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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A controversial policy aimed at identifying and deporting undocumented immigrant criminals that has long been opposed by the city of Providence will come to an end Friday when President Barack Obama signs his executive order overhauling the nation’s immigration policy. Part of the president’s sweeping action is to replace the Secure Communities program, an initiative that asks local law enforcement agencies to run the fingerprints of accused criminals against federal immigration databases. During a primetime speech Thursday, Obama said his new Priority Enforcement Program will focus on deporting “felons, not families.” “This Secure Communities, the name...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has issued a statement regarding her support for President Barack Obama’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions he ordered on Thursday. “I stand with the President on executive action, because throughout our rich history, Baltimore City has welcomed hard-working individuals from across the world whose unique talents, energy, and perspectives have strengthened our growing economy and diversified the fabric of our neighborhoods,” Rawlings-Blake said. “For far too long, a dysfunctional system has held many new Americans back, undermining our deepest values as Americans and our greatest aspirations for prosperity.” She goes on to say, “I strongly...

One day after President Barack Obama announced his plan for executive action on immigration, potential GOP candidate Ben Carson compared the president’s actions to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Carson made the comments Friday to the Christian Broadcasting Network. “You work for the people, they don’t work for you,” said Carson when asked what he would tell the president if he had the chance. “Constitutional authority, you think he has overstepped that in many instances?” asked the CBN host to Carson. “Without question. Hopefully the legislators in Congress will understand what they need to do…They need to have a...

Just what defines a parent and a marriage? asked Caroline Dessert, a self-described "queer Latina" from El Centro, Calif., who is also executive director of Immigration Equality. If it's DNA and a municipal marriage certificate, Dessert pointed out that would leave out roughly 267,000 undocumented members of the LGBT community who could likely be excluded from Obama's intended relief. While the order is a "historic moment," she said, "once again, it appears as though the LGBT community has been excluded from a law designed to protect vulnerable people." "If family relationships through marriage, or blood, is the only way that...

ROMA, Texas — Standing on a cliff looking over the Rio Grande river in this border town, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) notes the buildings behind us on the American side—largely abandoned, run-down houses and a seemingly abandoned local chamber of commerce outpost—look like they’ve been ravaged by war. “This looks like it’s post-World War II, like after a bombing,” Bachmann said while Breitbart News and CNN accompanied her and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to an outpost on the border where illegal immigration and drug cartel crime runs rampant. “We don’t see people living here, but they told us these are...

....it’s crucial for conservatives to do two things that may seem contradictory but are in fact complementary. The first is to fight executive amnesty through all means available. The second is to not allow the issue of illegal immigration to control the Right’s message to Hispanic Americans.... it should not be hard to fight executive action. There are upward of five videos of the president himself telling crowds (mostly Hispanic, in fact) that it would be illegal for him to act on his own.... Conservatives of all parties must remain united and single-minded in action and message. They should not...

This week, President Barack Obama set the change in immigration reform in motion by signing executive orders that would protect some illegal immigrants from deportation and allow some to obtain working permits. Obama’s controversial plan has been met with mixed reviews, but among those who support the order is Boston’s own Cardinal Sean O’Malley. “It’s much needed relief and we applaud what he has done,” O’Malley told WBZ-TV’s Paul Burton while handing out Thanksgiving turkey baskets in Dorchester Saturday. O’Malley said the president’s solution is not a permanent one, but a step in the right direction. “We have 11 million...

GOP Rep. Cory Gardner won election to the Senate in the midterms in a state where 14 percent of voters are Hispanic. His GOP colleague, Rep. Mike Coffman, won re-election in a district where 14 percent of residents were born in foreign countries. Both opposed last year's failed bipartisan effort in the Senate to overhaul the nation's immigration system, a top priority of immigrant-rights groups, especially its centerpiece: a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Both also spoke warmly of the contributions made by immigrants and shifted to the center on...

When 17-year-old Katherine Silva Lopez tried to flee gang members who robbed her daily on her way to school in Honduras, they stabbed her in the arm and threatened to kill her. In San Pedro Sula, one of the world’s most violent cities, it was no idle threat. Were 1,200 ­homicides last year in the city of 437,000, where gangs prey on teens. “They force you to kill, to steal, to sell drugs, to do prostitution,” ­Lopez told The Post in Spanish outside federal court in lower Manhattan. “I was really scared.” Lopez’s parents decided she’d be safer with relatives...

President Obama rejected the idea that his executive action on immigration sets a precedent for future presidents to enact their preferred policies without Congress, at least if the policy were tax reform. George Stephanopoulos asked Obama in an interview airing on This Week about an analogy that many of the president’s critics have drawn: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it — he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.” Obama didn’t respond to the question and continued with his...

President Obama's executive actions on immigration threw gasoline on the fire of border politics — and nowhere is it burning hotter than in Nevada, where incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is gearing up for a tough reelection. Obama chose the Silver State, which has proportionately more illegal immigrants than anywhere else in the country, to begin a tour aimed at winning support for his decision to stop deportations for as many as 5 million people. His first shout-out in a Friday speech at a heavily Hispanic Las Vegas high school went to Reid, who has been emphasizing his...

Judge Jeanine expertly displayed all the arrogance, hypocrisy and opportunism of Obama’s lawless executive action on immigration this week. It’s definitely worth a listen:

Got to admit...pretty accurate... Obama Schoolhouse Rock

Former President Jimmy Carter said that President Obama was "mistaken" to delay taking unilateral action on immigration and suggested such a decision would not give him a political edge over Republicans in Congress. In an interview Thursday just hours before Obama announced his plan to give legal status to 5 million illegal immigrants through executive action, Carter explained it was the right move but suggested it should have happened sooner. "President Obama has worked as well as he can with a recalcitrant House of Representatives," Carter said on MSNBC's “Ronan Farrow Daily” show in an interview that aired Friday afternoon....

In his speech Thursday night, President Barack Obama spoke about the kind of immigrants he hopes to help with his executive action. “Most of these immigrants have been here a long time. They work hard, often in tough low paying jobs. They support their families. They worship at our churches,” Obama said on national TV. The president could have been talking about St. Mary’s Catholic Church in East Chicago, Indiana. Located in a working class city, where half the city’s 35,0000 residents are Hispanic, the church is expecting lots of undocumented immigrants in the coming days. “We’re going to be...

IJReview picked up on one of the funniest SNL sketches in recent (a.k.a. post-original cast) history. It was a Schoolhouse Rock! parody that aired last night, mocking Obama’s latest immigration-related executive order and complete disregard for the constitutional process: It starts out with the familiar boy climbing the steps of Capitol Hill and asking what kind of bill is on the Hill with him. The bill responds with a jingle that he is an “immigration bill” and that he hopes he can be passed into law someday. Cue the President shoving the bill down the stairs before inviting his buddy,...

As Republicans challenge the legality of President Obama's unilateral action on immigration, Democrats are firing back with a challenge of their own. "It is clear that they can complain, they can threaten, they can talk about lawsuits, cutting off funding, shutting down the government, in the extreme, even impeachment. But the real question is: Can they govern? Can they govern?" asked Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. The GOP is weighing their options to undo the president's moves - "a bit of a threat to our democracy," as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas,...

Following President Barack Obama’s speech announcing his executive order on illegal immigration, CNN political commentator and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich unloaded on the President, likening his speech to statements made by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber and that those in the “elite” class “really underestimate” the disdain Americans have for unfortified borders. Responding on CNN in the minutes after it ended, Gingrich opined that it was wrong for the President to go against the incoming Congress as it had “repudiated his policies in the election” a few weeks ago. Gingrich then slammed what viewers just heard as “a...

Having been clobbered in the midterms, the president put on his cockiest face and strut, and in a carefully orchestrated setting designed to make him look imperial poked a thumb in the eye of the newly-elected Congress by announcing that he would not deport the people he was already not deporting. The next day the House of Representatives sued him for overreaching on ObamaCare, but despite a lot of understandably outraged yammering, it is not likely to follow suit or at least succeed in similarly challenging on constitutional grounds his immigration executive order. True, at the heart of both of...

STUDIO CITY (CBSLA.com) — The president’s announcement Thursday of an executive order shielding some five million undocumented immigrants from deportation has been a subject of controversy. And Loyola Marymount University Professor Michael Genovese stopped by KCAL9 Saturday to discuss the context surrounding the issue. “All presidents use executive authority. That’s been true from Washington to Obama. And almost all executives actions are non-controversial. Every once in a while something spills over causes great concern and controversy,” he said. “It’s one of those cases reasonable people could disagree. And historically we have seen for the most part presidents prevail in these...