Free Republic

Tax credits received by illegal immigrants and wage write offs US companies claim in their illegal employment costs the Treasury $296 billion over 10 years, according to a new report that is urging Congress to crack down on loopholes. Annually, according the Center for Immigration Studies, the lost taxes bill amounts to $30 billion, enough to fund the average middle income tax cut the Trump Administration is considering, about $300.

The killing of a Santa Rosa woman by an undocumented immigrant two weeks ago has exposed a constitutional feud between federal and county governments over the detention of immigrants at the Sonoma County Jail. The dispute stems from the release of a Guatemalan national, Nery Israel Estrada- Margos, 38, who bailed out of the jail Aug. 3, a day after being booked on domestic battery charges. While in custody, Estrada- Margos’ fingerprints matched those in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database. The federal agency sent an immigration detainer request to jail officials, asking them to hold Estrada-Margos for up to...

The defenders of former President Barack Obama’s DACA amnesty are touting a rigged study to claim economic benefits from the controversial policy. The study shows post-amnesty wage gains for illegals, but it is based on a skewed sample of relatively successful DACA illegals who were identified by advocacy groups. For example, one-third of the people in the study sample who are older than age 25 hold four-year college bachelors’ degrees or better. In contrast, an August 2013 report by the pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute showed that only 7.5 percent of the 800,000 DACA-qualified illegals who were 18 or older had...

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Larua Kiessling said, from the bench, she received many letters about the case expressing concern about the “current political climate” where President Trump has been “harshly critical of illegal immigration and of Mexico in particular,” the Capital Gazette reported. The judge said it is “reasonable to conclude” that the defendant, Martin Martinez-Ballinas, would flee the scene out of fear of being deported. “I’m not going to sentence based on the political environment,” Keissling told the courtroom. Maryland defense attorney Kush Arora told Breitbart Texas that Martinez-Ballinas’s fear does not matter as to guilt or...

A radical Muslim cleric who masterminded two terror attacks in Spain last week narrowly dodged deportation following a drug-smuggling bust there — by crying that his removal would violate his rights. Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty radicalized the young men accused of killing 15 people and wounding more than 120 in two Spanish cities according to court testimony from one of the terror-cell’s four suspected surviving members in Madrid Tuesday. The 45-year-old Es Satty spent four years in Spanish prison for smuggling hashish between his native Morocco and Spain in 2010, according to the UK Telegraph. While there, he spent time...

The closed-door session between Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams and Will Goana, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona, occurred just weeks before the Phoenix Police Department quietly implemented a new policy banning officers from contacting the feds after arresting an illegal alien and forbidding them from asking about suspects’ immigration status. The new order violates key provisions of a state law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and leaves the city vulnerable to costly lawsuits. Judicial Watch exposed the abrupt policy revision last month after obtaining a copy of the Phoenix Police Department’s new sanctuary...

Economics is an intellectual tool that can help us make better decisions, but it should not make these decisions for us. There are many rational reasons to sacrifice economic expediency for principles of far greater value—things like family, freedom, art, science, nature, or God. One of the reasons Singapore is so rich is because political dissent, and the uncertainty it creates, is extirpated. Likewise, China’s economic rise was made possible, in part, due to its ability to bulldoze villages, pollute rivers, and silence critics—all in the name of “progress.” Economically justified? Certainly. Rational? Perhaps—for Bentham’s most ardent acolytes. But for...

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino on Wednesday vetoed legislation aimed at protecting illegal immigrants because he believes it could result in the county being labeled as a sanctuary municipality, risking millions in federal funds. Mr. Astorino said the legislation would jeopardize public safety and cost taxpayers $13 million. “If you end up in our jail for committing a crime, and you’re not here legally, we’re not providing a sanctuary for you,” Mr. Astorino said.

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - A man could be forced to leave the country after police say he left his puppy in a hot car. The puppy was spotted Sunday night panting in the back seat of an SUV in Lawrenceville. A witness said the dog had been in the SUV for at least a half hour and was struggling. “The external temperature outside was about 82 degrees. However when they put a thermometer inside the car, they determined the temperature inside the SUV was 94 to over 100 degrees,” said Cpl. Michele Pihera with the Gwinnett County Police Department. Police...

It started with a WhatsApp message that read like an answer to the prayers of thousands of immigrants fearing deportation by President Trump. Canada wanted them, it promised — a revelation that filled Haitians across the United States with hope and helped to encourage an exodus to the north. There was just one problem: the information was false.

The immigration reform bill that Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue introduced Wednesday — the RAISE Act — won’t become law anytime soon. But it’s a milestone that’s going to change the way we think about immigration, and will be the biggest issue in 2018 and 2020. There are two simple principles behind the bill. We’re going to admit people on the basis that they’ll make Americans better off. And amnesty is off the table. The bill would reduce the number of family-preference immigrants, people who come here because they have an immediate relative in the country. Right now two-thirds...

Illegal immigrant families received nearly $1.3 billion in Los Angeles County welfare money during 2015 and 2016, nearly one-​quarter of the amount spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to data obtained by Fox News. The data was obtained from the county Department of Public Social Services -- which is responsible for doling out the benefits -- and gives a snapshot of the financial costs associated with sanctuary and related policies. The sanctuary county of Los Angeles is an illegal immigration epicenter, with the largest concentration of any county ​in the nation, according to a study from the Migration...

Despite being deported several times over the years and found guilty of a pletheora of previous crimes, Sergio Jose Martinez walked freely in Portland, Oregon, and went on yet another crime spree. He broke into the homes of two women, where he raped them, robbed them of cash and other items, and stole one of their cars. He’d previously been deported TWENTY times. He is currently being held on charges of two counts of Burglary in the First Degree, two counts of Robbery in the First Degree, Kidnapping in the First Degree, Assault in the Second Degree, two counts of...

One of the undocumented immigrants who died in a stifling tractor-trailer here Saturday was a 19-year-old who grew up in Northern Virginia and graduated from a Fairfax County high school before getting in trouble with the law and being deported to his native Guatemala, according to court records and government officials. He was sneaking back into the United States. Frank G. Fuentes was one of at least six Guatemalans packed into a poorly ventilated truck with scores of other migrants who had crossed the border illegally, said Cristy Andrino, the consul of Guatemala in McAllen, Tex. Frank G. Fuentes was...

Sapna Rampersaud has written an article for National Review Online's The Corner titled"Illegal Immigrants Can Now Defend the Laws They Break," detailing how the states of New York and California have moved to permit illegal aliens to practice law. This is the kind of thing one might expect to see as a headline on the satirical website The Onion, but, sadly, it's true. Actually, they've been headed that way for some time. John Feere, previously a legal policy analyst here at the Center, wrote about California's efforts clear back in January of 2014, and commented on the back flips achieved by the California...

The significant downturn in the number of illegal border crossers between the U.S. and Mexico is "nothing short of miraculous," National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said on C-SPAN Monday. "As far as the Trump administration's efforts on immigration, this is something they campaigned heavily on," he said. "At six months, where we are on meeting those promises, we are seeing nothing short of miraculous. If you look at the rhetoric that President Trump has given, it has caused a number of illegal border crossings to go down. We have never seen such a drop that we currently have."...

Oregon’s legislature reduced penalties for drug possession in a new bill with the stated goal of hoping to reduce radical profiling by law enforcement agencies. The bill, H. B. 2355, was able to pass the House and Senate and reduces drug possession charges of illegal drugs to misdemeanors, as opposed to felonies so long as the individual in question does not have any prior drug convictions. A press release from Oregon’s AG Ellen Rosenblum states the following regarding the bill: Profiling (HB 2355): Implements 2015 law enforcement anti-profiling laws, and provides new levels of transparency in policing in Oregon by...

illegal immigration costs Illinois $3.85 billion per year. This number is a low estimate in a particularly low year because of the budget crisis happening in Illinois currently. So let’s put that number in perspective. As mentioned above, Illinois is in a budget crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy. Their state debt is upwards of $64 billion. Their credit rating is a BBB-, which is one notch above a junk/non-investment rating. They are also projected to have their credit further downgraded. Illinois also has unpaid bills upwards of $15 billion (with $800 million per year just in interest payments)...

Six in 10 American voters support the new ban on people from six countries from entering the United States unless they can show they have a close relative here, according to opinion poll results released on Wednesday. The Politico-Morning Consult poll found 37 percent of voters said they "strongly supported" the new U.S. State Department guidelines that would deny visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen who do not have close relatives in the United States. Another 23 percent of voters said they "somewhat support" the guidelines. The partial ban was most strongly supported by Trump's...

NEW YORK CITY — As left-wing Mayor Bill de Blasio designates millions of dollars of taxpayer money to pay the lawyer fees of illegal immigrants, New York’s failing subway system is falling into greater disrepair — with a state of emergency being declared by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and one straphanger spotting that her subway train was being held together with a zip tie. De Blasio earmarked $16 million in his budget proposal in April to pay the legal fees of people in the Big Apple illegally — part of a broader push from de Blasio to remove any...