Free Republic

Senator Hopes To Provide Healthcare To Immigrants Lacking Legal Status by Soumya Karlamangla February 14, 2014 State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) introduced legislation Friday that would allow immigrants without legal status to receive or buy health insurance through the state. Such immigrants are the single-largest group of people who remain uninsured under the Affordable Care Act. The national law explicitly bars immigrants without legal status from receiving any kind of federal money, which means that in California, they can't buy insurance through the Covered California exchange, or qualify for the state's low-income health plan, Medi-Cal. "Healthcare for everyone should...

Caving into the demands of a leftist civil rights group, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has terminated an enforcement program that apprehends illegal immigrants in California’s central valley. The unbelievable story comes out of Kern County in Bakersfield, which is considered the heart of the nation’s most populous state. The increasingly powerful American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) didn’t like that the DHS agency responsible for deporting illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was doing its job. So the ACLU, which has repeatedly shown to wield tremendous power in the Obama administration, fired off a letter demanding that the...

Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue says in an op-ed that the U.S. needs more low-skill immigration because Americans are not "qualified" or "willing" to do such work. "Immigration can also address labor shortages in lesser-skilled fields where there are insufficient numbers of either qualified or willing U.S. workers to fill positions," Donohue writes. Alabama senator Jeff Sessions tries to frame the issue differently. “We must transition struggling Americans from welfare and joblessness to work and rising wages,” says Sessions. “But the only plan the President and Senate Democrats appear interested in supporting would hollow out a shrinking American middle...

There’s no man or woman in red-state America these days with more power than Cruz to set a new conservative litmus test. But c’mon: How many of you need to be formally warned at this point by your favorite Republican that the House is looking to sell out border hawks on immigration reform? It’s like blaming Rand Paul for turning libertarians against the NSA. He plays a useful role in bringing attention to the issue, but those people turned on their own initiative ages ago. Same here.Cruz won’t mind being blamed for this one, though. House Republicans who supported the...

Currently, President Obama and his Administration are deporting more than 1,100 aspiring Americans every single day. That’s 1,100 mothers and fathers and hardworking folks who come to the United States because our economy desperately needs them, our businesses aggressively recruit them, and yet our laws have not kept pace with that reality. Related Stories The White House argues that it does not have the legal authority to stop or reduce the number of deportations in America—that the only possible recourse is passing comprehensive immigration reform. But last week, advocates with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) filed a 41-page...

During a House panel hearing on asylum fraud, Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee warned her committee colleagues to “be prepared” for immigration protests. “Let me just take note of the fact and in as calm a voice as I might do so … as I understand it before I came into the chambers there were persons expressing their First Amendment rights and obviously through the protocol of this committee were removed from the committee but they were expressing their consternation, their frustration, their hurt and their pain,” she said. At the beginning of the hearing, pro-immigration reform protesters shouted,...

TUCSON — “My record is 30 minutes,” Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco of Federal District Court here said one afternoon, describing the speed with which he had sealed the fates of a batch of 70 migrants caught sneaking into the country. Each of the accused had 25 seconds, give or take, to hear the charges against him, enter a plea and receive a sentence. This is a part of the battle against illegal immigration that many Americans have never heard of. Known as Operation Streamline, it is the core of a federal program that operates in three border states, using...

(CNSNews.com) – Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the nation’s top immigration law enforcer, said on Friday that the estimated 11.5 million illegal aliens in the United States are “not going away.” “They’re here, and they’re not going away,” Johnson said at the Woodrow Wilson Center in remarks billed by the Obama administration as his “first major speech.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), anti-amnesty hawk, said in a Thursday afternoon statement that even if President Barack Obama stopped governing lawlessly, amnesty would still be bad for the country. Sessions’ comments came in response to House Speaker John Boehner’s remarks that amnesty would need to go on hold because of a lack of trust in Obama’s law enforcement capabilities. “The Administration's aggressive defiance of congressionally enacted law is a profound obstacle in the way of any proposed immigration changes,” Sessions said.  Moreover, the Administration's actions undermine the constitutional system that provides all residents with a hopeful future. I warned about...

If there is one thing the Obama administration can be depended on to do, it is to do their own thing. They have a record of ignoring laws that have been passed by Congress and changing others to suit their needs and agenda. So it is with our immigration law. They have already stated they would not deport certain illegal immigrants, saying their only crime was to be brought to America when they were children. That could be debatable, given the fact that many of them have had the opportunity to do the right thing, yet chose to live here...

This week, Republicans in the House had a closed-door immigration meeting to discuss whether or not to push immigration reform in the coming year. From what we've learned, three factions squared off to discuss the issue. The first faction is opposed to any new legislation as the current legislation isn't being enforced by the Obama administration. A second faction wants to bring immigration reform to the House floor for voting now, while a third faction supports new legislation but believes that this is the wrong time to do it as the midterm elections of 2014 are almost upon us. I...

<p>"Rep. Paul Ryan and the Wall Street Journal are for throwing in the towel. Legalize them all and start them on the path to citizenship.</p> <p>A full and final capitulation. Let’s get it over with.</p> <p>To understand why and how the Republican Party lost Middle America, and faces demographic death, we need to go back to Bush I.</p>

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the set of immigration "principles" released Thursday by House GOP leaders suggest the door is open for reform. "While these standards are certainly not everything we would agree with, they leave a real possibility that Democrats and Republicans, in both the House and Senate, can in some way come together and pass immigration reform that both sides can accept. It is a long, hard road but the door is open," he said in a statement. Schumer is a leading author of the comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate last year, which House Republicans have...

WASHINGTON — For more than a year House Republican leaders have insisted the chamber would act on new immigration laws. And for more than a year, Republicans have done virtually nothing on the issue — despite intense pressure from activists, business groups, and the nation’s changing demographics. And although there are a variety of reasons for inaction, one Republican lawmaker recently offered a frank acknowledgement that for many House Republicans, there’s one issue at play that’s not often discussed: race. “Part of it, I think — and I hate to say this, because these are my people — but I...

The good thing about anti-gun liberals in Washington is that they are pathologically incapable of keeping their mouths shut. And, this morning, shortly before 9:00, MSNBC commentator Dick Gregory announced that House Speaker John Boehner, the day before, had told a private meeting of reporters that he had been talking with Barack Obama “a lot” about pushing immigration reform. It’s pretty clear why Barack Obama wants a bill which would either legalize or grant citizenship to as many as 11.5 million people who, according to Latinos expressing their opinions in a Pew poll, would cast 88% of their votes for...

This could get ugly. Thursday at 4:30pm in Cambridge, Maryland, Speaker John Boehner will unveil an outline of the party's immigration stance to rank-and-file members that includes “legal status” for millions of illegal immigrants. Boehner hand-selected members to help lead the discussion, including California Rep. Jeff Denham, the first Republican to endorse the House Democrats' immigration bill. But as much as Boehner is dreaming of a big, bipartisan immigration deal – senior GOP officials say they are surprised just how much the Ohio Republican is “leaning in” on the issue – top immigration hawks are themselves ready to raise hell....

There is a lot that has been said about immigration reform. Some advocates of performing a massive overhaul of our immigration system will tell you the system is broken. They will insist something needs to be, has to be done. It is true that we have problems in how the immigration system is working, but those problems stem from an unwillingness of our government to enforce our immigration laws in the first place. This unwillingness is much more prominent in the Obama administration, with his specific orders to refrain from many deportations. The President's excuse is that it is simply the...

Boy, 3, killed after 'drunk driving illegal immigrant with no insurance slammed into family's vehicle leaving them unable to pay for funeral' A three-year-old Utah boy has been killed after an allegedly drunk driving illegal immigrant rear-ended his family's car while it was stopped at a red light, causing a five-vehicle pile up. Zane Thurber, who was strapped into his car-seat in the back of his dad Matt's Subaru, died instantly in the horrific collision that occurred at a Taylorsville intersection Saturday night. Witnesses said suspect Manuel de Jesus Guinea, 55, was driving at about 70 mph shortly before he...

Yet another welfare and illegal alien insanity story – while amnesty pimps like Sen. Dick Durbin keep telling us “undocumented immigrants can’t collect welfare”. The head of the largest heroin operation in Polk County, FL history, along with numerous others who work for him, are illegal aliens who collect foodstamps. Four of the operation’s women also collect WIC payments. In addition to raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money, the ringleader collected $900 every month from the government. “You, the hard working taxpayer of this state, were paying him for this,” the Polk County Sheriff said.

(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at the United States Conference of Mayors on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have “earned the right to be citizens.”