Press Release ACLU

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request Tuesday for new documents governing the continued delegation to state and local law enforcement agencies of federal immigration enforcement authority. The fundamentally flawed program has been associated with serious civil rights abuses and public safety concerns…

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James R. Edwards Jr. — National Review

Importing the uninsured

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has insisted the Senate will deal with immigration and health reform separately. And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) told the Dallas Morning News in May, “We’re not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers. That’s too politically explosive.”

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Below reposted with permission and thanks to Mr. Dick Pettys and Insider Advantage Georgia, a subscription Website HERE

Dick Pettys’ Insider Advantage Georgia

Illegal Immigration Should Be Part Of Health Care Reform Debate

7/16/09) We have all heard the alarmist nonsense: “there are presently 50 million Americans without health care coverage.”

Not many thinking Americans accept that the “50 million” figure has any basis in reality.

With trillions of dollars at stake and because it should soon be very obvious why it is a closely related topic we should consider this: Not many who study the illegal immigration crisis accept the five-year-old official estimate of “12 million” illegals in the U.S., either.

Many demographers have judged that figure to be off by at least half.

But in the rush by the Obama administration to take over American health care, we are not hearing much about the likely more than 20 million illegal aliens who are being allowed to continue their search for a better life in America, even as national unemployment steadily approaches double digits.

So, what about the illegals and government provided health insurance?

The answer depends on who you can hear.

Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee told reporters in May illegals would not be included. “We’re not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers,” Baucus told the Dallas Morning News. “That’s too politically explosive.”

Indeed. Not to mention expensive. And clearly not a deterrent to future illegal immigration.

Like most who study the illegal immigration crisis, Montana’s Baucus, a key Democrat in the health care debate, likely recognizes that according to analyses by the Center for Immigration Studies and the U.S. Census Bureau, somewhere around 22% of the uninsured ‘Americans’ are not Americans at all. They are non citizens, many here in violation of our American immigration laws.

As Roy Beck, Executive Director of the respected Washington D.C. pro- immigration control organization, NumbersUSA, notes, “It is the growth among the uninsured that is helping drive the political effort to change the health care system. Previous studies have shown that illegal aliens account for nearly all of the growth in the uninsured in recent years.”

Here is where it gets even more “politically explosive”. Imagine that Congress and the president can somehow pull off the takeover of the American health care system – and are forced to do it without initially including illegal aliens in their universal coverage.

We shouldn’t forget the next announced agenda for Congress.

One of Obama’s campaign promises was to legalize the illegals in his first year in office. Doing so would make these ultra-low income residents eligible for a large variety of taxpayer funded benefits now withheld from them solely because of their unlawful status.

Including the proposed full coverage national health insurance.

If “Obama-Care” were to become law and did not include illegal aliens, it would be despite the dedicated efforts of well-funded group ‘The National Council of La Raza’ (NCLR). For the non Spanish speaking reader, that’s ‘The National Council of The Race’ in English.

For those who are intended to hear their message, the far-left, separatist ‘La Raza’ is making its well-financed agenda crystal clear on health care reform.

NCLR calls for health care reform that includes “all workers and families.”

Eye witness reports of warnings given in recent La Raza “how-to sell the health care bill” seminars such as: “you must go out into your communities, use words like ‘streamline’, use phrases like ‘all workers’ and ‘all families’ because if the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it” is just one of the not so public instructions.

Not even verification of legal immigration status would be tolerated. This from a June 15 La Raza press release : “NCLR cautions, however, that the positive impact of several reform proposals on the table may be undermined by additional measures that would severely restrict access to health coverage by mandating new, expensive verification and documentation procedures. This debate should be about health care for all, and setting the nation on a pathway to future health and well-being.”

As usual for the far left, it is all about “the children.” Janet Murguia, NCLR President and CEO, includes this very telling talking point: “Adding layers of immigrant verification and bureaucratic red tape to a new health care system would guarantee that millions of citizen children are effectively barred from accessing preventive care and would raise the cost of health care,”

The shell game is on. Beck reports that Section 242 of “America’s Affordable Health Choice Act”, which is scheduled to be marked up in the House Energy and Commerce Committee today prohibits “undocumented aliens” from receiving health care, but does not prescribe a method for preventing them from receiving health care.

More from Roy Beck:

Section 1702 of the bill requires that “the State shall accept without further determination the enrollment under [the Medicaid program] of an individual determined by the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual.” However, the bill does not require the government to apply the existing citizenship and identity verification requirements that exist in the current Medicare statute.

Section 1714 states, “in determining eligibility for services under this subsection, the State may consider only the income of the applicant or recipient.” This means that for certain non-essential services, the State can disregard an individual’s immigration status and look only at the individual’s income.

But with all of the media inspection and in-depth reporting on the illegal immigration component of “health care reform,” the reader is likely long and well aware of these little gems already.

Right?

——————————————————————————–
D.A. King, a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration, is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society.

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Gwinnett Daily Post
July 16, 2009

Immigration enforcement a priority for public safety

D.A. King

The importance of the recently approved application for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department to help identify and deport illegal aliens captured for additional crimes should not be underestimated – by anyone.

Citizens and lawfully present residents in Gwinnett – and all of Georgia – should be very concerned about the fact that after nearly two years of work, the recently approved 287(g) authority could fall victim to budgetary cuts and not be implemented.

The 287(g) program is a crime deterrent. Everyone concerned should remember that nationwide, without exception, in every community where 287(g) is used, people in the United States illegally leave for less risky areas in which to live.

The reality is that Gwinnett – and therefore Georgia – is now a North American center of operation for dangerous gangs and Mexican drug cartels. The news of huge drug busts, each seemingly bigger than the last, come nearly every week. Not many Gwinnett residents are unaware of the rising crime and gang activity in the once safe and secure Gwinnett community.

The 287(g) program will have an immediate effect of driving much of the already illegally present criminal element out of Gwinnett, and in the process save tax dollars that are now going to finance their law enforcement, incarceration and translation services, and the medical care and education costs of dependents.

This is not only a start on the return to the rule of law – it is a net tax dollar saver.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot handle the job of enforcement alone, which is why Congress created the 287(g) program in 1996. It was and is intended as a force multiplier and a way for local law enforcement to protect and serve their communities, much the same way illegal immigration is handled in Mexico.

For proof positive of the effectiveness of the 287(g) program, one has only to listen to the loud, outrageous opposition from the well-financed, anti-enforcement, open borders industry.

The radical ACLU has formed an entire organization – the Georgia Detention Watch – to fight existing and future use of the federally authorized and monitored local enforcement program – its stated mission. The far left’s false talking points are always the same: Immigration is a federal responsibility, even when they are simultaneously opposing federal enforcement on the federal level.

Using ridiculous howls of “racial profiling” and “xenophobia,” enemies of immigration enforcement are shameless in their willingness to smear anyone with the courage to stand up and demand that American law be equally applied.

Even Immigration laws. Even for Hispanics.

What they are hoping you won’t stop and think about is the fact that the nation of Mexico uses its military to defend its borders, severely punishes illegal employment and deports nearly as many illegal aliens each year as does the United States. Most of these people are Hispanics looking for a better life.

The race-baiting subversive left tries hard to convince citizens, the media and our elected officials that 287(g) will somehow “make the community less safe.” The response should always be to note the 900 illegals that were discovered in the Gwinnett jail in just 26 days earlier this year.

More than half of them had a previous criminal history. New charges included murder, rape, kidnapping, child molestation and felony drug dealing. But the sole reason for deportation is violation of our immigration laws.

No reasonable citizen can accept that removing this element from Gwinnett has made it less safe, or that any crime is too “minor” for an illegal alien to be apprehended.

The 287(g) program in Gwinnett should be implemented at any cost. The tax dollars it will save are uncountable. The lives it will surely save could be anyone’s family member.

Gwinnett residents should speak up loudly for 287(g) implementation.

D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which is opposed to open borders and illegal immigration.

HERE

Center for Immigration Studies

ICE Adopts Catch and Release for 287(g)

By Jessica Vaughan
June 29, 2009

According to news accounts, earlier this month ICE issued a directive to one of the most productive 287(g) jurisdictions to cease holding many of the illegal aliens arrested by the sheriff’s officers, and instead release them back into the community. Just like in the commercial, where the mean guy in the suit takes away the kid’s cool truck and gives him a lousy picture to play with instead, Sheriff Daron Hall knows the difference. Now, only a fraction of the thousands of illegal aliens they arrest in Davidson County, Tenn. will actually be removed. The rest will be released on their own recognizance (“O.R.,” or “down the road,” as the expression goes) and told to appear in immigration court at a future date. ICE knows from experience that fewer than 15 percent of illegal aliens released O.R. will show up for these hearings. Maybe Janet Napolitano will send Sheriff Hall and the residents of Davidson County a picture of the criminal alien being deported instead.

Davidson County launched its 287(g) agreement in March 2007. According to records I received from ICE in a FOIA request for a forthcoming report, in the first year the 16 immigration law-trained sheriff’s officers charged 1,745 aliens who were booked in the jail with immigration violations. In 2008, they charged 2,647 alien offenders with immigration violations on top of their other crimes. In the first two months of FY2009, they charged 365. According to a report on the Sheriff’s web site, these individuals had a total of 20,000 other current and previous state offenses in their criminal histories.

To put these numbers into perspective, consider that in 2007, the ICE New Orleans Office, which has responsibility for west Tennessee and four other entire states, made 3,094 arrests in the entire jurisdiction – so the Davidson County arrests are making a huge dent in the criminal alien population in that area. In fact, Davidson County officers are arresting three times as many illegal aliens per 287(g)-trained deputy as Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies in Maricopa County, Arizona. Clearly, in the eyes of the Obama administration, they had to be stopped.

The public safety benefits of Davidson County’s 287(g) program are outlined in the report mentioned above. As a result of the removal of more than 5,000 alien lawbreakers from the county, there has been a 46 percent decline in the number of illegal aliens committing crimes and a 31 percent decline in the number of foreign-born arrested. Seventy gang members have been removed. The program has enabled the sheriff’s office to get rid of individuals like Manuel Garcia Delgado. Before the county had 287(g), he had been arrested on misdemeanors and released. But the last time he landed in jail, the 287(g)-trained officers learned that he had 20 different aliases and 23 prior convictions in three other states for crimes such as drug trafficking, burglary and theft. He has since been removed. However, under the current ICE directive, Delgado would have been sent down the road, because his most recent arrest in Davidson County was for a misdemeanor.

The reason ICE has given for directing Davidson County to chill on the immigration detentions is that the agency does not want to fill up immigration detention space with “minor” offenders. Yet it is not clear who exactly ICE does plan to put in those beds. Worksite enforcement is at a standstill, fugitive operations are under review, and gang operations are focused on the leaders. Thousands of criminal aliens are being identified under the Secure Communities Initiative, but they are already incarcerated.

Since 2006, the 287(g) program is responsible for bringing immigration charges against more than 80,000 aliens who broke other state and local laws. In 2007, the program accounted for about 20 percent of all ICE criminal alien arrests. Despite these impressive results, Congress seems inclined to let the Obama administration smother the program with micromanagement from ICE headquarters.

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Gainesville (Georgia) Times

Change coming to immigration enforcement

Federal homeland security officials are revamping a local-federal immigration enforcement program with new guidelines, but Hall County Sheriff Steve Cronic doesn’t expect a lot of immediate changes in how his agency processes people in jail who are in the country illegally…

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Numbers USA

Grassley says new 287(g) policies hamper law enforcement

In a July 14 letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he is worried that new departmental policies will weaken the 287(g) program, which was specifically designed to give local law enforcement offices the capability to investigate, apprehend, and detain illegal [aliens]…

HERE

WABE FM radio Atlanta
NPR/PBA

Gwinnett puts controversial deportation program on chopping block
Charles Edwards (2009-07-15)

ATLANTA, GA (WABE) – When Gwinnett County votes on budget cuts Tuesday, it will decide the fate a controversial deportation program.

Under 287g, federal immigration officials teach sheriff deputies how to screen jails for illegal immigrants leading to deportation.

Gwinnett Commission chair Charles Bannister says the county’s sheriff wants to hire 18 deputies for the program.

BANNISTER: “The folks here in Gwinnett County would want to move that program forward.”

287 G would cost Gwinnett almost 3 million dollars a year. It would be money well spent according to D.A. King. The Dustin Inman Society founder says the program has worked in other states.

KING: “Where 287G is used, people in the country illegally leave whether it’s from deportation or fear of the law being enforced.”

However, Gwinnett resident and community activist Ron Rearden argues deportation creates bigger problems for an illegal immigrant and their loved ones.

REARDEN: “The family doesn’t know where they are and it is tearing families apart.”

If approved, Gwinnett would become the 4th Georgia county with the program

HERE for audio

Marietta Daily Journal

Sheriff: 287(g)’s change impact slight
07/15/2009

MARIETTA – Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren said he anticipates little impact from the changes announced last week by the Department of Homeland Security concerning section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

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Marietta Daily Journal
Kate Brumbeck
Associated Press

Gwinnett gets tougher on illegal aliens

ATLANTA — The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department has become the fifth agency in Georgia to be accepted into a federal program that allows local and state officials to enforce federal immigration laws.

The Gwinnett Sheriff’s Department is one of 11 law enforcement agencies nationwide whose acceptance into the Homeland Security Department program was announced Friday, bringing participating agencies nationwide to 77. Gwinnett county’s acceptance was hailed as a victory by anti-illegal immigration groups but decried by civil liberties and human rights groups.

“As a group of Americans of all descriptions pursuing the full and equal application of American immigration law, we could not be more proud of our role in encouraging the expansion of immigration enforcement in Gwinnett,” wrote anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King in an e-mail to supporters Sunday.

King is founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which seeks stricter laws against illegal immigration and is named for a Georgia teen killed in a traffic accident caused by an illegal immigrant.

Lawyer Azadeh Shashahani, with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Georgia chapter, said she hadn’t seen the terms of the Gwinnett agreement but remains skeptical. She said she’s concerned that the program leads to “rampant racial profiling.”

“Unfortunately, until now, the federal government has shown little interest in holding local agencies accountable,” she said.

Gwinnett, an increasingly diverse county with a large Latino population, plans to devote 18 deputies to the program, which it applied for in March 2008. It will begin once the sheriff’s office has received revised agreements from ICE and all paperwork is signed, Sheriff Butch Conway said in a statement Monday.

“This is a program that has been much needed here in Gwinnett County because we have such a large population of illegal aliens from countries around the world living here,” Conway said. “Now we will have an avenue when someone is arrested to check their immigration status and place a hold on them for deportation if they are not here legally.”

ICE screened inmates at the Gwinnett jail over a 26-day period in January and February and found 68 percent of the foreign-born inmates were in the country illegally. The largest number, 226, had been arrested for driving without a license. The next highest, 154, were arrested on felony drug charges. Other charges ranged from misdemeanors to murder, rape and child molestation.

The program, called 287(g) after the section of immigration law that governs it, trains designated state and local officers in immigration law enforcement and enables them to identify and detain illegal immigrants. In effect since 1996, the program only had one user until 2002, but participation grew rapidly after Congress failed to pass immigration reform bills in 2007 and 2008.

Changes to the agreements were announced Friday after a Government Accountability Office investigation earlier this year found problems with the program administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Homeland Security agency.

The GAO found ICE had not clearly explained to its partner agencies that serious criminal offenders, such as drug smugglers and murderers, are the main targets. As a result, some agencies were focusing on people arrested for speeding, carrying an open container and urinating in public, the GAO said. The report also said ICE was not properly supervising local and state agencies or collecting data needed to assess the program.

Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said the agency is “incorporating many of the GAO’s recommendations.”

Previously, a separate agreement was drawn up for each participating agency, but now all agencies will sign the same standard agreement.

Changes include: partner agencies required to first resolve any criminal charges that led to the arrest of the immigrants before beginning immigration proceedings; creation of three priority levels for the immigrants who are to be arrested and detained; interpretation services required; complaint process established.

In Georgia, Hall, Cobb and Whitfield county sheriff’s departments, as well as the state Department of Public Safety, already participate.

Read the rest HERE