WND

Tom Tancredo

Many political commentators are feigning surprise at the large number of waivers, exemptions and “unreviewable discretion” written into the Senate’s 844-page amnesty bill. No one should be surprised: No amnesty bill in history has ever had its enforcement provisions implemented after the amnesty was granted.

The debate over the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, S.744, has centered on the weak border security provisions, but in truth, that is almost a distraction. Enforcement problems permeate every aspect of the amnesty bill.

The first Senate committee hearing on the amnesty bill should serve as a wake-up call for Sen. Rubio. All amendments aimed at setting honest enforcement “triggers” were voted down. Rubio has been promising the conservative critics of the bill that “its weaknesses will be fixed.” Well, evidently not.

It turns out that the other members of his “gang” have no interest in fixing the bill. Sens. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham voted with Sen. Schumer and other Democrats to scuttle any strengthening of the bill’s border security features. So much for the Gang of Eight’s willingness to help Rubio keep his promises for genuine, enforceable border security guarantees.

But why is any of this a surprise to anyone? The reality is that no amnesty bill acceptable to Democrats and [Alleged] President Obama will have meaningful enforcement provisions – not on border security, not on employer sanctions, not on our five million visa overstays, not on any significant problem the bill is supposed to “fix” in our “broken immigration system.”

The scenario being played out in the Senate was entirely predictable. Thus far, the bill is following the 2006 pattern to a tee. The Senate will pass a very bad amnesty bill with near-unanimous Democrat votes and a dozen Republican votes and will then be hailed as “a great bipartisan achievement.” The bill will then go to the House.

What will happen when the Senate amnesty bill goes to the Republican-controlled House? If the House Republican leadership has its way, the Senate bill will be taken up and amended and then passed. But this will not happen if the House follows “regular order” and first gives consideration to House-sponsored immigration reform bills originating in House committees.

The only open question is what those House bills will look like, and the first question House conservatives will ask is this: If the bills do not take enforcement seriously, why should we take the bills seriously?

That question has no answer. No amnesty bill ever takes enforcement seriously. Why? Because the amnesty sought by Democrats and the Republican open-borders lobby lies not simply in the granting of legal status to a fixed number of currently illegal aliens. The amnesty they want lies in creating a legal path for additional millions of illegal aliens to join them in gaining that legal status over the next 20 years.

So, no amnesty bill acceptable to Democrats and [Alleged] President Obama will ever contain meaningful enforcement provisions that limit the rewards of legal status or actually secure the border against successive waves of illegal aliens.

If the debate over “triggers” for border security were only a debate about how many low-skilled Mexican and Guatemalan laborers we can tolerate crossing our borders, then that alone would be a serious issue to be debated and resolved. But border security involves far more than the future wages for the landscape crew at Lindsey Graham’s private golf course. Border security involves our national security and our national sovereignty.

Read this story at wnd.com ...

Associated Press

WASHINGTON  — The conservative Heritage Foundation is claiming in a new report that bipartisan immigration legislation pending in the Senate would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion.

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Heritage says the costs come from more than $9 trillion in government benefits to newly legalized immigrants over their lifetimes — only partially counterbalanced by $3 trillion they would pay in taxes.

Read this story at news.yahoo.com ...

Breitbart

by Matthew Boyle

The immigration bill introduced to the Senate a week and a half ago would, if passed, allow illegal immigrants to access state and local welfare benefits immediately, Breitbart News has learned. The financial impact of allowing potentially millions of immigrants onto state and local public assistance could overwhelm these programs' budgets. Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) uncovered this loophole in the bill and many others, and he will circulate a memo detailing the gaps in the bill on Tuesday. Breitbart News exclusively obtained a copy of the memo before its public release.

“The Gang of Eight made a promise that illegal immigrants will not be able to access public benefits,” Sessions said in a statement to Breitbart News. “We already know that, once granted green cards and ultimately citizenship, illegal immigrants will be able to access all public benefit programs at a great cost to taxpayers. We have, however, identified a number of loopholes that would allow illegal immigrants to draw public benefits even sooner than advertised.”

By Micky Kaus
April 29, 2013
The Daily Caller

Psst, Krauthammer! Rubio has already caved on the border fence:  Charles Krauthammer says he would “like to strike [an immigration] deal now where we get the strongest enforcement possible … And that’s where, I think, everything hinges now.” His support depends on those details: “I don’t know if I’ll support the final bill.”  He says he expects Sen. Marco Rubio to press for tough enforcement measures:

“I think he’ll proactively seek real measures — universal e-verify, the tracking system for the visa violations, which as you know, accounts for 40 percent of illegals in the country, and I’m with you, a fence from left to right, from east to west, except obviously the mountainous areas. We know that fences work.” [E.A.]

Huh? Rubio has already caved on the fence. The bill he “negotiated’ only requires (on page 24)  that the Department of Homeland Security come up with a “Southern Border Fencing Strategy” to identify where fencing, including double-layer fencing, infra-structure, and technology should be deployed along the Southern border. [E.A.]

This is the same Department of Homeland Security that has already decided that fencing shouldn’t be built “from left to right, from east to west,” undermining what many thought Congress had passed in 2006.  

Read more at The Daily Caller ... 

National Review

Paul Ryan’s Immigration Play

Like his mentor Jack Kemp, he’s pro-immigration.

By Robert Costa
This week, there was a new development in the House: Paul Ryan may be the key to passing comprehensive immigration reform.

But that should hardly come as a surprise.

Long before he was a vice-presidential nominee, Ryan was an adviser to former New York congressman Jack Kemp at Empower America, a conservative think tank. It was there, in his early twenties, that Ryan began to share Kemp’s politics.

Beyond fiscal issues, that meant supporting pro-immigration policies, such as an expanded guest-worker program.

Kemp often spoke passionately about how immigration was necessary for economic growth and for the Republican party to prosper. He also tangled with critics and, in a 1994 memorandum, warned against a “nativist, anti-immigration climate.”

“We are a nation of immigrants,” Kemp said in 1996, during his vice-presidential acceptance speech. “We must close the backdoor of illegal immigration so that we can keep open the front door of legal immigration.”

Ryan was Kemp’s speechwriter during that campaign, and if Ryan’s visit to Chicago on Monday afternoon is any indication, he continues to share Kemp’s view on the subject.

He even echoed Kemp’s approach.

There was nothing Kemp loved more than mingling in a crowd of working-class voters in a big city, and Ryan did just that. He stopped by the Erie Neighborhood House, an organization that helps the poor and immigrant families in the Windy City.

The event was quite a change of pace for Ryan. After spending a year being associated with Mitt Romney, who famously asked illegal immigrants to self-deport, Ryan was warmly greeted by mariachi music and a blessing from pro-reform religious leaders.

Later Monday, Ryan spoke at a luncheon at the City Club of Chicago, and talked about why the American dream resonates with those beyond our borders.

“If you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead — that is what the American idea is,” Ryan said. “No matter what the condition of your birth, you can make yourself what you want to be. That is an incredible idea.”

Kemp’s friends say Ryan is clearly reviving his mentor’s message, even though Ryan didn’t directly refer to his old boss in his remarks.

“Oh, I heard the Kemp influence,” says Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and a cofounder of Empower America. “That’s Jack’s broad vision, that the GOP is a natural home for blacks, immigrants — anyone who’s aspirational.”

In an interview last week with the Catholic television network EWTN, Ryan recalled his history at Kemp’s side and how they worked together to fight Proposition 187, a California ballot initiative that prevented non-citizens from using the state’s social services.

“I actually campaigned with Jack Kemp against a thing called Prop 187,” Ryan told host Raymond Arroyo. He said they both worried that the proposal would burn Republicans within the immigrant community, and “make it so that Latino voters would not hear the other messages of empowerment.”

In August 1996, political reporter John Heilemann wrote a piece for Wired magazine that spotlighted Ryan’s work during that period, when he floated between Kemp’s circle and the office of Kansas senator Sam Brownback.

Ryan reportedly was behind a “deeply devastating” letter that circulated in the House, asking Republicans to oppose Texas congressman Lamar Smith’s bill to limit legal immigration. At the time, Ryan was a “protégé” of strategist Cesar Conda, Heilemann writes, and Ryan’s “ties to the pro-immigration mafia ran deep.”

Seventeen years later, Conda is Florida senator Marco Rubio’s chief of staff.#page#

Later, as a member of Congress, Ryan supported President George W. Bush’s immigration plans and backed bills to give temporary legal status to agricultural workers. In 2010, he opposed a House version of the DREAM Act, but that was a rare instance where he broke from his usual pattern.

Politically, Ryan’s words in Chicago have consequence. In Rubio, reform advocates have had a Republican champion in the Senate. But in the House, they’ve struggled to find a leading conservative willing to step up.

Ryan could be that figure. He may not be ready to officially endorse the Gang of Eight’s legislation, but in his speech, he praised the group’s efforts and defended its bill on several fronts.

On the question of a “path to legalization,” which has drawn criticism from conservatives, Ryan was supportive. “We have to offer people a path to earned legalization,” he said. “We have to invite people to come out of the shadows.”

Ryan then pushed back against Republican critics, such as Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who have argued that the bill would be a burden to taxpayers. “Immigration reform will benefit America’s economy,” Ryan said. He predicted that reform would lead to job growth and urged conservatives to see it as more than a price tag.

Earlier in the day, when asked about how the Boston bombings could affect the debate, Ryan was undeterred. “If anything, what we see in Boston is that we have to fix and modernize our immigration system,” he said. “National-security reasons, economic-security reasons — for all those reasons, we need to fix our broken immigration system.”

Ryan’s comments in Chicago were closely monitored by House Republicans, and especially by the leadership, which has been hesitant to embrace the Senate’s legislation. They’re worried about the bill’s being tagged as “amnesty” by the grassroots and aren’t looking to rush it to the floor.

Ryan’s Kemp-like speech could alter their calculus.

As a conservative favorite who started his career as Kemp’s foot soldier, Ryan gives cover to Republicans who are privately supportive of reform but nervous about backing anything that includes a path to legalization for millions.

Ryan, an ally to Speaker John Boehner, will likely play an important behind-the-scenes role, too.

Boehner has been mostly quiet on how he’d like to proceed, but he sounded quite similar to Ryan in a Monday interview with Fox News. “Primarily, I’m in the camp of, if we fix our immigration system, it may actually help us understand who’s here, why they’re here, and what legal status they have,” he said.

According to GOP insiders, Ryan has been huddling with Representative Raul Labrador of Idaho, a member of the House’s working group on immigration. They’ve gone over Labrador’s concerns, and discussed how they can make the House version of the Senate’s bill more palatable to their colleagues, perhaps by splitting it into parts.

And on Monday in Chicago, Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a Democrat and another member of the House’s bipartisan working group, was at Ryan’s side. Their relationship, which is both personal and professional, goes back years.

In an interview with MSNBC in December, Gutierrez said that he approached Ryan shortly after the election and was encouraged by his interest in building consensus. Ryan, he confided, told him that he wanted to make immigration reform one of his top priorities.#page#

The House’s working group, which has eight members, is hoping to release its own bill in the coming weeks. Ryan isn’t part of that group, and his confidants stress that he’s not trying to elbow his way into those negotiations. But in the meantime, he will cheer them on and keep tabs on their progress.

“Everyone is talking about Rubio, and Rubio is crucial. But Ryan could be the person who makes this all happen,” says a senior GOP aide. “He has trust from both sides, which is so rare, and House Republicans listen to him.”

Other staffers say the same. As a member of the House since 1999, Ryan is seen as someone who can reassure conservatives that “regular order” will be followed, but that doesn’t mean the bill should languish in the judiciary committee for months.

“I don’t worry about moving too quickly, because this has to be a very methodical process to begin with,” Ryan told Breitbart News on Tuesday. “You just have to give these things a normal time to progress at a good pace.”

This is a new role for Ryan — being the conduit between conservative backbenchers, GOP leaders, and Democrats. It’s also outside of his budgetary wheelhouse. With a potential presidential run on the horizon, it’s a political risk.

But it’s something that the Wisconsin Republican appears ready to take on. He told me last week that he returned to the House because he wanted to solve difficult problems, and not just play politics.

With immigration reform, Ryan is certainly tackling a tough issue. But for those political observers who have been following him since he was a lanky twentysomething, it’s a continuation of what Ryan has done his whole career — follow in Kemp’s footsteps.

“We need people to come and do work in this country so we can keep this country’s promise alive,” Ryan said at Monday’s luncheon. “We do not want to have a society where we have different classes of people, where they cannot reach their American dream by being a full citizen.”

Kemp couldn’t have said it better himself. 

Fox News

During a April 24th speech to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Attorney General Eric Holder said that creating a "pathway to earned citizenship" was a "civil right.” 

"Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented – by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows – transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a matter of civil and human rights. It is about who we are as a nation. And it goes to the core of our treasured American principle of equal opportunity."

Watch the video at nation.foxnews.com ...

FrontPage Magazine

Matthew Vadum

Russian authorities warned the Obama administration repeatedly — not merely once — that Boston Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev could be an Islamic terrorist, but those admonitions went unheeded in Washington, D.C.

It’s a depressingly familiar tale of intelligence failures, official lies, politically correct posturing, and bureaucratic bungles coming from an administration that has little interest in protecting Americans from the Islamic terrorist threat, a danger [Alleged] President Obama refuses even to acknowledge.

Time magazine previously reported that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) warned the U.S. government about Tsarnaev a single time two years ago, after he frequented a radical mosque in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, during a six-month visit to that politically unstable, jihadist-friendly Russian republic. The mosque is reportedly a terrorist hangout.

But the Boston Globe now reports there were several such warnings.

On Tuesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were told during a briefing closed to the public that Russia made “multiple contacts” with the United States regarding Tsarnaev, including “at least once since October 2011,’’ Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told reporters.

The FBI previously acknowledged its investigators interviewed Tsarnaev in early 2011 but did not determine him to be a threat. He was not placed on the “no-fly” list.

As FrontPage reported last September, FBI agents aren’t allowed to treat individuals associated with terrorist groups as potential threats to the nation.

The fact that a terrorism suspect is associated with a terrorist group officially means nothing, according to the FBI document, “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training.”

After first handcuffing FBI agents investigating terrorism, the “Touchstone” document also invokes the gods of political correctness by making agents afraid of asking useful questions that might produce actionable information.

“Training must emphasize that no investigative or intelligence collection activity may be based solely on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation,” the Touchstone document reads, borrowing some language from civil rights legislation.

“Specifically, training must focus on behavioral indicators that have a potential nexus to terrorist or criminal activity, while making clear that religious expression, protest activity, and the espousing of political or ideological beliefs are constitutionally protected activities that must not be equated with terrorism or criminality absent other indicia of such offenses.”

It’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that the FBI could not have done anything about Tsarnaev unless he strapped on a suicide vest in front of them, called them “infidels,” and detailed his abominable plans. Diverting attention away from the Obama White House, the Boston Globe article fatuously editorializes that the new revelation of multiple warnings from the FSB raises “new questions about whether the FBI should have focused more attention on the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.”

After the closed-door briefing, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) criticized the multiple intelligence failures.

“This is troubling to me that this many years after the attacks on our country in 2001 that we still seem to have stovepipes that prevent information from being shared effectively,” Collins said, without elaborating.

Tsarnaev’s name had been entered into the “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment” (TIDE), a classified database created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center. The system holds files on about 450,000 people U.S. officials regard as known, suspected, or potential terrorists worldwide.

The system is so large U.S. investigators do not routinely keep tabs on every individual listed there, according to a Reuters report. That explanation, however, seems a bit too convenient. The alternate explanation unexplored in the news item is that the Obama administration doesn’t care about terrorism.

This isn’t the first time someone flagged in the TIDE database has later been involved in an Islamic terrorist plot against the United States. Somehow Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian “Underwear Bomber,” got onboard a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day 2009 and tried to blow it out of the sky.

Months earlier his father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banker in Nigeria who visits the U.S. frequently, warned U.S. authorities of his son’s growing extremism and the possibility he might be involved in something untoward.

U.S. government officials said they didn’t put Abdulmutallab’s name on a “no-fly” list because they didn’t have sufficient derogatory information about him. In January last year he received four sentences of life imprisonment plus an additional 50 years.

Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reports that Massachusetts taxpayers were subsidizing the Boston Marathon bombers and their almost comically dysfunctional family as the two Tsarnaev brothers immersed themselves in the world of Islamic terrorism.

In the lead-up to the Boston attack he masterminded, now-decommissioned terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev added insult to injury by living large on state welfare benefits, leeching off the good people of the Bay State he despised so much.

“The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money,” the newspaper observes.

Killed by police last Friday, Tamerlan received welfare benefits from an unknown start date until 2012. His wife and their three-year-old daughter also received those benefits. Tamerlan and his brother, the now-hospitalized bomber number two, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, also received welfare through their parents when they were younger.

Although Massachusetts Health and Human Services spokesman Alec Loftus said the Tsarnaevs “were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time” of the marathon bombing, he refused to provide details about the benefits the family was given.

Then there is the still unresolved matter of Saudi visa student Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi.

When Alharbi was hospitalized after being injured in the Boston bomb blast, the government reportedly labeled him a “suspect,” but soon watered down that description, calling him a “person of interest,” and eventually a mere “witness.”

But days after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer Congressman Jeff Duncan’s (R-S.C.) questions about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Alharbi (also spelled al-Harbi), she made a startling admission Tuesday while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Napolitano if Alharbi was on a watchlist, “and if so, how did he obtain a student visa?” She replied:

“He was not on a watchlist. What happened is — this student was, really when you back it out, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was never a subject. He was never even really a person of interest. Because he was being interviewed, he was at that point put on a watchlist, and then when it was quickly determined he had nothing to do with the bombing, the watch listing status was removed.”

If Napolitano has her watchlist facts right, this means the Obama administration puts individuals on watchlists when they are merely questioned as part of an investigation. This seems drastic and presumptuous, and if true, a new cause to alarm civil libertarians.

The media has reported conflicting information about whether Alharbi is or was at one point on the government’s “no-fly” list, and whether he is or was scheduled to be deported from the U.S.

Many questions remain about Alharbi and the confusing paper trail the government created around him.

Glenn Beck’s news website, The Blaze, previously reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center (NTC) created an “event” file on Alharbi under section 212 (3b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the part of the federal statute that deals with aliens involved in terrorism.

Then yesterday The Blaze updated this information, reporting that the NTIC event file described Alharbi as “armed and dangerous.”

“Alharbi was admitted into the country under a ‘special advisory option,’ which is usually reserved for visiting politicians, VIPs, or journalists,” according to The Blaze. “The event file cover page indicates he was granted his status without full vetting.”

Jihadists must be delighted that Saudi nationals will be eligible next year to receive preferential treatment from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency when they enter the United States.

Like travelers from Canada, Mexico, South Korea, the Netherlands, and soon Australia, travelers from Saudi Arabia will be able to skip the usual CBP lines at airports by providing their fingerprints and machine-readable passports at an automated kiosk, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports.

As the CBP puts it, the Global Entry “trusted traveler” program “allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States.”

Given the fact that the Obama administration denies Islamic terrorism is a major threat to the U.S. and has been aiding Islamist organizations in at least Libya, Egypt, and Syria, there is little reason to be reassured when CBP boasts that “[a]ll applicants undergo a rigorous background check and interview before enrollment.”

DHS Secretary Napolitano thinks allowing the Wahhabist kingdom that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers to share in vetting Global Entry speed-pass applicants makes perfect sense.

“By enhancing collaboration with the government of Saudi Arabia, we reaffirm our commitment to more effectively secure our two countries against evolving threats while facilitating legitimate trade and travel,” Napolitano said in January after meeting with Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

But given Saudi Arabia’s long and odious track record as an incubator for jihadists and underwriter of terrorist operations, perhaps allowing the Saudis to join the exclusive Global Entry club isn’t such a good idea.

Maybe, at a minimum, we should make them wait in line at the airport like everyone else.

Reuters

By Rachelle Younglai

More than half of U.S. citizens believe that most or all of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants should be deported, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday that highlights the difficulties facing lawmakers trying to reform the U.S. immigration system.

Read this story at reuters.com ... 

Reuters

By Richard Cowan and Rachelle Younglai 

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday unveiled long-awaited landmark legislation to remove the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants and give them an opportunity to eventually become U.S. citizens.

Under the proposal, undocumented immigrants who came to America before December 31, 2011 and stayed continuously could apply for "provisional" legal status as soon as six months after the bill is signed by the president.

Read this story at news.yahoo.com ... 

Sen. Sessions: Immigration Reform Bill 'Will Not Withstand Public Scrutiny'

Breitbart

Matthew Boyle

Ranking Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said in a Thursday evening statement provided to Breitbart News that the political posturing of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration group, along with Senate Democratic leadership, and their plan to rush forthcoming legislation through the U.S. Senate as fast as they can is a sign the bill will not hold up in the face of public scrutiny.

“While the Gang has not briefed lawmakers or the judiciary committee about their plan, they have leaked selected details to the press which seem to confirm Senator Schumer’s recent declaration that ‘First, people will be legalized… Then, we will make sure the border is secure,’” Sessions said in the statement.

Based on what has been leaked, and current ICE directives, it could become nearly impossible for ICE officers to distinguish between those illegal immigrants eligible for legal status and those ineligible for legal status – including future illegal immigrants who will simply assert they are amnesty-eligible. It is likely millions of current and future illegal immigrants who are not administrative "priorities" will benefit from this amnesty regardless of whether they meet the Gang’s criteria. That is why it is so essential that these enforcement issues be worked out first.

“This is also why it is so troubling that Chairman Leahy has rejected the GOP request for multiple hearings and that members of the Gang of 8 have publicly announced their intention to oppose any amendments,” Sessions added. “To proceed along these lines is tantamount to an admission that the bill is not workable and will not withstand public scrutiny.”

Read more at breitbart.com ...