Free Republic

Even though the number of illegal immigrants who have been deported through the courts has dropped by 43% since President Barack Obama took office, the Obama administration may enact administrative changes to allow bond hearings for detained illegal immigrants. According to the Los Angeles Times, this could result in "several thousand" illegal immigrants being released from jails and "could slow the pace of deportations" even more. The Times notes that the White House is scrambling to "ease the concerns of Latino groups and other traditional allies that have turned on President Obama in recent weeks" by trying to brand him...

A prominent super PAC of key allies of President George W. Bush and failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney, formed to give Republicans who support amnesty legislation air cover, failed to raise any money during the first quarter of this year. Carlos Gutierrez, the former Bush Commerce Secretary, and Charlie Spies, the co-founder of Restore Our Future, which was the biggest pro-Romney super PAC, formed the Republicans For Immigration Reform super PAC "to provide political support for Republican candidates" backing comprehensive immigration reform. According to its Federal Election Commission report, which was filed on April 15 and covers the period from...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says President Barack Obama's budget request would mean significantly larger budget deficits than the White House claims. CBO says the budget plan proposed last month by Obama would produce deficits of $6.6 trillion over the next 10 years — $1.6 trillion more than the White House estimates. The main reason is that the White House has a rosier estimate of the economy's performance over the decade than CBO. That means the administration predicts higher tax revenues. The president's budget is just a proposal; it has gained little...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited an elementary school in Columbus, N.M. last year where 75 percent of the students live in Mexico but are being educated in the United States because their mothers crossed the border to seek medical help, and their birth here makes them U.S. citizens. "So for decades, women in labor have been allowed to cross the border and go to the nearest hospital, which happens to be just 30 miles north of the U.S. border,” the documentary says. “Once they give birth there, the children become citizens.” Duncan also hailed the children’s parents for having “the...

On Wednesday, Eric Cantor strongly suggested immigration reform won't come up in the House of Representatives after he received a phone call from President Barack Obama. "House Republicans do not support Senate Democrats' immigration bill and amnesty efforts, and it will not be considered in the House," the Republican majority leader said in a statement after the call. He accused the president of engaging in "partisan messaging" and offered no indication that the House intends to act on the issue. His full statement is below. "Today, President Obama called me to discuss his desire for comprehensive immigration reform. The President...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is working to to enlist 30 specific House Republicans on a mission to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. In a memorandum from the chief cosponsors of the Democratic House comprehensive immigration bill to “interested parties” published on Pelosi’s House website and pushed to press by her communications team, Pelosi specifically targets 30 Republicans she says aren’t working hard enough for amnesty. “It’s Time for [Insert name of GOP House member here] to Walk the Walk on Immigration Reform,” the memo, from Democrat Reps. Jared Polis (D-CO), Judy Chu (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Joe Garcia (D-FL)...

landed in the Facebook gulag when I tried to post our daily Bible verse. ... Now before you call up the preacher had put me on the church prayer list – let me assure the posting was neither unseemly nor ungentlemanly. Nevertheless, it caused great consternation and angst among Facebook’s left-wing censors. Following is the egregious text: “Rancher Bundy should’ve told the feds that those were Mexican cows – who came across the border illegally to seek better grazing opportunities. It was an act of love.” Thousands of you posted comments and many more shared that message. It’s now gone...

by John Urban | Top Right News Advocates for illegal aliens were stunned this week as the Florida Supreme Court barred an illegal alien from joining the Florida bar to practice law. The La Raza lobby was especially stunned after the California Supreme Court, just months ago, did the exact opposite, as we noted at the time, admitting all qualified applicants as attorneys, including “an applicant who is not lawfully present in the United States” — illegal aliens. And they were convinced this was a wave that would sweep other states, as in-state tuition has done. Not so fast, said Florida's top...

Partisan bickering over immigration reform legislation intensified on Wednesday as President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Republicans accused each other of standing in the way of progress one year after bipartisan Senate legislation was introduced. "I urge House Republicans to listen to the will of the American people and bring immigration reform to the House floor for a vote," Obama said. Obama has warned that a failure by Congress to pass legislation could prompt him to look for ways to use his executive powers to make some limited advances on U.S. immigration policy.

The numbers count of any likely GOP Senate majority in the new Congress suggests that real immigration reform is by no means a forgone conclusion. Indeed, it could be rather iffy. The ratio of Democrats to Republicans is important, as is control of the Senate. And the actual composition of the crucial Senate committees matters as well, and that certainly includes the Senate Judiciary that has primary (but shared) jurisdiction over immigration legislation. As it stands now, of the eight Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, two were original members of the 2013 "Gang of Eight."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Wednesday said he had a phone call with President Barack Obama on the topic of immigration reform. It didn’t sound like it was a particularly friendly conversation. Cantor issued a statement saying, in part: The President called me hours after he issued a partisan statement which attacked me and my fellow House Republicans and which indicated no sincere desire to work together. After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a...

House Democrats, who are stepping up the pressure on Republicans to take up comprehensive immigration reform legislation, said Tuesday the Obama administration is getting ready to take executive action on the matter very soon.Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson earlier this month told House Democrats he'll take action in the next few weeks on “fixes” to immigration law, most likely dealing with deportation.“He gave us a time frame, and there are some fixes that are going to be coming sooner, which is in the next few weeks. And then there are some broader policy changes that will be coming later this...

Mayor expected to sign order curtailing police-ICE collaboration Mayor Nutter is expected to sign an executive order tomorrow that will significantly limit collaboration between Philadelphia police and federal immigration authorities. The order is expected to preclude police from honoring detainer requests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement except in cases where a person is convicted of a first- or second-degree felony involving violence, and only when ICE secures a warrant to support the detainer...

"Millions of illegal immigrants are getting bigger tax refunds than you are."

Laura Ingraham hosted Taylor Griffin challenging Walter Jones in North Carolina. Griffin said that while Jones, after being a Democrat, became a Republican but has worked since with the Democrats. Griffin said he is against amnesty as the GOP should be for the rule of law. He is for continuing deportations.

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro wants President Barack Obama to give temporary amnesty to illegal immigrants whose family members are U.S. citizens. Castro, considered a potential vice presidential candidate for Democrats in 2016, believes Obama should extend the deferred action even more to those over 30 years of age and who may not have come to the country as children. "We should look at people who have been here for more than ten years, who do not have a serious criminal record and who have family members who are United States citizens," Castro said in an interview before his debate...

The American Legion says it is opposed to trying to tie immigration into the annual defense policy debate, calling it an unacceptable “amnesty” and dealing a serious blow to Republicans desperate to pass some sort of legalization of illegal immigrants ahead of November’s elections. Several Republicans say they want to attach a small legalization that would grant an explicit chance at citizenship to young illegal immigrants willing to join the military.

Three key conclusions emerge from this analysis: First, the enormous flow of legal immigrants in to the country — 29.5 million 1980 to 2012 — has remade and continues to remake the nation's electorate in favor of the Democratic Party.Second, the partisan impact of immigration is relatively uniform throughout the country— from California to Texas to Florida — even though local Republican parties have taken different positions on illegal immigration. The decline does not seem to vary with the local Republican Party's position on illegal immigration. Third, if legal immigration levels remain at the current levels of over one million...

Latinos and immigration activists are warning of political peril for President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fall election unless the president acts boldly and soon to curb deportations and allow more immigrants to remain legally in the U.S. Many activists say Obama has been slow to grasp the emotions building within the Latino community as deportations near the 2 million mark for his administration and hopes for immigration legislation fade. With House Republicans unlikely to act on an overhaul, executive action by Obama is increasingly the activists’ only hope.“There is tremendous anger among core constituencies of the president and...

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Ruth Alvarez says breast cancer has been her personal prison; she is now facing the disease behind bars. Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies arrested Alvarez-- an undocumented immigrant-- in early April for working with a false identification. She says her arrest comes just a few weeks away from her planned mastectomy scheduled for April 23rd. Alvarez is asking to be release so she can undergo the surgery with her family by her side. "To go through breast cancer is already hard, it's so hard to go through treatments seeing how your whole body, your whole life kinda change,"...