The national security gap in America’s immigration enforcement debate
This report examines the potential terrorist threat posed by the smuggling of special interest aliens (SIAs) – people coming from a country identified as having possible or established links to terrorism.
Francis Cissna, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was featured in an Immigration Newsmaker conversation hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies on Wednesday, August 15, at 9:30 a.m. at the National Press Club.
Animal trafficking closely tied to drug, human trafficking
Closely tied to the criminal networks involved in illegal immigration and drug smuggling across the U.S. border is illegal wildlife trafficking, a $10 billion industry that harms vulnerable animal populations and brings various endangered species closer to extinction.
The H-2A program in theory should reduce the number of foreigners working illegally in agriculture jobs, but that clearly has not been the case. A closer look at the H-2A program reveals interesting details.
At this stage the DHS appropriations bill, passed Wednesday on a party-line vote of 29–22, is a snapshot of priorities of this most important committee. And it contains several harmful provisions that would increase illegal immigration and the importation of foreign workers on “temporary” visas — provisions passed with the support of the Republican chairmen of the full committee and its Homeland Security subcommittee.
Terrorist Infiltration Border Threat
Event: A Conversation with Francis Cissna
Animal trafficking closely tied to drug, human trafficking
The national security gap in America’s immigration enforcement debate
This report examines the potential terrorist threat posed by the smuggling of special interest aliens (SIAs) – people coming from a country identified as having possible or established links to terrorism.
Francis Cissna, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was featured in an Immigration Newsmaker conversation hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies on Wednesday, August 15, at 9:30 a.m. at the National Press Club.
Animal trafficking closely tied to drug, human trafficking
Closely tied to the criminal networks involved in illegal immigration and drug smuggling across the U.S. border is illegal wildlife trafficking, a $10 billion industry that harms vulnerable animal populations and brings various endangered species closer to extinction.
The H-2A program in theory should reduce the number of foreigners working illegally in agriculture jobs, but that clearly has not been the case. A closer look at the H-2A program reveals interesting details.
At this stage the DHS appropriations bill, passed Wednesday on a party-line vote of 29–22, is a snapshot of priorities of this most important committee. And it contains several harmful provisions that would increase illegal immigration and the importation of foreign workers on “temporary” visas — provisions passed with the support of the Republican chairmen of the full committee and its Homeland Security subcommittee.
Ensuring compliance with the immigration laws requires the executive branch to use all of the tools at its disposal to induce aliens to follow the law. Enforcement of the criminal penalties in section 266 of the INA should be the first step in that effort.
If the Second Circuit makes the cardinal error of granting Ragbir relief from the immigration laws based on this curious (dare I say spurious?) argument, virtually every deportable alien possessed of his letters will overnight become an activist pundit, sending op-eds and screeds to any written or online publication willing to entertain them, simply so as to shoehorn himself, too, into protection from the consequences of his immigration law violations.
If the status of DACA is complicated now for the federal government (and in particular U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), one can only imagine how much more complicated conflicting district court orders will make it. And Judge Hanen's order can come at any time, meaning that a Supreme Court with only eight justices may have to quickly rule on the legality of the program, as Noah Feldman explained recently in Bloomberg Opinion. When it comes to DACA, uncertainty abounds.
I am left with the observation that drafting a good prison or sentencing reform bill is much akin to threading a needle: Aim wide, and you are sure to fail. With carefully re-crafted language, this bill could have been excised of those provisions that potentially will permit thousands of alien felon prisoners to sidestep the reach of federal immigration officials attempting to take them into custody from the Bureau of Prisons in order to deport them. And such amendments would have done no harm whatsoever to the aim of prison and sentencing reform for deserving American prisoners.
