Tag Archives: Border

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Obama administration tells 60,000 Border and Customs agents to take furloughs

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If you needed any proof that Obama does not have the temperament to be President, here it is in this Newsmax article.

Excerpt:

Sixty-thousand federal employees responsible for securing the nation’s borders and facilitating trade will be furloughed for as many as 14 days starting next month because of $85 billion in cross-government spending cuts.

The federal government notified the workers on Thursday, CNN reports.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said the furloughs and other austerity measures would cause delays at ports of entry, including international arrivals at airports, and would reduce the number of border patrol officers on duty at any one time, CNN reports.

[…]Customs collects more money for the federal government than any agency other than the Internal Revenue Service, the National Treasury Employees Union said in a statement.

“There is no escaping the reality that sequestration is having serious effects on the traveling public and on vital commerce,” the union’s president, Colleen M. Kelley, said in the statement.

Late last month, Napolitano and other Obama administration officials came under fire — particularly from officials in Arizona — for the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants held in local jails to save money as the sequester neared.

Napolitano has since promised to release more illegals, primarily on supervised release, saying the sequester had left her no choice.

“We’re going to continue to do that for the foreseeable future,” Napolitano said at a March 4 breakfast meeting hosted by Politico. “We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest-risk detainees, and putting them into some kind of alternative to release.”

The border is a national security issue, because anyone coming through with a weapon of mass destruction could cost the lives of many Americans. The Border and Customs programs are not what is driving our debt. The biggest driver of our debt is entitlement spending, especially spending on Medicare. But that’s not what Obama is choosing to focus on. He wants to hurt the American people rather than doing the hard work of cutting back big government. There are lots of places where we could cut billions without impacting effectiveness. Why not look at cutting fat (Solyndra) rather than muscle (border security)?

News

Obama administration to release hundreds of illegal immigrants detained by ICE

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I don’t mean regular illegal immigrants, I mean real criminals that were being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

The Department of Homeland Security has started releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants held in local jails in anticipation of automatic budget cuts, in a move one Arizona sheriff called politically motivated — and dangerous.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement released more than 500 detainees in his county alone over the weekend. A spokesman for Babeu told FoxNews.com that ICE officials have said they plan to release a total of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants.

The numbers, though, are in dispute. ICE officials said that it’s unclear how many ultimately might be released and that only 303 have been released from four Arizona facilities so far, though all those are in Pinal County. According to ICE, 2,280 detainees are still in custody in those facilities.

Babeu described the move as a “mass budget pardon” and suggested the administration was going to unnecessary lengths to demonstrate the impact of the so-called sequester.

“President Obama would never release 500 criminal illegals to the streets of his hometown, yet he has no problem with releasing them in Arizona. The safety of the public is threatened and the rule of law discarded as a political tactic in this sequester battle,” he said.

An ICE spokeswoman confirmed the plans without specifying how many illegal immigrants might be released.

[…]In Arizona, Babeu slammed the move, painting his community as a victim of gridlock in Washington.

“Clearly, serious criminals are being released to the streets of our local communities by this mass budget pardon. These are illegals that even President Obama wants to deport. This is insane that public safety is sacrificed when it should be the budget priority that’s safeguarded,” he said.

This is Obama’s little tantrum. All the time in the last 5 years he has been mocking Republicans for being unreasonable about balancing spending cuts with job-killing tax increases on entrepreneurs and their employees. But the truth is that he would rather release criminals than cut one dime of federal spending. This is the real Obama. Wastrel, thief and spendthrift. I’m not surprised that he would resort to putting the citizens of Arizona at the mercy of criminals just to get revenge for being forced to cut a couple percent from his bloated spending. After all, this is the same administration that oversees the trafficking of assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels. He doesn’t care if law-abiding citizens gets murdered by  criminals.

News

Department of Homeland Security: lowest level of illegal immigrant arrests since 1972

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

The Department of Homeland Security’s 2011 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics was released last month, including figures that show that the number of illegal aliens apprehended in the United States was the lowest in 40 years.

The report shows (page 91, table 33) that in fiscal year 2011, the number of illegal aliens apprehended was 641,633 – at that time the lowest total apprehensions since 1972 when the number of illegal aliens apprehended was 505,949.

The report shows that the number of illegal aliens apprehended has steadily decreased over the course of the Obama administration, from 869,857 in fiscal year 2009 to 641,633 in fiscal year 2011.

The table includes the following totals for fiscal years 2008-2011:

  • 2008: 1,043.863
  • 2009: 869,857
  • 2010: 752,329
  • 2011: 641,633

The table also shows that from 1976 to 2008, the number of apprehensions ranged from 910,361 in 1980 to 1,814,729 in 2000.

We know that we can’t trust the Democrats on national security and foreign policy, but it turns out that we can’t even trust them to secure the border. And if Obama gets a second term, we should expect amnesty for 20 million illegal immigrants. That’s my prediction if we vote him in for a second term.

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