Photo: CAPS

By WILL WEISSERT, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Homeland Security chief lauds Texas ‘sanctuary cities’ ban

Dec 12, 2017,

New U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen harshly criticized so-called “sanctuary cities” late Tuesday, urging the rest of the nation to emulate Texas’ tough law banning them.

President Donald Trump’s former deputy White House chief of staff, Nielsen was confirmed by the Senate last week. She wasted little time visiting Austin, where Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez once promised not to comply with some “detainers,” or federal requests to hold for possible deportation people who were already jailed on non-immigration charges.

That helped prompt the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to approve in May a sanctuary cities crackdown known as SB4, where sheriffs and police chiefs can face removal from office and even criminal charges for failing to fully enforce federal immigration policy. The measure now is being contested in federal court, but Nielsen nonetheless praised Texas for taking a “firm stand against dangerous and destructive sanctuary cities.”

“I hope other states follow this lead,” she said, calling for an elimination of a “shadow society outside the rule of law.”

Choosing to come to Texas to discuss sanctuary cities so soon after taking her post sent a political message. Homeland Security has been leading the charge on implementing Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, and Nielsen has pledged to continue that.

She was in Baltimore earlier Tuesday with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said that this week’s attack on the New York City subway system showed in the “starkest terms” that the failures of the U.S. immigration system are a national security issue.

Nielsen told reporters in Austin that years of relaxed federal immigration policy have also endangered police officers, saying “sanctuary cities put law enforcement lives at risk in favor of
criminals who have no right to be in the United States.”

Hernandez, a Democrat, had announced on the day of Trump’s inauguration that Austin jails would only comply with federal requests to hold in jail immigrants suspected of violent crimes — not those being held on the most-common offenses like drunken driving, She cited a need to create trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

But Hernandez also announced policy changes after Texas’ sanctuary cities ban was approved.

She was the only Texas law enforcement official to publicly oppose full compliance with federal detainer requests, but the state’s largest cities, including Houston and Dallas, have joined forces in suing to block the law. Opponents argue such crackdowns make combating crime harder since it spreads fear and mistrust among immigrant communities and spooks potential witnesses to crimes from cooperating with police…. MORE HERE

Check out how Chuck Schumer used to talk about illegal immigration and DACA. pic.twitter.com/bgT5JE9nC5

— NumbersUSA (@NumbersUSA) December 12, 2017

Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. Taxpayers a Stunning $134.9 Billion a Year 
HERE

Kate Steinle – photo: National Review

Voters Reject Steinle Verdict, Favor Punishing ‘Sanctuary’ Lawmakers

Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Few voters agree with a San Francisco jury’s decision clearing an illegal immigrant repeat criminal of killing 32-year-old Kate Steinle, and there’s sizable support for punishing lawmakers who protect criminal illegals from federal immigration authorities.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 20% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with the jury’s decision that Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was not guilty of murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. Forty-nine percent (49%) disagree with that verdict, while 31% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

HERE

Who was Dustin Inman?

• Letter below sent November 20, 2017 – it was not published.

Dear editor,

The AJC’s Bill Torpy has apparently chosen the crime of illegal immigration as a pet topic and constantly describes illegal aliens as “immigrants.” He also says illegals are ‘voiceless’ and is clearly against locking them up once they are captured.

 Not for the first time, I urge Mr. Torpy to come OTP to Woodstock and visit with what remains of our American family.

 In 2000, on Father’s Day weekend, an illegal alien killed our only child Dustin Inman and put my wife, Kathy, in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. That person had previous run-ins with Georgia police and was allowed to go free. He is hiding out in Mexico, unpunished, having escaped before local law enforcement could lock him up after killing our son.

 We can tell Mr. Torpy about being voiceless and who we think the victims really are in the illegal immigration mess.

Billy and Kathy Inman

Woodstock, Ga.

Atlanta Journal Constitution
November 20, 2017

Torpy at Large: Too bad Atlanta’s immigration hypocrisy isn’t illegal

Bill Torpy, photo AJC

Earlier this month, Mayor Kasim Reed boasted on his very active Twitter account that his town is immigrant friendly.

“Atlanta is proud to be a welcoming city,” he wrote. “Pleased to be a part of the Safe Cities Network offering legal representation for those individuals facing deportation.”

Fighting for the rights of immigrants is now an important battleground for Dems and progressives. Families are being torn apart through deportation. People who’ve lived and worked here for years suddenly disappear one day into a murky system that affords them few rights. And it’s President Donald Trump’s pet issue!

From a liberal standpoint, resistance is a noble fight. It’s standing up for the powerless.

So, it might come as a surprise that the city of Atlanta, that beacon of civil rights, that Sanctuary City Lite, is profiting greatly from Señor Trump’s roundup. (As it did from President Barack Obama’s roundup, as well.)

At any given time, the Atlanta City Detention Center in south downtown holds about 250 immigrants waiting to be booted from U.S. soil. The city receives $78 per each detained soul per night from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Multiply those numbers and that human suffering amounts to some real cash… MORE HERE

“An undocumented immigrant’s car as seen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers just before they pulled him over in Norcross, Ga., last month.” Melissa Golden, for the New York Times

New York Times

VIVIAN YEE

November

‘Please, God, Don’t Let Me Get Stopped’: Around Atlanta, No Sanctuary for Immigrants

CHAMBLEE, Ga. — Not many notice when the SUVs arrive.

Around 5 a.m., when the immigration agents pull into the parking lot of the Chamblee Heights apartments, 16 miles from downtown Atlanta, only one person is on the lookout.

Cristina Monteros catches sight of the cars with the telltale tinted windows from her small apartment near the front, where she runs a day care, and calls her downstairs neighbor: ICE is here.

The neighbor dials another, who passes it on. It takes less than 15 minutes for everyone in the complex to hear about “la migra,” whereupon they shut their doors and hold their breath. Some show up late to work, and others skip it altogether. The school bus might leave some children behind.

“It’s just us helping each other out,” said Ms. Monteros, 35. “There’s fear every day.”

Few places in the United States have simultaneously beckoned undocumented immigrants and penalized them for coming like metropolitan Atlanta, a boomtown of construction and service jobs where conservative politics and new national policies have turned every waking day into a gamble.

President Trump has declared anyone living in the country illegally a target for arrest and deportation, driving up the number of immigration arrests by more than 40 percent this year. While the Obama administration deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants, it directed federal agents to focus on arresting serious criminals and recent arrivals. The current administration has erased those guidelines, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest and deport anyone here illegally… MORE HERE.

“Which invites the question: Why would any member of Congress support a bill that would destroy American jobs, exploit foreign workers, and endanger our food supply? It may be possible to craft worse legislation, but it would be difficult.”

Rep Karen Handel’s campaign blurb on immigration,

“Immigration

True national security means securing our borders.  The current immigration system is broken, and we MUST fix it. We need to build a wall along our southern border, demand immigration laws be enforced, improve the reliability of temporary visa programs, and create a viable guest worker program. While I understand and appreciate that we are a nation of immigrants, and believe we should be welcoming of those wish to migrate to our great country, we are also a nation of laws, and our laws must be respected. HERE. “

“The Agricultural Guestworker Act would flood the meat processing and agricultural sectors with hundreds of thousands of untrained visa holders. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall”

Washington Examiner
December 4, 2017

Mark Perrone

Guest worker bill will put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work

When the Carrier Corporation announced it would be closing its furnace factory in Indianapolis, a decision that would have destroyed close to 1,000 middle class jobs in the U.S., there was widespread outrage from political leaders from both parties.

But when the House Judiciary Committee narrowly passed H.R. 4092 — the Agricultural Guestworker Act this fall, a bill that would flood the meat processing and agricultural sectors with hundreds of thousands of untrained visa holders — there was mostly silence on both sides of the aisle.

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At Carrier, it was about 1,000 jobs. With the AGA, it’s hundreds of thousands. If we care about American jobs and food safety, it’s time to pay attention to this bill before it’s too late.

The AGA is a direct threat to America’s hard-working families, the incomes they depend on, and the food we all eat. This is not hyperbole. If the AGA becomes law, it will allow 450,000 foreign visa holders to work in agricultural and meat processing jobs that are currently held by hard-working American men and women. The impact of this bill, particularly upon the hundreds of thousands of people employed by the meat and poultry industry, would be devastating.

This bad bill does more than just hurt American jobs and workers — it also puts our food supply at risk. While we may not see food processing workers do their jobs, the truth is that they are highly trained professionals who perform dangerous and highly skilled work. These professionals serve as a much-needed layer of protection for consumers when it comes to food safety because they know to quickly spot meat that is low quality or diseased.

Like any high skilled and vital profession, current salaries reflect the quality and importance of this workforce, with wages as high as $23 per hour. By allowing untrained workers or guest workers to hold these important jobs for as little as $10.88 per hour, the AGA will effectively drive down wages and destroy hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the process.

Make no mistake, this bill creates a guest worker system that will turn middle-class jobs vital to food safety into jobs that are temporary, untrained, and unskilled. Even worse, it would exploit these guest workers by placing them at grave risk by taking jobs that require them to use sharp knives in a fast-paced environment with little to no training.

At a time when we need to strengthen American jobs and make our food safer, the AGA would also allow guest workers to stay for up to three years. That isn’t a guest-worker, that’s a long-term employee and further shows how this bill is designed to both exploit foreign workers and replace American workers at the same time.

There’s no denying that our immigration system is broken. We need structural reforms to our employment-based visa system that will protect foreign workers and immigrants. We also need immigration laws that protect American workers. But the AGA will only make a failing system even more flawed… MORE HERE

“…it is our newspaper style not to use the term “alien” when referring to illegal immigration.”

Boston Globe letters editor to me via email regarding my letter submission in which I used the legal and accurate term “illegal alien”. It is allowed and used in state law, federal law, by law enforcement, the IRS, Presidential Executive Orders, and SCOTUS. Just sayin’.

Definition of alien (Merriam Webster)