Category: Other Immigration

Dysfunctional immigration court system lets illegals walk

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hans von Spakovsky reports at National Review’s Corner on our broken immigration court system:

On Thursday… the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held a hearing of its own. Mark Metcalf, a former immigration judge, was one of the witnesses, and he had some startling testimony that went completely unnoticed by the media (full disclosure: Mark and I worked together at the Justice Department).

Mark Metcalf’s research on the deceptive statistics released by the Justice Department is quite shocking. From 1996 to 2008, the U.S. allowed 1.8 million aliens (many of them here illegally) to remain free upon their promise to appear in court when their cases were scheduled to be heard, and 736,000 of them never showed up for their hearings. After 9/11, court evasion by illegal aliens exploded — from 2002 to 2006, over 50 percent of all aliens summoned to court disappeared.

And then, for those who do show up …

Only 9 percent of aliens who lose their cases actually bother to appeal; most of them just walk away and disappear. Those dodging deportation orders issued by immigration judges number in the hundreds of thousands.

It’s not the fault of the judges.

…because the immigration judges are just administrative judges and employees of the Justice Department, they have no ability to enforce their orders. So enforcement of all of these deportation orders is left up to the whims of the political appointees who run DHS and set the priorities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and whose lackadaisical attitude is one of the reasons that Arizona felt compelled to act on its own.

It’s gotten worse since President Obama took office.

In August 2009, ICE announced it would not remove aliens who skipped court or disobeyed orders to leave the U.S., which gives even more incentives to illegal aliens to treat both our laws and our courts with contempt. So, as Mark pointedly says, “noncitizens who disobey immigration court orders are treated remarkably better than their citizen” counterparts in state and federal courts who are subject to arrest, contempt and incarceration for disobeying court orders.

As von Spakovsky comments, it’s appalling.

Florida: Food stamp fraud still a booming business

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Oh, isn’t this a funny coincidence, there was a large food stamp fraud bust in Indianapolis this week too.  Hear about it at WISH-TV. There is a ‘Mohammed’ involved there too!  And, get this, one of those sought by authorities is on the run in Yemen!

I say “still” (in my title) because even though I haven’t written any posts recently about convenience store food stamp fraud, it’s still happening.   I swear someone should be investigating whether there is a training course in the Middle East for guys named ‘Mohammed,’ ‘Khan’ and ‘Islam’ to come to the US and get involved in convenience store rip-offs of the US tax payer.

This is from Boynton Beach, FL (Palm Beach Post News):

BOYNTON BEACH — Five people charged with public assistance fraud met their bond Thursday night and were released, according to Palm Beach County Jail records.

Ainda Khan, Kamal Ahmed, M.D. Abdul Gaffar, Mohammed Hossain and Rafiqul Chowdhury each met their individual bonds ranging from $6,000 to $9,000.

Information was not immediately available as to whether Shuhab Mahari bonded out of jail.

The men were arrested Thursday after undercover officers posed as customers with U.S. government food stamp cards and found fraudulent activity at five convenience stores in the city.

Police arrested Mahari, 48, a clerk at the EZ Mart on North Seacrest Boulevard; Hossain, 32, a clerk at Palm Food & Beverage on East Boynton Beach Boulevard; Gaffar, 52, a clerk at the Kwik Stop on South Federal Highway; Chowdhury, 50, president of First Stop Foods on South Federal Highway; and Ahmed, 27, a clerk at First Stop Foods.

Police said that an undercover transaction also took place at a Stop-N-Go on West Boynton Beach Boulevard, but they did not serve a search warrant at that location.

The investigation showed that store clerks were allowing customers to use Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards to buy beer, cigarettes and get cash, a Boynton Beach Police Department release said.

Dubbed Operation: Meal Ticket, the local probe was prompted by information from actual EBT cardholders who told police that they were able to get cash from the cards for a fee.

Check out the photos of the perps and see why I think that ‘operation meal ticket’ is a good name for this bust.

My theory is that the roots of this scam can be found in the E-2 Treaty Investor program.  Those arrested in Boynton Beach are clerks.  Who owns the stores?

I’ve written dozens of posts on ‘food stamp fraud.’  To learn more just search RRW  for that phrase.

Cubans indicted in Kenya for helping illegal alien Somalis get to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Jerry Gordon at New English Review has made some excellent points about this story, here.

Readers may recall that Anthony Tracy, the American who stood trial in Virginia recently after admitting he helped 270 (give or take 2)  illegal Somalis get into the US, was allowed to walk free just a week ago, here.   Now two who are believed to  have helped him are indicted in Kenya.

From the Miami Herald:

Two Cubans who worked at the Havana embassy in Kenya were identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the U.S. court records of a scheme to smuggle 268 Somalis to Cuba and on to the United States.

The case of convicted alien smuggler Anthony J. Tracy raised national security concerns because of his contacts with a Somali terror group, Al Shabab. Tracy denied helping Shabab, but failed that part of a lie-detector test.

“I helped a lot of Somalis and most are good, but there are some who are bad and I leave them to ALLAH,” Tracy wrote in a Jan. 15 e-mail, according to court records in his case.

The two Cubans, identified only as Consuelo and Elena, were fired by their supervisors for providing the Somalis with visas so they could slip into the United States via Dubai, Moscow, Havana, South America and Mexico, the records showed.

Tracy, 35, a Virginia resident, pleaded guilty to one charge of alien smuggling and was sentenced last week to time served — four months — and a $100 fine in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

Then here is a bit of real confidence-building information about our Immigration authorities.  Tracy was apparently working for ICE while busy bringing in illegals.

The records show Tracy converted to Islam while in prison in the 1990s, married a Somali woman and since 2002 was a paid informant for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another U.S. agency not identified.

Concern for the Islamization of the Netherlands leads to big victory for Geert Wilders

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Jerry Gordon writing at New English Review has the latest on the victory of Geert Wilders Freedom Party in elections in the Netherlands yesterday.

The BBC noted today the apparent ‘victory’ by Mark Rutte leader of the conservative Liberal (VVD) party by one seat (31) over rival Labor party (30) headed by former Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen. The real surprise was the 24 seats (2 more than we reported last night) tallied by Geert Wilder’s Freedom Party (PVV).

[….]

The comments of BBC analyst Ms. Coughlan aside, the significant votes for Wilders and the Freedom Party (PVV) reflect concern among Dutch voters about the cost of supporting Muslim immigration and the Islamization of the Netherlands.

Read it all.

We have written often about Geert Wilders and Judy and I were fortunate to hear him speak in Washington in February 2009, here.

Indianapolis wants Taxi drivers to speak English

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Seems like a reasonable idea to me!

From the Journal Gazette in Ft. Wayne:

INDIANAPOLIS – Visitors’ complaints about not being able to understand the heavily accented speech of some taxi drivers has prompted Indianapolis to consider testing the English skills of people applying for city taxi licenses.

The proposal follows complaints by hotel managers that many travelers – particularly those in town for conventions – report they can’t understand the city’s taxi drivers.

Indianapolis’ Department of Code Enforcement is now considering giving cabdrivers an oral English test as part of a larger effort to better regulate the city’s taxis.

“If someone is unable to comprehend or communicate, no matter how great their qualifications are, they cannot perform the essential functions of a taxi driver,” said Adam Collins, a lawyer who is the city code department’s licensing administrator.

Currently, the code department has no standard English test for taxi applicants.

Read it all.