NY Times Seems Rather Shocked That Legal Immigrants Are Against Illegal Immigration

It’s funny how this works. People spend lots of time and money, and have to follow every law, no matter how small, in order to earn the right to become an actual U.S. citizen, and they aren’t really fond of those who blow off American law by either coming here unlawfully or overstaying their visas, and then demanding that they be made citizens

Sanctuary Bills in Maryland Faced a Surprise Foe: Legal Immigrants

When lawmakers in Howard County, Md., a stretch of suburbia between Washington and Baltimore, declared their intention to make the county a sanctuary for people living in the country illegally, J. D. Ma thought back to how hard he had worked studying English as a boy in Shanghai.

Stanley Salazar, a native of El Salvador, worried that the violent crime already plaguing Maryland’s suburbs attributed to immigrant gangs would eventually touch his own daughters.

Hongling Zhou, who had been a student in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square uprising, feared an influx of undocumented immigrants, and their children, would cripple the public schools.

At first blush, making Howard County a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants had seemed a natural move: The county has twice as many Democrats as Republicans and a highly educated population, full of scientists and engineers. One in five residents was born abroad.

But the bill met stout opposition from an unlikely source: some of those very same foreign-born residents.

It’s only a surprise in Liberal World, where they feel that immigrants who did it the right way, the legal way, would be supportive of those who did it the wrong way, the unlawful way.

In passionate testimony before county legislators, and in tense debates with liberal neighbors born in the United States, legal immigrants argued that offering sanctuary to people who came to the country illegally devalued their own past struggles to gain citizenship.

Some even felt it threatened their hard-won hold on the American dream.

It is a long process to become a U.S. citizen. It involves filling out applications and having many documents and photos. Have your biometrics taken (which get submitted to the FBI for checking). Learn English, and take an English and civics test. Take a naturalization interview. And, finally, take the oath of citizenship. This process can be stopped anywhere along the way for numerous reasons, like missing deadlines and, get this, breaking laws. So, yeah, simply giving illegals lawful status, even citizenship, devalues those who did it the lawful way.

Their objections stunned Democratic supporters of sanctuary here and helped bring about the bill’s demise in March. A similar proposal for the state collapsed this month in the Maryland Senate, where Democrats also hold a two-to-one advantage. Some of the same immigrants spoke out against it.

Stunned! If you spent a lot of time and hard work to get to a certain position in a company, earning it, and the company brought in someone who had no experience, hadn’t done the same time or hard work anywhere else, and gave them the same salary and title and responsibilities, would you be a happy camper?

The rest of the article are the stories from four people who followed the process and became citizens, none of whom are happy about how Democrats think about illegal aliens. They see being here in America and being a citizen as an earned privilege. They blow up the Democratic Party talking points on illegal aliens, such as the whole separating families argument. How this article made it into print at the NY Times is shocking.

Read: NY Times Seems Rather Shocked That Legal Immigrants Are Against Illegal Immigration »

ACLU: Why, Yes, The Travel Ban Would Be Constitutional If A President Hillary Enacted It

Surprise?

(NTKNetwork) ACLU Lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing against President Trump’s travel ban before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, admitted that the same exact travel ban “could be” constitutional if it were enacted by Hillary Clinton.

Jadwat argued that Trump’s campaign animus motivated the order, making it illegitimate. This claim was challenged by the Fourth Circuit’s Judge Paul Niemeyer.

“If a different candidate had won the election and then issued this order, I gather you wouldn’t have any problem with that?” Niemeyer asked.

Jadwat dodged on directly answering the question at first, but Niemeyer persisted, asking the question again.

Jadwat again tried to avoid the question, asking for clarification on the hypothetical, but Niemeyer once again demanded an answer.

“We have a candidate who won the presidency, some candidate other than President Trump won the presidency and then chose to issue this particular order, with whatever counsel he took,” Niemeyer said. “Do I understand that just in that circumstance, the executive order should be honored?”

“Yes, your honor, I think in that case, it could be constitutional,” Jadwat admitted.

So, essentially, this is all about Trump Derangement Syndrome, as well as Liberals, Democrats, and groups like the ACLU being against whatever a Republican president does simply because that person is a Republican. (there’s audio of the exchange at the link).

(Powerline) The Democrats who attacked President Trump’s travel order in front of carefully-selected Democratic judges made the extraordinary claim that the President’s statements on the stump, as a candidate, were somehow relevant to whether the order was constitutional. This claim implies that an order may be unconstitutional if issued by one president, while the exact same order would be perfectly fine if issued by another. This is an absurd result.

It may be absurd, but it is what the Democrats believe. ACLU lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing today before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, told the court that President Trump’s travel order “could be constitutional” if it had been written by Hillary Clinton.

Also in the audio, Jadwat is asked if the order was valid, and answered no, because “the order was unprecedented”, to which a flabergasted justice answered “So the first order on anything is invalid?”

Unless it was President Hillary giving the order. Then it would have been cool with the ACLU and liberals.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: ACLU: Why, Yes, The Travel Ban Would Be Constitutional If A President Hillary Enacted It »

If All You See Goes Dark

Had to take this one just a little bit evil.

Read: If All You See Goes Dark »

If All You See…

…is wonderful low carbon sailboat, which will be needed when the whole world floods, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Refuge, with a post on a viral thug video.

Read: If All You See… »

Trump Looks To Fill Over 100 Federal Judicial Vacancies

He hit what looks like, at least for now, like a grand slam with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch. How will the other appointments play out?

Trump to Announce Slate of Conservative Federal Court Nominees

Having filled a Supreme Court vacancy, President Trump is turning his attention to the more than 120 openings on the lower federal courts. On Monday, he will announce a slate of 10 nominees to those courts, a senior White House official said, the first in what could be near monthly waves of nominations.

The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, said the nominations were a vindication of a commitment Mr. Trump made during the campaign “to appoint strong and principled jurists to the federal bench who will enforce the Constitution’s limits on federal power and protect the liberty of all Americans.”

The administration continues to draw on lists of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees, put together with the help of the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, that Mr. Trump issued during the campaign. But it is looking at other sources, too, the White House official said. Mr. McGahn, who has supervised the selection of the nominees, is looking for scholarly credentials and “intellectual boldness,” among other qualities, the official added.

Those mentioned are supposed to be well with the norm for Conservatives and Republicans. Which has liberals freaked out

But liberal groups expressed alarm at the prospect of a federal bench filled with Mr. Trump’s appointees. “The Trump administration has made clear its intention to benefit from Republican obstructionism and to pack the federal courts with ultraconservatives given a stamp of approval by the Federalist Society,” said Nan Aron, the president of the Alliance for Justice, referring to the conservative legal group. “We’ll be scrutinizing the records of these nominees very carefully.”

Elections have consequences, guys/gals. And, as Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff points out, Senate Democrats are powerless to stop the appointments, as they did away with the filibuster on nominees for federal judicial courts.

Read: Trump Looks To Fill Over 100 Federal Judicial Vacancies »

EPA Decides To Replace At Least Five Members Of Advisory Board

There’s actually some confusion on the numbers. The NY Times says at least five. The Washington Post says half of the 18 were dismissed. Start with the Fish Wrap, as written by uber-Warmist Coral Davenport

E.P.A. Dismisses Members of Major Scientific Review Board

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

Seems like an “OMG, this is horrible, Trump and Pruitt fired them, science is doomed!!!!” moment, does it not? Here’s what actually happened, once you get through many more paragraphs lambasting and fear-mongering, a point that most people have moved on to other stories

The scientists dismissed from the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors received emails from an agency official informing them that their three-year terms had expired and would not be renewed. That was contrary, the scientists said, to what they had been told by officials at the agency in January, just before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Those officials, who would seem to be Obama officials, aren’t in charge anymore. These folks served their term(s), and serve at the pleasure of the President. And many of them are whining heavily in both the Times and the Post. Switching to the Post

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the agency evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.

EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that “no one has been fired or terminated,” and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.

“We’re not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool,” Freire said. “This approach is what was always intended for the Board, and we’re making a clean break with the last administration’s approach.”

Twelve members of the board had their terms expire on April 27, which is why there is a discrepancy in the number of people whose services were not renewed. Furthermore, neither Trump nor Pruitt need all these people from previous administration.

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the composition of the Scientific Advisory Board, which was established in 1978, should be expanded to include more non-academics. It is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.

“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”

All the people on the board are friendly to the continued expansion of the EPA’s powers and reach. How many actually dissent from what the EPA employees-slash-activists want to accomplish? Doesn’t seem like many, if any. The idea of the EPA is a good one: unfortunately, it has long exceeded its mandate and mission, continuously making rules which give itself more and more power over the nation.

Read: EPA Decides To Replace At Least Five Members Of Advisory Board »

Texas Governor Signs Anti-Sanctuary Jurisdiction Bill

Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated passing a ban on sanctuary jurisdictions as an emergency priority this year, and the Texas state legislature happily complied, and the bill goes into effect September 1

(Dallas Morning News) Gov. Greg Abbott has signed the state’s sanctuary city ban into law, achieving one of his major goals for the legislative session and enacting a bill that is almost certainly headed for legal challenges from opponents.

“Texans expect us to keep them safe, and that is exactly what we are going to do by me signing this law,” Abbott said before inking his signature during a Facebook Live video Sunday night — the first time a Texas governor has signed a bill through an Internet live stream.

Signing it in that manner drove the Usual Illegal Alien Criminal supporters into apoplexy, because they weren’t able get out into the streets and protest and damage things and poop on things and scream obscenities. Oh, and there’s this

Lots of people watched.

Opponents of the law were quick to condemn the signing. Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that the law was a “colossal blunder” and that the lawmakers who championed it were small-hearted.

“MALDEF will do its level best, in court and out, to restore Texas, the state where MALDEF was founded, to its greater glory, and to help Texas to overcome ‘Abbott’s Folly,’ ” he said in a written statement.

So, MALDEF  (imagine what would happen if a group called itself the Caucasion American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) is all in on supporting people who are unlawfully present in the U.S., people who often commit more serious crimes, who deflate wages, and commit identity theft.

Saenz said the law would alienate “nearly half the state population” and make people subject to widespread racial profiling. He said the law undermines voters’ rights to choose elected officials who set local policy, makes the job of local law enforcement more difficult by straining relationships with immigrant communities and would cost Texas in trade and tourism, as well as legal challenges.

“This racist and wrongheaded piece of legislation ignores our values, imperils our communities and sullies our reputation as a free and welcoming state,” Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas said in a prepared statement. “We will fight this assault in the courts, at the ballot box, and in the streets if we have to.”

You know they’re out of rational, adult, thought through arguments when they throw out the “racist” word. Because, really, how do you make a coherent and cogent argument to protect people who are breaking federal law, at a minimum, ever single day they are in the U.S.?

Oh, and then there is this

(Breitbart) A recent poll reveals that Texans overwhelmingly support (by 93 percent), a police officer being able to check a person’s immigration status when they are arrested for a crime. Forty-three percent say that immigration status may be checked during a traffic stop, 40 percent say it is okay if the person is reporting a crime, and 39 percent believe that asking about their status is okay if the person is a witness to a crime. Ninety-nine percent of Republicans, and 88 percent of Democrats, think immigration status should be checked during an arrest.

Ninety-three percent of Hispanics believe it is okay to check the immigration status during an arrest, 38 percent think it should be permitted when a person is a crime witness, and 37 percent say it is okay during a routine traffic stop. Interestingly, Latinos are more likely than Anglos to say that immigration status should be checked when a person is reporting a crime (46 percent to 36 percent).

Of course, what the current bill simply does is put sanctuary jurisdictions on the hook to follow the law when it comes to dealing with illegal aliens, as well as things that many like in that poll (back to DMN)

The law will ban cities, counties and universities from prohibiting their local law enforcement officers from asking about immigration status and enforcing immigration law. It will create a criminal charge for police chiefs, county sheriffs and constables who violate the ban and will charge local jurisdictions up to $25,000 for each day they are in violation.

The law will also allow police officers to ask about a person’s immigration status during any legal detention, which could include a routine traffic stop. Opponents have likened the law to Arizona’s “papers, please” legislation, parts of which were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It’s rather sad that a law had to be enacted to get certain law enforcement members to comply with federal law.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Texas Governor Signs Anti-Sanctuary Jurisdiction Bill »

If All You See…

…is a wonderful field that should be full of wind turbines, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Tradition, with a post on suicide by cop.

Read: If All You See… »

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Happy Sunday! It’s a great day in America. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it’s a nice day for a ride. This pinup is supposedly by Ande Rooney, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Right Wing News fact checks Democrat talking points on pre-existing conditions in Ryancare
  2. JoNova discusses the difference between 1 coal worker and 79 solar workers
  3. America’s Watchtower notes a House committee will look into Obama’s Iran deal
  4. The Daley Gator covers what it takes to be an elf
  5. Chicks On The Right highlights a painful to watch Democrat fail
  6. Creeping Sharia wonders why the U.S. is still funding Palestinian terrorism
  7. Doug Ross @ Journal explains the 12 taxes pulverized by the AHCA
  8. Fire Andrea Mitchell notes the latest insanity from Liberals on the AHCA
  9. Legal Insurrection features leftists blaming Israel for police shootings of blacks
  10. Moonbattery notes that Trump kinda still favors Socialist healthcare
  11. Patterico’s Pontifications covers California wanting to punish those who offer to build the wall
  12. Powerline provides all you need to know about climate in one chart
  13. Raised On Hoecakes notes the extreme difficulty in being a Pikachu dancer
  14. Small Dead Animals notes “activist appropriation”
  15. And last, but not least, White House Dossier notes what Dianne Feinstein had to say on all that Russia collusion yammering

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

More Cities Are Using Taxpayer Funds To Provide Legal Defense For Illegal Aliens

It’s not like cities and counties and states have an issue with the “crumbling infrastructure” or anything. Remember this?

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and County Supervisor Hilda Solis in December announced the creation of a $10-million legal aid fund to “hire lawyers to defend local immigrants without legal status.” (“A $10-million fund will help immigrants fight deportations. But should it help those with violent criminal convictions?” April 17)

My street hasn’t been swept for years. When I tried to find out why, I was told that my area is not “on the list” because there are no longer enough machines and people to drive them. Services that I continue to pay for have been stopped.

If there is enough money around to help illegal immigrants, surely there is enough to begin sweeping my dirty street again. Shouldn’t citizens come before illegal residents?

Well, sorry, buddy, illegals come before citizens

(Fox News) Sacramento became the latest city this week to go above and beyond ‘sanctuary’ policies by approving the use of taxpayer dollars to support the legal defense of illegal immigrants facing deportation.

The City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to draw $300,000 from the general fund to “provide urgent legal and support services to Sacramento families facing the immediate threat of separation due to deportation.”

The plan, backed by the mayor, fits a trend of local and state lawmakers taking similar action. As the Trump administration separately faces a court setback in its bid to cut off federal funds to sanctuary cities, those jurisdictions are only doubling down.

Earlier in the week, officials in Michigan’s Washtenaw County gave initial approval to pay such legal bills with taxpayer funds.

Proposals to directly or indirectly pay for legal assistance to illegal immigrants have also gained approval in Providence, R.I.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, Calif.; and Newark, N.J.

Even in the small New York city of Ithaca, politicians are gearing up to spend emergency funds to help illegal immigrants taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to The Ithaca Voice.

And on a broader scale, New York lawmakers recently signed off on a statewide legal defense fund, while California legislators are considering a bill creating a fund that could carry a price tag of up to $12 million per year.

What is it with Liberals (and some squishy Republicans) in the almost addictive need to protect people who are unlawfully present in the United States? Realistically, they will all be simply wasting taxpayer money in attempting to defend people who are unlawfully present in the United States.

Immigration Judge: “Mr./Ms. Lawyer Defending The Illegal Alien client, did your client have the permission of the government of the United States to enter the U.S./overstay their visa? Are they unlawfully present in the United States?”

Illegal alien lawyer: “well, you see, your honor…”

Judge: “yes or no, counselor”

Lawyer: “well, no, but…”

Judge: “great, thanks, put the illegal on a bus to the border/plane to their home country. Bye now!”

If they are here illegally, then they do not belong. They get deported. It really is that simple. They could have done things the right way, they CHOSE not to. Choices can have consequences, good or bad.

BTW, all those involved in enforcing the laws on illegal aliens should certainly move some of their focus to a different part, not just those who have illegally entered, and fix a few issues

(Xinhuanet) The U.S. arrested less than 1 percent of foreign visitors who overstayed their visas in 2015, due to inefficient technology support, found a newly-released government audit report.

The report, released by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), found that only 3,402 of an estimated 527,127 nonimmigrant visa overstays in 2015 were caught.

The main reason for this is officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have to use 27 different DHS computer systems to track visa overstays and make arrests.

This leads to a lot of time and money wasted by ICE and other law enforcement officials, and has created a 1.2 million backlog on visa overstays.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: More Cities Are Using Taxpayer Funds To Provide Legal Defense For Illegal Aliens »

Pirate's Cove