Wednesday, November 21, 2018

MICHELLE MALKIN - FIRST STEP: PRO-COP, PRO-BORDERS, PRO-CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Michelle Malkin: First Step: Pro-Cop, Pro-Borders, Pro-Criminal Justice Reform





President Donald J. Trump (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The package of criminal justice reform proposals endorsed by President Donald Trump is not "soft" on crime. It's tough on injustice. And it's about time.
Known as the "First Step Act," the legislation confronts the Titanic failure of the federal government's trillion-dollar war on drugs by reforming mandatory minimum sentences, rectifying unscientifically grounded disparities in criminal penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine users, and tackling recidivism among federal inmates through risk assessment, earned-time credit incentive structures, re-entry programs and transitional housing.
There's nothing radical about giving law-breakers who served their time an opportunity to turn their lives around and avoid ending up back behind bars. More than 30 red and blue states have enacted measures to reduce incarceration, control costs and improve public safety. Texas — no bleeding-heart liberal mecca — spearheaded alternatives to the endless prison-building boom a decade ago by redirecting tax dollars to rehab, treatment and mental health services. The Lone Star state saved an estimated $3 billion in new public construction costs while stemming the prison population tide.
Similar efforts adopted last year in Louisiana — long known as the prison capital of the world — have yielded promising reductions in the recidivism rate. Pelican Institute for Public Policy analyst Margaret Mire reports that "Louisiana's re-arrest rate in the first nine months is 19 percent, or 7 percentage points, behind the national, annual re-arrest average of 26 percent." State data show that the re-incarceration rate is down to 6 percent in the same time period — "on pace to be 9 percentage points lower than its full-year average prior to the reforms, or 15 percent."
Mississippi GOP Gov. Phil Bryant overhauled sentencing mandates, embraced faith-based ministries and funded counseling programs for inmates preparing for their transition to life on the outside. "Crime is down 6 percent," he reported at a White House prison reform summit earlier this year. "We have 3,000 less inmates. We saved $40 million since 2014. And you can do the same thing."
Despite staunch support from conservative Republican governors, prosecutors and law enforcement closest to the ground on this issue, the same hyperbolic talking points used by some immovable "law and order" opponents at the state level are now being used against First Step: Cops will be endangered, critics balk. Violent monsters will go free. Child predators and drug kingpins will flood our neighborhoods.
Scary, but deceptive. The plain language of the bill makes clear that its "early release" provisions must be earned. Moreover, as Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee points out: "At all times the Bureau of Prisons retains all authority over who does and does not qualify for early release." Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, a veteran of the criminal justice system for 20 years, notes that inmates convicted of crimes of violence (including assaults on police), drug trafficking (including hardcore fentanyl and heroin dealing) and child pornography would not qualify for credits. Period. The list of ineligible prisoners is a mile long.
As a staunch opponent of illegal alien amnesty for the past 25 years, the most potent attack by First Step critics concerns whether criminal aliens in federal prisons will be let loose en masse. They won't. The law states that no prisoner can earn time credits "if that prisoner is an inadmissible or deportable alien under the immigration laws (as such term is defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act." And legislative analysts assert that under current Bureau of Prisons' regulations, a prisoner subject to an ICE detainer wouldn't be eligible for placement in home confinement, anyway.
Critic Dan Cadman of the Center for Immigration Studies is not satisfied and argues that "the simplest way to make it a clean bill where immigration enforcement is concerned is to say at the beginning of the bill that 'none of the sections that follow in this bill apply to incarcerated aliens.'" That should be a simple fix and is no reason to prevent First Step from moving to the Senate floor for vigorous debate.
My own awakening to the systemic flaws and failures of our criminal justice system came from viewing it through the eyes of the wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted. Prosecutorial misconduct, police malfeasance, investigative bias and a guilty-until-proven-innocent agenda have ruined lives and squandered limited resources. From there, I've come to appreciate activists and practitioners on both sides of the aisle educating people about sweeping "hang 'em high" mandates that ensnare millions of their fellow citizens, clogging up jail space and wasting away productive years.
Our system is at its best when all involved can admit policy failures and work to change them. Why wait?

Michelle Malkin is host of "Michelle Malkin Investigates" on CRTV.com. Her email address is writemalkin@gmail.com.



FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ASYLUM BAN ON ILLEGAL ALIENS  

Judge’s ruling ignores Constitution, 9/11 Commission Report and common-sense.




On November 20, 2018 the Washington Post reported: “In blow to Trump’s immigration agenda, federal judge blocks asylum ban for migrants who enter illegally from Mexico.”
Here is how the Washington Post article began:
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from denying asylum to migrants who crossed the southern border illegally, saying the president violated a “clear command” from Congress to allow them to apply.
In a ruling late Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar of San Francisco issued a nationwide restraining order barring enforcement of the policy President Trump announced Nov. 8, which he billed as an urgent attempt to stop the flow of thousands of asylum-seeking families across the border each month.
The judge’s order remains in effect until Dec. 19, when the court will consider arguments for a permanent order. The administration offered no immediate comment, but has routinely appealed adverse decisions.
The president’s decree, now blocked, came just after the midterm election campaign, in which Trump made immigration and national security the GOP’s "closing argument". He and his allies spread fear about the “Caravan heading to the Southern Border,” which, as he asserted without evidence in one pre-election tweet, included “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.” In another, he warned of “some very bad thugs and gang members.” Labeling the movements of Central American migrants a “national emergency,” Trump last month deployed active-duty troops to the border.
But the federal judge said the president could not shift asylum policy on his own.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” wrote the judge, nominated to the federal bench in 2012 by President Barack Obama. He reasoned that the “failure to comply with entry requirements such as arriving at a designated port of entry should bear little, if any, weight in the asylum process.”
To begin with, we must apply a bit of common-sense to the President’s policies given the totality of circumstances that exist today.
The “War on Terror” is ongoing.  The “All Clear” has not sounded and is not likely to sound for years to come. As I wrote in my recent commentary, The Impending Alien Invasion, Iran-backed Hezbollah operatives are working in Latin America in conjunction with drug trafficking and human smuggling organizations to flood America with drugs, aliens and sleeper agents.
The 9/11 Commission has been clear on the nexus between multiple failures of the immigration system and the ability of terrorists to enter the United States, embed themselves and go about their deadly preparations.  The 9/11 Commission did not only focus on the attacks of September 11, 2001 but also looked back a decade into the actions of other terrorists and found that common thread running through their methodology.  
President Trump’s policy applied to aliens who sought to avoid the vetting process conducted at ports of entry by Customs and Border Protection inspectors who are guided in their decisions by Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 which enumerates the classes of aliens who are to be excluded.  Among these classes of aliens who are to be prevented from entering the United States are aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases or extreme mental illness, convicted felons, human rights violators, war criminals, terrorists, spies and aliens who were previously deported. Additionally, aliens are also excludible if they would seek unlawful employment thus displacing American workers or driving down the wages of American workers who are similarly employed; and aliens who would likely become public charges.
Our immigration laws make absolutely no distinction in any way, shape of form as to the race, religion or ethnicity of any alien.  
It must be presumed that the only reason that an alien would seek to evade that inspections process is because he/she knows that he belongs to one or more categories of aliens who are statutorily ineligible to be lawfully admitted into the United States.
Failures of border security have also enabled transnational gangs such as MS-13 and drug trafficking organizations which easily traverse the porous Mexican border and infiltrate towns and cities across the United States.
Graphic evidence of the nexus between drug trafficking and violent crimes at the hands of the drug cartels is being currently provided at the trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York for the Eastern District of New York.  As the New York Post’s headline reported, El Chapo’s trial opens with chilling details.
Incredibly the presiding judge at that trial has agreed the highly unusual measure of keeping the names and addresses of the jurors a secret to protect them, in Brooklyn, New York, from potential Mexican sicarios (a term used to describe “hitmen”).
As for District Judge Jon S. Tigar's statements, let’s begin with the notion as reported in the Washington Post, that “Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden” ignores presidential authority that is clearly an concisely laid out in Title 8, United  States Code, Section 1182(f), which reads:
(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President.
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
That section of law has been on the books since the INA was enacted in 1952 and has been successfully invoked by previous administrations including that of Jimmy Carter.  President Trump is not rewriting any law, just attempting to enforce existing law.
Aliens who evade the inspections process are, at a minimum, trespassing on the United States.  In an earlier article Aliens Trespassing, I noted that Senator Chuck Schumer had proposed legislation that would make trespassing on national landmarks or critical infrastructure a federal felony that would carry a five year maximum prison sentence.  Here is a quote from Schumer’s official Senate website:
With terror threats at a high, it must be made loud and clear to any would-be trespassers, adrenaline junkies or potential criminals that the federal government and the NYPD take trespassing on critical infrastructure and national monuments very seriously; a law that makes this a federal crime and raises the current maximum jail time from one to five years would help deter this behavior, and provide the NYPD with stronger tools to combat this disturbing trend.
However, it would appear that while Schumer and his friends in the Democratic Party would put trespassers in jail for up to five years, aliens who trespass on the United States are somehow sacrosanct and, indeed, worthy of U.S. citizenship.
Perhaps in addition to reading the Immigration and Nationality Act, the judge should read another important document, the official report, 9/11 and  Terrorist Travel, that was written by members of the 9/11 Commission staff- the federal agents and the attorneys.
The preface of this report begins with the following paragraph: 
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
It also included these excerpts:
Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.
Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.
The judge should read Article IV, Section 4 the Constitution, that states:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Finally, The judge should also read my recent article The Threats Posed By The Impending Invasion.
According to his bio, prior to becoming a federal judge, Mr. Tigar was a public defender. If ever there was a time the American public needed defending, this is the time.


Meet Jon S. Tigar: coddler of criminals, defender of illegals, enemy of U.S. sovereignty.



In the run-up to the November election, thousands of Central Americans began marching toward the United States, claiming the right to enter and gain asylum. Though billed as mostly women and children, the “migrants” were predominantly male and bristling with violent criminals. In Tijuana, Mexicans are calling the caravan an “invasion.”
On November 9,  President Trump announced that anyone who crossed the border would be ineligible for asylum. An axis of the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights began shopping for a judge who would slap down President Trump’s policy. They found their man in federal judge Jon S. Tigar, who on Monday barred the Trump administration from refusing asylum to those who enter the United States illegally. The London-born Tigar was a 2012 pick of POTUS 44 but there’s more to his back story.
The UC Berkeley law alum was a Superior Court judge in Alameda County for 11 years.  There he served as a judicial mentor for the Alameda County Bar Association's Judicial Diversity Mentor Project and the Youth Law Project for the Centro Legal de la Raza. As a federal judge for the U.S. District Court in Northern California, Tigar made a name for himself as a friend of violent criminals such as Rodney Quine.
In February of 1980 in Los Angeles, Quine and an accomplice gunned down Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three, then stole Baig’s car. Quine drew a life sentence for murder, kidnapping and robbery. In prison, the twice married father of two claimed to have sought female status since the age of nine. So the convict began pushing for a sex-change operation.
According to an August 2015 LifeSiteNews report, federal judge Jon Tigar, “assigned himself to Quine’s case and appointed a team of San Francisco lawyers and the Transgender Law Center to represent him.” Tigar’s view was that denying a prisoner’s sex-change operation may constitute “deliberate indifference” to a serious medical need and, if so, would be unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual punishment.”
California agreed to pay and on January 5, 2017 the convict duly got the state-funded gender “reassignment” at a cost of $100,000. The rebadged “Shiloh Heavenly Quine” duly gained a transfer from Mule Creek state prison to a more comfortable women’s facility at Chowchilla. Prison officials believed everything he said and gave him what he wanted.
In similar style, the Central American caravaners want better conditions in the United States. Judge Jon S. Tigar believes that they have the right to violate U.S. law and enter the country illegally. In the judge’s view, the United States has no right to bar any illegals, even violent criminals.
Judge Jon Tiger rules that the United States must believe their stories and essentially give them everything they want, without regard to cost. Taxpayers, legitimate citizens and legal immigrants can be forgiven for seeing this sub-nonsense as an assault U.S. sovereignty. On the other hand, that should come as no surprise.
The left is uncomfortable with the America that actually exists, a nation with its own history, culture, traditions and borders. As Orwell noted in Animal Farm, “rats are comrades,” and the left sees them as an oppressed minority. So the estimated 500 criminals in one caravan do not trouble judge Tigar at all.
As Saul Bellow noted, “a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” The illusion here is that an unelected federal judge is a one-man robed politburo wielding more power than the president of the United States.
The illusion here is that a mob of foreign nationals, including criminals, can violate U.S. law with impunity and override the interest of legitimate citizens and legal immigrants. The illusion here is that anybody in the world is entitled to enter the United States at any time, by any means necessary.
“Individuals are entitled to asylum if they cross between ports of entry. It couldn’t be clearer.” explained Baher Azmy, attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which got everything they wanted from judge Tigar. As it happens, Azmy’s advocacy for illegals is not his only area of interest.
Islamophobia, or anti-Muslim racism,” he explains, “has led to a subtle, but systematic practice to surveil, intimidate, harass and ultimately criminalize Muslim communities.” Azmy also has strong views on “the American national character, how this country deploys laws and law enforcement to control and criminalize populations that are perceived to threaten white political, religious or demographic priorities.”
For Baher Azmy, the goal, is “to reify reactionary politics” an “othering and reification of white power assertedly under threat. Donald Trump and his advisor’s surely observed and understood this dynamic during their campaign, to considerable electoral success.” So it couldn’t be clearer that Baher Azmy sees Tigar’s action as defiance of Trump’s previous travel bans.
Meanwhile, in April of 2017, federal judge Jon Tigar ruled that prison officials must provide “free undergarments that flatten the chest of transgender inmates at women’s prisons and give transgender inmates at men’s prisons access to bracelets, earrings, hair brushes and hair clips.”
Allowing transgender inmates to purchase “compression tops,” Tiger ruled, was “effectively” denying the items to inmates who could not afford them.

Thanks, Judge! Caravan migrants take judicial ruling as green light to enter the U.S. illegally




Caravan migrants have heard a lefty judge's ruling to block President Trump's executive order halting asylum claims from foreigners who have illegally crossed into the U.S., and sure enough, are taking it as a 'ready-set-go' opening gun. They're telling the press they're set to illegally enter the U.S. because the penalty for entering illegally is now off, thanks to the Ninth Circuit's lefty Judge Jon S. Tigar. It's just as I suspected would happen yesterday, because people know an incentive when they see one.
According to the Associated Press:
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Migrants camped in Tijuana after traveling in a caravan to reach the U.S were weighing their options Tuesday after a California court blocked President Donald Trump’s asylum ban for illegal border crossers.
...and, buried deep in the piece:
Walter Matute said he has been deported from the U.S. twice and fears jumping the border would end his ability to get asylum. But he believes others will now take a chance in light of the court ruling blocking Trump’s ban on asylum for illegal border crossers.
“Yes people are going to cross,” the 36-year-old Honduran said. “There are a lot of women and children. A lot are going to be up for it now.”
Sitting on a curb near the sports complex, a Honduran woman affirmed his assessment. The woman, who declined to give her name, said she was getting anxious and was considering crossing illegally to skip the long wait at the Mexican port of entry for asylum seekers.
So obviously, with the U.S. border being heavily fortified with concertina wire and additional personnel, there's potential for confrontation as large numbers of people decide to enter illegally. According to Homeland Security SecretaryKirstjen Nielsen, who was in San Diego yesterday, there about 6,200 of them camped out in Tijuana and another couple thousand in Mexicali, lined up and expecting to file phony asylum claims to enter the U.S. and work awhile as their cases are adjudicated in the backlogged courts. Only 9% are likely to be able to substantiate their claims, she said. So now, with their hopes up and hopes likely to be dashed of easy entry to the U.S., there's likely to be confrontation.
Thanxalot, Judge.
Nielsen's statement, which can be heard here, does come out with a clear-headed understanding of what the migrant caravan is - mostly military-aged unemployed men looking for work with 500 criminals in their ranks that they know about - as well as what is at stake here, and a good emphatic warning that illegals are not going to be successful if they try to cross. “This is a border wall with row upon row of concertina wire,” Nielsen said. “Make no mistake, we are very serious. You will not get into our country illegally.”
Her statements did show resolve and resolution - and they're on-target. What's more, she echoed President Trump in criticizing the fact-free ruling of the leftist judge, which she was convinced would be overturned by higher courts. She also looks better, shedding her dowdy old-lady coat she wore at the Arizona badlands border, and putting on a tougher-looking Barbour hunting vest.
She's still working on the gravitas - she's well-spoken but comes off as a seminar professor reading her term paper with a slight vocal fry (illegals are going to be far more persuaded by a border chief who looks like, say, him, well-spoken or not) but her image for getting a message across is nevertheless improved.
But it's still an imperfect picture, not exactly something that will scare illegals into stopping. The optics of her speech still showed very sparse concertina wire fencing behind her (I was expecting five layers, as President Trump tweeted here) and she had to field a question from a reporter about the non-existent concertina wire at the part of the fence that goes out into the sea.
So overall, one wonders how effective these warnings are going to be now that illegals are preparing to march in. Nielsen said in her speech that there are eight miles of border fencing, which shouldn't be that hard for caravan migrants who have already traveled more than 1,000 miles to get around. One can only hope that Nielsen means it about illegals not getting in, and has enough means to enforce those words. The news from the judge is, they're coming.


DHS, DoJ Slam Judge’s Order to Let Illegal Migrants Apply for Asylum



A group of 86 deported Guatemalans expelled from Paso Texas, Houston, US, wait to be registered upon arrival at the Air Force base in Guatemala City, on May 13, 2010. There are an estimated 12 million illegal migrants in the United States. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZ (Photo credit should read JOHAN …
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The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are promising to appeal President Donald Trump’s asylum reform after a San Francisco judge intervened to help illegal economic migrants get catch and release into the nation’s job market.

“Our asylum system is broken, and it is being abused by tens of thousands of meritless claims every year,” said the joint statement by DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman and DOJ spokesman Steven Stafford:
As the Supreme Court affirmed this summer, Congress has given the President broad authority to limit or even stop the entry of aliens into this country. Further, asylum is a discretionary benefit given by the Executive Branch only when legal conditions are met and a favorable exercise of discretion is warranted. It is lawful and appropriate that this discretionary benefit not be given to those who violate a lawful and tailored presidential proclamation aimed at controlling immigration in the national interest.
And it is absurd that a set of advocacy groups can be found to have standing to sue to stop the entire federal government from acting so that illegal aliens can receive a government benefit to which they are not entitled. We look forward to continuing to defend the Executive Branch’s legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border.
The appeal will likely be decided at the Supreme Court.
District Judge Jon Tigar, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, argues that the president’s authority over the border is insufficient to limit migrants’ right to be allowed into the United States to ask for asylum — even when the migrants are simply seeking jobs and illegally cross the border carrying children to trigger catch-and-release laws.
According to USA Today:
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act states that any foreigner who arrives in the USA, “whether or not at a designated port of arrival,” may apply for asylum. But on Nov. 9, Trump tried to overrule that law, signing a presidential proclamation ending the ability of migrants to request asylum if they enter the country illegally.
“The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress,” wrote Tigar, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. “Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”
Tigar declared that the agencies cannot implement Trump’s border reforms until at least Dec. 19, when he is expected to deliver his final decision.
In response, the DoJ and DHS officials noted that the same 1965 act gives the president broad authority to exclude people from the United States:
Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states plainly: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act similarly states: “Unless otherwise ordered by the President, it shall be unlawful . . . for any alien to depart from or enter or attempt to depart from or enter the United States except under such reasonable rules, regulations, and orders, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may prescribe.”
Trump’s November 9 reform allows all migrants who arrive at the ports of entry to apply for full asylum. But the policy penalizes illegal migrants by preventing them from applying for a full asylum once they are caught sneaking over the border.
Trump’s plan allows illegal migrants to apply for a limited asylum, dubbed “withholding of removal.” Officials say the reform follows the law by providing asylum-like protections to illegal migrants, but it does not allow the migrants to become citizens It also helps border officials quickly deport the migrants.
The ACLU and its allies argue that all migrants who enter U.S. territory must be allowed to make a request for a full asylum — even if the U.S. territory is on the Mexican side of the border wall or is in the U.S. half of the Rio Grande.
This ACLU’s one-foot-asylum policy would help large groups of economic migrants — such as the progressive-backed caravan of several thousand Hondurans — legally overwhelm U.S. border defenses. For example, on November 12 and 13, coyotes delivered 654 migrants, most of whom are parents with children, or youths traveling alone, to the U.S. side of the border near Yuma Arizona, according to a DHS statement. Once on U.S. territory, the illegal migrants ask for asylum — and often get catch-and-release if the local border officials do not have enough detention space.
Overall, Trump’s asylum reform curbs the caravan by pressuring the migrants to wait in line at the official “ports of entry,” rather than by just walking over the invisible borderline in the sand or the river to claim amnesty.
At the same time, officials are also limiting the number of migrants who can apply for asylum each day at the official ports of entry.
The waiting process, dubbed “metering,” allows officials to begin processing roughly 100 migrants per day. The complex legal process takes at least 40 days to accomplish, so an intake of 100 people per day adds up to roughly 4,000 people in detention from one entry point.
The metering process allows officials to keep a manageable number of people in the process, and to perhaps sharply reduce the number of migrants who are being released into the United States via the catch-and-release loopholes.
Ending catch-and-release is vital because it would stop migrants from getting the U.S. jobs which fund the migration process. Without access to jobs, migrants cannot pay their smuggling debts to the cartels, and cannot hire the cartels to bring their spouses and children up to the United States. If the migrants cannot pay their smuggling debts, the cartels’ labor-trafficking business will shrink.
The catch-and-release rules are enforced by a 2015 decision by an Obama-appointed judge who declared that migrants with children must be released from detention after 20 days — or three weeks before border officials can complete the deportation process.
The ACLU and its allies filed the lawsuit against Trump’s asylum reforms. They are also asking a different judge to stop the metering process.
The establishment’s economic policy of using migration to boost economic growth shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor. That flood of outside labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees.
The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
Immigration also pulls investment and wealth away from heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations living in the coastal states 

Obama-Appointed San Francisco Judge Blocks Trump’s New Asylum Policy



caravan (Pedro Pardo / AFP / Getty)
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Federal Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a Barack Obama appointee, blocked President Donald Trump’s new asylum policy on Monday night.

On Nov. 9, two days after the midterm election, the president issued a proclamation in response to the “caravan” of thousands of migrants traveling from Central America across Mexico to claim asylum in the U.S. (The date is notable, since Trump’s critics claims his concerns about the caravan were merely an election ploy.)
In the proclamation, Trump said that his administration would no longer honor requests for political asylum unless migrants entered the U.S. legally, through a port of entry:
Crossing the border to avoid detection and then, if apprehended, claiming a fear of persecution is in too many instances an avenue to near-automatic release into the interior of the United States.
I am similarly acting to suspend, for a limited period, the entry of certain aliens in order to address the problem of large numbers of aliens traveling through Mexico to enter our country unlawfully or without proper documentation. I am tailoring the suspension to channel these aliens to ports of entry, so that, if they enter the United States, they do so in an orderly and controlled manner instead of unlawfully. Under this suspension, aliens entering through the southern border, even those without proper documentation, may, consistent with this proclamation, avail themselves of our asylum system, provided that they properly present themselves for inspection at a port of entry.
But aliens who enter the United States unlawfully through the southern border in contravention of this proclamation will be ineligible to be granted asylum under the regulation promulgated by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security that became effective earlier today. Those aliens may, however, still seek other forms of protection from persecution or torture.
The proclamation created what was possibly the most effective deterrent to illegal crossings — more so than troops deployed along the border, or even a wall, because neither of those two deterrents could stop a migrant from claiming the legal right to stay in the country pending the adjudication of an asylum request.
But Judge Tigar issued a temporary restraining order, valid until Dec. 19, blocking the administration from implementing Trump’s new policy, saying it conflicted with existing immigration law.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Tigar reportedly said.
President Obama routinely used — or abused — executive authority to create immigration policies that were against the express intent of Congress, most notably in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The Trump administration canceled that policy, but its cancelation was likewise blocked by the courts and is still pending final adjudication.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

JAMES WALSH

BARACK OBAMA’S HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA… 

first ease millions of illegals over our borders and into our voting booths!

 How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
                                                                                          

“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.”  Washington Times

"This is country belongs to Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in March of 2009!

The “zero tolerance” program was dismantled by Attorney General Erc Holder once it had successfully cut the transit of migrants by roughly 95 percent. Initially, officials made 140,000 arrests per year in the mid-2000s, but the northward flow dropped so much that officials only had to make 6,000 arrests in 2013, according to a 2014 letter by two pro-migration Senators, Sen. Jeff Flake and John McCain.

The cost of the Dream Act is far bigger than the Democrats or their media allies admit. Instead of covering 690,000 younger illegals now enrolled in former President Barack Obama’s 2012 “DACA” amnesty, the Dream Act would legalize at least 3.3 million illegals, according to a pro-immigration group, the Migration Policy Institute.”

Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)


Heather Mac Donald: OBAMA’S SABOTAGE of HOMELAND SECURITY


“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.”  Washington Times

The “zero tolerance” program was dismantled by Attorney General Erc Holder once it had successfully cut the transit of migrants by roughly 95 percent. Initially, officials made 140,000 arrests per year in the mid-2000s, but the northward flow dropped so much that officials only had to make 6,000 arrests in 2013, according to a 2014 letter by two pro-migration Senators, Sen. Jeff Flake and John McCain.

WIKILEAKS EXPOSES THE OBAMA CONSPIRACY TO FLOOD AMERICAN WITH DEM VOTING ILLEGALS

“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.”  Washington Times

Obama Funds the Mexican Fascist Party of LA RAZA “The Race”… now calling itself UNIDOSus.


"This is country belongs to Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in March of 2009!

Previous generations of immigrants did not believe they were racially superior to Americans. That is the view of La Raza Cosmica, by Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s former education minister and a presidential candidate. According to this book, republished in 1979 by the Department of Chicano Studies at Cal State LA, students of Scandinavian, Dutch and English background are dullards, blacks are ugly and inferior, and those “Mongols” with the slanted eyes lack enterprise. The superior new “cosmic” race of Spaniards and Indians i replacing them, and all Yankee “Anglos.” LLOYD BILLINGSLEY/ FRONTPAGE mag
Federal Judge Blocks Trump's Limitations on Caravan and Other Asylum-Seekers










By Susan Jones | November 20, 2018 | 5:40 AM EST


A caravan of more than 1,500 Honduran migrants moves north after crossing the border from Honduras into Guatemala on October 15, 2018 in Esquipulas, Guatemala. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - On November 9, President Donald Trump signed an order saying that "aliens who enter the United States unlawfully through the southern border...will be ineligible to be granted asylum."

Ten days later, on Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the president's attemptto limit mass illegal immigration.

Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a temporary restraining order, after finding that the Trump administration's limitations on asylum are "inconsistent with the law written by Congress."

Judge Tigar noted that Congress passed a law in 1996 saying that aliens who enter the United States illegally are "inadmissible," but that doesn't mean they can't apply for asylum.

According to Tigar's ruling: "Separately from the question of admissibility, Congress has clearly commanded that immigrants be eligible for asylum regardless of where they enter."

The judge said the Trump administration may not continue to implement the new rule, and he ordered the administration to "return to the pre-rule practices for processing asylum applications."

The temporary restraining order will remain in effect pending further arguments in the case, now set for Dec. 19.
Judge Tigar found that the immigration advocates who filed the claim "are likely to succeed on the merits" of their argument that the administration's move to limit asylum "contravenes Congress’s judgment to give full consideration to asylum seekers’ claims regardless of their failure to comply with entry requirements."
The judge wrote: "The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress.  Whatever the scope of he President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden."

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights acted on behalf of the illegal immigrant plaintiffs, which include East Bay Sanctuary Covenant; Al Otro Lado; Innovation Law Lab; and the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.

In a statement, Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney who argued the case, said the Trump "asylum ban" is "illegal, will put people’s lives in danger, and raises the alarm about President Trump’s disregard for separation of powers.

"There is no justifiable reason to flatly deny people the right to apply for asylum, and we cannot send them back to danger based on the manner of their entry. Congress has been clear on this point for decades,” Gelernt added.

The complaint charges the administration with violating the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.
According to Fox News, which has a reporter on the scene, as many as 6,000 migrants are now waiting on the Mexican side of the border for entry into the U.S. Another 8,000 are on the way north. Fox News quoted the Homeland Security Department as saying that some 500 criminals are traveling with the caravan, which is mostly comprised of single adult or teenage males.



If there's one good consequence to the caravan, it's that the media was finally forced to cover how Mexicans actually feel about illegal aliens.
Shouting 'Mexico First,' Hundreds In Tijuana March Against Migrant Caravan - NPR
The message for the migrant caravan was clear from marchers on Sunday in Tijuana, Mexico: We don't want you here.
"We want the caravan to go; they are invading us," said Patricia Reyes, a 62-year-old protester, hiding from the sun under an umbrella. "They should have come into Mexico correctly, legally, but they came in like animals."
Demonstrators held signs reading "No illegals," "No to the invasion" and "Mexico First." Many wore the country's red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waved Mexican flags. The crowd often slipped into chants of "Ti-jua-na!" and "Me-xi-co!" They sang the national anthem several times.
"Tijuana is a place that welcomes anyone, but you must have papers, you must identify yourself," demonstrator Magdalena Baltazar said on Sunday, as she waved a Mexican flag and marched through the city. "We work hard here. We don't get handouts. The government shouldn't be giving things to migrants when plenty of Mexicans are in a difficult position."
Most of the protesters said the migrants should be detained and deported.
All of this is deeply confusing to good white lefties who were taught that opposition to illegal migration is only due to white supremacy.
And yes, there are Make Tijuana Great Again hats in the mix.
Some protesters said the Mexican government should follow President Donald Trump’s lead and adopt tougher border policies.
“He’s defending his border, unlike our president,” said protester Elvia Vijeras. “Now there will be more violence in Tijuana.”
Francis Belmontes, who brought his two children to the protest, said his seven-year-old daughter told him that some of the migrants were urinating outside of her school and asking for money.
He said not all the migrants were mothers seeking a better life for their children, and he had seen young men with tattoos who he believed were gang members. He said he worried for his children’s safety.
“It’s chaos,” he said. “We’re sounding like Trump’s America here in Mexico.”
This is only confusing to white lefties with no clue about the rest of the world. It's actually a pretty typical reaction to migrants. 
Venezuelan refugees have been attacked in border countries. African migrants making their way to Europe have been attacked in Muslim countries along the way.
No one wants migrants in their country except the wealthy lefties who don't have to be around them.

CARAVAN OF 'MIGRANTS' - A CRISIS DECADES IN THE MAKING

America is on the edge of forfeiting its sovereignty and security.



Thousands of aspiring illegal aliens have marched their way up through Central America and Mexico and are closing in on the U.S./Mexican border. Some of these individuals have reportedly split off from the caravan and have managed to enter the United States without inspection.
They have been encouraged to participate in this massive caravan by our own political “leaders” from both parties. Think about how frequently politicians from both particles have stated that since we cannot deport the millions of illegal aliens who are present in the United States, all we can do is to find a way to “get them out of the shadows” and provide them with lawful status. The Democrats insist on providing millions of illegal aliens with U.S. citizenship while the supposedly “tough” Republicans state that they will “only” provide them with lawful status and permission to work.
So now the debate is over whether or not to provide illegal aliens with citizenship! That is one hell of an example of “bait and switch” foisted on America by the Democrats and the Republicans who are colluding with each other.
Meanwhile a growing list of “Sanctuary Cities” and “Sanctuary States” promise to harbor and shield them from detection by ICE and even permit them to get driver’s licenses while illegal alien students are being offered incentives such as in-state tuition.
Furthermore, as President Trump has stated, not all of them are citizens of Central American countries.
Caravans of trucks and other vehicles have been brought in to facilitate the movement of thousands of people heading towards the United States, yet precious little information appears available to determine who is actually behind any of this. But clearly this is a carefully organized and orchestrated effort and the list of potential co-conspirators has to include the drug cartels and, as I have noted in recent articles, Iran and its client terrorist organization, Hezbollah that now works hand-in-glove with those cartels.
That worrying possibility was my focus in my articles, "The Threats Posed By The Impending Invasion" and "Trump Connects The Dots On Dangers Of Illegal Immigration." The Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization Hezbollah is operating throughout Latin America in close cooperation with drug cartels to smuggle huge quantities of narcotics and aliens into the United States, both as a means of generating funds and as a means of enabling their “sleeper agents” to gain access to the United States.
As I wrote in a recent article, the President of Guatemala has stated that his government has recently arrested and deported members of ISIS back to their home countries in the Middle East. He has also stated that he has information that cash-strapped Venezuela has helped to bankroll this invasion-in-the-making. My concern is that Iran and other adversaries of the United States may have a hand in all of this, and that the caravan may actually be a Trojan Horse, a possibility that has been all but ignored by the mainstream media.
What has also been ignored is that if this caravan of “migrants,” actually aspiring illegal aliens, succeeds in entering the United States by the ploy of filing spurious claims for asylum, this will come to be looked upon as the day that such caravans become the “new normal” and the day America forfeited its sovereignty and its security.
Most of the aliens who make applications for asylum disappear after they are paroled into the United States, ostensibly to pursue their asylum applications.
Advocates for a borderless United States and immigration anarchy have come to describe the tactic of massive numbers of aliens showing up at ports of entry along the U.S./Mexican border and claiming “credible fear” to seek asylum as abiding by our immigration laws.
Let’s be crystal clear. Immigration fraud is not only illegal, but it is the proven tactic of choice of international terrorists, criminals and fugitives who seek to enter the United States for nefarious purposes. That was the predication for my article, "Immigration Fraud- Lies That Kill."
Aliens who seek to enter the United States are required to apply for and receive visas prior to applying for admission as a U.S. port of entry. The only exception to this rule are aliens who are citizens of countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program. That program incidentally should have been terminated the morning after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Back then 26 countries participated in that wrong-headed program; today 38 countries are participants. I addressed this issue in my article, "It’s Time To End The Visa Waiver Program." The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is one of many examples of corruption of our government that has yielded its authority and responsibilities, even where national security is concerned, to those who bribe our politicians through “campaign contributions.”
Neither political party has “clean hands.”
Today even as the “lame duck” session of Congress begins, efforts by the outgoing Republicans to supposedly “fix” our immigration system are not willing to hire additional ICE agents. Laws and regulations mean nothing unless an adequate number of law enforcement agents can conduct investigation and enforce the laws.
As I wrote in my article, "Sanctuary Country - Immigration failures by design," while the Democrats have been transparent in their ultimate goals of eradicating America’s borders and terminating the enforcement of our immigration laws that even include the deportation of murderers and drug traffickers, the Republicans have done precious little to support meaningful immigration law enforcement.
This is how my article began:
The idea of writing about how America has become a “Sanctuary Country” came to me less than two months before demonstrators and, incredibly, leaders of the Democratic Party began demanding that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) be completely disbanded and terminate the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.
My consternation led me to think back to a Congressional hearing at which I participated in 2005 and at which Rep. John Hostettler, then Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, expressed frustration over how the very structure of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the inclusion of a divided immigration law enforcement program had come to be created, hobbling border security and immigration law enforcement. Rep. Hostettler warned that immigration enforcement must not take a “back seat to customs or agriculture” and that it should be shielded from political pressures. He observed that the structure of DHS itself violated the Homeland Security Act which was enacted in 2002 roughly one year after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. This was the enabling legislation that created the DHS, which was supposed to address the myriad of vulnerabilities that the 9/11 terrorists had exploited, enabling them to enter the United States and carry out their deadly attacks.
Let’s not forget that the “C” in ICE stands for “Customs,” an area of law that has nothing to do with immigration. In fact, before the creation of the DHS the U.S. Customs Service operated under the auspices of the Treasury Department while the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) was an element of the Justice Department.
As we consider the extreme politicization of immigration law enforcement, consider these opening remarks by Chairman Hostettler from that hearing well over a decade ago:
“The 9/11 terrorists all came to the U.S. with-out weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda’s plan was additional immigration focus, vetting, and enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation’s security.”
Even in the wake of the terror attacks of 9/11 the administration of George W. Bush made certain to stymie immigration law enforcement and border security. This was incomprehensible, especially considering that it had became immediately apparent that multiple failures of the immigration system enabled the terrorists to enter the United States, embed themselves and then carry out the most horrific terror attack, actually a mass murder where the death count continues to climb as more people, primarily first responders, succumb to illness directly attributable to the toxins they ingested when the World Trade Center Complex collapsed into a tangled mess of rubble containing the pulverized remains of innocent victims. Some of those first responders who, even with their bare hands, searched frantically for survivors and human remains, continued to sift through the “pile” as the towering wreckage at “Ground Zero” came to be known.
Today there are approximately six thousand ICE agents to enforce not only the immigration laws but a laundry list of other laws throughout the United States. By being given the responsibility to enforce those other laws, ICE agents are kept from enforcing the immigration laws.
Even beyond the issues of national security and public safety, flooding the United States with huge numbers of foreign workers provides unfair competition for American and lawful immigrant workers, stretches our limited resources and infrastructure to the breaking point and overwhelms our schools and hospitals.
For unscrupulous politicians, however, the immigration system has become a “delivery system” which meets the demands of the campaign contributors that delivers an unlimited supply of cheap exploitable labor, foreign tourists, foreign students and, for the immigration lawyers, an unlimited supply of clients.
Finally, let’s remember that many politicians are lawyers and they are eager to see ever more “clients” entering the United States.

MEXICO VOWS A NEW INVASION HAS BEGUN, FINANCED BY U.S.

THE NEXT MEXICAN INVASION IS AT HAND:

"Mexican president candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for mass immigration to the United States, declaring it a "human right". We will defend all the (Mexican) invaders in the American," Obrador said, adding that immigrants "must leave their towns and find a life, job, welfare, and free medical in the United States."

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/07/mexican-president-andres-manuel-lopez.html

"Fox’s Tucker Carlson noted Thursday that Obrador has previously proposed granting AMNESTY TO MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS. “America is now Mexico’s social safety net, and that’s a very good deal for the Mexican ruling class,” Carlson added."

"Many Americans forget is that our country is located against a socialist failed state that is promising to descend even further into chaos – not California, the other one. And the Mexicans, having reached the bottom of the hole they have dug for themselves, just chose to keep digging by electing a new leftist presidente who wants to surrender to the cartels and who thinks that Mexicans have some sort of “human right” to sneak into the U.S. and demographically reconquer it." KURT SCHLICHTER



PELOSI’S OPEN BORDERS FOR MORE CHEAP LABOR

The Mexican Army made two seizures in Ensenada on August 17 (1,036 pounds of meth, heroin, and fentanyl) and August 18 (1,653 pounds of meth, fentanyl, and marijuana).

The Mexican Army discovered an active drug lab on August 25 in Tecate and seized four tons of methamphetamine.

The Mexican Federal Police seized 350 pounds of methamphetamine in an active drug lab in Tijuana on August 26.
The Mexican Federal Police seized 20,000 fentanyl pills in an active lab in Mexicali on September 10.

The Mexican Federal Police seized 550 pounds of methamphetamine in Tijuana on September 12.

The Mexican Army seized 1,055 pounds of methamphetamine near the Arizona border on September 14.

THE ENTIRE REASON OUR BORDERS ARE WIDE OPEN IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.

The past 40 years have seen the consolidation of a plutocratic elite, which has subordinated every aspect of American society to a single goal: amassing ever more colossal amounts of personal wealth. The top one percent have captured all of the increase in national income over the past two decades, and all of the increase in national wealth since the 2008 crash.
DEMOCRATS and their FAKE NEWS DEMOCRAT MEDIA support - - -
1) Illegal Immigration;
2) Birthright citizenship / ILLEGAL parents;
3) Chain Migration;
4) Lottery Immigration;
5) VISA overstays;
6) Sanctuary States, and Sanctuary Cities.
7) Doing away with ICE.
.
And because they refuse to completely FUND the Border Wall - they have proven that they support:
1) drug trafficking,
2) sex trafficking,
3) Latin American Gangs, and other Crimes.
The Democrat Party’s Platform:
1) 40 million voting illegals will finish off the GOP
2) 40 million illegals will provide generations of anchor baby breeding ‘cheap’ laborers which will cost legals hundreds of billions.
3) 40 million illegals will cause a staggering housing crisis across America’s open borders.
4) Democrats will keep their mouths closed on the staggering crime rate that follows their LA RAZA party base of illegals.

DEMOCRATS want the US Taxpayers to support ILLEGALS at all levels of Government. (Current cost approx. $115 BILLION each year at all levels of government. It costs approx. $10,000 per year for the education of 1 child.)



Houston Slayings Fueled Border Security Debate

·                     Jan. 31, 2016

Enlarge Photo by Michael Stravato
Dan Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, at his son's grave in Houston Tuesday, October 20, 2015.
The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.
HOUSTON — Julie Golvach remembers that something felt “off” the night she lost her only child.
It was exactly one year ago today, a few minutes before 1 a.m. Standing in the driveway of her Houston home, waving goodbye to her sister under a clear winter sky, something didn't feel right. The stars didn’t look the same.
Golvach tossed and turned in bed for a while but was sound asleep when a knock on the door came at 6 a.m.
“I jumped up and I knew,” she said.
She stopped by her son’s boyhood bedroom, the one with the window looking out onto the driveway. He’d slept there a week earlier, the evening they went to see "American Sniper" together. She slipped past the picture of him and his best childhood friend on the wall, skirting the bed with the stuffed toy lamb — a baby shower relic — lying on top.
Out the window, Golvach saw three people — two uniformed police officers and a woman wearing a shirt that read “chaplain.” Her chest pounded as she made her way to the front door and opened it.
“Is it Spencer?” she asked.
The second those words tumbled out of her mouth, she knew the answer, just as she had known when she uttered that exact phrase the day he was born, before anyone told her if the baby was a boy or a girl. She just knew.
It was Spencer.
One night off
Spencer Golvach grew up in the sprawl of northwest Houston, surrounded by guitars and destined for a career in music, his father’s passion.
When he turned 16 in 2005 and got his driver’s license, the easygoing musician started working at a local guitar store in a strip mall not far from Jersey Village High School, where he excelled in shop class and anything he could do with his hands.
He had always fiddled with his dad’s guitars, and he developed a knack for fixing and rebuilding them at the store. A few years later, when the shop owner announced his retirement, Spencer decided to buy the Cy-Fair area business.
 
Enlarge Photo courtesy of Golvach family
Spencer Golvach, at the age of three, pictured with a guitar. Authorities say Golvach was killed by Victor Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, during a random shooting spree in January 2015.
With nine employees and a soft economy, life as an entrepreneur proved tough sledding. He struggled to turn a profit, and he took a second full-time job as a receiving lead and forklift operator at a local warehouse.
Even that wasn’t enough to cover the bills. By early 2015, Spencer was preparing to move into a smaller — and cheaper — space in the same shopping mall. He could hardly wait for Saturday, Jan. 31 to arrive, the day the slimmed-down version of Spencer’s Guitar Shop was set to open. Between giving guitar lessons, working an 8-to-5 day job, building out the new store and playing bass in his band — The Dead Revolt — Spencer needed a break.
“The guy was burning the candle at both ends for a long time,” recalled Dan Golvach, his father. “He takes one night off, to go take his girlfriend out for her birthday. That was Jan. 30. And he drops her off ... and 15 minutes later he pulls up to that red light.”
Less than a mile from his apartment, Spencer steered into the left turn lane at 18th Street and Mangum Road and waited for the green light. The details of what happened next are captured in the records of two police agencies, more than a dozen news articles and the unceasing nightmares of Spencer’s parents and loved ones.
An undocumented Mexican national named Victor Reyes, a native of Reynosa along the Texas-Mexico border, pulled up next to Spencer's beloved white Toyota pickup. He pointed a pistol at Spencer’s head and pulled the trigger.
The bullet went through the passenger side window and into Spencer’s skull, at the top of his right ear.
“I choose to believe it killed him instantly,” his father said in an interview months later. “I think he was just there and then it’s like someone turned the lights off. I don’t think he suffered.”
But the Golvach family’s suffering — compounded by the feeling that Spencer’s death could have been prevented — was just beginning.
Houston police, their report indicates, found 25-year-old Spencer dead in his truck at 12:56 a.m. — right around the moment Julie Golvach, waving goodbye to her sister, couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
A few hours later, she was phoning her ex-husband to break the news.
“I couldn’t make out what she was saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’”— Dan Golvach
“She was just inconsolable,” he recalled. “I couldn’t make out what she was saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’ She said, ‘yes.’ Then of course I started. I joined the chorus.”
More than a thousand people attended Spencer’s memorial service, a tribute to his fun-loving nature and penchant for making friends across generational, ethnic and gender lines.
Those who knew Spencer universally describe him as fun-loving and strikingly calm. After he died, a family friend ordered up a batch of commemorative rubber bracelets emblazoned with his laid-back motto: “Chill Don’t Freeze."

A bloody rampage
More than once since the funeral, Julie Golvach has found herself wishing that her son’s attacker had gotten to know Spencer. She’s convinced he never would have pulled the trigger. But the official evidence of the crime, while scant, suggests Spencer was chosen randomly. And he wasn’t the only victim.
Police say Reyes shot a man in the face, wounding him, in the suburban city of Jersey Village minutes before killing Spencer, and they connected him to at least two more random shootings shortly thereafter. All told, Reyes shot two dead and wounded three others before a Harris County Sheriff’s deputy took him down after a violent shootout, officials say.
John Weston, 67, says he’s lucky to be alive after encountering Reyes on the Hempstead Highway near Pinemont, about 10 minutes north of where Spencer had just been killed. He remembers seeing a big, dark truck driving aggressively behind him. When he got to the stoplight, it pulled up alongside him.
“All of a sudden I hear this ungodly noise,” Weston recalled. “I don’t know if you can imagine how fast your mind works, but I saw a shattered window and I saw a bullet hole in my window. My mind is thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, somebody’s shooting at me and this guy at this light.’”
He pressed his foot to the accelerator to get out of the line of fire, but not soon enough. He heard the second shot, and its impact felt like someone “hauled off and hit you upside the head,” he said.
Weston realized the truck's driver was the gunman. “I saw blood everywhere,” he said. His hands were covered in it, so he could only manage to re-dial on his cell phone. He finally reached his wife, who told him to go to the nearest toll booth. An ambulance was called. Doctors found that a bullet had entered his left cheek and stuck in the other side of his mouth.
A year later, after reconstructive surgery to replace a badly shattered jaw, his mouth remains completely numb below the tongue. With his health woes and lost time at work, he’s struggling to keep his printing business afloat.
“Everything I do now is a little more difficult, but considering I’m here talking, I’m blessed to be here,” Weston said. “It’s scarred me forever. I don’t break down and cry, but I think about it all the time.”
Had Reyes been a homegrown criminal, the story might have ended in the empty field where the deputy shot him — chalked up as another random act of violence in a city and nation all too used to them.
But as word spread about Reyes’ long criminal record and multiple deportations, the case was thrust into the volatile debate over illegal immigration and control of the southern border: first in local news stories, then at the Capitol in Austin and most recently on the presidential campaign trail — on a stage in mid-November with GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump in Beaumont, where Dan Golvach spoke out and held up a poster of Spencer along with others killed by undocumented immigrants.

Gunman's long record
According to the Houston office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Reyes had been removed from the country four times between 2003 and 2010, but little is publicly known about what he was doing in Houston prior to terrorizing its northwest environs — or why he did it.
His criminal and illegal entry records stretch back at least to 2002 when, at age 18, he was convicted of burglarizing a building in Hidalgo County, across the border from Reynosa, which he told police was his place of birth. He spent a month and a half in jail before a state court sentenced him to three years' probation, ordered him to pay an $850 fine and mandated 120 hours of community service.
 
Enlarge Photo courtesy of Hidalgo County
Victor Reyes, shown in 2001 jail mug shot from Hidalgo County. Authorities say Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, went on a January 2015 shooting spree in Harris County that killed two and wounded three.
A year later, he was back in the Hidalgo County Jail for breaking a beer bottle over a man’s head at the Tejano Saloon in Pharr. He was sent back to Mexico after serving about a month in the local jail, but he came back. By then, his previous probation had been revoked, and he served several months in a state jail in Raymondville.
Deported again on Jan. 20, 2004, Reyes was caught trying to cross the border the next day, triggering a 90-day sentence in federal prison and yet another deportation — his third.
A few months later, on Aug. 10, he was caught again, in McAllen, and received a one-year federal prison sentence for his fourth known illegal re-entry. His crimes didn’t end there. A few weeks before his prison release date, Reyes beat up a fellow inmate — described by his lawyer as a rival gang member — cutting and fracturing his face, according to federal court records.
Two new assault charges made Reyes eligible for 20 years behind bars. Despite his history of violence, burglary and repeat illegal crossings, federal prosecutors offered Reyes a deal: In exchange for a guilty plea on one of the counts, and in recognition of his “truthful testimony” and “acceptance of responsibility,” they promised to give him a sentence “at the lowest end of the applicable guidelines” on a single charge, court papers show. Under the plea bargain, Reyes' sentence was 63 months, a quarter of the maximum he faced under the two counts.
That’s a few more spoonfuls of salt in the wound for Dan and Julie Golvach. Had Reyes been given even half of his possible sentence on the two assault counts, he would have been in prison instead of at that traffic light killing their son.
“The people who agreed to this deal need to be held accountable,” Julie Golvach said. “The result was the horrific murder of my son.”
The prosecutor who signed the plea agreement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Hammer, declined to talk about the case, referring questions to U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Angela Dodge in Houston.
Dodge sent The Texas Tribune a boilerplate description of plea deals, saying they “ensure a resolution of the case and that someone is convicted of the crime(s) we believe they committed without going through the time and expense of a trial,” while providing “justice for all.” She declined to say whether prosecutors took Reyes' previous crimes into account, or if they frequently offer plea deals to convicted criminals who commit additional crimes behind bars.
It’s another official secret in a case with no shortage of them.
Family still seeking answers
The Houston Police Department, using its own discretion under the Public Information Act, blocked release of all but a few details on the Golvach and Weston shootings. The department cited a provision allowing it to withhold criminal records absent a final disposition, such as a conviction or deferred adjudication. Since Reyes is dead and the city’s case is otherwise closed, that means Houston police likely can withhold the information indefinitely.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office declined to release its investigative files, but for an entirely different reason: After every officer-involved shooting — in this case, a deputy ended Reyes’ deadly rampage — the Harris County district attorney’s office presents the case to a grand jury even if no one complains. That happened last week, just days before the one-year anniversary of the shooting spree.
The federal government holds onto its files with a tight grip, too, citing the 1974 U.S. Privacy Act. The act covers only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decreed that its protections apply to federal immigration detention records, even those related to undocumented immigrants convicted of horrific crimes. The agency voluntarily released a narrative of its multiple encounters with Reyes, but the Tribune has not yet heard back from ICE or U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services on its written request for his entire immigration file. 

The secrecy across local and federal agencies that came into contact with Reyes confounded and frustrated the people touched by his violence. Weston said his wife became “very disillusioned” about their quest for even the simplest answers.
 
Enlarge Photo by: Michael Stravato
Dan Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, in Houston Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at the intersection where his son was killed by an undocumented immigrant in January.
“I mean, we asked them, ‘Who was the guy?’” Weston said. “We had to fill out paperwork and all that kind of stuff, but we never got any satisfactory answer. It was almost like it was top secret information.”
Hoping to break through the bureaucratic walls and get some answers about who killed their son and why, the Golvaches eventually hired a former investigative reporter, ex-KTRK-TV newsman Wayne Dolcefino. In a letter last year to then-Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Dolcefino said the sheriff’s office was “doing a disservice to this crime victim by not responding to this request in a proper manner.” The local investigative files remained sealed as of late last week, but the Harris County Sheriff's Office asked the Tribune to resubmit its request for the records and promised a quick turnaround.
Even with new information beginning to trickle out, the victims and their families still don't know where Reyes lived or if he had a job, who owned the truck he was driving that night or — least of all — the motive for his deadly rampage.
According to Harris County Assistant District Attorney Heyward Carter, some elements of the senseless crime may never be known.
Carter, who handled a single aspect of the case — the officer-involved shooting — was able to speak about the case for the first time last week. He revealed that Reyes was "extremely intoxicated" and had a "significant amount of cocaine" in his system. He also identified the weapon, a .380 caliber pistol, that he said was legally purchased at one point, but authorities haven't determined how a convicted felon and undocumented immigrant, barred from buying or possessing firearms, obtained it.
“We live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is." 
— Heyward Carter, Harris County Assistant District Attorney
Carter also provided details about the actions of the Harris County deputy sheriff, Javier Rojas, who finally put an end to the deadly rampage. By chance, Rojas was patrolling the area and heard shots being fired. He saw the truck of Reyes' final victim, identified by police as Juan Garcia, in obvious distress, weaving randomly at an intersection. Garcia later died from his wounds, and a woman in the car with him was slightly injured from the broken glass.
Rojas chased after Reyes, who crashed his truck through a barrier at the end of a dead end street and went another 200 yards or so into an empty field. Rojas continued the pursuit on foot and found Reyes crouching behind the truck. He ordered the suspect to drop his weapon but Reyes stood and fired at the officer instead. Rojas returned fire and struck him in the chest. When authorities photographed the body his hand was still gripping the pistol "with his finger on the trigger," Carter said.
In terms of a motive, authorities can only speculate based on a conversation Reyes had with a supposed girlfriend about three hours before the shooting spree began. He wanted her to go out to a bar or nightclub with him, and she turned him down. Authorities speculate he may have been taking out his rage on couples: It's possible he saw Spencer Golvach dropping off his girlfriend shortly before shooting him at the red light and then targeted Garcia after seeing he had a woman in his vehicle.
But it's just a theory.
“We live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is," Carter said. "I don’t understand why he was doing it.”
Carter did confirm what the families had learned from detectives in the immediate aftermath of the shootings: Reyes still had plenty of ammunition left in his truck — suggesting that he was planning a more extensive shooting spree. There were at least 20 live rounds left in the vehicle, and he appeared to be reloading while driving near the scene of his final attack.
“Had this officer not been there just coincidentally ... there were plenty of roads for him to go down. He had plenty of ammo, and it didn't seem like he was stopping, that's for sure," Carter said. "As horrible as this situation was, it could have been way worse.”
After the facts were presented to grand jury last Wednesday, the panel decided not to proceed with any further action related to the incident. The Golvach family calls Rojas' response heroic.
"Why was he allowed to be here?"
Julie Golvach burst out into tears again last week after hearing for the first time some of the details of the crime that took her son's life.
“I really feel I deserve to know what brought them together at that point in time, what caused him to shoot my son,” she said. “I think we deserve to know why he was even here — why he was allowed to be here.”
It’s a common refrain among those who have been victimized by people in the country illegally. They weren’t supposed to be here in the first place, and the government's inability to keep them from crossing the southern border after they’ve been deported — and prevent them from committing crimes — provokes a unique brand of helplessness and outrage.
Even Weston, a lifelong Democrat who attended both of Barack Obama’s inaugurations and favors allowing otherwise law-abiding immigrants into the United States to work and seek a better life, said he had to fight the urge to call Donald Trump and tell him he was “dead-on” with his focus on foreigners who commit crimes here.
“Somebody’s got to do something about it,” he said. In the same breath, Weston emphasized that he doesn’t support Trump for president and said keeping dangerous felons from crossing the border or entering the vast illegal workforce defied simplistic solutions.
“If there’s some way to filter out the ones that intend to harm people, I would be in support of that,” he said. “It may prevent something like this from happening to somebody else.”
Dan Golvach is more blunt and outspoken. A few weeks after his son’s murder, he was at the state Capitol testifying in favor of 2015 state legislation — ultimately doomed — that would have prohibited local law enforcement authorities in Texas from adopting “sanctuary” policies that keep police out of immigration matters.
Then late last year, he appeared with Trump at a campaign rally in Beaumont, saying his son died as “the result of politically correct politics” — namely, bipartisan policies that he believes go too easy on undocumented immigrants and the people who hire them.
“When you lose the thing you love the most, you’re not that worried about being PC,” Golvach said in an interview. “If you’re going to come here, you need to do it legally on our terms, not your terms.”
Golvach readily admits that anger over his son’s killing sometimes hits “toxic” levels. He says he’s still haunted by the image of Spencer in a hastily chosen coffin, still upset he was killed right next to the stadium where he used to watch baseball as a kid, still mad as hell that the government won’t cough up the records they have on his son’s killer.
It would be worse without all the good memories of his son, and without the certainty that if Spencer were alive today he would say to him: “chill don’t freeze.”
“He’d tell me, ‘Don’t have a heart attack. You know, clear your mind and keep it cool,'” he said. “He would tell me not to hate anybody.”
Concrete Evidence of the Continuing Plunge in Both Civil and Criminal Immigration Enforcement

By Dan Cadman

CIS Immigration Blog, January 23, 2016

Two recent reports from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reflect the continued erosion of immigration enforcement under the Obama administration.

On January 20, TRAC reported that criminal prosecution for immigration offenses fell 22.3 percent from November 2014 to November 2015, and more than 36 percent over the course of five years, excluding magistrate court (which deals exclusively with petty offenses).

The following day, TRAC announced that "ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detainer Use Stabilizes Under Priority Enforcement Program". The Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) is the replacement to the Secure Communities Program mandated by Homeland Security Security Jeh Johnson as a part of the president's "executive actions" on immigration. It significantly restricts the ability of immigration agents to file detainers against aliens arrested by police on criminal charges.

I have no idea what TRAC means by "stabilizes". A quick look at Figure 1a of their report shows a more accurate state of affairs, if one considers the number of detainers being filed over the course of five years, from a high in April 2011, when Secure Communities became fully effective nationwide and kicked into high gear, versus October 2015. I would use other phrases: "plummeted" or "Dropped like a stone". Or, as my colleague Jessica Vaughan has noted, particularly in relation to detainers filed at county jails, where the lion's share of criminals of any stripes are held after being booked for offenses small and large: "a stunning free fall".


 
http://www.cis.org/cadman/concrete-evidence-continuing-plunge-both-civil-and-criminal-immigration-enforcement




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