Posted on 06/28/2011 6:35:08 PM PDT by jazusamo
The Obama administration on Tuesday made its most forceful push yet this Congress to reform the country’s immigration laws.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Defense Under Secretary Clifford Stanley laid out a laundry list of national security-related financial and educational reasons why Congress needs to push forward with the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.
Napolitano said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not have the resources necessary to remove the estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally. The DREAM Act, she said, would grant conditional citizenship to people who pose little or no threat to society and allow DHS to pursue the most harmful illegal immigrants.
“[It] would allow us to remove DREAM-ers from the universe of individuals we need to be concerned with and expend resources for removal purposes, and we can further concentrate our resources on the priorities that we’ve laid out,” Napolitano told The Hill after a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Versions of the DREAM Act have failed to make it through Congress over the past decade, even with Democratic majorities in both chambers. It is widely seen as a political non-starter in the divided 112th Congress.
Tuesday’s hearing before the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee came in the wake of a memo issued by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week that approved a broader breadth of discretion for agency officials when considering whether to deport someone through the Secure Communities program.
Under the guidelines in the memo, agents would be allowed to use their discretion in the field to decide against deporting an illegal immigrant who would be eligible for a path toward citizenship if the DREAM Act were made law.
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, raised concerns about “loopholes” in the DREAM Act that would allow the Obama administration a broad discretionary reach to decide who should be granted conditional citizenship.
Cornyn questioned Napolitano about provisions that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants, even though they might have multiple criminal convictions or been convicted of voter fraud, or not have met education or military requirements.
Cornyn pushed for language in the bill that would render people ineligible under the DREAM Act if they had been arrested for offenses such as driving under the influence of alcohol, possession of drugs, burglary, theft or assault.
Napolitano said the administration would be open to discussing the possibility of including such language, but stressed that officers and agents in the field should have the authority to consider each potentially eligible person on a case-by-case basis.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Napolitano if the administration would be open to giving Congress more oversight of the bill’s implementation by notifying the committee each time someone who is eligible for the DREAM Act had his or her deportation deferred.
“We would be willing to discuss that with you, a process for that, yes,” said Napolitano. “We want to be very transparent about how we are exercising the authorities the statutes give us.”
***Deport like there is no tomorrow Alert***
Anyone in this country illegally that turns themselves in as a "Dreamer" is really stupid. The "Dream Act" will never pass and they will be the first rounded up when a Republican President gets in.
`Solution is ... reform, not deportations.’
Reform=Amnesty. Just say what you mean, Butch.
Channel surfing the other night came across US-Mexico soccer game....the Rose Bowl was filled with screaming Mexican fans, waving Mexican flags, booing the US national anthem, etc. If enforcement law made any sense, the INS could have set up shop outside the stadium and nailed about 80,000 of these leeches filing out of the game in one night.
I wish a family of 25 illegals would
move in next to Janet.
Waiting for the 2012 election, while we all just sit & watch might just be too late!
That would be a sight to see.
Then the illegals could set up a day labor pickup in front of the house.
I fully agree and hope we survive until the election.
Insurgents are not immigrants..
Well Nap you had to open your mouth and prove you are as much of a moron as what most people only thought.
When is someone going to come out and accuse Obama of playing election year politics with immigration matters?
Apparently they've been doing it for years.
AP had a story on the controversy. Naturally AP they went with the "anti-immigrant" / "death threats" angle with a "good for business" slant in favor of the eatery.
Their idea of "reform" in insanity. Napolitano knows damned well amnesty was granted by 1986's Simpson-Mazzoli when there were only 3 million illegals. Now she admits to 11 million new illegals since that time, about a half million additional per year.
"Provisional citizenship"? How could that even survive a constitutional challenge? Some judge, likely an Obama or Clinton appointee, would say it's all or nothing.
If you do interior enforcement against employers, require e-verify, end sanctuary city policies and these folks will deport themselves. There's no need for ICE to deport them all in raids.
Claiming the problem is just too big and expensive to solve is laughable particularly since the "solution" will only encourage another swarm of millions who will wait for their turn at amnesty.
Once we've clawed back to sanity and "immigrant" means LEGAL immigrant in the lexicon again, if necessary, we can look at a limited, seasonally renewable work program.
If aliens want to become naturalized citizens, there's a program already in place.
Their idea of "reform" in insanity. Napolitano knows damned well amnesty was granted by 1986's Simpson-Mazzoli when there were only 3 million illegals. Now she admits to 11 million new illegals since that time, about a half million additional per year.
"Provisional citizenship"? How could that even survive a constitutional challenge? Some judge, likely an Obama or Clinton appointee, would say it's all or nothing.
If you do interior enforcement against employers, require e-verify, end sanctuary city policies and these folks will deport themselves. There's no need for ICE to deport them all in raids.
Claiming the problem is just too big and expensive to solve is laughable particularly since the "solution" will only encourage another swarm of millions who will wait for their turn at amnesty.
Once we've clawed back to sanity and "immigrant" means LEGAL immigrant in the lexicon again, if necessary, we can look at a limited, seasonally renewable work program.
If aliens want to become naturalized citizens, there's a program already in place.
LOL! Now I would have love that! I could already hear the outrage from the liberal media.
Yeah I know only in my fantasy.
Ping!
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