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ALIPAC NOTE:  As seen in this article, the Obama administration's Labor Department is focused on trying to provide Amnesty and jobs to illegal alien invaders instead of the historic millions of Americans that are unemployed or underemployed in 2011!

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Immigration Reform is an Economic Imperative

Google, Goya, Yahoo, Intel and Levi Strauss. It’s hard to imagine a day without these iconic and uniquely American brands.

Most people don’t know that all were founded or co-founded by immigrants.

Goya foods was started by Don Prudencio and Carolina Unanue — a young immigrant couple who in 1936 sold olives and olive oil from a tiny Manhattan storefront. Almost 60 years later, the website Yahoo was co-created by Jerry Yang, who immigrated to California from Taipei as a child. Immigrants founded 18 percent of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies — which post combined revenues of $1.7 trillion dollars and employ more than 3.6 million people.

Our current economy needs to foster success stories like these. But just as important: We also need to foster the successes of countless immigrants who mow our lawns, build our roads, clean our offices and harvest our crops. Because we all benefit from their work, too.

Too often, immigrants work in an underground economy — earning unfair wages, suffering unsafe conditions and hiding from authorities. This is not only wrong, but economically self-defeating. For generations, immigrants have helped to bring prosperity to America through entrepreneurial spirit and sweat equity. Given their economic potential, why would anyone want to shut off the tap of foreign-born talent? Why force willing wage earners — and potential taxpayers — into the shadows with no path to legal citizenship?

I’m perplexed by the questions — because the answers seem so obvious. Yet the current U.S. immigration system does exactly these things.

We educate foreign-born workers at a faster rate than any other country. But our outdated immigration system often sends them packing, only to create billion-dollar companies in countries that compete against us.

Our flawed immigration system also threatens the country’s agriculture industry. Growers that can’t find field labor end up shutting down — or turning to undocumented workers.

I’ve heard the arguments: Immigrants take jobs away from native-born workers. They depress wages. Both claims are false. In fact, every immigrant farm worker supports three additional jobs — often in better-paying sectors. In high-skilled industries, the impact is even greater — with each immigrant worker creating five additional jobs. As for pay, studies show that native workers earn higher wages in areas with higher immigration.

If the status quo persists, America stands to miss enormous opportunities to accelerate our recovery.

Topics: Illegal immigration, US immigration, Dream Act, Obama Administration

September 6, 2011
Garance Burke
Associated Press
Las Cruces Sun-News

A new government report released Tuesday shows that more than half of all people sentenced to serve time in federal prison for committing felonies are Hispanic, a seismic demographic shift swollen by immigration offenses.

Hispanics already outnumber all other ethnic groups sent to prison for committing federal felonies. The preliminary U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that now, for the first time, Hispanics comprised 50.3 percent of all federal offenders in the first nine months of this fiscal year.

Subjects: Illegal immigration, illegal alien crimes, alien smuggling, illegal border crossings, immigration laws

Want to know what the U.S .would look like under Barack Obama's amnesty for illegals? Look no further than the president's own family, warn officials for the Washington watchdog organization Judicial Watch.

"President Obama's 'Uncle Omar' is the face of what is wrong with the Obama administration's lawless and dangerous approach to illegal immigration. Instead of being deported, as the law requires, Uncle Omar was allowed to roam the streets and endanger the lives of innocent people, including a law enforcement officer," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

"And Uncle Omar is exactly the kind of person that local police would have been able to easily keep off the streets as a result of new immigration laws in states such as Arizona and Georgia, which are being challenged in court by the Obama administration," he said.

Topics = Illegal immigration, stealth amnesty, President Obama, DHS, Onyango Obama, ICE, immigration laws

The imposing new border fence running through Nogales is proving to be a treacherous obstacle for undocumented border-crossers, several of whom have been injured in recent weeks while descending the U.S. side of the barrier.

The victims, who include two women and one man hurt during a 10-day span, won’t find much sympathy from the Border Patrol, however. The agency says it’s not responsible for people who tangle with the 23-to-30-foot security fence.

On Aug. 12, a woman identified only as “Asian” broke her leg after climbing the border fence near East Hudgins Street, according to a Nogales Police Department report.

Subjects = Illegal immigration, border fence, U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol, border security

Friends of ALIPAC,

Members of Congress and their staff are returning to DC today after a recess.

Obama's approval numbers have continued to fall following his last major executive action to decree an unlawful and unconstitutional form of Amnesty for illegal aliens. This halt to deportations means they are now being released from jails and given work permits.

Obama is going to try to divert attention away from his Amnesty, using a speech on jobs coming this Thursday.

How can anyone who is supposed to represent American workers talk about creating jobs while handing out hundreds of thousands of illegal work permits to illegal aliens?

Please take the following steps...

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey,

Published: September 2, 2011

The Washington Post

only Congress has constitutional authority to establish U.S. immigration policy, and fundamental reform requires legislative action. Thus the administration’s recent announcement that deportation will be sought only for undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States violates the separation of powers and is unconstitutional.

No president, of course, can hope to expel every undocumented person in the United States — they number perhaps upward of 11 million people. Human and financial resources to identify, apprehend, process and promptly deport millions have been lacking for years as has, arguably, the political will to do so. In this environment, immigration enforcement authorities, under administrations of both parties, have performed as best they could given their resources. Still, millions have been deported over the years. And while many had been convicted of serious criminal offenses, most deportees have not been in that category.

Over 150 Mexican law enforcement officials have been killed as a result of Fast and Furious. As have nearly 1,000 Mexican civilians, at least one U.S. Border Agent (God bless the family of Brian Terry), and who knows how many other humans on both sides of the border who have yet to be accounted for,” BigGovernment’s AWR Hawkins said in regards to Project Gunrunner. “And there are still over 1,000 weapons on the loose, although we are starting to find them more and more at crime scenes in America. . . ‘Straw purchasers’ went into gun stores to buy weapons they had pre-determined to pass on to criminals, and now those criminals have used the weapons against Mexicans and Americans alike. It has put us all at risk, and especially those living near the border in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.”

Where are the consequences? The DOJ recently announced Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson was re-assigned to a new DOJ position in Washington DC, while reporting US Attorney Dennis Burke’s resignation to ‘return to personal life.’ Only a couple weeks prior, the DOJ admitted to re-assigning “two A.T.F. Phoenix division supervisors, William Newell and William McMahon…to positions in Washington.” 

President Obama has denied any prior knowledge of the operation on behalf of himself, the White House, and the Department of Justice, but according to some recent finds by CBS News, three White House officials received email updates on Project Gunrunner. Kevin O’Reilly’s communications with ATF William Newell are now fairly well known. Just days ago, Dan Restrepo, senior Latin American advisory; and Greg Gatjanis, a national security official, were added to the list of involved and/or informed.


Topics: Fast and Furious, ATF, Project Gunrunner, Obama Adminsitration

Two top Republican lawmakers say Arizona prosecutors “stifled” attempts by agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to interdict weapons purchased by “straw buyers” in that state that later were “walked” to drug smugglers in Mexico, and may have covered up the fact that two of those weapons were found at the scene of the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Acting U.S. Attorney Ann Scheel in Phoenix in a letter Thursday that “explicit approval” was required from federal prosecutors before any of the weapons purchased in “Operation Fast and Furious” could be stopped from leaving the country.

Topics: Operation Fast and Furious: Project Gunwalker: ATF

EL PASO, Texas -- Border Patrol officials are investigating an incursion by Mexican federal police into the United State on Thursday morning.

U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said armed officers with Mexico's Secretaria de Seguridad Publica federal police were in the incursion, which took place in El Paso, near the Border Patrol's Ysleta station.

The Mexican government, Border Patrol and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are investigating the incident. U.S. authorities responded to the incident.

Topics: Mexican Incursion: The Border Patrol: The Border

September 2, 2011
Judicial Watch

Besides the Department of Justice (DOJ), other federal agencies are quietly working behind the scenes and dedicating extensive resources to fighting local laws aimed at curbing illegal immigration.

For instance, this week the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revealed that a “spate of state and local immigration related laws” has forced it to launch an “initiative to build a stronger network of community organization partners who serve the Hispanic population.” In the coming months the agency will hold a series of regional conferences to meet with organizations that work directly with the country’s Hispanic population.

Subjects: Illegal immigration, DOJ, HUD, state immigration laws, taxpayers

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - He may have been 2,000 miles from the border, but Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry's immigration record in Texas quickly became the focus in New Hampshire Saturday afternoon.

Speaking to hundreds of Granite State voters at a private reception, the Texas governor was asked whether he supported a fence along the Mexican border.

"No, I don't support a fence on the border," he said. "The fact is, it's 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good."

Topics: Illegal Immigration: Rick Perry: Presidential Candidates: Border Fence

Denver – A pregnant undocumented woman in Nebraska filed a lawsuit against the state government and legislature in which she argues that the mother's immigration situation must not result in the denial of medical care for her unborn baby. 

The woman, using the pseudonym "Sarah Roe," has three other children and loves with her husband in Lancaster County, where she filed the suit last week.

The 33-year-old Roe is receiving legal representation from the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, a non-profit based in Lincoln.

James Goddard, Roe's attorney, asked the court to seal the papers so that the woman's true identity is not revealed.

In the suit, Roe argues that Nebraska state agencies can deny medical services to her, since she is an undocumented immigrant, but not to her unborn baby.

The suit contends that the Nebraska Medical Assistance Act includes unborn babies in the category of children under 19 who qualify to receive free medical treatment without regard to the immigration situation of their parents.

In June, a law went into force in Nebraska prohibiting the provision of free prenatal medical services to undocumented foreigners.

Roe acknowledges that she is in that category. But, she says, other Nebraska laws indicate that children may receive medical care "from the moment of conception."

The plaintiff says in her lawsuit that when the Nebraska legislature approved the law denying medical services to undocumented mothers that law did not modify the benefits that were available to the children of those mothers.
Topics: Illegal immigrants, Mexico, Appleseed Center, Anchor babies

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detailing behind-the-scenes efforts by the Obama administration to bypass Congress and grant amnesty at least one million illegal aliens by suspending immigration deportation proceedings against “DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act kids” and other illegal aliens. The records include internal DHS strategic documents, as well as extensive email communications within the DHS and with the Obama White House. The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed on March 29, 2011.

Topics: Illegal Immigration: President Obama: DHS: Dream Act Amnesty

No one wants to talk about long-standing, brown-black tensions in southern California and elsewhere.

When I do, I’m called a RAAAAACIST and accused of “trying to pit the Latinos against the African-American people.”

Law-abiding victims of such violence know the truth, though. Ask the family of Jamiel Shaw. Or Cheryl Green or Shatavia Anderson.

Today’s self-defense story of the day — which will be ignored by anti-gun Democrats open-borders activists, and multi-culti propagandists — comes from Norwalk, Calif., which is known as an illegal alien sanctuary city (h/t Cameron Gray):

Topics: Race Relations: Self Defense: Multiculturalism: Democrats 

Reporting from Washington— Newly obtained emails show that the White House was better informed about a failed gun-tracking operation on the border with Mexico than was previously known.

Three White House national security officials were given some details about the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. The operation allowed firearms to be illegally purchased, with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. But the effort went out of control after agents lost track of many of the weapons.

The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official.

Topics: Fast and Furious: Project Gunrunner: ATF: The White House: DOJ

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona tried to cover up a link between a government operation and the December 2010 death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, two Republican members of Congress are telling CBS News.

Two assault rifles that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had allegedly allowed onto the street were found at the scene of Terry's death on the Arizona side of the border

Topics: ATF, DHS, US Border Patrol, Fast and Furious

September 1, 2011
Philip Rucker and and Amy Gardner
The Washinigton Post

KEENE, N.H. — Mitt Romney opened his town hall meeting here talking about the economy — his thoughts on growing business, getting government out of the way — just as he does nearly every other campaign event. But when he opened last week’s forum for questions, the first voter he called on didn’t seem concerned about any of that. He wanted to know the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on border security.

A similar scene played out in South Carolina a few days later, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) attended a town hall meeting she assumed would center on the economy, jobs and the federal deficit — only to see the assembled voters react most passionately to her comments on illegal immigration.

Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.

Topics: Illegal immigration, Republicans, candidates, amnesty, U.S.-Mexico border

Undocumented workers received refundable tax credits totaling $4.2 billion in 2010, a dramatic rise from less than $1 billion in 2005, said a report released Thursday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The Internal Revenue Service, however, said it lacks the authority to disallow claims for the credit and a clarification of oftentimes controversial immigration policy might be needed.

At issue is use of a tax break based on earned income called the additional child tax credit, which taxpayers can claim to reduce their taxes owed, sometimes gaining them a check from Uncle Sam if their tax obligation goes below zero.

Wage earners who are not authorized to work in the United States and lack Social Security numbers can use what IRS calls individual taxpayer identification numbers, which, data show, are associated with a higher proportion of fraudulent claims on tax returns. "The payment of federal funds through this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for aliens to enter, reside and work in the United States without authorization, which contradicts federal law and policy," the report said.

Subjects = Illegal immigration, undocumented workers, IRS, ITIN numbers, refundable tax credits, illegal immigration costs

August 31, 2011
Michelle Malkin
FOX News Network, LLC

There are now enough Operation Fast and Furious officials playing hide-and-seek in the Obama administration to fill a New York City-style “rubber room.”

Yesterday, the Justice Department announced it was shuffling Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, out of his job. The disclosure comes amid continued investigations into the administration’s fatally botched “gun sting” racket at the border and spreading outrage over legal obstructionism and whistleblower retaliation by Justice brass. The department’s inspector general is also conducting a probe.

Internal documents earlier showed that Melson was intimately involved in overseeing the program and screened undercover videos of thousands of straw purchases of AK-47s and other high-powered rifles -- many of which ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel thugs, including those who murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Fast and Furious weapons have been tied to at least a dozen violent crimes in America and untold bloody havoc in Mexico.

Subjects: Border violence, ATF, Operation Fast and Furious, U.S.-Mexico border

President Obama’s uncle will fight deportation to his native Kenya, one of his lawyers said yesterday, because he has lived in the United States for nearly 50 years and now considers it his home.

Onyango Obama, 67, a half-brother of the president’s father, has turned to the same law firm that helped his younger sister, Zeituni Onyango, overturn a deportation order and win asylum in Boston last year.

Obama was last ordered deported in 1992, but he remained in the United States until Framingham police arrested him last week on drunken-driving and other charges.

“He does want to stay,’’ said Scott Bratton, who with lawyer Margaret Wong in Cleveland have taken on Obama’s case. “He’s just been here for such a long period of time. He hasn’t been to Kenya in forever. He was young when he came to the United States.’’

Bratton said the legal team is still piecing together the details of Obama’s case, and he did not know why the federal immigration courts ordered Obama to leave the country in 1992 - nor why he never left.

The details of Obama’s life that emerged this week trace his path from a fresh-faced young soccer star who charmed classmates at a Cambridge preparatory school in the 1960s to a high school dropout who would disappear into his own networks in Massachusetts. Obama then became a grown man who ran afoul of the Internal Revenue Service, federal immigration authorities, and finally, Framingham police.

With the help of his older brother, Barack Obama Sr. - the father of the future president - Obama arrived in the United States in 1963 to study at Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, according to a new book, “The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father,’’ by Globe reporter Sally H. Jacobs.

Topics: Illegal immigrants, DHS, Deportation, Obama Administration,