immigrants

Nearly 100 recently arrested MS-13 gang members arrived in the United States by crossing through the U.S.-Mexico border as “unaccompanied minors” and then getting resettled throughout the country by the federal government.

About 475 gang members have been arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s “Operation Matador” sting, with 99 of those gang members arrested having arrived in the U.S. as “unaccompanied minors.”

Of the 99 MS-13 gang members who entered the country as unaccompanied minors, 64 of them were granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJ), which acts as a quasi-amnesty program for young illegal aliens who cross the southern border.

Of the 475 gang members arrested by ICE in this operation, 65 of them had been allowed to be released into the U.S. by an immigration judge, while four were re-arrested on criminal charges after they were released.

Unaccompanied minors who cross the southern border have continued to be resettled across the U.S. despite a direct correlation of the quasi-amnesty program — known as the Unaccompanied Minor Childrens (UAC) program — with the proliferation of the MS-13 gang in regions of the country like Nassau County and Suffolk County in New York.

Under President Trump’s administration, the UAC program has continued. For example, in Fiscal Year 2018 thus far, nearly 200 unaccompanied minors have been resettled in Suffolk County, along with almost 280 in Queens County, and more than 115 in Nassau County, despite the regions’ issues with the MS-13 gang.

Taking a drag from her cigarette, a Mexican immigration agent looked out toward a caravan of migrants that grew larger with each step they took on the two-lane highway.

When the agent, who'd covered her uniform with an orange and white shawl, learned that the Central American migrants heading her way numbered more than 1,000, she took off for the restaurant across the street.

“I'm going to have a relaxing Coke,” she told BuzzFeed News.

For five days now hundreds of Central Americans — children, women, and men, most of them from Honduras — have boldly crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases, and police in a desperate, sometimes chaotic march toward the United States. Despite their being in Mexico without authorization, no one has made any effort to stop them.

Organized by a group of volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, the caravan is intended to help migrants safely reach the United States, bypassing not only authorities who would seek to deport them, but gangs and cartels who are known to assault vulnerable migrants.

Organizers like Rodrigo Abeja hope that the sheer size of the crowd will give immigration authorities and criminals pause before trying to stop them.

“If we all protect each other we'll get through this together,” Abeja yelled through a loudspeaker on the morning they left Tapachula, on Mexico's border with Guatemala, for the nearly monthlong trek.

Yesterday we reported on the Bishop’s 2014 dollars received from the US Treasury, see here.

Now, thanks to reader Joanne (who did some digging!) we see that the USCCB is approaching $100 million federal dollars for their ‘charitable good works’ on behalf of immigrants of all stripes.

Unfortunately, this data doesn’t show us the percentage of private money raised for their migration program, but I suspect it isn’t much more than 3% of their overall migration budget as it was in 2014.

Buried in the USCCB Financial Statement and audit reports, here:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pardoned 18 illegal aliens who will now be able to remain in the United States and circumvent or defer deportation.

According to the New York Times, Cuomo pardoned the 18 illegal aliens to “free them from the threat of deportation or other immigration-related issues” with the governor even praising his decision in a Twitter post.

Legalizing 2 million illegal immigrant “Dreamers” would cost the government $25.9 billion over the next decade, as those now-legal people would claim more tax, education and other benefits they haven’t been able to get before, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.

The CBO also said newly legalized Dreamers would sponsor 80,000 more immigrants to enter the country as part of “chain migration.”

Immigrant-rights activists have argued that legalizing Dreamers would be a financial boon to the country, but the CBOand the Joint Committee on Taxation suggested otherwise, saying that while they would pay somewhat higher taxes in to the government, they would take far more out of it.

The findings could be a blow to activists who have demanded the bill be included in any year-end spending deal. Congress already struggles to find offsets for other spending, and digging a hole more than $25 billion deeper could be difficult.

Illegal immigrant Dreamers said they have been betrayed by Democratic leaders who failed to force a government shutdown showdown this week over demands to pass a legalization bill by the end of the year.

Congressional leaders signaled Wednesday that they will revisit the immigration issue early next year and vowed to complete legislation in January.

That wasn’t cutting it for Dreamers, who had set a year-end deadline and then watched in dismay as Democrats stumbled to deliver on it.

Hundreds of Dreamers, some risking arrest, took to the hallways in Congress to march and conduct lie-downs in office corridors to complain that they have been forgotten.

“We want Dream Act,” protesters chanted. They were referring to a bill that would grant tentative legal status to more than 2 million illegal immigrants and allow 1.7 million of them to earn green cards signifying permanent legal presence, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The leading voice in the U.S. Senate to reduce immigration levels, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), says it is “not a ‘nativist view” to want a national immigration policy that benefits American citizens, rather than foreign nationals.

In a series of posts via Twitter, Cotton slammed a New York Times report for being biased against President Trump’s pro-American immigration agenda and favoring an immigration policy that puts foreign nationals first.

The U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 Thursday over a challenge to President Obama's immigration policy, a result that prevents the administration from putting the program into effect during the rest of his term.

The split was reflected in a one sentence statement from the court: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."

Announced in late 2014, it would shield more than four million people — mostly Latinos — from deportation. But lower courts blocked its implementation after Texas and 25 other states sued, claiming the president had no power to order the changes.

The ruling deals a blow to a White House which has used executive actions to push forward immigration reform in the wake of congressional inaction and President Barack Obama who has sought to rewrite a legacy that had some inLatino activist circles calling him "the deporter-in-chief."

There have been more than 2 million deportations in Obama's tenure.

The president on Thursday stressed that people who have been in the country for a long time and are otherwise law abiding will remain lower deportation priorities.

He said the tie was "heartbreaking" for millions of immigrants.