Tag Archives: Executive Order

News

Trump signs executive order to build border wall and sanction sanctuary cities

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Trump signs good executive action = GOOD TRUMP
Trump signs good executive action = GOOD TRUMP

I’m astonished to find myself blogging for a fourth time in a row on “Good Trump” when there hasn’t been any “Bad Trump” in between. There has been talk about things that would be Bad Trump, but all the actions so far have been Good Trump.

Story from Townhall.com:

As expected, President Donald J. Trump has just signed two executive orders that call for the construction of a border wall and outlines a new agenda regarding immigration enforcement. It’s done. Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reported one of the orders puts an end to catch-and-release, U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel by 5,000 people, and seeks to put an end to asylum fraud.

The second order seeks to end sanctuary cities, identify criminal illegal aliens, triple the amount of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and empower them to enforce federal immigration laws. It will also create victims advocacy office for Americans who loved ones had been victimized by people who should have never been here in the first place.

Regarding the second order, the Washington Examiner reports that the sanctions against sanctuary cities will involve cutting off the flow of federal tax dollars:

President Trump will direct his secretary of homeland security to examine ways the administration can suspend grants to so-called “sanctuary cities,” or areas where law enforcement agents do not enforce immigration laws, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday.

“What the executive order does is, it directs the secretary to … look at funding streams that are going to these cities … and figure out how we can defund those streams,” Spicer said of an executive action Trump was expected to sign later in the day.

Why is Trump doing this?

It might be worth remembering the case of Kate Steinle, so that we understand what caused American voters to elect Trump.

Five-time deportee, seven-time convicted felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez said in a new interview Sunday with a local ABC News affiliate that he came to San Francisco because he knew the sanctuary city would not hand him over to immigration officials.

[…]Lopez-Sanchez has confessed to shooting Kathryn Steinle last Wednesday at Pier 14.

Had San Francisco authorities not refused a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer request, Lopez-Sanchez may not have been in the United States and Steinle might still be alive.

The Obama administration held to a pattern of releasing illegal immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes:

[…][A]fter Kathryn Steinle was killed July 1, allegedly by an illegal immigrant with seven felony convictions, Obama said . . . nothing.

[…]Why has Obama been so reticent to speak out? Perhaps it is because any soul-searching in this case would require him to confront the fact that his administration has been releasing tens of thousands of dangerous illegal immigrants with criminal convictions into our communities — including many who have gone on to commit murder.

It got little notice, but on May 28, Sarah Saldana, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, admitted in a letter to Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, the Obama administration had released “121 unique criminal aliens who had an active [deportation] case at the time of release and were subsequently charged with homicide-related offenses.”

Think about that: 121 times over the past four years, the administration has released an illegal immigrant with prior criminal convictions who went on to be charged with murder. That is one every 12 days.

Like Obama, Hillary Clinton favored amnesty for illegal immigrants, less border security and no wall. She didn’t care about the victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, because she had bodyguards with guns to protect her. And so, that’s how we got President Trump and the Trump wall. It wasn’t that voters didn’t like the idea of a female President, it was that voters didn’t like the idea of a President who would bend over backwards for people who should not be here, and who treated the safety and security of taxpayers with contempt.

News

Obama’s executive amnesty will make it easier for non-citizens to vote in elections

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This is from the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty will make it easier for illegal immigrants to improperly register and vote in elections, state elections officials testified to Congress on Thursday, saying that the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers they will be granted create a major voting loophole.

While stressing that it remains illegal for noncitizens to vote, secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas said they won’t have the tools to sniff out illegal immigrants who register anyway, ignoring stiff penalties to fill out the registration forms that are easily available at shopping malls, motor vehicle bureaus and in curbside registration drives.

Anyone registering to vote attests that he or she is a citizen, but Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said mass registration drives often aren’t able to give due attention to that part, and so illegal immigrants will still get through.

Oh, but it gets better – they also get tax refunds for years where they worked illegally:

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty.

[…]Mr. Obama’s new deportation policies, which carve most illegal immigrants out of danger of being removed, and could proactively grant as many as 4 million illegal immigrants work permits and Social Security numbers, are increasingly under fire for ancillary consequences such as tax credits and competition for jobs.

Mr. Koskinen, testifying to the House oversight committee, said the White House never asked him or anyone else at the IRS about the potential tax effects of his amnesty policy.

[…]He also clarified his testimony to the Senate last week, where he acknowledged illegal immigrants who had paid taxes using substitute Social Security numbers but who gain real Social Security numbers when they are approved for the amnesty can apply for back-refunds of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

On Wednesday, he said even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to apply for back-credits once they get Social Security numbers.

The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means those who don’t have any tax liability can still get money back from the government.

“Under the new program, if you get a Social Security number and you work, you’ll be eligible to apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” Mr. Koskinen said.

He said that would apply even “if you did not file” taxes, as long as the illegal immigrant could demonstrate having worked off-the-books during those years.

That expands the universe of people eligible for the tax credit by millions. He said only about 700,000 illegal immigrants currently work and pay taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, but as many as 4 million illegal immigrants could get a stay of deportation and work permits under the temporary amnesty, which would mean they would be eligible to claim back-refunds if they worked those years.

I just don’t like it when I see Democrats making it harder for people who play by the rules and easier for people who break the rules. It’s things like this executive amnesty that discourage me from working and getting married. If the government just views me a chump who they can tax with impunity in order to buy votes from the people who get more from government than they put into it, then why should I try to do anything? I feel used. I’m being pressed to work to pay their taxes, then they turn around and give the money to people who break all the rules. Since young, unmarried women are the ones who vote for high taxes and bigger government, it makes me think I should get married at all. Why try to do anything when your government is trying to wreck all your plans anyway? Nobody seems to care about the man who works hard and plays by the rules.

News

House Republicans vote to undo Obama’s executive order amnesty

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Don’t look now, but Republicans have decided to do something about Obama’s plan to import a new generation of believers in big government dependency.

The Daily Signal reports:

The GOP-led House voted today to undo major portions of President Obama’s immigration policy, including his recent executive actions and an earlier program that allowed immigrants who entered the country illegally as children—a group known as Dreamers—to stay.

In voting 236-191 to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security through the end of September, the House approved five amendments that revoke four years of Obama’s immigration policies, such as his November directive to defer deportation for up to 5 million immigrants living in the country illegally and granting them work permits.

[…]In blocking Obama’s immigration policies, the House also voted for an amendment that forces immigration officials to treat immigrants convicted of offenses involving domestic violence, sexual abuse, child molestation or child exploitation as top enforcement priorities.

In addition, the House plan restores the “Secure Communities” enforcement program that Obama ended with his executive actions, while also forcing state and local officials to comply with so-called ICE detainers, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks local law enforcement agencies to keep immigrants in custody, even if they would “otherwise be released.”

The Weekly Standard had the reaction from Democrats:

“If Republicans were to get their way, these individuals, including DREAMers who came to America through no fault of their own, would either be pushed back into the shadows, free of any accountability, or deported at great expense to taxpayers and at the expense of a concentrated effort to deport criminals. This vote is bad policy. It’s essentially a vote for amnesty. It’s also bad politics.

It’s “a vote for amnesty” to undo amnesty? OK.

I wonder if the recent string of terrorist attacks has anything to do with this push to restore the border security that eroded under Obama?