Pelosi calls for Obama to halt deportations
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Monday, December 16, 2013
http://media.washtimes.com/media/ima...28569a3f473382
Photo by: J. Scott Applewhite
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi privately has urged the Obama administration to halt deportations for some illegal immigrants, saying that President Obama needs to use more “discretion” to reduce the number of people he’s kicking out of the country.
In an interview with Telemundo over the weekend, Mrs. Pelosi said that just being in the country illegally is not enough of a reason to be deported, and she said illegal immigrants must have something more serious on their records.
“Our view of the law is that it — if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation,” she said in the interview, which an immigrant-rights group posted on its website. “If somebody has broken the law, committed a felony or something, that’s a different story.”
Federal law generally does say that those who are in the country without authorization — either because they jumped the border or have overstayed their visas — are deportable.
But Mr. Obama has claimed broad discretion to decide whom to deport out of the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the country, arguing that Congress only appropriated enough money to deport about 400,000 people a year and so he must pick and choose whom to deport.
Homeland Security officials argue that nearly all of those they deport do meet one of their priority categories of having a criminal record or having previously been deported and returned to the U.S. in violation of that removal.
In her interview with Telemundo, Mrs. Pelosi said she disputes that, saying she’s appeared alongside some of those she said shouldn’t have been deported.
“We have seen the personal stories, and we presented them to the administration,” she said. “I’m hopeful that with the documentation that we are providing to counter what others may be saying about who’s being deported, that we will see action from the president.”
Still, Mrs. Pelosi said she is not sure whether Mr. Obama has the authority to grant a broad suspension of deportations for parents of so-called Dreamers, the illegal immigrants whom the president already carved out of danger of deportation in an executive action last year.
“I don’t know whether he has the authority,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said. “But I think that there is discretion in the law as to the implementation, enforcement of the legislation that is calling for these deportations.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2nev1T0eH
Pelosi presses Obama on deportations
December 16, 2013, 01:14 pm
By Mario Trujillo
The Hill
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is taking President Obama to task for the “totally unjustified” deportations of illegal immigrants during his administration.
"I think that there is discretion in the law as to the implementation, enforcement of the legislation that is calling for these deportations,” Pelosi told the Spanish-language station Telemundo.
“And I myself, coming from San Francisco … have seen deportations that were totally unjustified,” she added.
Pelosi said she’s not sure whether Obama has the power to halt all deportations through executive action, an idea that’s being pushed by some immigration activists.
But the Democratic leader said Obama could be taking a less aggressive approach.
“They think they see a different set of data,” Pelosi said. “But our anecdotes are illustrative. There are so many examples. And for years, we have been after the administration not to have this disparity of discretion that is used. It's wrong.”
Pelosi’s communications director Drew Hammill said the minority leader was simply reiterating her position, adding that Pelosi prefers to handle it legislatively.
“Leader Pelosi’s comments to Telemundo are a restatement of her long-held belief that being an undocumented immigrant is not a basis for deportation,” he said.
In 2012, the Obama administration announced it would halt the deportation of students brought to the country illegally as children, if they enrolled in college or joined the military. Conservatives blasted the move as a unilateral imposition of the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants.
With work on a broader immigration overhaul stalled in Congress, lawmakers such as Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and activists have urged Obama to go even further by halting all deportations of illegal immigrants.
The White House has maintained that enforcement authority alone cannot fix the immigration system and has pushed instead for legislative reforms.
“I know what some people want to know is whether or not we can use that authority, DHS can use that authority more broadly, and the answer to that is we have 11 million people who are deportable by act of Congress. We need Congress to act if we are really going to protect everybody from deportation and put those people on a path to citizenship,” White House Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Muñoz said during an online chat last week.
Pelosi said living in the country illegally is not enough to warrant deportation, adding that “if somebody has broken the law, committed a felony or something, that is a different story.”
Pelosi also expressed hope that the House would move on immigration reform early next year.
“Well, I think if it's going to happen, it will happen before June,” she said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...n-deportations
Pelosi: Being an Illegal Alien is Not a Reason to Deport Someone
December 18, 2013 by Daniel Greenfield
frontpagemag.com
This is what the left has believed all along. Nancy Pelosi should be praised for having the courage to come right out and say it.
Nancy Pelosi recently told Telemundo that violations of immigration law should no longer have any consequences:
“Our view of the law is that it — if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation.”
This wasn’t just a verbal flub; her spokesman reiterated the point, saying her comment was merely “a restatement of her long-held belief that being an undocumented immigrant is not a basis for deportation.”
No matter how big of an idiot Nancy Pelosi may be, this is the official view of the House Minority Leader and it isn’t happening in a vacuum.
This represents the current position behind Obama’s unilateral legislative moves which decriminalize being an illegal alien. And that’s the Europeanization of American immigration policy to favor the “right” of migrants over the right of natives.
Pelosi didn’t just randomly say this. Note the lawyer-like phrasing, “sufficient documentation” minimizing the lack of legal status to incomplete documentation. This concludes the process that began with outlawing the terms illegal alien and then illegal immigrant until we’re finally left with undocumented immigrant. And now we’ve got partially undocumented immigrant.
This isn’t just about votes. It’s not even just about borders. Borders are the physical embodiment of nationhood. If a nation doesn’t have borders, then it doesn’t control territory and then it doesn’t really exist.
And that’s the endgame for the transnational left. Illegal migration is a way of achieving the legal pluralities necessary for dismantling nations.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgr...eport-someone/
