Twenty-seven Members of Congress, led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), signed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit brought by two-dozen states challenging President Obama's executive amnesty. The brief states that the president’s executive action “changes the law and sets a new policy, exceeding [the president’s] constitutional authority and disrupting the delicate balance of powers.”
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) voted to fund President Obama's executive amnesty during the lame-duck session contrary to his earlier statements. He was one of several Senators who had come out against the president's actions, but then voted much differently.
Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) voted to fund President Obama's executive amnesty during the lame-duck session contrary to her earlier statements. She was one of several Senators who had come out against the president's actions, but then voted much differently.
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) voted to fund Pres. Obama's executive amnesty during the lame-duck session contrary to his earlier statements. He was one of several Senators who had come out against the president's actions, but then voted much differently.
UPDATED: The House of Representatives passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Thursday evening that would fully fund Pres. Obama's executive amnesty. The vote came after a 6-hour recess while Leaders from both parties tried to gather enough support to pass the measure and prevent a government shutdown. NumbersUSA will grade the vote as a vote for amnesty.
The House Rules Committee blocked Representative Mick Mulvaney's (R-S.C.) amendment to the 2015 spending last night that would have defunded for President Obama's executive amnesty. The House will vote on the full spending bill later today, including full funding for the President's amnesty.
While on "Hannity" last night, Pat Buchanan mentioned NumbersUSA and the grading of the spending bill for 2015 as amnesty.
Well Sean, NumbersUSA, which is a good outfit, says that there's over $900 million in the deal for the folks that walked across the border, the young people, earlier this year and that's in the budget. And they're gonna register this, any vote for this omnibus spending bill as, basically, a vote for amnesty. And I think it's exactly right.
Watch the full interview:
Atlanta Journal Constitution -- Jeremy Redmon
Federal authorities released 183 people from immigration detention centers in Georgia and other states last month after the Obama administration announced it is shielding millions of immigrants from deportation.
While defunding President Obama's executive amnesty is not included in the 2015 spending bills package, it does include $948 million to help poor and unskilled Central Americans who illegally crossed the border earlier this year establish themselves in the United States.
NumbersUSA has notified Congressional offices that it will grade votes on an upcoming spending bills package as votes for amnesty if lawmakers don't include meaningful language that would defund Pres. Obama's executive amnesties.
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday offered by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) that would prevent the executive branch from exempting classes of illegal aliens from deportation. The bill passed, 219-to-197, mostly along party lines, but several Republicans voted against the bill or neither for nor against the bill. The vote was a meaningless symbolic vote pushed by House GOP Leaders in an attempt to appease anti-amnesty Republicans.
While questioning Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on the impact of President Obama's executive amnesty, Representative Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) inquired about how granting amnesty and work permits to 5 million illegal aliens would affect the American worker.
House Speaker John Boehner says the House will vote on a long-term spending bill for most agencies within the federal government, but vote on a short-term bill for immigration agencies, according to Politico. The House will also hold a symbolic vote on a bill introduced by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) that would prevent the executive branch from taking executive actions like the one Pres. Obama announced last month.
President Obama’s end-run of Congress to give around 5 million illegal aliens quasilegal status seems to be giving more and more Christians pause. The combination of acting outside the constitutional bounds, exercising what amounts to legislative powers reserved to Congress, plus the president’s bald-faced misuse of Scripture in an attempt to justify his highly questionable action may be backfiring.
The Heritage Foundation's expert on welfare and entitlement spending, Robert Rector, said on Monday that illegal aliens who receive amnesty and work permits through Pres. Obama's executive actions will draw $2 trillion over their lifetimes in taxpayer-funded government services. He based the figure on estimates that 4 million illegal aliens will benefit from the actions and will live an average of 50 years.
Liberal and conservative pundits agree: the executive actions President Obama announced last week will encourage more illegal immigration. The President is granting work permits to millions in the country illegally and discouraging enforcement against future unlawful aliens who make it into the interior of the country (either by overstaying a visa or successfully eluding capture at the border), so long as they are part of a family or are seeking illegal work to support a family -- categories that are so broad that enforcement becomes the exception, not the rule.
Pres. Obama has announced a 10-point executive action that will most notably grant an estimated 5 million illegal aliens amnesty and work permits. The action expands on his 2012 DACA directive that allowed nearly 600,000 illegal aliens to do the same. The action will also affect some enforcement areas, but the points are meant to serve more as a window-dressing for the amnesty.
This week, NumbersUSA ran two different advertisements in the Capitol Hill publication, Roll Call, highlighting Pres. Obama's past quote, "I'm not an Emperor of the United States." He made the statement during a Google hangout with activists in early-2013, but he may now be regretting it. On Wednesday, White House press secretary, Josh Earnest was grilled by ABC's Jon Karl on the quote and the president's upcoming executive amnesty.
On Tuesday, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) tried to convince House Republicans that they could rescind a long-term spending bill if Pres. Obama moved forward with an executive amnesty, but it was poorly received according to several House Republicans. Rep. Rogers has been reluctant to embrace a plan to pass short-term spending bills, allowing the next Congress to defund the President's action.
NumbersUSA is running a full-page ad in several political journals today highlighting the unconstitutionality of President Obama's plans for executive action on amnesty and work permits for millions of illegal aliens. The ad points out that arguments against his actions have come from within his own party as well as some in the mainstream media.
After a week of insisting on a long-term spending bill, House Republican Leaders are reported to be seriously considering a short-term spending bill because of intense pressure from a growing number of their Members who see that as the only way to eventually overturn Pres. Obama's threatened executive amnesty.
The New York Times editorial "Mr. Obama's Moment on Immigration," garnered 458 comments, 322 of which made the "Readers' Picks" list. Of those 322, I counted 25 that supported the editorial's pro-executive-action stance. Of the 25 comments in favor of executive action, 21 were recommended ten times or less. None of the 25 received more than 67 recommendations (and that comment stated, in part, that "The message should be clear that US values legal immigration over illegal entry. If we make laws, we should implement them.").
Fox News is reporting that Pres. Obama will announce a 10-point executive action on immigration next week that will grant deferred action to at least 4.5 million illegal aliens. The report does not stipulate whether or not the action will issue work permits to illegal aliens, but does indicate that illegal-alien parents of U.S. citizen children would be eligible to receive the amnesty. The action will also expand the President's 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The Washington Times -- Stephan Dinan
The Obama administration told federal immigration lawyers to release illegal immigrants with “old” drunken-driving convictions and those found guilty of stealing other people’s identities, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the lawyers at the center of the operation.
The immigration issue and Pres. Obama's threats to act alone on immigration contributed to his party suffering massive losses in the 2014 mid-term elections. Three-quarters of those who voted this year (74%) say President Obama should work with Congress rather than around Congress on immigration and separately, 80% want new jobs created by the economy to go to American workers and legal immigrants already in the country.
Even before all the votes from Tuesday's mid-term elections had been counted, Pres. Obama and GOP Leaders began trading jabs over the President's planned executive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.
The Hill -- Mario Trujillo
The pro-immigration group co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg is urging "big and bold" executive action from President Obama — and it wants lawmakers clamoring for it, too.
FWD.us President Todd Schulte called on supporters to push for immediate action by calling members of Congress and sharing their stories.
Karl Rove, a top political aide to former President George W. Bush, has long been an amnesty advocate and steered Republican leaders away from the pro-immigration enforcement, pro-American worker elements of the Party. So, as the Daily Signal reports, it is interesting to note Rove’s political action committee, American Crossroads, is running an ad in Iowa that attacks Democrat Rep. Bruce Barley for supporting “immigration amnesty.”
Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Iliana Ros-Lehtinen told The Hill that she worries about the GOP's chances of winning the White House in 2016 because the party hasn't backed a mass amnesty for illegal aliens. But a brand new poll from Pew Hispanic Research on the voting tendencies of Hispanic Americans reveals something very different.
The Hill -- Christina Marcos
Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) on Thursday blasted the Obama administration in light of a report that illegal immigrants with serious criminal histories had been released from custody.
USA Today reports the Obama administration had assured Congress that only some people in the country illegally who had minor criminal histories were released, but records indicate otherwise.
In 2013, the Obama administration freed 2,200 illegal aliens from custody in an attempt to save money. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the people could "be characterized as non-criminals and other low risk offenders who do not have serious criminal histories."
Breitbart -- Caroline May
With their proposals defeated in Congress for now, pro-amnesty activists have dropped off the radar while President Obama considers a major executive action that Republicans have warned could precipitate a constitutional crisis.
Breitbart -- Caroline May
A petition to President Obama against “executive amnesty” being circulated by the NumbersUSA group has garnered more than 42,500 signatures as of this article’s publication.
The clock runs out on S. 744 in January, but we have to get through the Fall and the looming lame duck session first. The lame duck has long been circled on the calendar as the most dangerous time for us, not just for legislative mischief but also for executive amnesty. As the mid-term election season heats up and boils over into the anticipated battles around the holidays, we're going to see the press-release-driven media fired up as well.
Travis Childers, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi, became the first Democrat to sign FAIR's Anti-Amnesty pledge on Thursday. The GOP candidate in the race, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), has yet to sign the pledge.
The Obama Administration announced a new Department of Defense policy on Thursday evening that will allow illegal aliens to enlist in the military for the first time in decades. Current policy forbids illegal aliens from enlisting, however, the Secretary of Defense may authorize enlistment for illegal aliens if it is "vital to the national interest".
In a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Thursday, Pres. Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that the Administration will move forward with an executive action that could grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens before the end of the holiday season, according to Politico.com. McDonough told the Members that the action would be "significant" and will occur regardless of the midterm election results.
NumbersUSA launched TV ads in Dallas-Fort Worth and Harlingen-Brownsville-McAllen, Texas today calling on President Obama to stop talking amnesty and start securing the Texas border. The ads call attention to costs associated with increased flows of illegal aliens as a result of the Obama administration's past amnesty, ongoing calls for amnesty and actions to dismantle immigration enforcement. The ads are funded by the 250,000 Texas members of NumbersUSA.
While the Obama Administration considers whether or not it will grant amnesty and work permits to a significant portion of the country's illegal-alien population, the employment situation for American workers worsened last month. The unemployment rate dropped slightly in August, but mostly because of an increased number of Americans who left the labor force. The labor participation rate dropped to its lowest since the 1970s after 268,000 Americans gave up on their job search.
Senator Marco Rubio hasn't had too much to say on the subject of immigration since the Senate passed his comprehensive bill, but he has been on something of a media tour of late to reinsert himself into the conversation. The Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler reports.
Signals remain somewhat uncertain about whether the President is about ready to spring a devastating amnesty and immigration increase on us. But one thing is indisputable. All of you in the NumbersUSA network of citizens -- and your allies -- have pressured Democratic Members of Congress so much that many are begging Pres. Obama to renege on his promise earlier this summer to issue an executive amnesty to an estimated 5 million illegal aliens by Sep. 21.
Performing eye surgeries in Guatemala, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the House-passed anti-executive amnesties bill to the Senate floor for a vote. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was the first Senator to publicly call on Reid to move the bill introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to the floor for a vote, and Sen. Paul now joins his Kentucky colleague and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Sessions' call for a vote.
Since the recession began, corporate special interests have lobbied for immigration expansion and amnesty even as they laid off U.S. workers. Today, the White House is the one doing the lobbying to get these businesses on board with a series of executive actions on immigration.
Brian Buetler of The New Republic has written tirelessly in defense of Obama's executive actions on immigration. His latest contribution is an attempt to compare Obama's pending previous executive amnesties to a Republican effort in the 1990s to urge then Secretary Janet Reno to apply prosecutorial discretion to legal immigrants who were adopted as children (but had yet to become naturalized citizens) and had committed crimes considered deportable offenses under the 1996 immigration law.
Comparing data from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the National Review Online is reporting that the Justice Department has no record for at least half of the Unaccompanied Alien Children who illegally crossed the U.S. border since 2013. The DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review shows receipts for 41,952 UACs since the beginning of 2013, but Border Patrol data show that there have been more than 85,000 UACs apprehended at the border over the same period of time.
The Washington Post editorial board took a surprising position on Wednesday after the paper reported Saturday on plans by the Obama Administration to grant deferred action and work permits to millions of illegal aliens. The Post said that the President's expanded executive amnesty would violate U.S. law and the Constitution.
According to a new IBD/TIPP poll, 56% of Americans blame Pres. Obama's executive amnesties for the ongoing border surge along the U.S.-Mexico border. The poll also found that the number of Americans who want the border secured before any other immigration actions are taken rose from 39% a year ago to 47%.
The House of Representatives adjourns for its month-long August recess later today, but before it does, it will vote on H.R.5230, its emergency supplemental border bill. The bill gives Pres. Obama $659 million to deal with the border surge, but doesn't address the cause of the problem -- his executive amnesties and promises of future amnesties. In the Senate, GOP Senators are pushing Majority Leader Harry Reid for a vote on the House bill as well.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation that would go after the root of the border crisis -- Pres. Obama's executive amnesties and threats of future ones. Reports from the border indicate that most illegal border crossers are coming to the United States because they hear back home that they'll be allowed to stay in the country. But Cruz's bill (S.2631) and Blackburn's bill (H.R.5160) would end prevent any funds from being used to extend Pres. Obama's DACA program or to issue future work permits to illegal aliens.
