Thread: An Immigration Checklist: 10 Areas of Reform that Congress Should Demand of the Presi

An Immigration Checklist: 10 Areas of Reform that Congress Should Demand of the President

November 4, 2014
The Heritage Foundation

The United States immigration system is broken. While there are important reforms that Congress can make, it is essential that the executive branch first prove that it is willing to faithfully administer the current law in 10 ways:

1. Remove all executive directives that contradict and override existing immigration laws.
The Obama Administration has failed to faithfully enforce our immigrations laws.
Through actions like “prosecutorial discretion,” the Administration has incentivized illegal behavior, undermining the rule of law and placing lives at risk.

2. Allow agencies to enforce and apply the law without undue influence or pressure.
Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies are encouraged to ignore various immigration laws and turn a blind eye to certain lawbreakers, yielding serious social consequences.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials handling Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) applications receive “managerial pressure not to turn any alien applicants away,” thus undermining U.S. safety and security.

3. Provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with improved infrastructure and technology to secure the border more effectively and efficiently.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a responsibility to secure the border. Improving our physical fencing structure along the border to deter some foot traffic would be a step in the right direction.
A “virtual fence,” using existing technologies similar to those applied in Iraq and Afghanistan by our military, would provide cost-effective surveillance.

4. Ensure appropriate judicial and administrative procedures for adjudicating and processing unlawful immigration cases in an efficient manner.
The U.S. system for handling unlawful immigrant cases is dysfunctional, overburdened, and hindered by bureaucratic inadequacies and political influences.
Absconders—aliens who have been given an immigration court date but do not show for their hearing—are a major problem for the U.S. court system. To counteract this, DHS should maximize the use of mechanisms to prevent flight risks, abandon its current “catch and release system,” and increase the use of expedited removal processes.
Unenforced deportation orders remain a serious problem with at least 1.2 million deportation orders issued by the Justice Department yet to be carried out by DHS.
All aliens convicted of criminal offenses in the U.S. should be removed immediately upon conclusion of their jail sentence—or even before.

5. Increase enforcement against businesses that use illegal labor.
Increasing I-9 audits and workplace raids against employers in industries known to hire many illegal immigrants can deter such unauthorized labor.
Continuing to improve E-Verify—a real-time Web-based verification system run by DHS and the Social Security Administration that determines whether or not an individual is authorized to work—can encourage law-abiding companies to use this program to hire legal labor.

6. Remain committed to citizen security and democratic governance throughout the Western Hemisphere.
High levels of crime, violence, and poverty exacerbated by weak and ineffective governance drive migration.
The Obama Administration’s implementation of the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) has been unsuccessful.
Defense funding cuts have directly impacted regional security efforts in Central America.
The Administration must lead in engaging with other nations, building better mechanisms to improve security and economic freedom in Central America and the world.

7. Improve USCIS’s ability to handle visa applications and prevent fraud.
USCIS—the organization responsible for administering our legal immigration system—is cumbersome and slow. It struggles with large backlogs of various visas.
USCIS’s troubled modernization of its visa application system, as well as its failure to protect taxpayers from potential fraud, must be addressed.

8. Report accurate immigration data and enforcement strategies to the American people.
The current Administration has used selective and manipulated immigration statistics that overstate the effectiveness of immigration enforcement under President Obama.
Misleading Congress and the American people is unbecoming of any Administration, and is a poor basis for making policy.

9. Affirm and support the role of states in enforcing immigration law.
Various states have passed immigration laws that attempt to empower state and local officials to aid in enforcing U.S. federal immigration laws.
These governments have met with intense opposition from the Obama Administration even though programs like 287(g)—a program that allows state and local law enforcement officers to help enforce immigration law—were created by Congress to take advantage of local law enforcement assistance.
On the other hand, the Obama Administration has declined to take action against states and local governments that directly break federal immigration law, such as the federal prohibition on providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. This should change.

10. Verify the success of these reforms through untampered Census survey data.
The results of implementing these reforms should be measured with unmanipulated U.S. Census data.
A clear, consistent, and significant decrease in unlawful immigration must be apparent before consideration of legislative changes can begin.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-the-president

1. Implement Universal E-Verify. That'll eliminate the jobs magnet which is responsible for most illegal aliens sneaking in or overstaying their visas and undercutting Americans for jobs.

2. Implement Universal E-Verify. That'll eliminate the jobs magnet which is responsible for most illegal aliens sneaking in or overstaying their visas and undercutting Americans for jobs.

3. Implement Universal E-Verify. That'll eliminate the jobs magnet which is responsible for most illegal aliens sneaking in or overstaying their visas and undercutting Americans for jobs.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

At the President's press conference yesterday following the election, Obama explained or tried to explain that his belief that he has the power to issue executive orders on amnesty is driven by and I'm quoting "promises I made to businesses, law enforcement and religious organizations".

I found this to be a remarkable statement and expected some press follow up questions such as "what businesses, law enforcement and religious organizations" did you make promises to regarding immigration and what promises did you make to each one??!! But alas, the press was either napping or it went over their heads and no one asked these questions.

Religious organizations are 501 C 3 tax exempt entities who are prohibited by federal law and rightly so from lobbying, impacting elections or influencing public policy. Based on this statement by the President, we need an immediate investigation of who is lobbying him, impacting elections and influencing public policy. These entities need to be rounded up, their 501 C 3 status terminated and the individuals involved prosecuted to the full extent of federal law which I believe will land them in a federal prison for a period of time, and rightly so.

Law enforcement agencies are publicly funded agencies charged with enforcing the law, so why would any of them be lobbying for amnesty for law breakers? Are they involved in the drug trade, the key driver behind illegal immigration? Are they dipping into the trough of the $300 billion a year illegal drug trafficking business? This needs to be investigated, the crooks removed from lawn enforcement and their butts landed in a federal prison for a very very long time.

As to the businesses, the only businesses knocking on a President's door to provide amnesty to illegal aliens are businesses breaking the law that should be fined, their illegal alien workers rounded up and deported, and the individuals responsible for these hiring violations should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for violating US immigration, US Civil Rights and US Labor Laws, not made promises to solve their legal dilemma by the President of the United States.

I urge ALIPAC to find this quote made by the President of the United States yesterday and headline it on our home page to alert the citizenry of the entities behind this push for executive amnesty. I ask all Americans to shun these organizations until this mess is cleaned up and this massive problem bankrupting our country is solved, once and for all.

Originally Posted by Judy

I found this to be a remarkable statement and expected some press follow up questions such as "what businesses, law enforcement and religious organizations" did you make promises to regarding immigration and what promises did you make to each one??!! But alas, the press was either napping or it went over their heads and no one asked these questions.

If the fanboy/fangirl press were to do its job, that would lead them to criticizing Toxic 'Bama. That's not something that they want to do.

The right wing press may be just having too much fun at the moment. That's too bad, because 'Bama is already redefining November 4 as being a message to break the logjam is Washington, DC. He is what he is, but part of what he is is shrewd.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade