Sunday, July 25, 2010

WHERE IS OBAMA ON 'SANCTUARY CITIES"?

MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com

latimes.com

Immigrant 'sanctuaries' rouse opponents' wrath

Supporters of Arizona's immigration law say the Obama administration should be going after local jurisdictions that have proclaimed themselves relatively safe places for illegal immigrants.

By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau
July 25, 2010

Reporting from Washington


Critics of the Obama administration's decision to sue Arizona over its new law to control illegal immigration accuse the government of overlooking a more obvious target: the dozens of cities that called themselves a "sanctuary" for immigrants.

"Everyone has noticed the hypocrisy of the government going after Arizona and ignoring the sanctuary cities," said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "They have it exactly backwards. Arizona is applying federal law, and sanctuary cities are violating it."

Justice Department lawyers on Thursday asked a judge in Phoenix to block Arizona's law from going into effect on the grounds it interferes with federal immigration policy. The law is due to take effect in the coming week.

The Justice Department lawyers say the government wants to catch and deport criminal immigrants, but it does not wish to take custody of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are otherwise abiding by the law.

Beginning in the 1980s, more than 40 cities and counties adopted ordinances or resolutions declaring they were sanctuaries for immigrants. Police and other city employees were told they should not ask about a person's immigration status, and they should not tell federal agents if they learned a person was here illegally.

More recently, many of these cities have backed away from such policies. But there continues to be debate over whether local officials have a duty to alert federal agents about illegal immigrants.

The Justice Department disputes the contention that its policy is hypocritical. "There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called 'sanctuary' cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law," said Tracy Schmaler, a department spokeswoman.

Kris Kobach, the Kansas law professor who drafted the Arizona law, said he particularly objected to cities that have a policy of freeing criminals who are illegal immigrants without notifying federal immigration officials. "It's pretty clear they are breaking the law. And they are doing it with impunity," he said.

He pointed to a provision Congress added to the immigration laws in 1996. It says state and local agencies and their officials "may not prohibit or in any way restrict" their employees from "sending" information about a person's immigration status to the agency then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But Congress did not set a penalty for violations. And since then, neither Republican or Democratic administrations have taken legal action to enforce it, according to government officials and immigration lawyers.

Michael Hethmon, a lawyer for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, blames politics and the unusual coalition supporting loose enforcement. "Neither employers nor the ethnic interest groups have wanted these laws enforced," he said. "It's about both immigrants' rights and cheap labor."

But the legal difficulty of enforcing immigration laws goes even further. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative, said the Constitution shields states and localities from federal dictates. "Congress cannot compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program," he said in a 1997 ruling.

Cities with sanctuary policies deny they shield known criminals from immigration agents.

The Los Angeles Police Department has had a policy for more than 30 years that prohibits officers from initiating contact with someone just to determine whether they are in the U.S. legally. LAPD officials have said the policy encourages illegal immigrants who witness crimes to assist police without fear of being deported.

In the last two years, U.S. immigration officials have launched a new alert system that they believe can solve the problem of deporting criminal immigrants. It also has potential to defuse much of the controversy over "sanctuary" cities. Known as "Secure Communities," it permits federal immigration authorities to scan fingerprints of newly arrested suspects. Los Angeles County participates in the program.

Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement downplay the significance of "sanctuary" policies. "None of these municipal laws have yet interfered with our ability to make our streets safer," said Matt Chandler, an agency spokesman.
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WELCOME TO MEXIFORNIA! PROUDLY WAVING THE MEX FLAG AND NO ENGLISH HEARD, OR LEGALS HIRED!
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To any illegal who wants to move somewhere safe these cities in California are sanctuary cities who will provide for your every need. Free medical, dental, food stamps, welfare for your children and many other beautiful things so run and embrace beautiful California.

Services will continue until their are no more taxpayers there so hurry and get what you are entitled to why the gravy train is still running.

California wants you!

# Bell Gardens, CA
# City of Industry, CA
# City of Commerce, CA
# Cypress, CA
# Davis CA
# Downey, CA
# Fresno, CA
# Los Angeles, CA
# Long Beach, CA
# Lynwood, CA
# Maywood, CA
# Montebello, CA
# National City, CA
# Norwalk, CA
# Oakland, CA
# Paramount, CA
# Pico Rivera, CA
# Richmond, CA
# So. Gate, CA
# San Diego, CA
# Santa Cruz, CA
# San Francisco, CA
# San Jose, CA
# Sonoma County, CA
# Vernon, CA
# Watsonville, CA
# Wilmington, CA



Please pass along we really do want the cities in California to really practice what they preach.
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JUDICIAL WATCH
SANCTUARY COUNTY LOS ANGELES SPENDS $600 MILLION ON WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS
County Spends $600 Mil On Welfare For Illegal Immigrants
Last Updated: Thu, 03/11/2010 - 3:14pm
For the second consecutive year taxpayers in a single U.S. county will dish out more than half a billion dollars just to cover the welfare and food-stamp costs of illegal immigrants.
Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, may be in the midst of a dire financial crisis but somehow there are plenty of funds for illegal aliens. In January alone, anchor babies born to the county’s illegal immigrants collected more than $50 million in welfare benefits. At that rate the cash-strapped county will pay around $600 million this year to provide illegal aliens’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare perks.

THE EXORBITANT FIGURE DOES NOT INCLUDE THE ENORMOUS COST OF EDUCATING, MEDICALLY TREATING, OR INCARCERATING ILLEGALS ALIENS. THIS COSTS THE COUNTY AN ADDITIONAL ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

The exorbitant figure, revealed this week by a county supervisor, doesn’t even include the enormous cost of educating, medically treating or incarcerating illegal aliens in the sprawling county of about 10 million residents. Los Angeles County annually spends more than $1 billion for those combined services, including $500 million for healthcare and $350 million for public safety.
About a quarter of the county’s welfare and food stamp issuances go to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their anchor babies, according to the figures from the county’s Department of Social Services. In 2009 the tab ran $570 million and this year’s figure is expected to increase by several million dollars.
Illegal immigration continues to have a “catastrophic impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers,” the veteran county supervisor (Michael Antonovich) who revealed the information has said. The former fifth-grade history teacher has repeatedly come under fire from his liberal counterparts for publicizing statistics that confirm the devastation illegal immigration has had on the region. Antonovich, who has served on the board for nearly three decades, represents a portion of the county that is roughly twice the size of Rhode Island and has about 2 million residents.
His district is simply a snippet of a larger crisis. Nationwide, Americans pay around $22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare benefits that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children. Tens of billions more are spent on other social services, medical care, public education and legal costs such as incarceration and public defenders.
JUDICIAL WATCH
SANCTUARY COUNTY LOS ANGELES SPENDS $600 MILLION ON WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS
County Spends $600 Mil On Welfare For Illegal Immigrants
Last Updated: Thu, 03/11/2010 - 3:14pm
For the second consecutive year taxpayers in a single U.S. county will dish out more than half a billion dollars just to cover the welfare and food-stamp costs of illegal immigrants.
Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, may be in the midst of a dire financial crisis but somehow there are plenty of funds for illegal aliens. In January alone, anchor babies born to the county’s illegal immigrants collected more than $50 million in welfare benefits. At that rate the cash-strapped county will pay around $600 million this year to provide illegal aliens’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare perks.

THE EXORBITANT FIGURE DOES NOT INCLUDE THE ENORMOUS COST OF EDUCATING, MEDICALLY TREATING, OR INCARCERATING ILLEGALS ALIENS. THIS COSTS THE COUNTY AN ADDITIONAL ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

The exorbitant figure, revealed this week by a county supervisor, doesn’t even include the enormous cost of educating, medically treating or incarcerating illegal aliens in the sprawling county of about 10 million residents. Los Angeles County annually spends more than $1 billion for those combined services, including $500 million for healthcare and $350 million for public safety.
About a quarter of the county’s welfare and food stamp issuances go to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their anchor babies, according to the figures from the county’s Department of Social Services. In 2009 the tab ran $570 million and this year’s figure is expected to increase by several million dollars.
Illegal immigration continues to have a “catastrophic impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers,” the veteran county supervisor (Michael Antonovich) who revealed the information has said. The former fifth-grade history teacher has repeatedly come under fire from his liberal counterparts for publicizing statistics that confirm the devastation illegal immigration has had on the region. Antonovich, who has served on the board for nearly three decades, represents a portion of the county that is roughly twice the size of Rhode Island and has about 2 million residents.
His district is simply a snippet of a larger crisis. Nationwide, Americans pay around $22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare benefits that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children. Tens of billions more are spent on other social services, medical care, public education and legal costs such as incarceration and public defenders.

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