April 13, 2014 AFP
By Victor Thorn
America’s toughest sheriff blasts feds for cooking the books on deportations.
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On March 27, AMERICAN FREE PRESS caught up with “America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, to discuss how disgusted he is with Obama and his cronies cooking the books when it comes to the deportation of illegal aliens.
“I have a gun and badge. I don’t talk. I take action,” said the legendary lawman from Maricopa County, Arizona. “I’m against amnesty, and no one should receive a get-out-of-jail-free card. I believe in following the law.”
Capitalizing on firsthand knowledge, Arpaio added: “I decided three months ago to survey inmates in my jail who were here illegally in our country. Of the 1,300 illegal aliens that were currently being held, 400 of them with criminal records had been previously released to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. I’m seeing many of these same faces coming back to my jail over and over again when they should be deported.”
When questioned about this ridiculous situation, Arpaio remarked: “ICE is letting them out the back door instead of deporting them, and that’s a scam. We’re talking about people convicted of burglary and sexual offenses who should be thrown in federal prisons. ICE is violating their criteria and the laws passed by Congress.”
Arpaio next addressed another unknown variable. “When I turn people over to ICE, I don’t know what happens to them,” he said. “We should know because these are dangerous people, especially to law enforcement. What does ICE do with these people? I only find out when they’re busted again. It’s a public safety issue.”
Arpaio recounted how his efforts to uphold the law have been undermined by the federal government. “The president is trying to circumvent our laws to pacify the Hispanic community,” he said. “I spent 27 years as a DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] regional director in Mexico City, Texas and Arizona, plus 21 years as a sheriff. With over 50 years of law enforcement experience, I’d say this gives me some credibility. Yet, not once has anyone from Obama’s Cabinet asked for my opinion or assistance. They don’t want local law enforcement helping them enforce the law. It’s very sad.”
Instead, Obama and his treasonous band of betrayers have placed higher importance on harboring criminals than on protecting U.S. citizens. In addition, they’re also continuing their vendetta against Arpaio.
“Within only 100 days of being in office, the Obama administration launched criminal and civil investigations of me,” said Arpaio. “The Department of Justice is still after me. They keep pursuing these investigations in an attempt to remove my ability to enforce federal illegal immigration laws.”
But Arpaio refuses to back down.
“Every month I’m going to keep doing my surveys of illegal aliens in my jail to determine the recidivism rate of returnees,” he said. “Then I’m going to write a letter to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and inform them of the results. I’m not going to stop. Obama brags about deporting more people than Bush and Clinton, but they count people caught at the border when previous administrations didn’t.”
How the president is distorting deportation numbers for illegals
• With the threat of amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens still a real possibility, the Obama administration boasts that they’ve deported more lawbreakers back to Mexico than any other president. But these articles show how, as Sheriff Joe Arpaio says, their claims are little more than smoke and mirrors
By Victor Thorn
Recently, the White House announced that the federal government had deported a record number of illegal aliens in 2013. But experts on immigration were quick to accuse officials in the Obama administration of duplicity. While trying to appear tough on illegal immigration, critics charge that Obama has been working to legalize millions of illegal aliens who are currently hiding out in the United States.
As evidence of this, in a March 27 speech pandering to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 Legislative Summit, Vice President Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr., said:
“Eleven million people living in the shadows I believe are already American citizens. These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully, and by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans in my view.”
Conversely, to appear tough on illegal border crossers, these same pro-amnesty advocates are artificially inflating deportation numbers.
To set the record straight, on March 27 this reporter interviewed Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism for Numbers USA, an organization devoted to reducing illegal immigration.
“Obama is falsely using larger deportation numbers that previous administrations never utilized,” said Chmielenski. “True deportations occur when an illegal alien has been detected in the U.S., processed and physically sent back through customs. But Obama’s people are also counting turn-backs [illegal aliens who are turned back when trying to cross the border] to bolster their amounts.”
When asked to elaborate upon this, Chmielenski replied: “Turn-backs result when an illegal is immediately detected in the buffer zone by border patrol agents as they’re crossing our southern border. Instead of processing these individuals, lawbreakers are returned to Mexico. No other administration counted turn-backs as deportations. Obama does. As it now stands, more than 50% of what Obama calls deportations are really nothing more than turn-backs.”
These inconvenient facts have been revealed by Obama and his Cabinet members.
Chmielenski stated, “In October 2011 at a roundtable with the Hispanic press corps, Obama admitted that his figures were elevated.”
There were other disclosures, as Chmielenski indicated. “At a March 11 House Committee on Appropriations hearing, Representative John Culberson [R-Tex.] asked Jeh Johnson, who was recently appointed Department of Homeland Security chairman, if the current administration had been falsifying deportation numbers. Johnson admitted in his testimony that, indeed, their figures were misleading. Sen. Jeff Sessions [R-Ala.] likewise evaluated Obama’s deportations statistics and found that many of them arose from turn-backs.”
The truth is that the White House deports far fewer than it claims.
“The only people Obama truly deports are those who have committed violent crimes like murder, assault or rape,” Chmielenski told this newspaper. “Other than violent criminals, everybody else illegally in the U.S. is almost 100% safe from deportation. Only about 0.2% of all illegal aliens are at risk of deportation.”
It gets worse. According to Chmielenski: “In Texas, other than violent offenders, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials released every illegal in custody due to a lack of holding space. Plus, using sequester cuts as an excuse, thousands of serious offenders in California waiting for deportation were released.”
Chmielenski closed with this assessment. “Obama’s philosophy is to throw open the borders and give amnesty to everyone here illegally. He’s spitting in the face of our rule of law by not devoting resources to this problem. It’s an absolute threat to our national security and sovereignty.”
The Human Toll
• How illegal immigration is ripping America apart
By Victor Thorn
To assess the damage that illegal immigration is doing to America, this reporter contacted Jessica M. Vaughan, a former U.S. State Department official and current Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “a Washington, D.C.-based research institute that examines the impact of immigration on American society and educates policymakers and opinion leaders on immigration issues.”
“The Obama administration has placed illegal aliens over the legal framework of this nation,” said Ms. Vaughan. “Obama and his people believe that immigration laws should not—repeat, should not—be enforced. It’s a slap in the face; an abuse of executive authority.”
To ensure success, the current cabal in power will use any means necessary, added Ms. Vaughan.
“It’s very important to understand that the only way this administration is able to claim record deportation levels is by manipulating statistics and counting numbers that were never cited by other presidents,” she said. “The truth of the matter is that enforcement of illegal immigration laws in the interior of our country has declined by 40% since 2011.”
Tapping into her expertise, Ms. Vaughan added: “When accused of neglecting immigration laws in the interior of our nation, White House officials refer to prosecutorial discretion. In other words, they say that only high-priority cases can be prosecuted. But this is a mischaracterization that covers up for their failure to enforce laws in good faith.”
A March report authored by Ms. Vaughan entitled “Catch and Release: Interior immigration enforcement in 2013,” made two startling revelations. First, in 2013 ICE released 68,000 convicted criminal aliens from U.S. jails. Secondly, 872,504 illegal aliens, who have been ordered to be deported, still remain.
“It’s a public safety issue when criminals are released back into a community,” she said. “Sworn police officers are being told that they must turn a blind eye to violations of the law, even when individuals are a public threat. The Obama administration is effectively saying: If an illegal alien doesn’t have a serious criminal conviction, you must not enforce the law.”
According to Ms. Vaughan, the ramifications of this situation are dire.
“When we’re not able to enforce immigration laws, it becomes extremely costly to taxpayers,” she said. “Tens of billions of dollars are now being spent on social services, education and the judicial system. In addition, when someone in Mexico knows there’s no interior enforcement, they’ll keep trying to get in because there’s no deterrent effect. These people pay human smugglers their entire life savings to cross the border. It’s profoundly unfair to millions of potential immigrants waiting in line who’ve been legally sponsored by American families.”
In terms of who’s being hurt, Ms. Vaughan said: “Most immediately, there are Americans who’ve lost loved ones due to illegal aliens. I’m speaking about rapists, murders committed by gang members and drunk drivers who kill someone.”
It goes without saying that American workers are also being victimized.
“Illegals are vying for the same jobs as legal citizens, especially in construction, food services, hotels, custodial, landscaping and agriculture,” she said. “Many companies won’t even consider hiring American workers because illegals are cheaper and more expendable. Census and labor studies show that because of illegals competing for the same jobs as lifelong American residents, wages have not significantly improved in most of these fields for decades. There’s no incentive for employers to pay more. Why should they? An oversupply of workers equals low wages.”
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