Trump accelerates immigration policies in face of mounting pressure (ALIPAC)
Trump accelerates immigration policies in face of mounting pressure
Action expected on refugees, wall, but work permits for illegals continu
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Leo Hohmann About | Email | Archive Leo Hohmann is a news editor for WND. He has been a reporter and editor at several suburban newspapers in the Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, areas and also served as managing editor of Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh, North Carolina. His latest book is "Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration And Resettlement Jihad."
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Illegal alien children are caught at the border, then processed and given temporary legal status in many cases under a unilateral executive order by former President Obama. The status must be renewed every two years and has continued under President Trump.
President Trump has four days under its belt, two if you don’t include the weekend, and his supporters are getting anxious for action on one issue they say outweighs all the others.
On immigration, some Trump supporters who were expecting a big splash on Monday did not even get a drop to celebrate. When Tuesday came and went, the whiff of disappointment grew into something nearing a panic.
But Wednesday could be the day that at least some of their worries are pacified.
Reuters published a story late Tuesday saying “several” executive orders on immigration are expected to flow from Trump’s pen on Wednesday. Originally, the plan was to reportedly issue these orders Thursday but growing noise from border hawks and conservative media may have caused the schedule to be moved up a day.
While Trump has talked a lot this week about Obamacare, acted to stop funding of foreign abortions and pulled the rug out from under the unpopular TPP trade deal, his lack of action on immigration has some of his supporters wondering if they overestimated the voracity of Trump’s America-first message.
The two areas of biggest disappointment are on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama executive action that provides temporary amnesty for more than 740,000 children and young adults brought here illegally by their parents, and on refugee resettlement.
Both of the controversial policies could be cut off without any help from Congress. At least one will be addressed Wednesday, possibly Thursday at the latest.
Reuters reports:“U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign several executive orders on Wednesday restricting immigration from Syria and six other Middle Eastern or African countries, according to several congressional aides and immigration experts briefed on the matter.”
Refugee resettlement and temporary visas from these countries are expected to be halted for a period of months while better vetting processes can be developed.
President Obama had increased the number of refugees being resettled in U.S. cities and towns from about 65,000 to 110,000 annually. And a greater share of the total, nearly half in the most recent fiscal year, have come from Muslim-dominated countries.
In Syria, where Christians have been brutally persecuted by ISIS, 98 percent of the more than 15,000 U.S.-bound refugees have been Sunni Muslim.
Yet, when a reporter asked Trump spokesman Shawn Spicer about the status of the refugee program Tuesday morning, he appeared unprepared for the question.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one right now. Or, I think the best thing to do would be to contact the Department of State.”
For every day that Trump fails to act, up to 100 refugees have arrived from jihadist-rich countries that include Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since Trump became president on Jan. 21, his first full day in office, 88 new refugees arrived from the war-torn, jihadist stronghold of Somalia, according to the government’s Refugee Processing Center database. Another 136 refugees arrived from Syria. From Iraq, another 80 refugees have arrived since Saturday. From Sudan, add another 12, and from Afghanistan add six.
Overall, another 990 refugees have arrived from all countries since Trump was inaugurated.
Ann Corcoran, a watchdog on the refugee issue, wrote about the lack of action Tuesday in her blog at Refuge Resettlement Watch. But it appears that some long-desired action on refugees will come Wednesday.
800 work permits per day could be stopped ‘by a memo’
Border hawks were not happy with Spicer’s comments Monday that criminal aliens were the administration’s top priority, not illegal youths brought here by their parents.
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Mark Krikorian is executive director of CIS and a recognized expert on immigration issues.
Mark Krikorian, the head of the Center for Immigration Studies, told WND that all it would take is a memo from the Trump administration to notify the Department of Homeland Security to stop issuing work permits to illegal aliens, effective Jan. 20.
“I actually am kind of surprised,” Krikorian told WND Tuesday. “They didn’t have much of an infrastructure in place before, so I’m sure there’s a lot of confusion, but the DACA issue was a clear, black-letter promise that was easy to keep. All it required was a memo to USCIS telling them to suspend the processing of the work-permit applications. No one has to be deported, because, frankly, ICE has its hands full just taking care of drunken driving and other crimes.”
Krikorian said that for every day Trump fails to send that memo, the system will issue another 800-plus work permits to illegal aliens under Obama’s executive orders.
“They wouldn’t all lose their permits overnight because they expire a little every day. Would be months before many would revert to being illegal aliens, but to cut off the new applications and the issuing of the renewals, because they’re only good for two years, was a no-brainer,” Krikorian said.
Krikorian said he believes existing DACA recipients should be placed on green cards and made legal, but no new applicants should be approved and the green-card policy should only be floated in an attempt to get other concessions from Congress on Trump’s overall immigration agenda, such as funding for a border wall.
“But now I’m afraid they are giving away their leverage because they are rubber-stamping all the DACA permits coming in, so what incentive does [Sen.] Chuck Schumer have to give on anything?” he said.
“When Trump made this promise, it wasn’t just some off-the-cuff thing. It was written down in a prepared speech and it was on his website, and it wasn’t just something general like we will wipe out ISIS,” he added. “Canceling DACA is a concrete, specific thing like, ‘I will have breakfast tomorrow at 8 a.m.’ You either do or you don’t, and they didn’t.”
‘It’s 5 p.m. on Tuesday and still nothing’
Krikorian said Spicer “played footsie yesterday by saying, ‘Well, our focus is on illegal aliens and criminals.’ That’s a non-answer because you cancel Obama’s illegal decree and start from there. You can’t say the Trump administration is against DACA if every day it’s something like 800 illegal immigrants getting work permits. You had the weekend, but by Monday I expected them to do something. There was nothing, and now it’s 5 p.m. Tuesday and still nothing.”
Daniel Horowitz, senior editor of Conservative Review, said there is no middle ground on overturning Obama’s executive amnesty. He said if more than a couple of more days go by without action on DACA and/or refugees, then that’s a sign that there could be a split in the administration, with moderates led by Reince Priebus fighting against conservatives led by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is in line to be the new attorney general.
“You can’t shout for two years, ‘This was the most unconstitutional thing ever done,’ which it essentially was, creating citizens out of aliens, which is what Alexander Hamilton accused the king of doing. It’s just a constitutional issue,” Horowitz told WND. “How do you say something is a mockery of our laws and then you come in and continue to issue the same executive amnesty? There is no middle ground on this one.”
John Kelly, who is in place as secretary of Homeland Security, has said nothing about the continued printing of work permits for illegals.
“And the message we’ve heard from Shawn Spicer and Reince Priebus echoes Obama’s talking points, that they don’t want to criminalize people who have done nothing wrong and they want to focus on criminals first,” Horowitz said. “We either have a country or we don’t, and this mentality is what telegraphed to the Central Americans that if you can get here, you’re here to stay. But the new messaging is very much a departure from Trumps’ campaign message.”
‘In for one hell of a fight’
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William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, or ALIPAC, said Trump won his race because of his promises about immigration and refugee resettlement.
“They were the most powerful issues that propelled him over the primary hump and helped him defeat Hillary. He promised to stop Obama’s unconstitutional and illegal executive orders. But now that he’s in office, he hasn’t done it yet. Instead, we’re hearing Priebus and Spicer saying they might work something out with the DACA illegals,” Gheen told WND. “He never said anything about passing any new law to accommodate these illegals, and he has not come out and told his aides to stop saying this. It has caused great anxiety because a lot of people have said Donald Trump is a con artist but most of us trusted him. He needs to know that if he cooperates on a deal for dreamers with Paul Ryan and Priebus he will be in for one hell of a fight.”
Gheen said the media, Democrats, Silicon Valley corporations and liberal NGOs did did everything in their power to try to stop Trump from winning the White House.
“Donald Trump can still stop himself by failing to act on his promises. He promised us things that are essential for America’s national survival. That’s why building a wall, ending Obama’s executive amnesty orders and deporting refugees and illegals makes sense as a matter of national survival. That’s why those issues are so strong, and we’re now hearing things from his cabinet and from Congress that are 182 degrees different than what he’s promised.”
Horowitz said stopping the issuance of work permits and Social Security cards to illegals does not require a positive action. It simply requires the will to stop the actions already being taken.
The government issued 541,000 Social Security cards to illegals under Obama as of 2014.
“So that is an enormous thing for a president to unilaterally legislate and give people one of the most prized documents of American citizens, give them a Social Security card and a work permit, and then there is a refundable tax credit that could be as much as $35,000 per family,” Horowitz said. “So there’s no middle ground here.
“Everyone realizes it’s hard to slow down a speeding train, but this is kind of a one-stop shop. You either allow one of the most egregious policies of Obama to continue, or you do not. This notion, it’s a false dichotomy, a strawman argument of you must have mass deportations or amnesty. How about we don’t give you the cards and we don’t give you the tax credits? Why not say we are immediately suspending these DACA cards or any annual renewals?”
The issuance of Social Security cards, which can then help an illegal obtain a driver’s license in some states, also foments illegal voting, Horowitz said.
“You can’t criticize the illegal voting, as Trump did, and then you refuse to grab the low-hanging fruit,” Horowitz said.
“We’re tired of all the strawman arguments. We were tired of all the Republicans in Congress who failed to answer the questions, failed to go on the offensive, just more of the same,” he said. “And with these work permits, it’s not a matter of taking an action. It’s just a matter of stopping an action that’s unfair to American taxpayers. I know a lot of conservatives want to give him a honeymoon period, but these guys are just legitimizing and validating all of Obama’s talking points.”
James Simpson, a grassroots organizer on the refugee program who serves as a fellow at the Center for Security Policy, said he is still hopeful that action will come soon on both DACA and refugee resettlement.
“I expect to see immediate actions to stop refugee resettlement from nations of terrorism concern, reverse Obama’s illegal DACA and DAPA executive actions, deport criminal aliens and build the wall. He has authority in place to initiate all these actions without the consent of Congress,” Simpson said. “I firmly expect him to make good on his promises. He has made good on many others already, and to do otherwise would threaten, if not eliminate, the massive groundswell of support he received for promising to take these actions.
“I think the sooner the better. It is possible he is getting pushback from Congress. If so, this is not something to compromise on.”
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http://www.wnd.com/files/2016/11/WB3...nvasion_mn.jpg‘A winning issue’ Horowitz said stopping refugee resettlement from Muslim countries is a winning issue for Trump.
“The message he channeled is ‘He’s a doer.’ That was different than the typical Republican politician and why he was successful in getting elected,” he said. “You can’t get scared of the media or the Democrats, and not stop Somali and Syrian refugees when that’s a popular decision among voters. Unlike Obamacare, you can’t say someone is going to lose their insurance if you stop Somali Muslims from entering the country. It’s a broad winning issue.”
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Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/is-trump-...O4jYldKzOmb.99
