Thread: Pelosi, Dems push Homeland Security for clarity on LGBT deportations

Pelosi, Dems push Homeland Security for clarity on LGBT deportations

thehill.com
By Mike Lillis - 08/01/12 06:42 PM ET

Scores of House Democrats called on the Obama administration this week to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples when considering deportations.

Behind Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the lawmakers want the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to state explicitly that LGBT "family ties" will be deemed "a positive factor" discouraging deportation as DHS agents gauge whether to pursue cases.

"Without specific, written guidance, there remains the very real risk agency officers, agents, and attorneys making decisions about individual cases would overlook LGBT family ties, particularly the ties of immigrants to their U.S. citizen same-sex partners or spouses, and thereby, decline to exercise prosecutorial discretion," Pelosi, Nadler and 82 other Democrats wrote in a July 31 letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"A written policy is the best way to ensure that the decision by President Obama and DHS to recognize LGBT family ties for immigration purposes will be implemented so that families will remain together," they added.

At issue is DHS's year-old deportation policy empowering officials to use "prosecutorial discretion" to prioritize illegal immigrants considered a danger to national security or public safety, while allowing students and other non-threatening people to remain in the country.

The administration on numerous occasions has said that LGBT relationships are a factor underlying those decisions, but the Democrats say those statements lack the force of an official written guidance.

The lawmakers made a similar request last September, and were agitated by DHS's response. Ten months later, they're trying again.

"Since our last letter to you, there have been several key developments which show that the verbal policy you articulated to protect LGBT families in and of itself remains inadequate," they wrote.

"It would be beyond senseless," they added, "to see LGBT persons with family ties here in the United States deported simply because the affected persons, their attorneys, and/or ICE officials were unaware of DHS’s verbal policy."

source: Pelosi, Dems push Homeland Security for clarity on LGBT deportations - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com

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Barack Obama: An obsession for minority, gay, and illegal immigrant issues and not much else
Photo: Associated Press
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 by Shirley Husar

LOS ANGELES, July 4, 2012 — History will remember Barack Obama as “the minority President.” He continues to run this country from the small-bubble mindset of identity politics, letting that dominate his thinking on bigger matters, like the economy. Why does he continue to focus on non-priority issues? How much time should he take from national crisis issues to focus on minority issues?


Millions of people from every racial, ethnic and gender group are hurting financially, yet so far this year the president has tried to make the debate center on contraceptives, gays, and illegal immigrants. Focusing on gay rights and illegal immigrants is a strategic ploy to derail attention from the more critical issues facing America.


Do same-sex marriage and illegal immigrants matter more to Americans today than the economy? President Obama seems to think so. A president who puts these minority issues, however important they are to some group of voters, over the priority issues that dominate the concerns of hundreds of millions of us is clearly attempting to divert us from the weak and sluggish economy. This is contrived to get votes in November, first by catering to special interest campaign donors now, then by convincing many that keeping women in free contraceptives and allowing people who came to the U.S. illegally as children to stay here are the crucial humanitarian policies of our age.

Our economy is fragile and struggling; our schools are in trouble, threatening the future of a generation; our troops are overseas, and our losses in Afghanistan have passed 2,000. Our prosperity and the lives of our children are threatened, and the Democrats trot out the same old divisive standbys - Republicans are out to get women/gays/minorities. The house is burning down and Obama is whipping up resentment over the sectarian furniture. This president is a minority president because he refuses to face priority issues that affect us all.

The president isn’t dealing just in politics, but in faith. Politics done correctly depends on reason and compromise for the benefit of all. Its proper focus is society, not its parts. Faith doesn’t need reason, though properly focused it’s about finding something greater than ourselves. This hybrid that the Democrats are selling brings faith down to selfish impulses about ourselves and our sectarian clans.
The president and the Democrats attempt to merge politics and faith, and in the process they demean both. Christians should never do that, but as the Black church moves closer to the president and further from the scripture, it becomes clearer that they will follow the words of Obama, reinforcing views that the end times are near and only the president can lead us to salvation.

Obama doesn’t just want to be our president, but our prophet and savior.

We Christian believers should pray for our country and our president, but never bow down to what we know is wrong. Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” is of God, and just because he uses the right words doesn’t mean we should bow down and follow. Faith isn’t supposed to make us feel all warm and comfortable, and it isn’t supposed to be a tool to enrich this group and that, to lift up the parts over the whole.
The Bible story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is recorded in the book of Daniel, chapters 1–3. These three young Jews, of royal or noble birth from the Kingdom of Judah, are notable for their devotion to God. During the dedication ceremony of the golden image, certain officials notice Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego not bowing down to the idol. Nebuchadnezzar is immediately notified. Enraged, he demands that they be brought before him. He commands them to obey him or face death. Their response: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Facebook friend Sherry Thatcher says: "It's interesting to me ... the only people in that crowd that day, outside of the king, the only ones that we know what their names were ... are the 3 who did not bow down. Thousands and thousands of years later, we're still talking about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If you want a place in history, you have to take a stand, no one remembers the ones who just went along with the crowd."

Obama is a president for the crowd.

The president's recent embrace of same-sex marriage, which is such a blatant violation of both the Old and New Testaments that one should hardly even waste one's time arguing the point, is an illustration that President Obama cares nothing for what the scriptures say. That’s fair enough: He is not president of the Bible Society, and not all Americans believe the Bible. The problem is that he dresses his position in the language of morality, sometimes even Christian morality. Instead of policy for the nation he’s engaged in a religious crusade, and it’s a chameleon religion whose aim is just to make us feel good about agreeing with Obama.

President Obama asks Christians, theistic people of many faiths, and even the non-religious to join in a moral vision and a crusade against non-believers, a fundamentally divisive enterprise, and this at a time when national unity, already fractured in partisan bitterness, is more important than ever. Faced with failing policies that he cannot defend, he does what failing leaders have always done; he tries to turn us against the infidels.

It is sad that the president has created false dilemmas and unnecessary crises. Yet, during these times, he creates divisive issues for people of faith to fight over. Obama is a minority president, sectarian thinking has come to define his presidency, and people of faith should reject him.

Barack Obama: An obsession for minority, gay, and illegal immigrant issues and not much else | Washington Times Communities

ADDED TO ALIPAC HOMEPAGE News with amended title ..

http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=7...T-deportations

That is his job to divide Americans and he is doing a fine job. Just think what could be done if we united against both corrupt parties politicains in Washington. That would be the end of them and they know it. Both parties are doing everything in their power (with the help of the media) to make sure that does not happen. The American people need to WAKE UP to this and come together to kick them all out. Just think what could be done with all the money that they are stealing from the taxpayers. What if there were term limits, what if they all had to pay into social security like everyone else. What if they couldn't draw their salaries after they leave office. We could probably eliminate the debt. What if we quit buyint alies with so called foreign aid that all the dictators are keeping for themselves. We could have our country back.

Illegal alien charged with raping a man in Florida

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

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Barack Obama: An obsession for minority, gay, and illegal immigrant issues and not much else

Barack Obama: An obsession for minority, gay, and illegal immigrant issues and not much else | Washington Times Communities

Source link on this is not working for me this morning.

Originally Posted by imblest

Source link on this is not working for me this morning.

Here's the link:

http://communities.washingtontimes.c...nd-illegal-im/

PELOSI: WE'LL DO 'WHATEVER IT TAKES' TO CONFERENCE WITH SENATE ON IMMIGRATION

Obama Administration Orders Some Insurers To Cover Gay Spouses (MUST DO IT!)

Insurance companies that provide coverage to opposite-sex spouses must also offer that coverage to same-sex spouses.