07-15-2011, 11:31 PM
The Obama administration stealth amnesty scandal that emerged last year is heating up. It all began with an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo outlining ways the Obama administration could bypass Congress to enact amnesty for millions of illegal aliens through “administrative means.”
And then the Houston Chronicle exposed an effort by the administration to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens that supposedly have not been convicted of any “serious” crimes.
Well you may recall that JW filed two FOIA lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to get to the truth about this deportation plan. And according to documents our litigation recently pried loose, not only did Obama administration officials skirt congressional authority when implementing this unlawful scheme behind closed doors, but apparently they also lied about it when they got caught.
The documents, which we obtained from the Obama DHS, show that DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of the immigration enforcement policy change which gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases.
And perhaps most shocking of all, officials considered the dismissal of charges against illegal alien criminals convicted of violent crimes!
The documents concern the response by Houston immigration officials to a June 30, 2010, memo from John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to all ICE employees instructing local immigration officials to use their discretion in “prioritizing” illegal immigration deportation cases.
This new policy resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of immigration cases and an overall 40% increase in deportation dismissals with local Houston ICE officials taking a particularly aggressive approach to the policy’s implementation.
Moreover, despite the claims of immigration officials, ICE considered ending deportation proceeding for illegal aliens with violent crime offenses. A spreadsheet obtained by Judicial Watch lists the specific violent crimes that immigration officials were prepared to overlook. They include: sexual assault, solicitation of murder, aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, and kidnapping, as well as numerous drug charges.
A far cry from the “very narrow class of illegal immigrants with pending green card applications” Obama administration officials described to the press, wouldn’t you say?
And then the Houston Chronicle exposed an effort by the administration to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens that supposedly have not been convicted of any “serious” crimes.
Well you may recall that JW filed two FOIA lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to get to the truth about this deportation plan. And according to documents our litigation recently pried loose, not only did Obama administration officials skirt congressional authority when implementing this unlawful scheme behind closed doors, but apparently they also lied about it when they got caught.
The documents, which we obtained from the Obama DHS, show that DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of the immigration enforcement policy change which gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases.
And perhaps most shocking of all, officials considered the dismissal of charges against illegal alien criminals convicted of violent crimes!
The documents concern the response by Houston immigration officials to a June 30, 2010, memo from John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to all ICE employees instructing local immigration officials to use their discretion in “prioritizing” illegal immigration deportation cases.
This new policy resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of immigration cases and an overall 40% increase in deportation dismissals with local Houston ICE officials taking a particularly aggressive approach to the policy’s implementation.
Moreover, despite the claims of immigration officials, ICE considered ending deportation proceeding for illegal aliens with violent crime offenses. A spreadsheet obtained by Judicial Watch lists the specific violent crimes that immigration officials were prepared to overlook. They include: sexual assault, solicitation of murder, aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, and kidnapping, as well as numerous drug charges.
A far cry from the “very narrow class of illegal immigrants with pending green card applications” Obama administration officials described to the press, wouldn’t you say?