Just as it was reported that the summit between the United States and North Korea was back on and that Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea was on his way to New York to meet with officials in preparation for the June 12 summit, the CIA leaked an intelligence assessment concluding that “North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon.” The timing of this leak is striking, as it seems to be an effort to undermine negotiations between the two nations and comes just days after ranking members of the Democratic Party and Republican hardliners attacked President Donald Trump over his efforts to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The identity of the reporter who helped break the story also raises serious questions about whether or not a faction within the CIA deliberately attempted to undermine diplomatic efforts to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. According to NBC News, the report was leaked to none other than NBC national security reporter Ken Dilanian, known as “The CIA’s Mop-Up Man.”
In 2014, The Intercept reported on Ken Dilanian’s correspondence and relationship with the CIA while Dilanian was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
According to The Intercept, “Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a close collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.”
According to the Huffington Post, while writing for the Los Angeles Times, Dilanian also reported a CIA claim as fact by stating that “there was no collateral murder in a 2012 drone strike on Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi.” Dilanian’s article was directly disputed in an Amnesty International report.
In the aftermath of the revelations about Dilanian’s ties to the CIA, he was disavowed by the Los Angeles Times. The disclosure of Dilanian’s collaboration with the CIA also led his former employer, David Lauter of the Tribune Washington to believe Dilanian could have violated Tribune news policy. Lauter acknowledged that Tribune policy dictates that reporters “not share copies of stories outside the newsroom.” Lauter further stated that he was “disappointed that the emails indicate that Ken may have violated that rule.”
Dilanian has not shied away from pushing articles written by former CIA officials who continue to perpetuate the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative without any regard to facts, such as Steven Hall’s Washington Post article titled: “I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did.”
Perspective | I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did. https://t.co/4XG8TmhwKq
Wikileaks has also pointed out Dilanian’s agency connection and his pushing of the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative, tweeting: “CIA’s ‘mop up man’ Ken Dilanian is the NBC ‘reporter’ used to channel claim about president Putin + US election.”
CIA’s “mop up man” Ken Dilanian is the NBC ‘reporter’ used to channel claim about president Putin + US election https://t.co/GOci4EWwdv
In the aftermath of recent revelations concerning the CIA’s collaboration with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 US Presidential Election the fresh leaks continue to show a pattern of rebellion that has long run rampant in the US intelligence community. While the CIA’s apparent violations of ethical considerations concerning surveillance of candidates running for public office was serious enough, their interference drags the reputation of the agency to a new (and in the case of Korean peace negotiations, more dangerous) low amid their conflictwith the sitting President of the United States.
However, despite these attacks, preparations between the two countries have continued for the upcoming June 12 summit. President Trump announced earlier today via Twitter that: “We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!”
We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!
Citizenship and ‘Anchor Babies’
By John R. Stoeffler
Illegal aliens apprehended by law enforcement are under the law subject to deportation. On the other hand, a baby born to illegal aliens while on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen. But the story shouldn’t, must not end there. Unlike other illegals, parents of these children are normally granted instant residency allowing them to remain anchored in the country. Thus, the genesis for the euphemism “Anchor Babies.” This descriptive term sticks in the craw of many parents of “Anchor Babies” who qualify for a smorgasbord of welfare benefits, including free medical care courtesy of the American taxpayer.
Seeking to address the issue of instant citizenship, legislation was introduced in Congress thirteen years ago that sought to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act by denying citizenship at birth to children born in the United States of parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens. Typical of the many proposals that sought to address the issue of “Anchor Babies” was House Joint Resolution 698 introduced in 2005 by then Congressman, now Georgia Governor, Nathan Deal.
HJR 698 sought to forbid citizenship to any child born in the United States unless at least one of the parents is either a citizen or an alien who has been admitted for permanent residence. That same stipulation would also have been applicable to children born out of wedlock.
While many applauded Congressman Deal’s legislation others suggested that it might be unconstitutional. They pointed to what appeared to be the unambiguous language of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment to make their case. The relevant part of that amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
On the other hand, others point to the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to make the case that the framers clearly provided an exception to what appears to be a carte blanche command.
Writing in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 465 (1999)Charles Wood observes that while the meaning of the Citizenship Clause is not clear on its face, “the clause certainly provides that some persons born in the United States are not citizens, namely those who at birth are not ‘subject to’ the jurisdiction of the Unites States” such as diplomats and foreign ministers of other nations who have legal or factual immunity from local law.In proposing the definition of citizenship for the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 U.S. Sen. Jacob M. Howard, (R-MI), stated that his definition reflected “English common law principles governing birthright citizenship.”
In crafting the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, the framers noted that to be born a British subject, a person had to be born “within the allegiance,” meaning that there was a duty of allegiance, including obedience, on the part of the person born on British soil. Exceptions also included persons born on British soil to diplomats and those “born to a foreign military force occupying the British territory where the birth took place.”
Most relevant to our current situation vis-à-vis illegal aliens is the point made by Mr. Wood wherein he noted that “in the common law the allegiance of the parents were imputed to the child born on the sovereign’s territory.” In other words, if there were no allegiance to the United States by the newborn’s parents, the same would be said of the child. Thus no citizenship would be recognized even if the child was born on American soil. This issue and salient questions pertaining to the illegal aliens and citizenship need to be addressed.Then-Congressman Deal’s legislation should be a model of what needs to be done as the issue of illegal aliens is being debated today. His model legislation should be introduced in the House, be debated, and a vote taken by Congress. If it should pass and later be declared unconstitutional then a constitutional amendment should be pursued until ratification by the states is achieved. The question of citizenship is an integral part of the illegal immigration dilemma facing our nation.
The Soros Open Society Foundations of Romania lawsuit was filed after State and USAID failed to substantively respond to an October 16, 2017, FOIA request seeking among other records:
• All records relating to any contracts, grants or other allocations/disbursements of funds by the State Department to the Open Society Foundation – Romania and/or its personnel and/or any OSFR subsidiary or affiliate.
• All assessments, evaluations, reports or similar records relating to the work of Open Society Foundation – Romania and/or its subsidiaries or affiliated organizations.
The Soros Open Society Foundations of Colombia lawsuit was filed after State failed to respond to an October 23, 2017, FOIA request seeking among other records:
• All records regarding any contracts, grants or other allocations/disbursements of funds by the State Department to the Open Society Foundation – Colombia and/or any OSF subsidiaries/affiliates, and/or OSF personnel operating in Colombia, as well as the following entities: Fundacion Ideas para la Paz; La Silla Vacia; DeJusticia; Corporacion Nuevo Arco Iris; Paz y Reconciliacion; Global Drug Policy Program; and news portal Las Dos Orillas.
• All records of communication, whether by e-mails, text messages, or instant chats, between any officials, employees or representatives of the State Department in Colombia, including Ambassador Kevin Whitaker and any officials, employees or representatives of the Open Society Foundation, its subsidiaries/affiliates, and/or those entities identified in the first bullet.
As in other parts of the world, a number of Soros-funded entities and projects in Romania are also funded by the United States Government. The Romanian Center for Independent Journalism, which is supported by the Open Society Institute in New York, recently received $17,000 from the State Department.
In February 2017, Laura Silber of Open Society Foundations reportedly condemned “illiberal governments” in the Balkans, such as Macedonia, Albania and Romania, for working against the Soros NGOs. In Romania, in March 2017, the leader of the governing party reportedly charged that the Soros foundations “that he has funded since 1990 have financed evil.”
Soros’ NGOs in Colombia are reportedly receiving millions from USAID:
Verdad Abierta, a web-based portal created by Teresa Ronderos, director of the Open Society Program on Independent Journalism, boasts on its website that it receives support from USAID. Abierta has helped rewrite Colombia’s history, elevating terrorists to the same level as the legitimate police and military forces, and rebranding decades of massacres, kidnappings, child soldiering, and drug trafficking by a criminal syndicate as simply “50 years of armed conflict.”
Fundacion Ideas para la Paz, once led by peace negotiator Sergio Jaramillo, now a member of the oversight “junta,” is funded by the Open Society Foundations and has received more than $200,000 in U.S. tax dollars.
The left-wing news portal La Silla Vacia, another Open Society initiative, also boasts of being a USAID grantee. Its columnist, Rodrigo Uprimny, whose NGO DeJusticia also partners with USAID and Open Society, is considered one of the architects of the peace deal.
Former National Liberation Army terrorist Leon Valencia—Open Society collaborator and grantee—has received at least $1,000,000 in USAID funding through his NGOs Corporacion Nuevo Arco Iris and Paz y Reconciliacion, and left-wing news portal Las Dos Orillas, which he co-founded.
In 2016, Soros’ Open Society Foundations gave more than $3.3 million to organizations operating in Colombia. Several of those organizations have also been financially supported by the United States government, having received more than $5 million from the Department of State, USAID, and the Inter-American Foundation (a federal agency) in recent years. One of the Soros-funded entities, an LGBT advocacy organization, was also selected by the Inter-American Foundation as a partner organization in its Colombia peace project initiative.
“It is time for Americans to be allowed to see State Department documentation regarding the public funding of Soros’ Open Society Foundations,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The billionaire George Soros needs zero assistance from taxpayers to promote his far-left agenda abroad.”
Judicial Watch now has four FOIA lawsuits relating to the Obama administration’s funding for Soros’ operations. Judicial Watch is pursuing information about Soros’ activities in Macedonia and Albania, as well. The former Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski reportedly called for a “de-Sorosization” of society. In February 2017, Judicial Watch reported that the U.S. government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia in collusion with George Soros.
In a March 2017, letter to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, six U.S. Senators (Sens. Lee (R-UT), Inhofe (R-OK), Tillis (R-NC), Cruz (R-TX), Perdue (R-GA) and Cassidy (R-LA)) called on the secretary to investigate the relations between USAID and the Soros Foundations and how U.S. tax dollars are being used by the State Department and the USAID to support left-of-center political groups who seek to impose left-leaning policies in countries such as Macedonia and Albania.
Gulftainer is the Iraqi Jafar family’s UAE-based ports company that is tightly connected to Russia and Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons programs.
In 2014 the Obama administration awarded Gulftainer a 35-year lease to Florida’s Port Canaveral cargo container terminal in a secret deal code-named “Project Pelican.”
Jafars partner with Russia’s Inter RAO UES, a subsidiary of Rosatom, majority owner of Uranium One
In 2011, Gulftainer affiliate Crescent Investments partnered via a Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Russia’s state-owned power station operator and electricity import-export monopoly Inter RAO UES.
At that time, Inter RAO UES was a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation. Rosatom is the Russian company that purchased Uranium One.
The Russian government’s military industrial complex, petroleum industry, electrical power grid, nuclear energy sector, and nuclear weapons complex, are all components of a giant web of state-controlled enterprises. Their business structures may routinely shift like the sand dunes in a desert, but these key sectors always remain under the control of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
Rosatom controls Russia’s sprawling nuclear weapons production complex.
Rosatom purchased Canadian mining company Uranium One in a deal that transferred control of one-fifth of U.S. uranium reserves, a strategic national security commodity critical to U.S. nuclear defense, into the hands of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Inter RAO UES is chaired by Igor Sechin who at the time of the Crescent Investment deal was Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and the head of Russia’s petroleum giant Rosneft.
Rosneft is a Russian state-owned enterprise in business with Crescent Petroleum, another Gulftainer affiliate.
Forbes reported in January 2018 that Sechin, known as “the Darth Vader of Russia, is “more powerful than Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev,” “more powerful than Vladimir Putin” and “feared more than Putin.”
Management frequently moves among Rosatom, Inter RAO UES, and Uranium One
The management of Inter RAO UES, Uranium One, and Uranium One’s majority owner Rosatom, has been a revolving door. Management moves among these three Russian companies freely and frequently.
Boris Kovalchuk is Chairman of the Management Board, Inter RAO. “In 2009, he (Kovalchuk) was Deputy Director General for Development of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom” according to Inter RAO’s 2015 Annual Report. Rosatom’s acquisition of Uranium One was well underway in 2009.
Mikhail Kontserev, Senior Vice President of Uranium One Group, “served as CEO of the joint venture of ROSATOM and INTER RAO – INTER RAO UES Energy Efficiency Center LLC” according to his biography featured on Uranium One’s official website.
The Iraqi Jafar Family’s History With WMD
The Crescent Group Chairman and Gulftainer co-owner Hamid Jafar and his brother and business partner, rogue Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, were both deeply involved in Saddam Hussein’s massive top-secret uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons programs.
The Pentagon placed Dr. Jafar on CENTCOM’s “Blacklist” in 2003, designated Jafar as a senior Saddam regime official enemy combatant who was wanted for capture and could be legitimately targeted by U.S. and coalition military forces.
To the surprise of UN weapons inspector David Kay, Dr. Jafar was able to draw detailed diagrams from memory showing exactly how to build a nuclear weapon.
Dr. Jafar stated “You can bomb our buildings. You can destroy our technology. But you cannot take it out of our heads. We now have the capability.”
Dr. Jafar is also known for his miniaturized nuclear weapon, the Iraqi “Beach Ball.”
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was seen in 2017 on North Korean television with a what appeared to be a miniaturized nuclear weapon strikingly similar to Dr. Jafar’s “Beach Ball.” Dr. Jafar and Kim Jong Un’s father’s regime worked in concert for a delivery system for a North Korean ballistic missile production line to be built in Iraq.
Dr. Jafar’s brother, Crescent Group Chairman Hamid Jafar, also came under scrutiny. Hamid Jafar was investigated by multiple Congressional committees and the U.S. Treasury Department for operating Crescent Petroleum as a Saddam front company in a WMD funding scheme known as “Oil-For-Superweapons.”
The Obama administration awarded the Jafar family’s Gulftainer the keys to Port Canaveral’s cargo container terminal despite the fact that Soviet-trained nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar, an Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS) uranium enrichment expert, oversaw a clandestine Iraqi program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade military specifications in pursuit of Saddam’s “Arab Bomb.”
Dr. Jafar is the CEO of Crescent Group subsidiary Uruk Power, which builds power stations.
Dr. Jafar repurposed Iraqi power stations to clandestinely send electricity to his secret EMIS uranium enrichment WMD sites in support of Jafar’s and Saddam’s “Arab Bomb” program.
Dr. Jafar has taken the lead in Crescent’s partnership with Inter RAO, working with the Russians on new power plant projects in the Middle East. According to Dr. Jafar’s nephew Badr Jafar:
“Looking at opportunities within Russia itself, the other main subsidiary of the Crescent Group, Crescent Enterprises, owns a company called Gulftainer, which today is the largest privately owned port operator in the world in terms of operated volumes. Gulftainer is looking to expand its geographic footprint by investing in Russia’s underdeveloped Ports and Logistics sector, specifically the management of container terminals, logistics partnerships, and inland depots. Another one of Crescent Enterprises’ subsidiaries, URUK Power, is active in the power sector and is looking at power opportunities alongside Inter RAO UES, one of Russia’s largest energy companies.” – Badr Jafar, CEO of Crescent Enterprises and President of Crescent Petroleum – Leaders Magazine interview – October 4, 2013
Port Canaveral is the nexus of critical military and space infrastructure
Port Canaveral is critical military infrastructure and a major U.S. port integral to U.S. national defense and space security.
Port Canaveral is adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Canaveral Air Force Station, where American spy satellites are launched.
Gulftainer’s Port Canaveral cargo container terminal sits a few hundred yards from a U.S. Navy Trident nuclear submarine base.
Russia’s Club-K Container Cruise Missile Launch System – A game changer
As we previously reported, the Jafar’s Gulftainer has entered into a joint venture with Russia’s state-owned weapons manufacturer Rostec. Rostec exports Russia’s Trojan Horse Club-K cargo container cruise missile launch system through Rostec’s wholly-owned subsidiary Rosoboronexport.
The Club-K is designed to look identical to standard cargo containers. The Club-K allows Russia and her rogue regime allies stealth access to the United States. The Club-K bypasses early-warning systems by launching Russian Kalibr cruise missiles armed with nuclear, EMP, or conventional warheads from cargo ships off U.S. shores or from trains, trucks, and riverine boats inside every hamlet in America.
These Russian cruise missiles are capable of flying at supersonic speeds beneath U.S. early-warning radar systems from Trojan Horse “cargo containers,” simultaneously travelling toward multiple cities or other satellite-guided coordinates across the United States.
The Jafars entered into their joint venture with Rostec in 2010.
Why was this dire threat ignored by the Obama administration officials who helped Gulftainer secure a lease at Port Canaveral and bypass the required National Security Threat Analysis?
No CFIUS review for “Project Pelican” Gulftainer deal
The Obama administration declined to subject the “Project Pelican” Gulftainer Port Canaveral deal to the mandated Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) National Security Threat Analysis.
That National Security Threat Analysis, which includes input from sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, was bypassed by the Obama administration.
That review would have revealed that the Jafars were at the center of Saddam Hussein’s uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons programs.
The mandated CFIUS review would have also revealed that the Jafars had partnered with Russian state-owned companies behind the Uranium One deal.
That CFIUS review would also have shown that the Jafars are inextricably intertwined with the Russian companies behind the production of Russian nuclear weapons, and are behind the export of the Club-K container cruise missile launch system – all Russian military-industrial weapons programs that could be used in a surprise attack against America using cruise missiles launched from “cargo containers.”
Clintons tied to Gulftainer “Project Pelican” deal and to Uranium One deal
Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation are tied to both Gulftainer’s “Project Pelican” deal and to the Uranium One deal.
“Hillary Clinton’s State Department was one of eight agencies to review and sign off on the sale of U.S. uranium to Russia. However, the then-Secretary of State Clinton was the only agency head whose family foundation received $145 million in donations from multiple people connected to the uranium deal, as reported by the New York Times.”
As previously reported, Bill Clinton co-chairs the Dubai-based Business Backs Education program alongside Crescent Petroleum CEO Majid Jafar. Business Backs Education is funded by the Varkey GEMS Foundation.
“The Varkey GEMS Foundation has helped to facilitate more than 2,300 commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative to date. Upon funding and implementation, these commitments will have a total value of over $70 billion.”
Gates Foundation, World Bank hire auditor, ask The Abraaj Group: Where is our money?
Hamid Jafar is founding shareholder of Pakistani private equity firm The Abraaj Group.
The Wall Street Journal reported on February 2, 2018 that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Bank International FInance Corporation (IFC), and two other institutional investors asked The Abraaj Group for bank statements to determine what happened to hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Abraaj’s $1 billion health care fund that were earmarked for construction of hospitals and medical clinics in Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and Kenya. After The Abraaj Group refused to turn over bank statements, the investors retained auditing firm Ankura Consulting Group to conduct a forensic trace on the money.
Reuters UK reports that “Mr. (Hamid) Jafar is Chairman of Gulftainer Ltd, Founding Shareholder of Abraaj Capital, and URUK Group.”
Gulftainer is a unit of Crescent Enterprises, a subsidiary of the Jafars’ Crescent Group. The CEO of Crescent Enterprises is Badr Jafar. Badr Jafar is also a member of The Abraaj Group Board of Directors in addition to serving as the Chairman of the Gulftainer Executive Board.
“As a Founding Shareholder and Limited Partner of Abraaj, Crescent Enterprises monitors the performance of all invested funds, and takes a keen interest in the strategic rationale employed by Abraaj on select investment decisions, including review of coinvestment opportunities whenever possible. Crescent Enterprises also provides strategic guidance by means of representation on Abraaj’s Board of Directors.”
Wahid Hamid, a former Pakistani foreign student who attended Occidental College with Barack Obama, and remains very close to the former president, is a Managing Partner of The Abraaj Group. Wahid Hamid travelled with Barack Obama during his mysterious 1981 trip to Pakistan.
“Weeks before co-sponsoring the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative meeting, The Abraaj Group was awarded the first of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and investment management contracts through the State Department’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal agency overseen by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2016 that The Abraaj Group donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation around the same time the private equity firm received OPIC funds management contracts and loans through the State Department.
“Authorities in Sindh province (Pakistan) have accused a prominent government official of providing illegal favors to K-Electric, a power company owned and managed by the Abraaj Group since 2009.
Former Pakistani oil minister Dr. Asim Hussain was arrested last year amid allegations that he helped harbor terrorists in a string of hospitals he owned and doled out illegal contracts to companies, including K-Electric. Both Hussain and K-Electric have denied the allegations.”
Why?
This jaw-droppingly stunning breach of U.S national security by the Obama administration – placing Gulftainer “inside the wire” at Port Canaveral at a U.S. defense and space nerve center, with a cargo container terminal lease, while knowing about Gulftainer’s joint venture with Russia’s exporter of an advanced weapons system – is well beyond “boneheaded.”
Considering that (i) Dr. Jafar was successful in designing Saddam’s uranium enrichment programs and miniaturized nuclear weapons (“Beach Ball”), (ii) Hamid Jafar funded Saddam’s nuclear weapons programs, (iii) CENTCOM declared Dr. Jafar an enemy of the United States, (iv) the Jafars partnered with the Russian state-owned companies behind the Uranium One deal, and (v) the Jafars partnered with the Russian company that exports the stealth Club-K weapons launching system – the Obama administration has a lot of explaining to do.
As our FBI used to say….”There are no coincidences.”
On refugee issues, two recent successes are encouraging, and may lead to a sensible approach to how America should resettle migrants. This week the United States, at President Donald Trump’s insistence and with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s support, withdrew from the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration (GCM). In his statement, Tillerson said that because the GCM might accelerate migration, it could undermine U.S. sovereignty, and thwart America’s effort to enforce immigration laws, an opinion Attorney General Jeff Sessions and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley seconded.
Then, in an unrelated event, the Supreme Court upheld the president’s refugee travel ban which will allow the restrictions against the identified nations to take full effect even as two lower federal courts consider challenges based on the president’s alleged anti-Muslim bias.
Getting out of the dubious GCM and scoring a Supreme Court 7-2 victory with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissenting represent two big, much-needed wins, not only for the Trump administration, but also for Americans who have grown increasingly skeptical about unwieldly and dangerous U.S. refugee policy.
The GCM is not some long-ago etched-in-stone compact to which the U.S. is indefinitely committed. Rather, the GCM was President Obama’s parting grand refugee-expansion gesture to the UN General Assembly, made just a month before the 2016 election. President Obama endorsed admitting 110,000 refugees, well above the 70,000 historic average. Without question, had the U.S. remained in the GCM, the UN would have proposed more migration, inconsistent with President Trump’s wish to slow resettlement to 50,000 annually, a cap he proposed in September.
Little is understood about how ineffective resettlement abroad is, and how little it contributes to a lasting, global solution. Last year, The New York Times analyzed resettlement policies, and determined that less than one percent of about 20 million refugees are relocated. More than half of the one percent comes to the U.S. Even were the U.S. to increase its refugee intake ten-fold, it would not make a dent in the worldwide crisis. But in the process of increasing the refugee intake, the U.S. population would dramatically increase, today and in future years as the refugees petition their family members to join them.
Many aid groups and some governments recognize that the most meaningful solution is to help refugees close to where they live so they can safely return home at the earliest moment. The most cost-effective, humanitarian method to address refugee crises is for the U.S. to donate funds and medical assistance to refugee camps located near the displaced migrants’ home countries.
A Center for Immigration Studies analysis found that, on average, each Middle Eastern refugee the U.S. resettles costs an estimated $64,370 in the first five years, or $257,481 per household. But based on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) request for $1,057 annually to care for each Syrian refugee in countries neighboring Syria, 61 refugees could be helped in one year.
The UNHCR acknowledges that the U.S. is the world’s top resettlement country. Since 1975 every state has accepted refugees – more than 3 million in total. Continuing to be accepting is important. But so is helping millions of needy Americans and providing for homeland safety and security. Help refugees help themselves and their embattled nations. Get them home as quickly as possible to expedite the rebuilding process.
For U.S. Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez’s family and friends, Thanksgiving Day was somber.
Martinez and his partner were brutally beaten in Texas’ Big Bend sector. A 36-year-old father, Martinez died from head injuries sustained while being battered with rocks; his partner survived but is reported to be having trouble remembering. Illegal immigrants, possibly trafficking drugs, are suspected in the attack and are at large.
Brandon Judd, National Border Patrol Council president, said that while the specifics of the assault are still unfolding, “it would appear to be an ambush.”The FBI is investigating and has offered a $25,000 reward for information. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $20,000 reward.
Some reports suggest Martinez was responding to one of the 14,000 motion detectors scattered throughout the Southwest border. But, the existing sensors are so antiquated that they cannot differentiate between humans and animals. Twelve years ago, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General’s report titled “A Review of Remote Surveillance Technology along U.S. Land Borders” found that 62 percent of agents could not determine what set a sensor off or its location. Outdated, inadequate sensors set off a false alarm that cost Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie his life when in 2012 fellow agents mistook him for a smuggler and shot him. Since 2003, 38 agents have died on the job.
I have traveled to Arizona and the Naco Border Patrol Sector since renamed in memory of Brian A. Terry, an agent murdered by a drug cartel. The border is a wide-open, dangerous place. I rode with a retired agent through the area, and we passed vast areas without fencing.
For each of the 31 years that I’ve written about immigration, the one constant is border insecurity. Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama, and their Congresses, have purposefully misled Americans about their commitment to border security. In his 2011 El Paso speech near the U.S.-Texas border, President Obama said that the border had never been more secure than during his administration. President Obama then mocked critics who he alleged would only be happy with alligator-filled moats at the border.
More than seven years and billions of wasted dollars later, the border remains wide open to all comers including MS-13 gangsters who entered as unaccompanied minors. In its recent Operation Raging Bull sweep, Immigration and Customs Enforcement discovered that one-third of the 214 arrested have MS-13 affiliations. MS-13 is a transnational criminal organization known for its brutality.
Illegal Immigration Ruins Lives
Ignored in Congress’ decades of failure on ending dangerous and too often deadly illegal immigration are the ranchers who live on the border. On my trip, I spoke with dozens of people who shared the same story – illegal immigrants squat on their property and terrorize their families; some have shot their pets. Phone calls, letters, and emails to their senators received no reply. One rancher told me that his frustration with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reached such a peak that he traveled to Washington with the hope of talking with him face-to-face. After waiting in McCain’s office lobby for three days without a meeting, the rancher left with a greater, but painful, understanding of how inconsequential ranchers’ plights are to the senator. McCain, in his 35-year congressional career, has consistently voted in favor of more immigration and less security.
Since Martinez’s murder, President Trump has ramped up his demand for a border wall. Eight border wall prototypes have been built. Compared to the last three decades, the prototypes represent rocket-speed progress but are still a long way from the “big beautiful wall” candidate Trump assured voters he would build.
Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @joeguzzardi19.
Here’s how the Dream Act/DACA amnesty struggle shapes up as of today…
Each side wants something, and has vowed to remain steadfast on demands. But as is always the case with immigration legislation, there are three sides, not two. There are traditional, conservative anti-amnesty Republicans, passionate Republican immigration advocates, and liberal Democrats, united behind amnesty and in opposition to all things President Trump.
Twenty years ago, a congressional faction called the Blue Dog Coalition had 27 conservative Democratic members that, if it were still in existence, President Trump might be able to count on. But the Blue Dogs slowly faded as a force, and, on immigration, Democrats solidly favor amnesty.
The Democrats want amnesty for the so-called Dreamers, and also for the DACAs, two distinctly separate groups that the media will often conflate. A Dreamer amnesty would grant about 3.6 million aliens lifetime employment authorization, Social Security numbers, and eventual citizenship. About 700,000 DACAs would receive the same benefits.
Moreover, every year, one million legal immigrants enter the U.S. and become immediately work authorized. The complete immigrant worker tally is into the millions, and also includes illegal immigrants, temporary guest workers and blue collar employment-based visa holders like H-1B.
For the tens of millions under-employed, unemployed and the four million newly graduated young Americans hoping to get a decent job, the prospect of adding through amnesty more than five million new potential workers into a slack labor market makes their challenges harder to overcome. More jobs competition is the last thing struggling Americans need.
Worse, the resultant chain migration from either or both amenities would bring millions of the new immigrants’ relatives to the U.S., all work authorized. On average, each new legally arrived immigrant petitions 3.4 family members to come to America.
Conservative Republicans want a pro-America immigration package that is best represented in a new bill that Virginia U.S. Rep. Dave Brat recently introduced. Called the three-in-one billbecause it draws from three previously introduced bills, Brat’s legislation would, first, mandate American job-protecting E-Verify. Second, it would end the lottery visa whose fatal flaws were exposed when it became known after the October New York terrorist attack which left eight dead that Uzbekistan national Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov had entered on that visa. Third, it would end chain migration.
When polled on whether they would like more immigration, and an expanded labor market that has depressed wages for decades, or immigration reductions that help U.S. workers, Americans even in traditionally blue states overwhelmingly chose less immigration. Honest polling taken on the importance likely voters put on passing a DACA amnesty shows dramatically declining support.
The rub is that big business, the Capitol Hill lobbies and Wall Street love amnesty. Collectively, they wield more influence than citizens. But President Trump holds the veto hammer. The question is, as it always is with President Trump, what will he do next?
On Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show, the Ingraham Angle, President Trump said repeatedly that any amnesty bill that reaches his desk “must have” an end to chain migration. The way things are shaping up in Congress, however, the bill President Trump gets might have amnesty, but without the Republicans’ conditions.
President Trump may veto an amnesty bill or he may waffle, sign and, as he did with his pledge to end DACA on Day One, disappoint millions of his supporters.
Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @joeguzzardi19.
The Obama administration placed Aimen Nabi Mir, formertwo-time president of the youth wing of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), into the top advisory position to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a national security post at the Treasury Department.
Aimen Mir was the CFIUS Staff Chairperson from 2009 until 2014. During that time, Aimen Mir played a key role in the CFIUS panel’s decision to approve the sale of Uranium One to Russia’s Rosatom. Mir also played a key role in the Treasury Department’s refusal to investigate the UAE’s Gulftainer 35-year cargo container terminal lease at Port Canaveral, a critical military infrastructure facility for U.S. naval and space operations. Both decisions severely damaged United States national security.
Aimen Mir helped set the table for Vladimir Putin to seize control of over 20 percent of U.S. uranium and was part of the decision that awarded control of Port Canaveral’s cargo container terminal to Saddam Hussein’s rogue nuclear weapons scientist and designated Iraq War enemy combatant, Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar. Dr. Jafar’s brother and business partner, Gulftainer co-owner Hamid Jafar, was under investigation by the Treasury Department and four congressional committees for his ‘Oil For Superweapons” scheme in concert with Saddam Hussein.
For starters, Aimen Mir’s ISNA connections are troubling. ISNA is one of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the U.S. and was named by the Department of Justice as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial.
Fai was arrested by the FBI in 2011 for covertly operating as an unregistered foreign agent while receiving $3.5 million dollars in wire transfers from the ISI. Fai used some of that money to fund an elaborate lobbying operation pushing Kashmiri “independence” on unsuspecting U.S. officials who remained seemingly unaware that Pakistan was running the operation. In 2013, Fai was granted early release from U.S. federal prison by the Justice Department.
Like his father’s ISI partner Fai, Aimen Mir appears to have been running his own operation at CFIUS.
Aimen Mir was the CFIUS Staff Chairperson from 2009 until 2014. During Mir’s five years in the staff chairperson’s seat, CFIUS approved Russia’s 2010 purchase of Uranium One, effectively handing Vladimir Putin control of 20 percent of America’s uranium. Also during Mir’s term, the Treasury Department refused to conduct two legally-required CFIUS investigations of Port Canaveral’s 2014 container terminal lease concession to the UAE’s Gulftainer.
The Gulftainer deal effectively placed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons mastermind, Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, along with his longtime Russian KGB/SVR and Iranian regime associates and a UAE Emir inside the wire of a national-security sensitive U.S. port. Gulftainer misrepresented its true ownership; facts that Mir could and should have uncovered easily.
A World Bank International Finance Corporation (IFC) document (now scrubbed from the IFC website) proved that Gulftainer was owned in part by Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, the Emir of Sharjah, UAE. Under the Foreign Investment National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA), foreign government ownership of an acquiring entity automatically triggers a mandatory CFIUS review, regardless of whether the transaction is a purchase or a lease. Aimen Mir understood CFIUS and FINSA law and chose to ignore it, as did Treasury Secretary Jacob ‘Jack’ Lew and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
In 2014 the Treasury Department promoted Aimen Mir to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Investment Security after the Clinton Foundation-connected Uranium One and Gulftainer Port Canaveral deals closed. Mir’s LinkedIn profile and post-Trump administration inauguration posts show he’s still at the Treasury Department, now as a career civil servant.
In Gulftainer’s case, the supposedly-rigorous CFIUS national security review process for direct foreign investment transactions was completely and stunningly bypassed. An email released by Wikileaks implicates Gulftainer and the Clintons in a pay-to-play operation involving the Port Canaveral deal.
Both Uranium One and Gulftainer have deep ties to Russian intelligence, nuclear weapons, and uranium enrichment. Gulftainer has additional ties to the Iranian regime and to the architects of Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal.
Gulftainer executive board chairman Badr Jafar visited the White House in 2014, six weeks before the secretly-negotiated Gulftainer deal was announced, signed, and closed.
According to Aimen Mir’s LinkedIn profile, since graduating from Georgetown in 2000, he never served in any national security position before his CIFIUS chairperson appointment. Mir’s work experience was as an immigration attorney at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (WilmerHale) representing people from the Middle East seeking asylum in the United States.
CFIUS staff members such as staff chairperson Mir wield tremendous power in the CFIUS process workflow. They conduct research and make recommendations to cabinet-level CFIUS board members or their designated representatives and, through omission, can conceal from those Cabinet members critical national security information about foreign companies looking to invest in U.S.-based operations.
If a CFIUS application is approved before advancing from the 30-day initial review to an additional 45-day investigation involving 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, dangerous deals like Uranium One and Gulftainer deals can fly under the radar of the intelligence community.
According to a 2015 Breitbart report on CFIUS review of the Uranium One deal, “surprisingly the 2009 Annual Report submitted to Congress by CFIUS inaccurately described this approved transaction by stating the company acquiring a minority interest was Canadian rather than Russian.” Breitbart contacted Aimen Mir at the time of that report to ask him if the Uranium One transaction was subjected to a secondary 45-day review but received no response.
The Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States 2015 Annual Report to Congress Public/Unclassified Version, released over a year late, reveals that between 2013 and 2015, there were no covered transactions in the transportation sector involving acquirers from the UAE. In other words, the Treasury Department determined that the Gulftainer deal was not a ‘covered transaction’ and therefore CFIUS did not conduct the required investigation of the deal. That determination was likely made by Aimen Mir and it kept Gulftainer and U.S.- designated enemy combatant Dr. Jafar off the intelligence community’s radar.
The Treasury Department determined that a CFIUS review was not required for Gulftainer’s Port Canaveral deal, according to a 2015 Orlando Sentinel report:
“Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, had asked for a formal Treasury Department review of security issues due to a foreign-owned company operating port facilities.
Port spokeswoman Rosalind Harvey said that never happened. “After extensive filing of all required paperwork to U.S. Treasury Department officials, the panel found that no review was required because the agreement was a lease and not a purchase of Port assets,” Harvey said.”
Unfortunately, there is more.
James Rickards, author and former advisor to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) Support Group of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), stated in an October 18, 2017 tweet that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper “disbanded” the CFIUS DNI advisory group “before Uranium One.”
It is noteworthy that Director Clapper went before Congress to testify under oath that the NSA, CIA, and other intelligence agencies were not collecting massive amounts of telephonic and Internet metadata on hundreds of millions of innocent American citizens. Revelations by Whistleblower Edward Snowden proved otherwise.
Subsequently Director Clapper was found to have been untruthful and resigned on November 17, 2016, effective the day Donald Trump was sworn in, January 20, 2017. Clapper has not been prosecuted for perjury.
CFIUS rules are clear about what constitutes a ‘covered transaction’:
Considering the post-9/11 national meltdown over the UAE’s Dubai Ports World deal, it is inconceivable that the Gulftainer deal would have received approval without a thorough intelligence review. The Congressional enactment of the Foreign Investment National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) was designed to heavily reinforce CFIUS in order to prevent a repeat of Dubai Ports world debacle.
The Gulftainer (GT USA) Port Canaveral 35-year concession is subject to CFIUS review because:
Gulftainer is responsible for safety and security and makes all substantial business decisions at the Canaveral cargo terminal;
Gulftainer oversees day-to-day operation of the Canaveral cargo terminal;
Port Canaveral is critical infrastructure for commercial maritime, military sealift, surface naval, submarine naval, commercial space, and military space operations;
Gulftainer’s cargo terminal is near four military bases: Two USAF, one USN, and one USCG;
Gulftainer’s cargo terminal is near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center;
Gulftainer’s cargo terminal is near the Eastern Range, critical for space missions and missile testing;
Gulftainer is partly-owned by a foreign government (Ruler of Sharjah, UAE), Iraqis involved in WMD production (Jafar family), possibly other “senior Iraqi military figures,” and in business with Russian Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs).
It is unclear how Aimen Mir was able to obtain a security clearance.
Roger Stone, having just testified before a closed-door meeting before Congress regarding the DNC security breach on September 26, is claiming that Congressman Schiff and Speier told him at the hearing that the DNC did, in fact, give over its server to the FBI. This contradicts James Comey’s testimony, when he stated that the DNC never handed over the server for investigation.
Answering the questions of Infowars as he apparently was leaving the hearing, Stone said: “The FBI Director… testified before this committee that the DNC did not allow the FBI to examine their servers. Mr. Schiff intimated today that that was not the case and claimed that the DNC servers had been turned over to the FBI.”
“The most interesting about the hearing was that, in my statement, I strongly asserted my suspicion that the Russians never hacked the DNC and, of course, one of the central arguments, to that effect, is that the DNC refused to turn over their computer servers to the FBI, instead having it inspected by CrowdStrike, a forensic IT firm controlled directly and paid by the DNC. When I said that, Congresswoman Speier from California corrected me and told me that the DNC servers had been turned over to the FBI, and then Congressman Schiff essentially confirmed that, after which, Trey Gowdy said, ‘wait a minute, James Comey came before this committee, secretary Johnson came before this committee, and testified under oath that the servers were not turned over to the FBI, so what are you talking about?’ Schiff tried to change the subject and said, ‘well, we’ve got a lot of information that we learned during the recess and maybe we should talk about this privately.’ Gowdy seemed furious and stormed out of the hearing, so somebody’s lying.”
The question is, did the DNC turn over its server during the summer recess?
Antifa is the third episode in the America Under Siege film series from Dangerous Documentaries (a project of the Capital Research Center) and Cohesion Films. Each episode profiles the influence of radical Marxists on various segments of American society.
The communist movement known as Antifa (short for Anti-Fascist Action) has sparked violence across the nation. In the wake of their battling despicable white supremacist in Charlottesville, Antifa has begun to gain mainstream popularity. But unbeknownst to much of the public, the vast majority of Antifa violence isn’t targeted at genuine fascists, but mainstream conservatives and civilians. With help from those who have encountered Antifa, including Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Lauren Southern, Jack Posobiec, and Steve Deace, conservative author Trevor Loudon guides us through the history and ideas behind the Antifa movement, starting with Leon Trotsky and going all the way through the events in Berkeley, CA and Charlottesville, VA.
The film will also air on One America News Network, Tuesday, September 26th at 10:30pm ET / 7:30pm PT.
Originally set to premiere at Milo Yiannopoulos’s “Free Speech Week“, the screening of Antifa was canceled by UC Berkley in part due to security concerns from Antifa themselves.
Jake Klein, the film’s producer, issued the following statement:
“We are extremely disappointed by the cancellation of this screening and of ‘Free Speech Week’ as a whole. This is a major blow to the First Amendment, which we hope will be remedied in court. The fear of violence at this event, which was key to its cancellation, does not stem from anything we have done, nor from the actions of anyone else involved in organizing Free Speech Week. That fear is the fault of those who would use and have used violence to silence those with whom they disagree. Let’s be clear: Antifa shut down a film screening criticizing Antifa through fear.”
The film was written by and stars conservative author Trevor Loudon, directed by Judd Saul, produced by Jake (Joseph) Klein and Victoria Loudon, and executive produced by Capital Research Center’s Scott Walter and Matthew Vadum. You can view previous episodes of America Under Siege at DangerousDocumentaries.com.
CAUTION: This report comes from very fake news blog CNN and may fall apart over the next 24 to 48 hours (like most of CNN’s fake reports fall apart).
CNN is reporting that Special Investigator Robert Mueller leaked secret documents to the press indicating the Obama White House “wiretapped” Paul Manafort before and after last year’s election.
CNN previously mocked and scorned President Trump for suggesting Obama wiretapped Trump’s campaign. CNN says Mueller’s office cautioned that conclusions about Russian connection were “inconclusive.” Meaning “non-existent.”
Either Trump was right or Robert Mueller is lying to CNN. A third possibility: CNN is full of crap.
A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine’s former ruling party, the sources told CNN.
Ironically, CNN notes the “surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence” but was then restarted with a “new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year”…all of which sounds an awful lot like the Obama administration using FISA courts to spy on a political opponent.
This story makes the MSM, late-night comedians, Robert Mueller, and Barack Obama look like iditos, criminals, or both.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has introduced the Immigration in the National Interest Act, which is the House companion bill to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) RAISE Act. The RAISE Act would end chain migration and the visa lottery and transform the existing employment-based system to a merit-based one.
Rep. Smith’s bill, like the RAISE Act, would limit family immigration to only spouses and minor children, ending chain migration. This would reduce overall legal immigration by 50% over the next 10 years.
The bill would also move our immigration system to a points-based, merit system giving priority to “immigrants who have the skills and abilities needed to contribute to our economy”.
“The Heritage Foundation has determined that low-skilled immigrants cost the United States $150 billion each year. A legal immigrant without a high school degree typically receives $4 in government benefits for every $1 they pay in taxes.
In addition, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that a lower-skilled immigrant costs taxpayers $142,000 over the immigrant’s lifetime,” Rep. Smith during his press conference where he announced the introduction of the bill.
During his announcement he also referenced a recent poll by Pulse Opinion Research citing,
“Over 60% of voters want an annual limit of one-half million or less for legal permanent immigrants who receive work visas.
And 55% of voters support legislation that would allow immigrants to bring their spouse and minor children to the United States but would end chain migration or the automatic admission of extended family members.”
Rep. Lamar Smith reintroduced today the Legal Workforce Act, H.R. 3711. The bill would require all employers to use E-Verify within two years, fulfilling NumbersUSA’s top enforcement priority.
“Nearly 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed,” Rep. Smith said in a statement. “Meanwhile, seven million people are working in the United States illegally. By expanding the E-Verify system to all U.S. employers, this bill will ensure that jobs only go to legal workers.”
“A recent poll showed that 70 percent of voters support legislation that makes it illegal for businesses in the U.S. to hire illegal immigrants.”
While the bill would require all employers to use E-Verify within two years, Ag employers will have 30 months before they have to start using E-Verify for field workers.
The Legal Workforce Act:
Repeals I-9 System: Repeals the current paper-based I-9 system and replaces it with a completely electronic work eligibility check, bringing the process into the 21st century.
Gradual Phase-In: Phases-in mandatory E-Verify participation for new hires in six month increments beginning on the date of enactment. Within six months of enactment, businesses having more than 10,000 employees are required to use E-Verify. Within 12 months of enactment, businesses having 500 to 9,999 employees are required to use E-Verify. Eighteen months after enactment, businesses having 20 to 499 employees must use E-Verify. And 24 months after enactment, businesses having 1 to 19 employees must use E-Verify.
Agriculture: Requires that employees performing “agricultural labor or services” are only subject to an E-Verify check within 30 months of the date of enactment.
States as Partners: Preempts duplicative state laws mandating E-Verify use but retains the ability of states and localities to condition business licenses on the requirement that the employer use E-Verify in good faith under federal law. In addition, the bill allows states to enforce the federal E-Verify requirement and incentives them to do so by letting them keep the fines they recover from employers who violate the law.
Protects Against Identity Theft: The bill allows individuals to lock their Social Security number (SSN) so that it can’t be used by another person to get a job. It also allows parents or legal guardians to lock the SSN of their minor child. And if a SSN shows unusual multiple use, DHS is required to lock the SSN and alert the owner that their personal information may have been compromised.
Safe Harbor: Grants employers safe harbor from prosecution if they use the E-Verify program in good faith, and through no fault of theirs, receive an incorrect eligibility confirmation.
Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) are original cosponsors.
The case of a Louisiana employer highlights problems with the H-2B program, and guestworker schemes in general.
The Department of Justice recently ordered Barrios Street Realty Company of Lockport, La., to provide the final payment in a $108,000 settlement to a group of American workers who were discriminated against in favor of H-2B workers. According to a March 2016 press release from the Justice Department, the firm knowingly and illegally hired temporary foreign workers despite there being 73 qualified Americans willing to do the job.
Following a lawsuit, Barrios Street Realty had to pay a total of $115,000 to compensate just 12 of the American workers who were passed over for foreign workers. The roofing company will also owe $30,000 in civil penalties and lose the ability to hire H-2B workers for a period of three years.
Under the H-2B program, employers are legally obligated to demonstrate that they have tried to fill their positions with authorized U.S. workers and that they are applying for H-2B workers only because they cannot find U.S. workers willing to work for them. Part of these provisions include advertisements in local papers. In the case of Barrio Street Realty, it turns out that they could have filled every single one of their positions with U.S. workers. In fact, they did not need the H-2B program at all.
Information from the Department of Labor’s H-2B disclosure data for 2014 (the year of the offense) gives us some data on the jobs. This company applied for 47 roofers to work in New Orleans for an attractive $22.35 an hour. The certified foreign roofers were to work in the United States for 10 months (43 weeks) between October 2014 and July 2015.
Under a 40-hour work week calculation, Barrios Street Realty paid out close to $1.8 million in wages to the 47 foreign workers they hired. That is $1.8 million in wages that legally should have gone to the American workers who were fit for these jobs.
The 73 Americans would have received $38,000 each for their work, based on a 40-hour work week. For the fortunate 12 that were party to the lawsuit against Barrios Street Realty, they will receive about $9,500 each.
Barrios Street Realty’s actions have highlighted a number of problems with the H-2B program as a whole. First, this was not a “job that Americans won’t do”, as evidenced by the 73 qualified Americans who applied for this job. Advocates for temporary worker programs insist that these positions are simply undesirable to Americans, but studies have shown that this is not the case.
Second, employers like Barrios Street Realty will go out of their way to overlook Americans in order to hire foreign temporary workers who are dependent on their employers to maintain their visa status and are less likely to protest foul working conditions. This case is a prime example of a company actively using foreign workers in the place of U.S. workers, even when there were enough available and willing to work for them.
Third, it can be difficult to expose companies that have knowingly passed over American workers. By the time anyone discovers their violations it is usually too late. In this case, 73 American workers lost out on the opportunity to hold high-paying jobs. This case was not settled until 2016, a full two years after the foreign workers had taken those seasonal jobs that were fit for American workers.
Finally, firms that guide employers through the H-2B certification process (often referred to as body shops) are as complicit in the discrimination against American workers as the employers, and have a much larger impact because of the number of workers they can affect given that they have numerous clients. In this case, the lawyer who arranged for the H-2B workers, Jorge Guerrero, had business associations with employers JAG Premier, LA Jomac, Pangea Industries, and Guro Enterprise LLC at the time of the offense. Those employers collectively certified 115 temporary foreign workers under the guidance of Guerrero’s firm. Unlike his client Barrios Street Realty, Mr. Guerrero did not receive a three-year probationary period of any sort, and likely will continue to serve as a labor broker for companies that seek to import foreign workers
The actions of Barrios Street Realty and Guerrero show that the H-2B visa system is flawed. Research shows that temporary foreign workers threaten the jobs of America’s low skilled workers and remove opportunities for some of the most vulnerable among us. In this case, Americans were not given the opportunity to fill high-paying temporary jobs because of the illegal actions of a company determined to hire foreign temporary workers.
On Tuesday, the Center for Immigration Studies held a panel discussion on the immigration court backlog. While that panel (and the accompanying report) painted a fairly bleak picture of the overwhelming number of cases that the nation’s 334 immigration judges (IJs) have on their dockets, a review of the findings of that panel (and a recent Government Accountability Office report on that backlog) reveal that the backlog may be larger, much larger, than even GAO is aware.
[C]ases decided by immigration judges on the merits of the case (merit decisions) declined [between FY 2006 and FY 2015], while cases completed through administrative closure of the case increased over this period. Specifically, the percentage of merit decisions declined from 95 percent of all cases completed in fiscal year 2006 to 77 percent of all cases completed in fiscal year 2015. … The administrative closure of cases grew by 21 percentage points, from 2 percent of completed cases to 23 percent of completed cases over this same time period.
The members of the panel discussed the administratively closed cases, but I believe that the Obama administration’s use of the practice may have “cooked the books” as it relates to the true number of cases that are pending adjudication before the immigration courts.
As the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) describes the practice: “Administrative closure … is used to temporarily remove a case from an Immigration Judge’s active calendar or from the Board’s docket.” The BIA explains that
[Administrative closure] is a docket management tool that is used to temporarily pause removal proceedings. Administrative closure is not a form of relief from removal and does not provide an alien with any immigration status. After a case has been administratively closed, either party may move to recalendar it before the Immigration Court, as the respondent did here, or to reinstate the appeal before the Board.
The decision to administratively close a case is largely within the discretion of the IJ. As the BIA states:
As with a motion to reopen or a request for continuance, we are persuaded that neither an Immigration Judge nor the Board may abdicate the responsibility to exercise independent judgment and discretion in a case by permitting a party’s opposition to act as an absolute bar to administrative closure of that case when circumstances otherwise warrant such action. Accordingly, we hold that the Immigration Judges and the Board have the authority, in the exercise of independent judgment and discretion, to administratively close proceedings under appropriate circumstances, even if a party opposes.
Don’t go looking for this authority in the regulations, because it does not exist there. Rather: “It is merely an administrative convenience which allows the removal of cases from the calendar in appropriate situations.” Put another way, administrative closure allows the immigration courts to shelve cases that it does not want to, or cannot, deal with, at least at the time of closure.
The decision to institute deportation proceedings involves the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and is one which neither the immigration judge nor this Board reviews. Once deportation proceedings are commenced, the immigration judge must order deportation if the evidence supports the charge.
That said, there is no method by which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can appeal the BIA’s assertion of this authority, short of certification to the attorney general.
There are no statistics on the number of cases that are currently administratively closed, but the number is likely at least an additional 100,000. Why that many? As the American Immigration Council (AIC) recently stated:
Administrative closure is an important tool for attorneys defending noncitizens in removal proceedings as it suspends adjudication of the proceeding, sometimes indefinitely. Administrative closure was used extensively as a form of prosecutorial discretion during the later years of the Obama Administration; in particular, [DHS] often joined in motions to administratively close cases that did not fall within its enforcement priorities. (Emphasis added).
With respect to the Obama administration’s use of administrative closure, beginning in 2011 DHS started setting “priorities” for which removal cases should be pursued. Specifically, it stated it would use “prosecutorial discretion” to enforce those priorities. As a June 2011 memorandum from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion Consistent with the Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities of the Agency for the Apprehension, Detention, and Removal of Aliens” (the Morton Memo) stated:
Because the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address, the agency must regularly exercise “prosecutorial discretion” if it is to prioritize its efforts. In basic terms, prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide to what degree to enforce the law against a particular individual. ICE, like any other law enforcement agency, has prosecutorial discretion and may exercise it in the ordinary course of enforcement. When ICE favorably exercises prosecutorial discretion, it essentially decides not to assert the full scope of the enforcement authority available to the agency in a given case.
The Morton memo contained a list of factors for ICE to consider when exercising “prosecutorial discretion”. It noted, however, that the list “is not exhaustive and no one factor is determinative. ICE officers, agents, and attorneys should always consider prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis.” As the ICE principal legal advisor stated in a memorandum (OPLA memo) describing the agency’s actions following the issuance of the Morton Memo: “In late 2011 and 2012, [ICE] attorneys performed a complete review of all cases pending on the [EOIR] court dockets, exercising prosecutorial discretion as appropriate.” That review included “administrative closure or dismissal of cases [ICE] determine[d were] not priorities.”
Thereafter, on November 20, 2014, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson issued a new memorandum on “Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants”, also known as the “Enforcement Memo”. The Enforcement Memo narrowed the removal cases that were priorities for DHS to the following:
Priority 1 (threats to national security, border security, and public safety)
Aliens described in this priority represent the highest priority to which enforcement resources should be directed:
(a) aliens engaged in or suspected of terrorism or espionage, or who otherwise pose a danger to national security;
(b) aliens apprehended at the border or ports of entry while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States;
(c) aliens convicted of an offense for which an element was active participation in a criminal street gang, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 52 l(a), or aliens not younger than 16 years of age who intentionally participated in an organized criminal gang to further the illegal activity of the gang;
(d) aliens convicted of an offense classified as a felony in the convicting jurisdiction, other than a state or local offense for which an essential element was the alien’s immigration status; and
(e) aliens convicted of an “aggravated felony,” as that term is defined in section 101(a)(43) of the [INA] at the time of the conviction.
The removal of these aliens must be prioritized unless they qualify for asylum or another form of relief under our laws, or unless, in the judgment of an ICE Field Office Director, CBP Sector Chief or CBP Director of Field Operations, there are compelling and exceptional factors that clearly indicate the alien is not a threat to national security, border security, or public safety and should not therefore be an enforcement priority.
Priority 2 (misdemeanants and new immigration violators)
Aliens described in this priority, who are also not described in Priority 1, represent the second-highest priority for apprehension and removal. Resources should be dedicated accordingly to the removal of the following:
(a) aliens convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses, other than minor traffic offenses or state or local offenses for which an essential element was the alien’s immigration status, provided the offenses arise out of three separate incidents;
(b) aliens convicted of a “significant misdemeanor,” which for these purposes is an offense of domestic violence; sexual abuse or exploitation; burglary; un lawful possession or use of a firearm; drug distribution or trafficking; or driving under the influence; or if not an offense listed above, one for which the individual was sentenced to time in custody of 90 days or more (the sentence must involve time to be served in custody, and does not include a suspended sentence);
(c) aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States after unlawfully entering or re-entering the United States and who cannot establish to the satisfaction of an immigration officer that they have been physically present in the United States continuously since January 1, 2014 ; and
(d) aliens who, in the judgment of an ICE Field Office Director, USCIS District Director, or USCIS Service Center Director, have significantly abused the visa or visa waiver programs.
These aliens should be removed unless they qualify for asylum or another form of relief under our laws or, unless, in the judgment of an ICE Field Office Director, CBP Sector Chief, CBP Director of Field Operations, USCIS District Director, or users Service Center Director, there are factors indicating the alien is not a threat to national security, border security, or public safety, and should not therefore be an enforcement priority.
Priority 3 (other immigration violations)
Priority 3 aliens are those who have been issued a final order of removal on or after January 1, 2014. Aliens described in this priority, who are not also described in Priority 1 or 2, represent the third and lowest priority for apprehension and removal. Resources should be dedicated accordingly to aliens in this priority. Priority 3 aliens should generally be removed unless they qualify for asylum or another form of relief under our laws or, unless, in the judgment of an immigration officer, the alien is not a threat to the integrity of the immigration system or there are factors suggesting the alien should not be an enforcement priority.
Notably absent from this list are single male aliens in removal proceedings who do not have the requisite criminal convictions to be “priorities” thereunder, which in my experience are the vast majority of respondents. Those cases likely ended up in the administrative closure pool. Where they likely remain to this day.
The good news is that the Trump administration has reversed the practice of administrative closure of cases that are not a priority, and has effectively eliminated prioritization as well, returning “prosecutorial discretion” to its proper role as a law-enforcement tool to be used on a case-by-case basis, not a blanket abdication of authority. AIC states that, “in fact, DHS is moving to recalendar cases that previously were administratively closed. Increasingly, attorneys will need to be prepared to file opposed motions for administrative closure and to oppose DHS motions to recalendar previously closed cases.”
While this is a positive development, at least in the short run the immigration court backlog will increase. As noted, I believe that there are at least 100,000 administratively closed cases, but there may be many more. Crucially, this means that, in fact, there may be more than 700,000 cases that are, or potentially could be, on the immigration courts’ dockets.
