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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Wednesday that the country could face another spike in illegal immigration as the U.S. economy picks up and as seasonal patterns change, though he said they have made major progress in combatting the surge of illegal immigrant children that wrong-footed his department earlier this year. “We’re determined that we need to do more ourselves for border security,” Mr. Johnson said in a speech at the National Press Club sponsored by Democratic group NDN. “I’m concerned about the possibility of another rise in illegal migration.” Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/19/jeh-johnson-us-could-face-new-surge-illegals/#ixzz3JZv6NEhX Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Illegal immigration is falling in Arizona, California and New Mexico, but rising in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. Drawing on data provided by the U.S. Census, Pew researchers reported a 21 percent increase in the number of people living in Pennsylvania illegally between the years 2009 and 2012. The Keystone State was home to an estimated 170,000 residents here illegally as of 2012, according to the study.

One of the issues that killed the Senate’s hated “Gang of Eight” amnesty for illegal aliens bill was that it allowed the amnestied illegal aliens to immediately access public benefits reserved for citizens and legal immigrants. House conservatives correctly argued that the “Gang of Eight” bill and its various House companion bills would allow illegal aliens immediate access to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and various other welfare programs, such as food stamps. While the proponents of the “Gang of Eight” bill tried to finesse the issue the bottom line was and is that once the government gives a Social Security...

The Norwegian paper The Local reported in September that asylum seekers and illegal immigrants (euphemistically called "persons living in Norway without papers") are over-represented in the country's crime statistics: Asylum seekers and visa-less immigrants in Norway are charged with twice as many crimes per head of population as Norwegians, but still account for a very small proportion of overall criminality, a new report has said. [Emphasis added] The authors of the report from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), in the typical, apologetic style of officialdom, felt compelled to add: "This is so little that it has minimal significance...

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that the state with senators who both voted for the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, which cleared the Senate in June, has 71 percent of its job growth going to foreign-born workers, including legal and illegal immigrants. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) both voted for Senate Bill 744, which CIS calculated would have roughly doubled the number of new foreign workers allowed into the country and would have given legal status to millions of illegal aliens already in the country had the legislation been passed by...

An election-watch group is suing Maryland over the alleged presence of noncitizens on the state’s voting rolls. The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, asserts that individuals who opted out of jury duty because they were not legal U.S. residents have cast ballots in at least three Maryland elections. Based on the number of potential unqualified voters identified in Frederick County, up to 7 percent of Maryland’s registered voters could be illegal immigrants, according to estimates. “Their continued appearance on these lists makes it nearly impossible for Maryland law to prevent these declared noncitizens from casting votes...

A member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told President Obama Monday that the administration’s reported plan to grant work permits to millions of illegal immigrants of illegal immigrants would have a harmful effect on black American workers. Peter Kirsanow, a Republican appointee to the panel, said in a letter to the president and to the Congressional Black Caucus that issuing millions of work permits to potentially low-wage workers “will devastate the black community.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined to address a Breitbart News report about a “surge” of immigration ID’s requested by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. ... A draft solicitation for bids issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Oct. 6 says potential vendors must be capable of handling a “surge” scenario of nine million id cards in one year “to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.”

Newser) – Three teenage girls from Denver flew overseas in a bid to join ISIS in Syria before being stopped, reports the Denver Post. The girls, ages 15 and 16, apparently were lured by a "slick" online campaign to join militants with the Islamic State, an FBI official tells ABC News. They made it as far as Frankfurt, Germany, before being detained, and all three have been returned to their families in Denver. It's unclear whether they will face charges. The Voice of America first reported the incident, saying that two of the girls are of Somali origin, while the...

Calling it "“an irresponsible overreach of the executive branch’s authority.," Senator Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is criticizing an executive order issued by the president that would allow at least 100,000 Haitian nationals into the United States to be "reunited with their families." A similar program that reunited Central American children with their parents had a fraud rate of about 70%. “The rebuilding and development of a safe and economically strong Haiti is a priority for the United States. The Haitian Family Reunification Parole program promotes a fundamental underlying goal of our immigration system — family reunification,”...

“We are in a dangerous place in the world, perhaps more dangerous than in the past 10 years.” That’s what former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff had to say when he visited The Heritage Foundation recently. And with reports of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, often referred to as ISIS, all over the news, it’s not hard to see why. As Chertoff noted, terrorist groups have proliferated “from Africa east to Afghanistan.” Frightening images of beheadings and other forms of graphic violence are all too common. And news that some Americans have gone to the Middle East...

Illegal immigrants have the same constitutional right to bail that U.S. citizens do, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision striking down an Arizona statute designed to make sure criminals without any community ties didn’t flee in the face of a looming trial. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 9-2 decision, ruled that Arizona’s voters, who passed the statute in a 2006 referendum, were actually trying to punish illegal immigrants rather than trying to reduce the risk of flight by those charged with serious felonies. The judges said bail isn’t allowed to be used as...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Michigan toddler Madeline Reid died Friday in her parents' arms. Doctors say she'd been battling Enterovirus D-68 when her heart failed. Lab tests will have to confirm the Enterovirus was directly responsible for the death of Madeline, 4-year-old Eli Waller of New Jersey, and 4 others. Nearly 700 people, mostly kids, have been infected with Enterovirus D-68 in 46 states....

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) has taken the lead in two new polls released on Wednesday as his opponent Greg Orman again endorsed amnesty for illegal immigrants during Wednesday's debate. In a Fox News poll, Roberts leads Orman, the liberal Democrat running as an "independent," by 5 points. Roberts leads Orman by a point in a CNN/ORC poll. Three weeks ago, Orman was leading Roberts by six points. In Wednesday's debate, Roberts accused Orman of supporting amnesty after Orman tried to convince voters that he did not. The Kansas City Star reports that Orman does indeed support "a path to citizenship...

Two immigration groups have filed legal complaints against the Obama administration for kicking over one hundred thousand Obamacare customers off their insurance plans without sending notices in their native language, Modern Healthcare reports. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition (SEAMACC) have both filed complaints with Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights. The groups believe the Obama administration’s move to end the health plans of customers who failed to prove their legal immigration or citizenship status violate customers’ rights as immigrants. The Obama administration terminated 115,000 customers’ Obamacare...

There are four places in the United States set up to handle a patient sickened by the Ebola virus, and Missoula is one of those. .... And any hospital equipped to care for a tuberculosis patient can care for an Ebola patient, according to Dr. George Risi, an infectious disease specialist who recently returned from spending 20 days in a Sierra Leone Ebola ward. Accompanied by St. Patrick’s intensive care nursing director Kate Hurley, Risi helped local clinic staff care for up to 95 patients at a time. While untreated Ebola kills more than 70 percent of its victims, more...

We’ve got a problem in the Twin Cities that is based in our large and still growing population of Somali immigrants. Somalis have been immigrating to Minnesota for more than twenty years now. They have taken advantage of all the services that our state and local institutions offer. They have been welcomed with open arms, in Minnesota’s characteristic style. Yet Minnesota’s Somali community — a/k/a “Minnesotans” — is the most fertile ground in the United States for the recruitment of terrorists by foreign terrorist organizations in Africa and the Middle East. We are concerned that they may choose to return...

HOUSTON, Texas -- Gangs operating in Falfurrias, Texas have allegedly been the recipient of “a massive amount” of inbound wire transfers. The transfers are believed to be extortion payments to local gang members who allegedly kidnap illegal immigrants who are found hiking through the ranches of Brooks County to avoid the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint. The immigrants are then held hostage until money is wired into the gang members – usually around one to three thousand dollars. The local gang members grab up the illegal immigrants they find on the roadways or in the ranches of Brooks County,” said Congressman...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mike Michaud (Maine) says he is opposed to the idea of curtailing the eligibility for welfare payments to illegal immigrants. “These people have undertaken a long, arduous, and often dangerous journey to get here,” Michaud said. “That took courage and determination. Welfare payments are a meager reward for enduring these treks. It would be niggardly of us to deny them after they’ve crossed the finish line.” Under Maine law, illegal immigrants are not eligible for state funded welfare payments. Nonetheless, several cities have defied the law and paid out public funds to them. Portland disburses over...

BOSTON (AP) — Federal immigration officials say a four-day enforcement operation in New England has ended with the arrest of 81 immigrants, including those convicted of crimes, fugitives and those accused of other immigration violations.