Free Republic

San Diego State University has set aside a large chunk of money to pay for its students’ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application renewal fees. Officials at the the public university allocated $130,000 to fund the renewal application fees, which run $495 apiece. “This is a one time funding allocation not to exceed $130,000 and will be given to the SDSU Economic Crisis Response Team. This could fund up to 262 student DACA renewals which we are told by the University would be sufficient,” D. Hayden Willis, vice president of financial affairs at SDSU, wrote in a Sept. 25 memo...

Following suit with the city of San Jose and jurisdictions across the country that have vowed to protect young “Dreamers,” Santa Clara County and its employees on Tuesday will announce a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. Officials with Santa Clara County and the local Service Employees International Union will announce the lawsuit at the county government center later today. It’s the first lawsuit in the nation filed jointly by an employer and a labor union on behalf of DACA beneficiary employees, according to the county. There were 1,740 DACA recipients...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) dismissed President Trump’s new hard-line immigration proposals as “a complete non-starter” Monday, adding that her caucus may withhold support for must-pass spending bills later this year if Congress can’t reach agreement on how to protect “dreamers” from deportation. “I fully intend to use every possibility” to strike a deal on the status of young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Pelosi said. But, she added: “We’re not at that place yet. Right now, we’re trying to get Republicans to vote on what we believe.” House Democrats are pushing an up-or-down...

Brussels’ insistence on ordering European Union (EU) nations to accept third world migrants could lead to the bloc’s break-up, Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has warned. The EU principle of unity, Duda told a press conference Thursday, “must come down to the fact that we work together … we do not try to force other states to act against their own interests and against the interests of their people.” “Therefore, we don’t agree to being dictated to, with regards to the quota system and forcing migrants to move to Poland, against our people’s will,” he stressed, speaking after talks with Bulgarian...

Under a phase-out plan announced by President Donald Trump last month, over 150,000 people covered by the Obama-era DACA program were given the chance to submit renewals. Tens of thousands of young people eligible for renewed protection from deportation had yet to submit their applications hours before a Trump administration deadline Thursday night. The administration was finalizing details of an immigration wish list that could jeopardize a long-term fix. Under a phase-out plan announced by the president last month, more than 150,000 young people covered by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program whose permits were set to expire...

... A sampling of immigration bills signed into law: ‘Sanctuary state’: aims to prevent local law enforcement officers from assisting with a promised crackdown on illegal immigration. Landlords and housing: will make it illegal for landlords to use someone’s real or perceived immigration status against them. Workplace raids: would require an employer to require proper court documents before allowing immigration agents access to the workplace or to employee information. ‘Dreamer’ and student protections: prevents schools from collecting information about the immigration status of students or their families. Immigration detention centers: places a moratorium on new or renewed contracts between local...

SACRAMENTO — California will beef up protections for undocumented immigrants beginning in January under a controversial new law Gov. Jerry Brown signed Thursday to create a statewide sanctuary policy. Brown signed the bill and 10 other immigration-related bills on the same day as a critical deadline for immigrants aided by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, who must file by Thursday for a final two-year extension before the program is phased out.

THE WEIGHT OF IMMIGRATION AND THE RISE OF ISLAM IS LEADING TO BRITISH CULTURE BEING “BURIED”, ACCORDING TO THE NEW LEADER OF UKIP. Henry Bolton said there is a concern amongst people that their way of life is being “pushed aside”, and vowed to “address it” as he spoke to The Sun a day after his shock election. The 54-year-old ex-Army officer had said he wanted to move the party away from focusing on Islam after their manifesto earlier this year contained an “integration agenda” which was almost entirely about Muslims. And the issue had been brought back to the...

A smartphone app designed to help migrants safely move through countries is being tested in Central America and Mexico starting this week ahead of a wider roll-out elsewhere in the world, the UN Migration Agency said Friday. “MigrantApp” offers information in English, Spanish and French on safety, health, accommodation and organizations offering assistance. Its launch comes at a time when the United States is making undocumented immigration far more difficult, while ending programs that had eased the entry and residence of certain migrants. Much of the U.S. attention is directed at Mexicans and Central Americans who make up the largest...

In Ana Rodas’ room, right next to her closet, she’s pinned a quote that reads, “With God all things are possible.” The small decoration is just one element of a space that is not only adorned with words of encouragement but also pictures, letters and anything else Rodas holds dear to her heart. Rodas, senior in FAA, has made a lot of sacrifices to get to this point. As an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, she is now within less than a year of graduating from the University. Rodas has spent 15 years living in the United States, and although she...

Federal immigration officials arrested 107 undocumented immigrants living in Philadelphia during a four-day operation that targeted sanctuary cities, where local law enforcement agencies are not complying with federal immigration orders. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams arrested 498 individuals from 42 countries as part of a national operation dubbed "Safe City." More individuals were arrested in Philadelphia than in any of the other nine municipalities where the operation took place. Nationwide, the individuals arrested included 317 people with criminal convictions, 68 immigration fugitives and 104 people who had previously been deported. An additional 18 people were known gang members. Among...

Diana Montelongo came to the United States as a 6-year-old from Mexico, brought by her parents in search of a better education. Now a graduate of UC Berkeley, Montelongo teaches math in Natomas to middle school students. The day after the 2016 election, she decided to share her story. “I came into the classroom and students were crying and hugging each other,” Montelongo recalled. “There were students that had to be sent home because they were afraid their parents were not going to be there when they returned.” Montelongo, 23, is one of about 5,000 educators working in California schools...

I know Democrats really want us to care about the so-called “DREAMers,” illegal aliens brought to the country as children by their illegal alien parents. And the media desperately wants us to care about them, too. It trots out hand-picked illegals to tell their sad tales of woe, detailed stories designed to tug at heartstrings and trigger emotion to override logic. But one question remains: Why should we care?To be honest, I don’t. I know that’s not socially acceptable to say. Politicians in both parties are falling all over themselves to be seen caring about the fate of these 800,000...

On Valentine’s Day, the WhiteBox art gallery in New York City hosted a runway show with a political twist. The diverse group of models featured in “Illegal Fashion” wore dresses made of canvas, linen, burlap, and recycled paper. Painted with splotches of bold colors, the garments bore provocative phrases like “I am illegal,” “deport me,” and “ICE me.” Artist Maria de Los Angeles curated the show with Juan Puntes de Los Angeles also designed the dresses modeled. The 29-year-old has a personal connection to the garments, as well as to the messages painted on them. “I’m undocumented,” she says. “So...

About 100 young people gathered on the lawn of East High School in Wichita on Friday for a student-led rally in support of a program that protects children who were brought to the United States illegally from being deported. Carrying signs and shouting “Build more bridges, not more walls,” the high-schoolers said they wanted to show support for the legal shield known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced it would end the program, leaving Congress a six-month window of time to try to save it. “We are here because we have...

Violeta Gomez-Uribe, 32, goes to kickboxing classes in Brooklyn. Eduardo Garcia, 22, lifts weights at the gym, in between classes and two jobs. Apolinar Islas, 34, who came to New York from Mexico when he was 15, said he walks around in “zombie mode” and tries to stay off social media to avoid “the tsunami of confusion.” All of them are recipients of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation and lets them work legally in this country. They have felt a whiplash of...

The Trump administration is drafting a new policy to quickly deport more than 150,000 child migrants from Central America who arrived alone in the U.S. illegally, creating a new class of undocumented migrants. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security is drawing up a policy proposal in a series of memos, according to two sources with knowledge of the internal debate who spoke to the Miami Herald. As it stands, the plan would allow for teens and children who arrived in the U.S. illegally by themselves to be put on a fast track to deportation when they turn 18. Most...

Like many high school seniors, Indira Marquez Robles thinks a lot about her future. She knows what college she wants to go to (Bryn Mawr) and what she wants to be when she grows up (an immigration attorney) but she also doesn't know if she'll be at risk for deportation in the next six months. Marquez Robles is a beneficiary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Because the 17-year-old Houstonian's DACA will expire on March 21, 2018, she doesn’t have any option but to wait and see if Congress passes legislation that would grant her some form of...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday appealed a judge's ruling that halted the abrupt deportation of 1,400 Iraqi nationals nationwide, including 114 from Metro Detroit. Nearly all of the Iraqi nationals, who are now waiting to learn their fates in detention centers, have outstanding and, in many cases, long-dormant deportation orders stemming from prior criminal convictions. "The criminal history of these aliens includes convictions for homicide, rape, aggravated assault, drug trafficking, sex assault and many other types of offenses," Acting ICE Director Thomas D. Homan said in a statement after the deportation sweeps. Each of the detainees had been...

The Resistance wants a showdown with Donald Trump, and looks like it will get its wish soon. Our Democrats would make California a “sanctuary state,” setting up a confrontation with the federal government over fundamental questions of who gets to enter the country, who gets to stay and how the rules will be enforced. Meantime, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Wednesday announced the state is suing the Trump administration yet again. This time, California wants to block the president’s proposed border wall on the grounds that it would be bad for the environment. Since when does the environment trump...