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OPINION:

Congress, as the American peoples elected representatives, should decide where taxpayer dollars go not boards populated by agenda-driven charities seeking to line the pockets of a vast network of open borders non-governmental organizations.

The latter is exactly what is happening with government funds at the Department of Homeland Security specifically, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. DHS is using FEMA to make an end-run around the traditional appropriations process, to facilitate the worst border crisis in American history.

In a recent bombshell report, the DHS Inspector General revealed that NGOs receiving money provided by the American Rescue Plan of 2021 through FEMAs Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) abused at least $7.4 million, more than half of an audited $12.9 million provided through the program. The organizations in question failed to adhere to the law, submit receipts, and keep the required documentation. The audit found that these NGOs spent money on those who crossed the border illegally and are not lawfully present in the United States.

Its also worth noting that the $7.4 million in misused funds reported by the audit is only a small portion of the funds doled out in 2021. The audit reviewed $12.9 million of $80.6 million that was awarded out of a total of $110 million. Its safe to say the total fraud is far worse.

In the last 2 years, nearly $1 billion has been appropriated to the EFSP, whose National Board distributes humanitarian funds to local social service organizations assisting individuals and families encountered by the Department of Homeland Security. The program received $150 million in FY22. Of the $785 million appropriated for the EFSP in the FY23 Omnibus, $350 million has been awarded thus far by the National Board comprised of representatives from the American Red Cross, United Way Worldwide, and four religious charitable organizations.

The recent uncovering of funding abuse is not a standalone event but the latest example in a pattern of the federal government funneling exorbitant amounts of money to NGOs operating at the border with little to no accountability.

This practice is continually becoming more widespread at DHS, and the agency is always looking to expand it in other arenas. For example, the recently created Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP), which is overseen by Church World Service, an NGO that has advocated for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, provides taxpayer-funded aid to illegal aliens facing deportation.

This controversial pilot program, which the Biden administration is seeking to expand with additional funding from Congress, makes funds available to local governments and/or nonprofits to provide case management to noncitizens in immigration removal proceedings who affirmatively volunteer to participate in the program. CMPP funds are awarded to eligible sub-recipients through the Board. The Board is charged with awarding funds to eligible local governments and nonprofit organizations and managing the pilot program.

The plethora of funding allotted to DHS grant programs operated by prominent charities, NGOs, and sub-recipients cannot be overstated.

In the FEMA case, the DHS Inspector Generals recommendations for the agency to merely resolve the $7.4 million in questioned costs and ensure the EFSP National Board implements oversight measures in the future should raise red flags for every member of Congress.

Such measures are useless against the backdrop of the current border crisis. They do nothing to address the root of the problem. The solution to eliminating humanitarian relief fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars is to pass meaningful legislation securing the border and to defund the NGOs doing the Biden administrations dirty work of illegal alien processing, human smuggling, and incentivizing mass migration.

Lets be clear: Congress is supposed to control the purse strings. Appropriators must not fall into the trap of process reforms and instead need to eliminate the entire existence of these corrupt funding streams.

Its time for those on Capitol Hill to demand accountability from DHS and defund these open-borders operations, instead of abdicating their responsibility to use American taxpayer dollars responsibly and lawfully.

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Congress should stop funding the Biden administration's open-borders - Washington Times

Theres an absence of prosecution, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. Theres also an absence of demonstrated chilling effect.

But the courts liberal justices said the concerns sounded far from hypothetical. Justice Sonia Sotomayor posited a potential prosecution of a child for encouraging a grandmother in the U.S. to stay while knowing she was not here legally.

The grandmother tells her son shes worried about the burden shes putting on the family and the son says, Abuelita, you are never a burden to us. If you want to live here and continue living here with us, your grandchildren would love having you. Can you prosecute this?

I think not, Justice Department attorney Brian Fletcher said, defending the statute. I think its very hard.

Stop qualifying with think, Sotomayor interjected. Because the minute you start qualifying with think, then youre rendering asunder the First Amendment.

The case the justices heard Monday, arising from California man Helaman Hansens conviction in an adult-adoption immigration fraud scheme, is a difficult one for the Biden administration and arises at an awkward time for the White House.

The Justice Departments defense of the law puts them at odds with immigrant-rights groups who say they fear prosecution under the statute.

The showdown also comes amid growing anger by immigrant-rights activists over several recent policy moves. The administration wants to make it harder for migrants to claim asylum at the border and Biden is weighing a return to a policy of large-scale detention of immigrant families who arrive at the border without permission to enter the U.S.

Fletcher did not address those political issues, but he did urge the justices to adopt a narrow reading of the statute and clarify that its seemingly broad language covers only speech that amounts to soliciting or aiding and abetting someone to remain in the country illegally.

However, the lawyer representing Hansen, Esha Bhandari, said Fletchers proposed interpretation is an attempt to rewrite the statute.

That is Congress job, she said, appealing to conservative justices who favor literal readings of legal texts.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed a similar concern, noting that Congress removed language about aiding and abetting seven decades ago.

I guess Im worried about an active, conscious effort on Congress part to exclude certain words that I now hear you wanting us to read back into this statute, Jackson said.

Rather than adopting the governments technical interpretation of the statute, Bhandari said, the justices should uphold a lower courts ruling that declared the statute unconstitutional.

Early in the argument, conservative members of the court like Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch seemed to question the laws scope.

Kavanaugh said charitable groups that provide food, water and shelter to immigrants seemed to have sincere worries about being prosecuted under a broad reading of the law.

Gorsuch initially expressed concern about the Justice Departments attempt to reinterpret the laws language, but he later seemed even more troubled by the notion of allowing Hansen to use his criminal case to raise arguments about how the law could affect others.

It is an extraordinary thing for this court to grant third-party standing, which is effectively what were being asked to do here, Gorsuch said.

But Jackson responded that courts entertain such overbreadth arguments because it can be difficult to know who or how many people are limiting their activities because of fears of prosecution.

Is it possible to really figure out how many people have been chilled? she asked. We dont know how many other people would have engaged in that kind of speech and action if it werent for this law.

Justice Samuel Alito pointed to one unusual aspect of the statute: It criminalizes encouraging someone to remain in the U.S. illegally, but staying in the country without permission is not usually a crime. Its typically a civil violation dealt with in immigration court.

Fletcher said court precedents permit making it a crime to encourage someone to violate a law punishable only by a civil penalty. He argued Congress had good reason to do so because it was worried about people taking advantage of undocumented migrants.

However, Bhandari said the government runs afoul of the First Amendment anytime it seeks to impose more severe punishment for encouraging an act than for the underlying act itself.

She also noted that some immigrants who are currently in the U.S. illegally are pursuing pathways Congress has created for them to obtain legal status, so it would be illogical to punish those who encourage such individuals to remain.

Hansens case is the second time in the past few years that the Supreme Court has considered possible First Amendment problems with the federal law against encouraging or inducing immigrants to stay in the U.S. illegally.

In 2020, the justices heard arguments in another case from California where the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the same law violated free-speech rights. However, the Supreme Court ultimately punted on the central issue, instead faulting the appeals court for raising the First Amendment question without it being raised by either the government or the defense.

The maximum penalty for violating the law can reach 10 years in prison if a defendant intended to benefit financially from an immigrant staying in the U.S. illegally.

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Justices poised to uphold federal ban on encouraging illegal immigration - POLITICO

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a First Amendment challenge to an unusual federal law that makes it a crime to encourage unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States.

Read literally, several justices suggested, the law would chill constitutionally protected speech.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked about a grandmother living in the United States without authorization. The grandmother tells her son shes worried about the burden shes putting on the family, the justice said. And the son says: Abuelita, you are never a burden to us. If you want to continue living here with us, your grandchildren love having you.

Justice Sotomayor asked whether the government could prosecute the son.

Brian H. Fletcher, a lawyer for the federal government defending the law, did not give a definitive answer. I think not, he said.

That frustrated Justice Sotomayor. Stop qualifying with think, because the minute you start qualifying with think, then youre rendering asunder the First Amendment, she said. People have to know what they can talk about.

Justice Elena Kagan said it was not hard to imagine violations of the law based on the ordinary meaning of the word encourage.

What happens to all the cases where it could be a lawyer, it could be a doctor, it could be a neighbor, it could be a friend, it could be a teacher, it could be anybody says to a noncitizen, I really think you should stay? she asked.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wondered about charitable organizations. Theres still going to be a chill or a threat of prosecution for them for providing food and shelter and aid and recommending people for scholarships, he said.

Mr. Fletcher said the justice was describing conduct rather than speech. Justice Kavanaugh responded that the charitable aid might be accompanied by a statement like, I want you to stay here and Im going to help you.

Even as they posed questions about hypothetical prosecutions, the justices appeared to have little sympathy for the defendant in the case before them, Helaman Hansen, who was convicted of violating the law, along with mail and wire fraud, for taking large fees to help undocumented immigrants obtain citizenship through adult adoption. It was a scam.

It is a little awkward, though, that this case comes up in a posture with Mr. Hansen, who I dont think anybody could say hes been chilled from speaking, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. I mean, hes had no problem soliciting people here in this country and defrauding them to the tune of lots and lots of money.

Mr. Fletcher said the key word in the law encourages was a term of art that required complicity in a crime and did not apply to casual exchanges.

Esha Bhandari, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Hansen, said that was at odds with ordinary usage. The government concedes that the statute is unconstitutional under its plain meaning, she said.

Mr. Fletcher said that Mr. Hansens case, involving outright fraud, was the typical one and that prosecutions of charities and grandmothers were far-fetched.

Justice Sotomayor countered that there was at least one questionable prosecution under the law, citing the 2012 conviction of a Massachusetts woman, Lorraine Henderson, for hiring an unauthorized immigrant to clean her home and offering general advice about immigration law.

In that case, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, of the Federal District Court in Boston, wrote that the plain and unadorned language of the law can be read to cast a wide net over those who interact with illegal aliens by offering employment.

In the case before the justices, United States v. Hansen, No. 22-179, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Mr. Hansens fraud convictions, which resulted in 20-year prison sentences. But it reversed his convictions under the law for encouraging immigrants to overstay their visas, which would have come with 10-year sentences to be served at the same time as the sentences for fraud.

The law, Judge Ronald M. Gould wrote for the panel, was unconstitutional. Under it, he wrote, many commonplace statements and actions could be construed as encouraging or inducing an undocumented immigrant to come to or reside in the United States. All it would take to turn an utterance into a felony, he wrote, was knowingly telling an undocumented immigrant, I encourage you to reside in the United States.

Last year, a divided three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit, in Denver, joined the Ninth Circuit in striking down the law, saying that it was surely violated scores of times every day.

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Supreme Court Hears a Free Speech Challenge to an Immigration Law - The New York Times

WASHINGTON

Is it a crime or free speech for someone to encourage immigrants to come to this country illegally, or remain here after their visas have expired?

The Supreme Court grappled with that question Monday in a clash between immigration law and the 1st Amendment.

It arose in the case of Sacramento man who charged immigrants $500 to $10,000 and falsely promised he could help them obtain U.S. citizenship. More than 470 immigrants paid for the bad advice from Helaman Hansen, and he was convicted of 15 counts of fraud as well as two counts of encouraging two immigrants to overstay their visas.

That latter charge won him a partial acquittal before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and sent his case to the high court.

Since 1952, federal law has made it a crime to encourage or induce an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that doing so would be illegal.

Pointing to those broad words, the 9th Circuit ruled that the provision violated the 1st Amendment because it could be read to make it a crime for family members or friends to encourage a person to come to this country or to remain here illegally.

We apply the overbreadth doctrine so that legitimate speech relating to immigration law shall not be chilled and foreclosed, the San Francisco-based appeals court said. The 15 fraud counts against the defendant were upheld along with a 20-year prison term.

The justices agreed to hear the governments defense of the encourage provision of the law, and most of them sounded skeptical of the free-speech claim, at least in this case.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said it was odd to argue that Hansens right to free speech was violated.

I dont think anybody could say hes been chilled from speaking. Hes had no problem soliciting people here in this country and defrauding them to the tune of lots and lots of money, Gorsuch said, adding this law has been on the books for 50 years.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed, noting there is no record of the law being used to prosecute otherwise innocent people for encouraging immigrants to stay in this country.

The statutes been on the books for a long time. Theres an absence of prosecutions. There is also an absence of demonstrated chilling effect, she said.

But the courts liberals said they saw a potential free-speech problem.

Were criminalizing words related to immigration, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. So why should we uphold a statute that criminalizes words and makes the punishment five years, which is rather significant?

Justice Elena Kagan said the laws wording is so broad that it could threaten everyday conversations. What if a lawyer, doctor or neighbor advises someone they should stay in this country even if they are undocumented, she asked.

A huge number of such communications are taking place every day, because for every person whos in this country unlawfully, there are probably some number of people who want that person to stay, family members, you know, whatever, she told Deputy Solicitor Gen. Brian Fletcher. They say, I really think you should stay. What happens?

He replied the government has not and will not prosecute people for such family or friendly conversations. He argued the government takes a narrow view of the words encourage or induce.

Everyone agrees that in criminal law, the terms encourage and induce are terms of art that can refer narrowly to soliciting or aiding and abetting unlawful activity, he said. They do not extend to abstract or general comments about immigration, he said. In prosecutions, the government must show the defendant intended to violate the law.

If someone is prosecuted for giving friendly advice about immigration, the defendant should invoke the 1st Amendment as a defense, he said.

He urged the court not to strike down the encourage or induce provision based on absurd hypotheticals or because of the fear it could be potentially misused in future cases.

Several of the justices also noted that Hansen may be entitled to win a retrial for part of his case because the jury instructions were flawed.

The case was United States vs. Hansen, and a written opinion is expected by late June.

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Is it a crime to 'encourage' illegal immigration? - Los Angeles Times

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that made it a crime to encourage illegal immigration, signaling agreement with President Joe Biden's administration that the measure does not violate constitutional free speech protections.

The justices heard arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's decision in a case from California to strike down the decades-old provision, part of a larger immigration statute, as overly broad because it may criminalize legitimate speech protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The case involves a man named Helaman Hansen who deceived immigrants through a phony "adult adoption" program and was convicted in 2017 of violating that law and others.

In invalidating the law, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Hansen's conviction for violating the provision, which bars inducing or encouraging noncitizens "to come to, enter or reside" in the United States illegally, including for financial gain. The 9th Circuit upheld Hansen's convictions on mail and wire fraud charges.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its conservative justices appeared to agree with Biden's administration that the law does not cover certain hypothetical scenarios that concerned the 9th Circuit, such as simply encouraging immigrants in the country illegally to remain in the United States or advising them about available social services.

The law targets only facilitating or soliciting unlawful conduct, not "general advocacy," the administration argued.

Federal prosecutors accused Hansen of deceiving immigrants in the United States illegally by promising them between 2012 and 2016 that they could gain American citizenship through an "adult adoption" program operated by his Sacramento-based business, Americans Helping America Chamber of Commerce.

Story continues

The prosecution said Hansen persuaded at least 471 people to join his program, charging each of them up to $10,000 even though he "knew that the adult adoptions that he touted would not lead to U.S. citizenship." Hansen and his program collected more than $1.8 million through the scheme, authorities said.

"He's victimized these people, and it may be a poster child for a situation in which the underlying offense might be modest but you might want to criminalize it because he's taking advantage of very vulnerable people," conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch told Esha Bhandari, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union representing Hansen.

Hansen was sentenced to 20 years behind bars but is out of prison while his appeal is pending.

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett voiced doubts about concerns raised by various free speech, libertarian and press advocacy groups that the law threatens attorneys, doctors, scholars and anyone else who speaks in support of immigration.

"The statute's been on the books for a long time and there's an absence of prosecutions. There's also an absence of demonstrated chilling effect," Barrett said.

The court's liberal justices appeared to agree with the 9th Circuit's ruling. Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Justice Department lawyer Brian Fletcher that the administration's narrow view of the law's real-life applications means it wants the high court to "rewrite the statute."

"We're criminalizing words related to immigration," Sotomayor told Fletcher.

The 9th Circuit decision applies in the group of western states over which it has jurisdiction including Arizona and California, which border Mexico. The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction of a group of other states, also ruled against the law in a separate case.

Biden's administration urged the justices to restore an "important tool for combating activities that exacerbate unlawful immigration," particularly because of the high volume of immigration-related litigation and criminal prosecutions that occur in the states covered by the 9th Circuit.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

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US Supreme Court inclined to allow law against encouraging illegal immigration - Yahoo News