days later on December 8.
H.R. 4437 is expected to be considered by the full House this week [PDF]—specifically on Thursday, according to the immigration reform group Numbers USA. The bill currently has 22 cosponsors.
And there’s one part of the bill that really caught my attention—"Title VII, Employment Eligibility Verification."
Sections 701 through 707 of H.R. 4437 set up a curious plan which appears to revive the shamelessly-unenforced employer sanctions provisions of Immigration Act Section 247.
But there’s a catch. The employers don’t actually have to fire the illegal aliens!
Section 702 states:
(v) CONSEQUENCES OF NONVERIFICATION—(I) TERMINATION OR NOTIFICATION OF CONTINUED EMPLOYMENT—If the person or other entity has received a final nonverification regarding an individual, the person or entity may terminate employment of the individual (or decline to recruit or refer the individual). If the person or entity does not terminate employment of the individual or proceeds to recruit or refer the individual, the person or entity shall notify the Secretary of Homeland Security of such fact through the verification system or in such other manner as the Secretary may specify.
So there you have it — may terminate employment of the individual . . . the smoking gun of non-enforcement.
As currently written, the employer-friendly H.R. 4437 doesn’t say "shall terminate" the illegal alien’s employment. There’s also no mention about what is going to happen to the illegal aliens who attempt to seek employment and are discovered by the verification system. Nothing saying that the employer "shall immediately alert the nearest Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office about the illegal alien’s presence." That would be too good to be true.
In fact, when employers use the new employment verification system, they can do so virtually risk-free. Section 701 of the bill, which amends Immigration Act Section 274A(b)(7)(J), states that "[n]o person or entity shall be civilly or criminally liable for any action taken in good faith reliance on information provided through the employment eligibility verification mechanism . . ."
So H.R. 4437 sees to it that employers are immunized from any criminal or immigration law liability, including Immigration Act Section 274 felony prosecutions, civil RICO violations, immigration-related discrimination against U.S. workers.
Read the full story: 12/12/05 - Amnesty Dead But Won't Lie Down – Sneaks Into Sensenbrenner's Immigration Bill
There is a dangerous misconception lurking in America’s growing public consciousness about immigration law enforcement. From the man on the street to the halls of Congress, the fatal error persists in the belief that if only current immigration laws were just enforced, the illegal alien invasion of these United States would be over for good.
All would be well if we put the legal mechanisms in place into effect . . . right?
Wrong.
Few Americans even recognize that there’s any problem at all with HOW the federal government goes about deporting illegal aliens and criminal alien residents. Securing the Arizona desert was a piece of cake in comparison—remember that the volunteer Minuteman Project showed the world that they could do it in a month!
So what’s the problem?
It’s too many lawyers, too much litigation and a four-letter word called EOIR.
The problem that hides in plain sight in the current immigration "catch and release" controversy is the litigation bureaucracy of The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
The EOIR is a little-known federal agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. It comprises the nationwide U.S. Immigration Court system and its appellate body, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in Falls Church, Virginia. The EOIR is the centerpiece of a largely unknown de facto stealth permanent amnesty and non-deportation program for illegal aliens and criminal alien residents.
According to its web site,
"[t]he EOIR was created on January 9, 1983, through an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) reorganization which combined BIA with the immigration judge function previously performed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Besides establishing EOIR as a separate agency within DOJ, this reorganization made the Immigration Courts independent of INS, the agency charged with enforcement of federal immigration laws."
But the hidden truth about the EOIR is that America’s deportation process for illegal aliens and criminal alien residents is designed for failure. What starts out as deportation becomes perpetual litigation - and relatively few deportable aliens ever leave.
With the complicity of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the EOIR litigation bureaucracy forms the concealed piece in the puzzle of institutionalized mass immigration sponsorship by the federal government.
Other than the few summary removal provisions implemented at ports of entry, the deportation of foreign nationals in the United States is largely voluntary.
The lengthy EOIR system of hearings and appeals enables illegal aliens and criminal alien residents to remain in the United States both legally and illegally for years, often in perpetuity.
The EOIR and the DHS bureaucracy enable thousands of detained aliens facing deportation to be released back to the streets on an immigration bond or paroled out of federal custody during the EOIR hearing process - giving them the option of disappearing back into the United States regardless of the outcome of their Immigration Court hearings.
The lack of physical security on the land border exposes the EOIR process for the charade that it is. Deported aliens just walk back in.
The EOIR literally makes a federal case out of every illegal alien and criminal alien resident in deportation proceedings by offering a litigation gateway to the federal circuit courts of appeal, and, sometimes, even to the U.S. Supreme Court.
After reviewing Immigration Court decisions at the Board of Immigration Appeals (its appellate body) the EOIR system offers automatic federal circuit appellate court review for the deportation of every illegal alien and every criminal alien resident in the United States.
Read the Full story: 12/06/05 - Abolish The EOIR! Juan Mann's Absolutely Definitive Essay
[Original posting from the Juan Mann Archive on VDARE.com]
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