Free Republic

What can President Barack Obama actually do without Congress to change U.S. immigration policies? A lot, it turns out. There are some limits under federal law, and anything the White House ultimately decides to do may be challenged in court as unconstitutional. But leading legal experts say the White House almost certainly could delay indefinitely efforts to deport millions of immigrants already in the U.S. illegally, and it could give them official work permits that would allow them to legally find jobs, obtain driver's licenses and pay income taxes. Here is what Obama could not do without approval from Congress:...

NEW HAVEN -- Wendy Paz Barrios spent her Friday evening in a kitchen making sandwiches for her journey to Washington, D.C. The 17-year-old from Guatemala doesn’t live with family, but with friends here. She rarely speaks to her parents, instead choosing to call only her siblings. But in a way, her sense of family was in that kitchen Friday among several other immigrants who, like her, are making preparations to fight for what they believe in — to stop deportation. Come 4 a.m. Saturday, Barrios and 69 others will be on a bus heading to Washington, D.C., to convince President...

HOUSTON, Texas--As unaccompanied minors continue to illegally cross the Texas-Mexico border, President Obama's Health and Human Services (HHS) has been quietly releasing them onto U.S. soil. A total of 30,340 unaccompanied minors have already been released from federal custody and placed into foster homes, according to HHS' Office of Refugee and Resettlement (ORR). While many migrants have been released in border states like Texas and California, others have been set free in Alaska. Federal data shows that as of July 7, five unaccompanied minors were released in Alaska.

A bill to fund border security blew up in House Speaker John Boehner's face on Thursday, leaving Republicans in disarray and struggling to reconcile Tea Party demands with the need to deal with a humanitarian crisis on the southwestern border with Mexico. Tea Party-backed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas had his fingerprints all over Thursday's debacle for Boehner. Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential contender, had lobbied his House Republican colleagues to reject the legislation on the grounds that it was too timid. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski tried to contrast her party's approach to that of Republicans when, during...

House Speaker John A. Boehner was always expected to have trouble passing emergency funds for the crisis at the Southwestern border -- but Republican Sen. Ted Cruz made his job impossible. Cruz, the hard-line Texas Republican, has been working behind the scenes to stir up conservative opposition to a House GOP plan to approve $659 million to secure the border and handle the flow of unaccompanied immigrant youths. And it worked. Amid disarray, House GOP leaders canceled Thursday's vote after it was clear they did not have the votes. House GOP leaders bristled at the senator's interference on their turf....

Long before Barack Obama ran for president, Cecilia Munoz was on the front lines of the immigration debate. In 2000, she was named a MacArthur genius fellow for her work on civil rights and immigration. When Obama won the election in 2008, one of his first orders of business was persuading Munoz to join his White House staff. Those were the heady days when legislative change seemed possible, and an activist like Munoz could dream of achieving her goal from an office on the second floor of the West Wing. It hasn’t turned out the way many Obama supporters hoped,...

San Pedro Sula, Honduras -- Shielding on the borders and blind spots in Honduras, they manage coyotes and now seek alternatives to continue trafficking who are destined for the United States. Migrants start the journey you take it to Puerto Barrios in Guatemala. "new way of operating and human traffickers are now moving in boats and younger people is detected to take to Guatemala en route to the United States. The boats offer unsecured and warn people that if any of the passengers falls off the boat, they will not stop the march to rescue him. Police officials estimate that...

Just 108 of the thousands of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing the U.S. border have been granted asylum in 2014, in a process that often takes more than a year, members of the U.S. Congress heard on Tuesday. But with immigrants usually making their formal asylum requests more than 10 months after first being apprehended, most of those applicants arrived the previous year. “Of the 167 unaccompanied children asylum cases adjudicated on the merits in [Fiscal Year 2014] through the third quarter, 108 have been granted asylum status,” Rodríguez told a House panel. But in a sign of how the process...

By REBECCA KAPLAN CBS NEWS July 30, 2014 Obama May Consider Deferring Deportation for Millions The White House is reportedly weighing unilateral steps President Obama could take to defer the deportation of anywhere from 550,000 to 4.4 million of immigrants living in the U.S., a move that would be sure to infuriate Republicans. According to the Wall Street Journal, top White House officials have discussed the potential for executive action in a series of meetings with stakeholders who support such a move, including faith leaders and immigrant advocates and some lawmakers. Two possibilities under discussion would protect people who have...

Neil Cavuto says, “Illegals can protest outside the White House for rights they don’t even have while authorities who can see them in broad daylight ignore them as if they don’t have a clue, on our dime, on all of our dimes". Cavuto highlights how we are, “enrolling kids for classes beyond crowded here, paid for by communities already taxed to the max here, make do, make room, make haste.” He says, “Now I’ve heard of having a heart, but does anybody really have a clue? Forget about whether the illegals are cutting in on the immigrants’ line, why do...

Democrat Senators Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas have both now warned Barack Obama against taking “any steps without the approval of Congress" when it comes to dealing with the current illegal immigration crisis. “I’m not for government by executive order. He needs to have statutory authority before he acts,” said Pryor. Meanwhile, via Politico, a spokeswoman for Hagan said, “this is a problem that needs to be solved legislatively and not through executive action.” Additionally, Democrat Senators Landrieu of Louisiana and Begich of Alaska are also urging Obama to act with restraint. “We want him...

Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) denounced the House Republican border bill as a “surrender to a lawless president” because the legislation does not include any language to prevent President Obama from expanding his unilateral legalization of illegal immigrants. Here’s the statement: The Obama Administration has openly declared its plan to implement a unilateral executive amnesty for 5–6 million more illegal immigrants. This unlawful amnesty—urged on by congressional Democrats—would include work permits, taking jobs directly from millions of struggling American citizens. Any action Congress might consider to address the current border crisis would be futile should the President go forward with...

During a hearing with House Democrats on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued that the bill proposed by Republicans did not have the adequate resources to help unattended minors crossing the border with the immigration court process. The bill, announced by Republicans on Tuesday, would spend $659 million in new spending in response to the crisis on the border. Citing a friend, Pelosi said that “we cannot have deportation without representation,” and she praised the groups that were working to help the detained children. The hearing featured unattended minors, now living in the United States, who complained about how...

AUSTIN, TX — The group of state lawmakers overseeing how much taxpayer money is being spent on the border is set to meet Tuesday at the state Capitol. “I don’t like that the state of Texas is having to put any extra dollars toward this effort that is clearly the responsibility of the federal government,” said state representative and committee chair Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton. “Are these immigrant children going to be enrolled in schools in Texas?” asked Gene Acuna, director of communications for the Texas Education Agency. The agency has not received any answers from the federal government.

In Massachusetts and across the country, residents have balked at the prospect of hundreds of immigrant children coming to their towns, angry that public money is being spent on illegal immigrants and worried that the influx would burden local schools and social services. Yet the federal government insists the impact would be minimal, and many immigration lawyers and advocates describe the emergency shelters established in other states as worlds apart, secure, secluded facilities that quietly serve as way stations for thousands of young migrants. The US Department of Health and Human Services, which operates the shelters, says it “pays for...

Emotions ran high Saturday as opponents of Governor Deval Patrick’s plan to house undocumented immigrant children in Massachusetts rallied outside the State House. Protesters and politicians lingering after the rally expressed their anger over the plan to bring these children into a state that they believe is ill-equipped to support its own children, homeless people, and veterans. “The state can’t take care of the children in its own care, yet these immigrants are coming in and skipping the line,” said Mark Fisher, a Tea Party-backed gubernatorial candidate seeking the Republican nomination.

<p>Here we are down on the border at the Rio Grande, Texas.</p> <p>Border Patrol staging area. Humblegunner pointed out they have a pretty rockin' deer stand!</p>

<p>Anyone who has ever wondered what happened to that strange-looking, banjo-playing kid from “Deliverance” should check out Rep. Louie Gohmert. Imagine that kid all grown up and you’ll have the spitting image of the Texas Republican.</p> <p>Like banjo boy, Gohmert is weirdly mesmerizing. What swamp did he wander out of and how in the world did he get elected to the United States House of Representatives? The scary answer: There are thousands of people just like him in Texas's 1st Congressional District.</p>

A state assemblywoman says New York City has other issues to deal with before taking in some of the migrant children from Central America streaming across the U.S. border. Nicole Malliotakis - the daughter of immigrants - fired off a tweet in response to City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s suggestion Thursday that the city should offer to shelter some of the new arrivals. "I think the priorities should be more focused on the citizens of this city as opposed to indidivudals who are entering the country illegally," she told the Daily News in an interview on Friday. Mark-Viverito "should put...

A task force has been formed to address the flood of unaccompanied migrant minors streaming into New York. This new coordinated effort was announced on Wednesday during a meeting hosted by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), where officials discussed a new strategy for handling the children, involving a partnership with local church charities, health care organizations, and legal groups. According to the NYIC, close to 3,300 migrant children have already arrived in New York State since January 2014, with another 7,000 minors expected to reach the state in the coming months. Many children are emigrating from Central America, and...