Archive for the ‘Illegal Immigration’ Category

Dems Tried To Use COVID Relief Bill To Pass Amnesty For Illegal Aliens – The Federalist

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi denied House Democrats requests to include amnesty for illegal immigrants who served as essential workers during the pandemic in President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

President Biden proposed comprehensive immigration reform, which includes protections for frontline immigrant workers, separate from his Covid relief plan, and we expect that to therefore have separate consideration, a House Democratic leadership aide told Politico.

Pelosis brisk response follows a letter from 100 Democratic representatives urging the speaker and other House leaders to consider slipping in a faster path to citizenship for the more than 5 million Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status recipients, and undocumented immigrants who have helped keep Americans healthy and safe during the pandemic and are critical for our economic recovery.

As we continue to confront a public health and economic catastrophe that will soon have claimed the lives of more than 450,000 Americans [and] exacerbated deep racial, gender, and economic inequities, it is vital that we include protections for immigrant workers to secure the health of our nation and lay the foundation for a robust and dynamic economic recovery, the letter from the Hispanic Caucus read.

Just a month before the Hispanic Caucuss letter, hundreds of progressive immigration organizations issued a similar plea to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, asking the congressional leaders to offer permanent protection and a path to citizenship to all undocumented essential workers and delivering this provision to the presidents desk for his signature.

Last year, House Democrats recognized the important contributions and sacrifices of undocumented essential workers by including in both versions of the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act a provision offering temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to these individuals. The 117th Congress can and must do better, the letter stated.

Pelosis reluctance to include a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant essential workers, though, is not to be confused with a lack of eagerness to pass sweeping immigration reform. Since day one, the Biden administration, in conjunction with top congressional Democrats, has promised to reverse the Trump administrations actions and make it easier for undocumented migrants to take advantage of benefits reserved for U.S. citizens.

In addition to the new presidentssix executive orders concerning Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the addition of illegal immigrants in U.S. Census totals, immediate cessation of construction on the southern border wall, and the suggestion to replace the word alien with noncitizen in U.S. immigration laws, members in the blue chambers of Congress have begun to workshop legislation focused on carrying out Bidens goal to offer amnesty to approximately 11 million illegal immigrants.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Dems Tried To Use COVID Relief Bill To Pass Amnesty For Illegal Aliens - The Federalist

Two Lawmakers Look to End Lower Tuition for Illegal Immigrants – The Texan

Austin, TX, 35 seconds ago For a hopeful student from Lawton, Oklahoma, attending Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas about an hour away would cost about a thousand bucks more per year than the rate paid by non-citizens who graduated from high school in Texas. Two Republican lawmakers want to see that changed.

State Rep. Jeff Cason (R-Bedford) has filed a bill to end in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Freshman colleague Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) plans to help Cason carry the proposal, now beginning its fourth life after similar ideas languished in committees of the last three legislative sessions.

The bill would strike out a swath of current law that counts anybody who has graduated from high school after three years of living in Texas as an official resident in the eyes of public colleges. In its place, Cason has written an alternative method to determine resident status.

A person who is not authorized under federal statute to be present in the United States may not be considered a resident of this state for purposes of this title, the bill text reads.

Cason framed his legislation as a fiscal issue.

Texans tax dollars should not be used to reward and encourage illegal immigration to our state and nation. As Texas taxpayers are seeing their property taxes rise, they are rightfully even more frustrated to find out that the Texas legislature has seen fit to give handouts to illegal immigrants. This must end now, Cason stated in a press release.

The proposal has been a regular phoenix for the grassroots wing of the Texas GOP for years. Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R-Fredericksburg) filed the same bill in the last legislature, where it died under the committee chairmanship of Rep. Chris Turner (D-Arlington). Then-Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Frisco) filed it in 2017, following in the footsteps of Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) the session before. Sticklands bill died under a Republican committee chair: Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana).

The fates of these past attempts may spell doom for the bill this session in light of Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelans (R-Beaumont) promise to grant some committee chairs to Democrats. Cason and Slaton were the only two members of the Texas House to vote against granting him the speakership.

Last session in Higher Education, legislation prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving taxpayer subsidized tuition rates never received a vote, Slaton wrote in a December letter to Phelan asking him not to appoint any Democratic chairman to committees that would oversee GOP priorities.

Furthermore, Democrats were given unilateral control of the Public Health Committee which allowed them to kill legislation that would ban abortion when a childs heartbeat can be detected We hope you decide to reform how Republican Speakers have operated in the past when they have declared a significant portion of our Republican Partys agenda dead the day committee assignments come out.

Coincidentally, the bill may cross paths with a different conservative effort in Casons neighboring county aimed not at illegal immigration but at high tuition costs.

A conservative student group has sued the University of North Texas in an effort to change the same law in the Texas Education Code that the bill targets. Because the Education Code considers illegal aliens to be residents under the right conditions, the student group argues that Texas is offering them a benefit unavailable to American citizens from other states. The conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation has aided the case, pending in the Denton County court system, in the hopes that a win could lead to the end of out-of-state tuition in Texas.

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Two Lawmakers Look to End Lower Tuition for Illegal Immigrants - The Texan

Father whose son was killed by illegal immigrant takes on Biden immigration agenda – Yahoo News

The Week

The politics of COVID-19 spending legislation is complicated. President Biden and former President Donald Trump, who don't agree on much, both pushed to get $2,000 direct payments to most Americans this winter, and the Republican governor of West Virginia is backing Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package while his state's Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, favors a smaller package. The White House is privately meeting with a group of Senate Republicans who proposed a $618 billion alternative package, The Associated Press reports, even as Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reject that amount as insufficient and urge Democrats to go big and go quickly. Biden and his advisers "publicly tout the virtues of bipartisan collaboration," but "they aren't pollyannaish about it," Sam Stein reports at Politico. "They know there is no recent history to suggest any such collaboration is coming.," but "inside the White House there is still some surprise that Republicans currently aren't more interested in working with them on COVID relief. Not because they believe Republicans philosophically support the bill, but because there are clear political incentives for them to do so." Biden and his aides have noted repeatedly that just because the budget reconciliation process would allow Democrats to pass much of the $1.9 trillion package without Republican support, Republicans can still vote for the package. If Democrats go the budget reconciliation route, the 10 Senate Republicans can either "oppose the measure without being able to stop it or work to shape it, pledge to vote for it, and get credit for the goodies inside it," Stein reports. "Put another way: Republicans could vote for a bill that includes billions of dollars of help for states, massive amounts of cash for vaccine distribution, and $1,400 stimulus check for most Americans. Or they could oppose it on grounds that the price tag is too steep, or the minimum wage hike is too high, or the process too rushed." And if they do that, a senior administration official told Stein, "they'll get no credit" for those $1,400 checks. Democrats only have the party-line option because they unexpectedly won both Senate seats in a Georgia runoff election, Stein notes, and one political "lesson from that episode is, quite bluntly: It's better to be on the side of giving people money." Trump understood that. Time will tell what Senate Republicans will decide. More stories from theweek.comMarjorie Taylor Greene is getting exactly what she wantsDemocrats may only have one chance to stop America from becoming a one-party stateStephen Bannon, pardoned by Trump, may now be charged over the same scheme in New York

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Father whose son was killed by illegal immigrant takes on Biden immigration agenda - Yahoo News

More needs to be done on illegal immigration – Brunswick News

On their way to a 2000 Fathers Day weekend outing camping in the North Georgia mountains, the Inman family of Woodstock was separated forever when an illegal alien crashed his speeding car into theirs, stopped at red light. Forever 16, Dustin Inman was killed instantly. His mom, Kathy, has been in a wheelchair since the crash due to brain injuries resulting from the crash.

Aurelio Mayo Perez, an illegal alien, was booked into Mariettas Cobb County jail for no drivers license but released due to an edict from then-President Barack Obama to cut enforcement. Two years later, Mayo Perez was convicted of aggravated child molestation and rape. There are literally tens of thousands of these stories of fully preventable misery inflicted on Americans in their own country.

With the election of President Biden, we see another president severely reduce immigration enforcement. At least he is talking about illegal immigration.

I am a retired senior special agent, and was the assistant director, enforcement training, U.S. Immigration Service, at FLETC, and I am proud of my professional lifetime dedicated to immigration enforcement. I am outraged that here in Georgia, despite his detailed campaign promises on addressing sanctuary cities and to create a registry of criminal aliens, Gov. Brian Kemp has not so much as mentioned the topic since the 2018 election.

It seems Kemp has more in common with Joe Biden than pro-enforcement Georgia voters on the scourge of illegal immigration and the needless crime it generates. We wont be fooled again.

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More needs to be done on illegal immigration - Brunswick News

GOP lawmakers introduce bill to block funding to states that give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants – Home – WSFX

A coalition of Republican lawmakers this week introduced legislation that would block funding to sanctuary states that give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants the latest indicator of a significant gap between Republicans and the Biden administration on illegal immigration.

Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Joni Ernest, R-Iowa, Steve Sained, R-Mont., Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Mike Braun, R-Ind. Introduced the Stop Greenlighting Driver Licenses for Illegal Immigrants Act which would end some Justice Department funding to states that have sanctuary policies.

BIDEN IMMIGRATION EXECUTIVE ORDERS DELAYED, AS BIPARTISAN BILL BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE ON HILL

Meanwhile Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., was introducing companion legislation in the House.

No town in America is secure from criminals and terrorists if our borders arent policed and federal immigration laws arent fully enforced, Blackburn said in a statement. This country is governed by the rule of law. We should not reward illegal aliens with driver licenses when they fail to follow the proper legal process.

Sanctuary policies bar local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, particularly when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issue detainers which are requests that an illegal immigrant being released from custody be transferred for deportation.

While proponents say they encourage otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants to work with police, opponents note the number of criminals who have been released back onto the streets to re-offend as a result of such policies.

Connected to those sanctuary policies, some states such as New York have passed laws to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, claiming it makes roads safer and is a boost to the economy.

CBP STOPS BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION AFTER BIDEN EXECUTIVE ORDER

The bill seeks to withhold money from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which dispenses over $250 million a year to state and local criminal justice efforts. The Trump administration had attempted to deny that money to sanctuary cities, and faced a legal battle over the move.

The law would make states that issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants or refuse to share immigration enforcement information with the Department of Homeland Security ineligible for the money.

Even if the law was able to pass the House and Senate, it would be unlikely to be signed into law by President Biden, who has taken a radically different stance on immigration and illegal immigration to President Donald Trump and Republicans.

Biden has signed a number of executive orders reversing key Trump administration policies. He has halted construction of the border wall, reversed Trump-era travel bans and his administration has paused deportations for 100 days.

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Next week he is expected to sign a number of immigration-related orders, including one that would establish a task force to reunify families separated at the border, and another to increase refugee admissions.

Separately he has proposed legislation that would grant a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants although that bill also faces a difficult path to become law amid stiff Republican opposition.

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GOP lawmakers introduce bill to block funding to states that give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants - Home - WSFX