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Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest

By Todd Starnes

Published July 02, 2014

FoxNews.com

 

A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.
In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans. I have agreed to not to disclose their identities because they fear retaliation and prosecution.

My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.

“There were several of us who wanted to talk about the camps, but the agents made it clear we would be arrested,” a psychiatric counselor told me. “We were under orders not to say anything.”
The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the Baptist Family & Children’s Services, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.
The sources say security forces called themselves the “Brown Shirts.”
“It was a very submissive atmosphere,” the counselor said. “Once you stepped onto the grounds, you abided by their laws – the Brown Shirt laws.”
She said the workers were stripped of their cellphones and other communication devices. Anyone caught with a phone was immediately fired.
“Everyone was paranoid,” she said. “The children had more rights than the workers.”
She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.
“It was not a good atmosphere in terms of health,” she said. “I would be talking to children and lice would just be climbing down their hair.”
A former nurse at the camp told me she was horrified by what she saw.
“We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness – all this stuff coming into the country,” she said. “We were very concerned at one point about strep going around the base.”
Both the counselor and the nurse said their superiors tried to cover up the extent of the illnesses.
“When they found out the kids had scabies, the charge nurse was adamant – ‘Don’t mention that. Don’t say scabies,’” the nurse recounted. “But everybody knew they had scabies. Some of the workers were very concerned about touching things and picking things up. They asked if they should be concerned, but they were told don’t worry about it.”
The nurse said the lice issue was epidemic – but everything was kept “hush-hush.”
“You could see the bugs crawling through their hair,” she said. “After we would rinse out their hair, the sink would be loaded with black bugs.”
The nurse told me she became especially alarmed because their files indicated the children had been transported to Lackland on domestic charter buses and airplanes.
“That’s what alerted me,” she said. “Oh, my God. They’re flying these kids around. Nobody knows that these children have scabies and lice. To tell you the truth, there’s no way to control it.”
I don't mean to upset anyone's Independence Day vacation plans, but were these kids transported to the camps before or after they were deloused? Anyone who flies the friendly skies could be facing a public health concern.
The counselor told me the refugee camp resembled a giant emergency room – off limits to the public.
“They did not want the community to know,” she said. “I initially spoke out at Lackland because I had a concern the children’s mental health care was not being taken care of.”
She said the breaking point came when camp officials refused to hospitalize several children who were suicidal.
“I made a recommendation that a child needed to be sent to a psychiatric unit,” the counselor told me. “He was reaching psychosis. He was suicidal. Instead of treating him, they sent him off to a family in the United States.”
She said she filed a Child Protective Services report and quit her job.
“I didn’t want to lose my license if this kid committed suicide,” she told me. “I was done.”
The counselor kept a detailed journal about what happened during her tenure at the facility.
“When people read that journal they are going to be astonished,” she said. ‘I don’t think they will believe what is going on in America.”
So it was not a great surprise, she said, when she received a call from federal agents demanding that she return to the military base and hand over her journal.
She said she declined to do so.
“I didn’t go back to Lackland,” she said.
Both workers told me while they have no regrets, they want to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“They’re going to crush the system,” the nurse told me. “We can’t sustain this. They are overwhelming the system and I think it’s a travesty.”
Baptist Family & Childen’s Services spokeswoman Krista Piferrer tells me the agency takes “any allegation of malfeasance or inappropriate care of a child very seriously.”
“There are a number of checks and balances to ensure children are receiving appropriate and adequate mental health care,” she said.
Piferrer said the clinicians are supervised by a federal field specialist from HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. She also said BFCS have 58 medical professionals serving at Lackland.
“Every illness, whether it is a headache or something more serious, is recorded in a child’s electronic medical record and posted on WebEOC – a real-time, web-based platform that is visible to not only BFCS but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.
As for those brown shirts, the BFCS said they are “incident management team personnel” – who happen to wear tan shirts.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“This is just the beginning,” one source told me. "It is a long-term financial responsibility.”
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is "God Less America”

Gov. Brown: Growth of Latino power paving way for policy changes

http://www.latimes.com/

California Gov. Jerry Brown said the growth of Latino power in California has paved the way for policy shifts. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

Patrick McGreevy contact the reporter

Jerry BrownPoliticsGovernmentPublic Officials

Growing power of Latinos in California is paving way for policy changes, Gov. Brown says

Two decades after California voters approved Proposition 187, barring public services to those in the country illegally, Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday that the political tide has turned in the state with a growing wave of Latino voters demanding more tolerant policy from Sacramento.

The power you represent is growing and it is growing in very important ways. - Gov. Jerry Brown

Speaking to hundreds of Latino elected officials from throughout the country holding a conference in San Diego, Brown said the shift in power has made possible public support for changes including his signing of legislation providing driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally and providing them with scholarships and the right to practice law.
“The power you represent is growing and it is growing in very important ways,” Brown told the members of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort.
Brown went on to credit “the sheer power of the Latino community as it is felt in the towns and cities and counties up and down this state. That is the tide that is turning the political feelings and philosophy of state government.”

 

The governor cited the history of various groups controlling California as a lesson.
“The Mexicans threw out the Spanish around 1815, and then, of course, the gringos threw out the Mexicans in 1846, or 1848,” Brown said. “But the point is you never keep control forever. There’s always new waves coming so you’ve got to stay ahead of the wave."
"That’s what we call Brown power," he joked with a play on his name.
Brown also drew applause when he touted a new school-funding formula approved for the state two years ago.

• “But the point is you never keep control forever. There’s always new waves coming so you’ve got to stay ahead of the wave." SPOKEN AS THE TRUE PROGRESSIVE RACIST HE IS. IS it brown people he is referring to? And is it white power he is meekly surrendering? Why that is mighty white of you...
  Attilashrugs1
  at 10:46 AM July 01, 2014

“The school district gets more money based on the number of non-English-speaking families that have their children in our schools,” Brown said. “Because it’s not really justice to treat unequals equally. You have to do more to be able to create that opportunity and that pathway for those families that are not having the same skill of speaking English as others.”
State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), who introduced Brown, praised the governor for his support of the growing number of Latino elected officials.
“It’s true we keep coming, and we have in Gov. Brown someone who embraces us when we keep coming,” Padilla told the audience.

Undocumented LA County Parents On Pace To Receive $650M In Welfare Benefits

September 16, 2013 2:50 PM
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday.
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children.
Approximately $54 million in welfare payments are issued each month, consisting of nearly $20 million in CalWORKs and $34 million in food stamp issuances, according to the data.
An estimated 100,000 children of 60,000 undocumented parents receive aid in Los Angeles County, according to Antonovich, who said this year’s projections — up about $1 million from the nearly $53 million in total benefits issued in July 2012 — underscore the economic impact of the nation’s immigration debate.
“When you add the $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year,” Antonovich said in a statement. “These costs do not even include the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually for education.”

UCLA Student Government Passes Resolution Blasting 'Racially Derogatory' Term 'Illegal Immigrant'

by Ben Shapiro 3 Sep 2013, 8:05 AM PDT 179 post a comment

UCLA’s undergraduate student government passed a resolution unanimously last week to criticize any use of the term “illegal immigrant” to describe illegal immigrants. Many students are upset with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whom they feel is too harsh on illegal immigration. The resolution, entitled “Drop the I-Word,” stated:

“[W]e are aware that certain racially derogatory language used in media, political discourse and other institutional settings has historically bolstered the foundation for racially harmful actions, including racial profiling practices, punitive policies targeting socially marginalized groups, hate crimes and violence …the use of the term illegals (the ‘I-word’) and its derivatives when referring to people dehumanizes and divides communities, contributing to punitive and discriminatory actions aimed primarily at immigrants and communities of color…undocumented students at UCLA and across the UC have expressed their concerns and fear with the recent appointment of Janet Napolitano, former US Secretary of Homeland Security, as the new University of California President…”

How exactly the term “illegal immigrant” is “racially derogatory” is not explained in the resolution, given the fact that a huge minority of illegal immigrants have merely overstayed their visas, and that illegal immigrants come from a huge variety of countries. It is also unclear how “illegal immigrant” being utilized creates the impetus for violence and hate crimes.


Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

Black helicopter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A black MH-6 Little Bird helicopter

 

Black helicopters is a term which became popular in the United States militia movement and associated political groups in the 1990s as a symbol and warning sign of an alleged conspiratorial military takeover of the United States, though it has also been associated with men in black and similar conspiracies.^[1] Rumors circulated that, for instance, the United Nations patrolled the US with unmarked black helicopters, or that federal agents used black helicopters to enforce wildlife laws. The concept springs from the basic truth that many government agencies and corporations do use helicopters, and that some of these helicopters are dark-colored or black. For instance, dark-colored military helicopters were deployed in the standoff at Ruby Ridge.^[2]
Metonymic use of the phrase black helicopters sometimes occurs in reference to conspiracy theories in general.

Contents

• 1 Overview
• 2 Possible explanations
• 3 Pejorative use
• 4 In popular culture
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Overview

Armed United States Marshals Service officers stand guard around a black helicopter (in this case, a UH-60 Blackhawk)

 

Stories of black helicopters first appeared in the 1970s,^[3] and were linked to reports of cattle mutilation.^[4] It is possible that the idea originated in Hal Lindsey's book The Late, Great Planet Earth, published in 1970 and popular among conspiracy theorists. Lindsey theorized that the locust-like creatures referenced in the Book of Revelation were actually helicopters, which John had never seen and thus did not know how to describe.^[5] The issue was first popularized in the early 1990s by Mark Koernke,^{[citation needed]} also known as "Mark from Michigan", in appearances on Tom Valentine's radio show and in public speeches which were widely circulated on videocassette^{[citation needed]}, and shortly thereafter by Linda Thompson in her film America Under Siege. In Alex Jones' film Police State 2000 unmarked black helicopters are shown flying low in surprise urban warfare training missions with Delta Force operators and foreign troops.^{[citation needed]}
Jim Keith wrote two books on the subject: Black Helicopters Over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order (1995), and Black Helicopters II : The End Game Strategy (1998).^{[citation needed]}
Media attention to black helicopters increased in February 1995, when first-term Republican northern Idaho Representative Helen Chenoweth charged that armed federal agents were landing black helicopters on Idaho ranchers' property to enforce the Endangered Species Act. "I have never seen them," Chenoweth said in an interview in The New York Times. "But enough people in my district have become concerned that I can't just ignore it. We do have some proof."^[6] Chenoweth made the charges at a press conference without ever consulting with the Department of the Interior.^{[citation needed]}
The black helicopters theory resonates well with the belief held by some in the militia movement that troops from the United Nations might invade the United States. The John Birch Society published an article in The New American detailing how the existence of the covert aircraft was mostly the product of possible visual errors and a tendency towards overboard caution.^[7]

Possible explanations

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters flying in Iraq

The following explanations have been provided by various organizations and experts, including government agencies, regarding the alleged black helicopters:

• At least some sightings of black helicopters are very likely to have been helicopters on exercises and/or missions. Some of them are flown by units of the Army National Guard and are actually black (not dark olive or chocolate brown) when seen in ordinary light. U.S. Customs and Border Protection operates a dozen black-and-gold UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.^[8] The American military does in fact operate helicopters painted in black or dark colors, particularly the Pave Low which was optimized for long-range stealthy insertion and extraction of personnel, including combat search and rescue.

• U.S. Army and National Guard helicopters painted olive drab will appear to be black in the reddish light of dawn or dusk, or under other low light conditions during the day when their shadow side is viewed against the sky with the naked eye. The Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment use helicopters primarily painted black.

• In the early 1970s, the CIA operated a black Hughes 500P helicopter in Vietnam, in order to place phone taps.^[9] Test flights began at Culver City, California, in 1971.^[10] It was noted for its low noise emission, and given the nickname "The Quiet One." After the mission assigned to it had been completed, the helicopter was returned to California and had most of the special features stripped out by mechanics. It was transferred to the ownership of the Pacific Corporation of Washington, D.C.^[11]

• The U.S. Army regularly conducts both exercises and operational missions in American airspace. Some of these exercises have taken place in densely populated cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago^[12] and Washington, D.C. Most operational missions are tasked in narcotics interdiction in the American Southwest and out of Florida and Puerto Rico. By extensive use of IR, Radar, GPS and night vision devices, as well as other classified means, they are able to fly in zero visibility conditions with no running lights^{[citation needed]}. At this high intensity level of operation, training is necessarily almost as dangerous to pilots, other air traffic, and the public as actual combat. Frequent practice is necessary to retain proficiency. Frequent practice results in frequent sightings by concerned members of the public.

The US Customs and Border Protection organization uses black UH-60 Sikorsky helicopters

• Many defense contractors and helicopter manufacturers also conduct public flight testing of aircraft and components or fly aircraft in public view to test ranges or other corporate airfields for training or demonstrations. Occasionally, some of these aircraft will be made for military clients and are painted in black or dark colors.

• In the UK, police helicopters are required by the CAA to be marked in a standard 'high conspicuosity' paint scheme, to make them more visible and avoid the possibility of air proximity hazards with other low flying aircraft. This paint scheme, also used by UK military training helicopters, requires them to be black on the sides and underneath, and yellow on top. When seen from the ground, these helicopters are black but this is to make them more visible against the sky as a safety feature (and yellow against the ground when seen from above).

• Many US law enforcement agencies use black helicopters for surveillance, transportation, and patrol. Some of the agencies that use them are U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Pejorative use

The term has also been used to ridicule other conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists. For instance, a Slate article on basketball refereeing, said: "In the wake of this scandal, every game will be in question, and not only by fans disposed to seeing black helicopters outside the arena."^[13] Vice President Joe Biden had recourse to the term in a speech attacking the National Rifle Association during the 2013 White House campaign for background checks on all gun purchasers, saying, "The black helicopter crowd is really upset. It's kind of scary, man." 14

In popular culture

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2013)

In the 1978 conspiracy thriller Capricorn One, black helicopters pursue the escaped astronauts who will expose the faked Mars landing. In the 2000 video game Deus Ex, a black helicopter is the player's primary form of transportation for much of the game.
In the 1997 movie Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson as a New York City cabdriver, out of whose many conspiracy theories one turns out to be true and he's chased by an obscure US Intelligence Agency; after one of his purchases of The Catcher in the Rye, they pursue him using black helicopters. The 1983 movie Blue Thunder is a classical example of use of a black helicopter created specially for surveillance and spying on citizens.
Canadian singer Matthew Good has a song called "Black Helicopter" on his 2007 album Hospital Music. Underground Hip Hop group Non Phixion have a track on their 2002 album release The Future Is Now called "Black Helicopters".
In the 2007 film Transformers, the government agency Sector 7 used black helicopters to hunt down the robotic Autobots.

See also

• Black Volga

Germany Fights Population Drop

Djamila Grossman for The New York Times

Germany is looking for ways to encourage working mothers. This 24-hour kindergarten, for example, caters to parents who work overnight. More Photos »

By SUZANNE DALEY and NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: August 13, 2013 

SONNEBERG, Germany — At first glance, this town in central Germany, with rows of large houses built when it was a thriving center of toy manufacturing, looks tidy and prosperous. But Heiko Voigt, the deputy mayor here, can point out dozens of vacant homes that he doubts will ever be sold.

The reality is that the German population is shrinking and towns like this one are working hard to hide the emptiness. Mr. Voigt has already supervised the demolition of 60 houses and 12 apartment blocs, strategically injecting grassy patches into once-dense complexes.

“We are trying to keep the town looking good,” he said.

There is perhaps nowhere better than the German countryside to see the dawning impact of Europe’s plunge in fertility rates over the decades, a problem that has frightening implications for the economy and the psyche of the Continent. In some areas, there are now abundant overgrown yards, boarded-up windows and concerns about sewage systems too empty to work properly. The work force is rapidly graying, and assembly lines are being redesigned to minimize bending and lifting.

In its most recent census, Germany discovered it had lost 1.5 million inhabitants. By 2060, experts say, the country could shrink by an additional 19 percent, to about 66 million.

Demographers say a similar future awaits other European countries, and the issue grows more pressing every day as Europe’s seemingly endless economic troubles accelerate the decline. But bogged down with failed banks and dwindling budgets, few are in any position to do anything about it.

Germany, however, an island of prosperity, is spending heavily to find ways out of the doom-and-gloom predictions, and it would seem ideally placed to show the Continent the way. So far, though, even while spending $265 billion a year on family subsidies, Germany has proved only how hard it can be. That is in part because the solution lies in remaking values, customs and attitudes in a country that has a troubled history with accepting immigrants and where working women with children are still tagged with the label “raven mothers,” implying neglectfulness.

If Germany is to avoid a major labor shortage, experts say, it will have to find ways to keep older workers in their jobs, after decades of pushing them toward early retirement, and it will have to attract immigrants and make them feel welcome enough to make a life here. It will also need to get more women into the work force while at the same time encouraging them to have more children, a difficult change for a country that has long glorified stay-at-home mothers.

There is little doubt about the urgency of the crisis for Europe. Several recent studies show that historically high unemployment rates — in excess of 50 percent among youths — in countries like Greece, Italy and Spain are further discouraging young people from having children. According to the European Union, the total number of live births in 31 European countries fell by 3.5 percent, to 5.4 million from 5.6 million, between 2008 and 2011. In 1960 about 7.5 million children were born in 27 European countries.

Even before those trends were detected, many countries in Europe were expected to shrink by 2060; some, like Latvia and Bulgaria, even more than Germany. And the proportion of elderly will become burdensome. There are about four workers for every pensioner in the European Union. By 2060, the average will drop to two, according to the European Union’s 2012 report on aging.

Some experts worry that Germany has already waited too long to tackle the issue. But others say that is too pessimistic. In any case, in Germany the issue is front and center now.

Large families began to go out of fashion in what was then West Germany in the 1970s, when the country prospered and the fertility rate began dropping to about 1.4 children per woman and then pretty much stayed there, far below the rate of 2.1 children that keeps a population stable. Other countries followed, but not all. There is a band of fertility in Europe, stretching from France to Britain and the Scandinavian countries, helped along by immigrants and social services that support working women.

Raising fertility levels in Germany has not proved easy. Critics say the country has accomplished very little in throwing money at families in a system of benefits and tax breaks that includes allowances for children and stay-at-home mothers, and a tax break for married couples. 

  Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs. They say recent data show that growth in fertility is more likely to come from them.

“If you look closely at the numbers, what you see is the higher the gender equality, the higher the birthrate,” said Reiner Klingholz of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.

But undoing years of subsidies for traditional households is difficult. “Touching those is political suicide,” said Michaela Kreyenfeld of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.

In the meantime, mothers trying to work here face obstacles that discourage large families. Though Germany recently enacted a law guaranteeing day care for all children over 12 months, compared with 3 years and older before, experts say there is still a shortage of affordable facilities. Further, many schools let out at noon, and there are few after-school programs.

Melanie Vogel, 39, of Bonn, found that trying to blend work and motherhood was so lonely, dispiriting and expensive that she decided to have one child. None of her friends worked full time, her mother-in-law made clear she disapproved, and so did clients in the job fair company she runs with her husband.

“Before my son was born, I was Melanie, a working businesswoman,” Mrs. Vogel said. “But after my son was born, to a lot of people, I was just a mother.”

Many working mothers find themselves quickly pushed into poorly paid “mini” jobs — perhaps 17 hours a week for about $600 a month. More than four million working women in Germany, about a quarter of the female work force, hold such jobs.

Another way to adjust to the population decline is to get older workers to postpone retirement. The German government is raising the retirement age incrementally to 67 from 65, and companies have moved fast to adapt. The share of people ages 55 to 64 in the work force had risen to 61.5 percent in 2012, from 38.9 percent in 2002.

Volkswagen has redesigned its assembly line to ease the bending and overhead work that put excessive strain on workers’ bodies. About three years ago, they began using reclining swivel seats that provide back support even for hard-to-reach spots in the automobiles they are building, and the installation of heavy parts like wheels and front ends is now often fully automated.

Other companies are offering flexible hours to appeal to older workers. Hans Driescher, a physicist trained in the former East, is 74 and still on the job at the German Aerospace Center almost a decade after he reached the mandatory retirement age. He started out working 55 hours a month, but has now cut down to 24. He spends the summer in his garden and works the rest of the year.

With high unemployment rates across most of Southern and Eastern Europe, Germany is in a good position to increase its labor pool by plucking the best and the brightest from its neighbors, and it has begun to do so.

Yet, with hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs unfilled, some executives believe Germany should change its immigration laws and accept foreign credentials to compete for workers with other aging countries.

Germany’s experience with integrating foreign workers in the past, particularly the country’s large Turkish minority, has proved difficult, and many government officials and business leaders are examining Germany’s culture, eager to do what it takes to be hospitable.

But whether they will succeed is unclear. A recent study found that more than half the Greeks and Spaniards who came to Germany left within a year. Many arrivals are young and highly qualified and see a global market for their skills. And many, given the opportunity, will probably go home, experts say. Immigration in general has become more temporary, and moving across borders in Europe is especially easy.

“I think the answer is that we need to look outside Europe,” Dr. Klingholz said.

Chris Cottrell contributed reporting from Berlin.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 14, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Germany Fights Population Drop.

Loophole: People are being told to use "key words" to cross bord

 Posted: Aug 10, 2013 5:53 PM CST Updated: Aug 10, 2013 5:54 PM CST

SAN DIEGO -

A loophole is allowing hundreds of immigrants across the Mexico border in to the United States.

Immigrants are being taught to use "key words and phrases" to be allowed to enter and stay in the country.
Just this past Monday, Border Patrol agents say about 200 people came through the Otay Crossing claiming a quote: "credible fear" of the drug cartels.
So many were doing this that they had to close down the processing center and move the overflow by vans to another station.
"They are being told if they come across the border, when they come up to the border and they say certain words, they  will be allowed into the country," said a person who did not want to be identified on camera.  "We are being overwhelmed."
Pete Nunez, former U.S. Attorney and immigration expert says, "This will swamp the system."

"To make our system even more ridiculous than it has been in the  past," he adds.  "There are no detention facilities for families, so the family would have to be split up. We don't want to split families up, so we end up releasing people out into the community on bond, on bail."

Nunez says, "It's a huge loophole."

"There has to be a policy change, something implemented, an emergency implementation that will stop this, or otherwise we will have thousands coming in."

Immigrants are telling the Port Enforcement Team -- or P.E.T. -- that the cartels are ripping apart their state.
There's no word on whether this same loophole is being used in Arizona

Agencies buying hotel rooms for surge of Mexican illegal immigrants, others released

By William La Jeunesse

Published August 12, 2013

FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: A sudden influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico requesting asylum is overwhelming immigration agents in San Diego, forcing agencies to rent hotel rooms for some undocumented families and release others to cities around the U.S.
Documents obtained exclusively by Fox News show Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been paying for hotel rooms for dozens of recently arrived families to relieve overcrowding inside the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, Calif., processing centers. Some ICE employees are working overtime and others have been asked to volunteer to work weekend shifts. “Duties include intake, placements, transports and release of family groups and unaccompanied minors,” according to a memo obtained by Fox News.
The surge has raised suspicions about what is driving the influx, amid claims that illegal immigrants have learned they can attempt to get asylum by using a few key words -- namely, by claiming they have a "credible fear" of drug cartels.
“This clearly has to have been orchestrated by somebody,” said former U.S. Attorney for Southern California Peter Nunez. “It's beyond belief that dozens or hundreds or thousands of people would simultaneously decide that they should go to the U.S. and make this claim.”
Sources say one day last week, 200 border-crossers came through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry claiming asylum while and as many as 550 overflowed inside the processing center there and in nearby San Ysidro.
“People were sleeping on floors – they had nowhere to put them,” said one source, a long-time border agent and supervisor. “This shouldn’t be happening. Unless there is an immediate and well-publicized policy change, this situation will become another debacle.”
At a hotel near San Diego -- which Fox News agreed not to identify for security reasons -- ICE vans arrived several times over the weekend with immigrant families. They were escorted to the second floor by two armed, uniformed agents. Two border agents secured the entrance and side door.
Documents obtained by Fox News show that recently on a single day, dozens of illegal immigrants were being transferred to an area hotel where rooms cost $99 a night. Others were released to addresses in Texas, Florida and even Brooklyn, N.Y.
ICE sources say the addresses are almost always bogus. When they don’t show up for court, they are removed by an immigration judge in absentia.
Most of the immigrants came from Mexico, but others listed their native country as Haiti, Romania, Guatemala and Iraq. Some were over age 50, others were under a year old. Thirty were transported to a hotel. Seventy were released around the country.
Fox News spoke to four agencies responsible for the San Diego situation last week. All deferred to the Department of Homeland Security press office in Washington, D.C., which issued this statement:
“Credible fear determinations are dictated by long standing statute, not an issuance of discretion. The USCIS officer must find that a 'significant possibility’ exists that the individual may be found eligible for asylum or withholding or removal.
“If the credible fear threshold is met, the individual is placed into removal proceedings in Immigration Court. The final decision on asylum eligibility rests with an immigration judge.”
It is during this time – during removal proceedings – when illegal immigrants are released. Many don't show up, as 91 percent of asylum claims from Mexico are denied.
Asylum claims from Mexico are highly unusual and critics say this is an orchestrated sham – it's not about getting asylum, they say, but about overwhelming the system and getting a free pass into the U.S. and a court date for which no one will show up.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have never returned and the list of people for whom warrants are outstanding is phenomenal,” said Nunez. “We have a long history of people absconding from immigration hearings of one sort of another, they just blend back into the community.”
ICE sources say an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 illegal immigrants a year do not show up for their court date and disappear into the U.S.
The number of asylum claims is on the rise, almost tripling the last four years. Most come from Chinese, Egyptian and Ethiopian immigrants. Fewer than 200 a year come from Mexico, let alone 200 in a day. However, by claiming they have a “credible fear of persecution” if returned to Mexico, the immigrant is entitled to a series of interviews, hearings, proceedings and appeals that can drag on for years.
The initial evaluation usually is done in the border processing center by an asylum officer employed by USCIS.
Officials stress that meeting the "credible fear" standard is not a tentative asylum approval. It's simply a step in the process.
An immigration spokesman said last week: "The legal threshold for ‘credible fear’ is broad and low to ensure individuals who may face a 'significant possibility' of persecution ... have the opportunity to have their case heard before an immigration judge."
Last week, an asylum officer heard the claims of the "Dream 9," nine Mexican nationals brought to the U.S. as children. Even though seven of the nine lived, worked and went to school in Mexico without incident, they were granted asylum. Most thought they would be deported.
“The orders from Washington are to simply turn these people loose,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “All you have to say is you qualify for the Dream Act and/or you intend to apply, and they’re instructed by their higher-ups to simply turn these people loose, to set them free and let them pursue any path they want.”
There are 57 immigration courts and 231 immigration judges. Immigration courts handle 280,000 proceedings each year -- an average of 1,243 per year per judge, or four decisions per day.
Asylum can be granted if the applicant has suffered past persecution or has a "well-founded fear of persecution" on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion in their native country.

Sudden Flood of Asylum Requests at U.S./Mexico Border

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by Lee Stranahan 11 Aug 2013, 3:24 AM PDT 2233 post a comment

At the Otay crossing near the San Diego border last Monday, about 200 people coming from Mexico gained entry to the United States all using the same key phrase; they claimed they had a 'credible fear' of drug cartels. According to KSAZ FoxPheonix:

So many were doing this that they had to close down the processing center and move the overflow by vans to another station.
"They are being told if they come across the border, when they come up to the border and they say certain words, they  will be allowed into the country," said a person who did not want to be identified on camera.  "We are being overwhelmed."

This apparent new shift in tactics to enter the United States comes at a time when the Associated Press is reporting a spike in the number of asylum requests in the past few years:

According draft testimony for USCIS Associate Director Joseph Langlois that was to be submitted for a congressional hearing on asylum requests last month, USCIS received more than 19,119 asylum requests through the end of May. The agency anticipates receiving more than 28,600 by the end of the fiscal year.
According to the testimony, during the 2009 budget year the agency received just 5,369 such requests.

However, this new phenomenon is out of all proportion, even with this spike. To put those numbers in perspective with the 200 people making asylum requests on one day at one border crossing, 200 people a day equals 73,000 people a year -- close to three times the total number received all year, at all border crossings.
KSAZ reports the new tactic could easily overwhelm the immigration system, quoting immigration attorney and former immigration official Pete Nunez:

"To make our system even more ridiculous than it has been in the  past," he adds. "There are no detention facilities for families, so the family would have to be split up. We don't want to split families up, so we end up releasing people out into the community on bond, on bail."
Nunez says, "It's a huge loophole."
"There has to be a policy change, something implemented, an emergency implementation that will stop this, or otherwise we will have thousands coming in."

The goal, however, may be to overwhelm the system. This apparent new tactic comes on the heels of widely publicized activism by a group called 'The Dream 9' who also used a claim of asylum to gain re-entry to the country. As leftist organization Colorlines reported last week:

All nine of the activists have now established credible fear, a step toward an asylum hearing. Supporters are now hoping the Dream 9 will be eligible for parole, which would allow them to return to the United States until their asylum hearing dates.

This connection between the 'Dream 9' and the tactic of asylum was made by Spanish-language news source La Opiniòn. They report (translation by Google Translation) in an article entitled El asilo se volvió un sueño (in English: The asylum becomes a dream):

Following the release of nine Dreamers prisoners in Arizona, after a protest at the border, others have taken the path of asylum as a way to solve their deportation.
Media reports in San Diego are reporting that "hundreds of foreigners are trying to enter the country in the same way" and even that immigrants are being taught to use key phrases that they can stay in the country.
Reports tell of cases in the Port of Entry Otay Mesa, where 199 people have argued a 'credible fear "to the drug cartels in Mexico.
And the validation of Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) of the status of "credible fear", which allowed young people to stay at home and return to their families seems to have generated more of a headache for Immigration.

La Opiniòn goes on to quote Marshall Fitz, the immigration policy expert the liberal Center for American Progress, who points out that many would not qualify and it's not a good 'long term strategy' for those attempting to cross the border.

Immigration Supporters Plan to Turn Up the Heat on House Republicans

Fawn Johnson 14 hours ago PoliticsImmigration reform

House Republicans may not pass an immigration bill before the end of the year, but that doesn't mean the reform effort is dead. The August recess provides immigration-reform activists the opportunity to mobilize support from their activists. Several pro-immigration groups are already preparing to target dozens of House Republicans who may be amenable to some form of legislation providing citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Voters tend to be more favorable to a comprehensive immigration approach advocated by Democrats and the Senate. (See the recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll as one example of this.)
But the general public also doesn't care about immigration nearly as much as they do about health care, job creation, or the economy.
The districts where lobbying campaigns make the most sense are in areas where a sizable percentage of the voters are Hispanic. One such Republican is Rep. Gary Miller of California, who has a voting Asian and Hispanic population of 38 percent, according to Lizette Escobedo, the national director of development and communications for the Latino group Mi Familia Vota. Miller is one of the targets this month of groups seeking a pledge to support immigration reform. Reps. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., and Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., are also on that list.
Mi Familia Vota was preparing to put pressure on Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., this week in his district when he surprised them last Friday by coming out in favor of a path to citizenship in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. "We were launching a heavy campaign in his district," said Escobedo. "We'll go ahead with all the things that were planned, but it's more so now an era of, 'We're happy you're supporting!' "
The campaign tactics deployed by Mi Familia Vota include phone canvassing, door-to-door constituent visits, and visits to local businesses. Canvassers ask businesses and individuals to publicly request a comprehensive immigration fix from their representative that includes a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. If the canvassers are visiting businesses, they take pictures of the business owners with graphics displaying the value of immigration reform. Then they use Twitter and Facebook to distribute the photos among their volunteers, many of whom are young and Web savvy.
Even for young and energetic activists, picking off one Republican congressman at a time is arduous work. It can only be successful in places where immigration is already a hot (or at least warm) topic. Door-to-door canvassing is not likely going to change the skepticism about immigration among the entire House GOP caucus.
National Immigration Forum Executive Director Ali Noorani says that the pro-immigration conservative coalition Bibles, Badges, and Business has some 2,000 opinion leaders in many of the Republican districts that are on hand to go to town halls and ask members about immigration reform. That alone makes a difference for some members, who may decide after getting peppered with questions that they can't ignore the issue.
Noorani acknowledged that House Republicans probably won't come away from August with different opinions than the ones they hold now. Most Republicans are highly uncomfortable with giving unauthorized immigrants a path to citizenship and want border security and enforcement boosted first.
But it will take more than House inaction to kill the immigration-reform effort that received a jolt of momentum after the Senate passed a wide-ranging bill in June. In 2006, when the Senate passed a similar immigration bill, House Republicans rebelled and staged a series of hearings during August to decry the bill. The next year, the Senate took up immigration reform again. It wasn't until that legislation died in the Senate in the summer of 2007 that the House opponents could rest easy. This year, Republicans are still concerned about alienating Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly voted Democratic in 2012, in the next presidential election.
"The most credible information I've heard is that they want to find out in August what people think," Noorani said. "If they come out of August saying, 'That was a wash,' we win."