FAIR

DACA Myths

Much of the public narrative surrounding the DACA program was built by open borders proponents and the mainstream media and is constructed of several core myths. These myths include:

• That the program protects “kids” who were brought into the country through no fault of their own.
• Applicants are almost exclusively Hispanic, and that as poverty-stricken citizens of Latin American republics a short distance away from the wealthy and successful United States, their parents’ decision to violate U.S. immigration laws was somehow acceptable, if not honorable.
• They are often portrayed as having skills well beyond what reality suggests, while the media amplifies that perception by focusing on the rare “valedictorian” in order to create the impression this represents the general DACA population. Likewise, others try to suggest that many are proud members of the U.S. military.
• Open borders advocates also claim DACA recipients are needed as critical essential workers.

Of course, open borders advocates work hard to find rare exceptions in an effort to paint a false picture of the DACA population that convinces Americans the program is a benefit to the public.

Political leaders from both parties also commonly claim that it would be cruel to deport anyone covered by the DACA program because these “incredible kids” would be unable to assimilate if they are sent back to their country of birth – after all, the U.S. was “the only home that they have ever known.” [iii]

Focusing on “kids” is a deliberate way to shift attention from the parents who came here illegally with their children seeking legal status. Rewarding minors with amnesty is giving their parents the very thing they broke the law to achieve. DACA absolved illegal aliens of their fundamental responsibilities as parents and instead suggests that if you violate U.S. immigration policy, American society is responsible for fixing the mess you created for yourself and your family.

DACA Facts

From the outset, much of the narrative surrounding the DACA program rang hollow. In a column for The Washington Post, Mickey Kaus described it as public-relations-style “hooey.”[iv] Here are a number of reasons why:

• Many of these DACA “kids” were not brought here as young children. Instead, they entered or were smuggled into the United States as older teenagers.
  • In fact, the current average DACA recipient is 27, and as of 2017, 64 percent of all applicants were beyond high school age.[v]
  • A large number of DACA applicants weren’t “brought” here by anyone – they crossed the border themselves.
  • The DACA program did not require that applicants prove they were brought into the country without their consent.
  • Anyone who entered the U.S. prior to age 16 – and who was under 31 on June 15, 2012 – could apply.[vi]
• Very few are valedictorians: [vii]  
  • Despite being a requirement for the program, less than half (49 percent) of all DACA beneficiaries have a high school education.
  • 24 percent can be categorized as functionally illiterate in English.
  • Only 46 percent have basic English skills.
• Many have committed serious crimes.
  • Of the 756,166 aliens who were approved for DACA, 79,398 (10.4 percent) had at least one prior arrest. Of that total, roughly 16,000 were arrested again at some point after their DACA applications were approved.[viii]
  • Some of the charges included DUI, theft, assault, burglary, sexual assault, and even murder.
• Fewer than 900 DACA recipients – slightly more than one-tenth of one percent of the total DACA population – joined the military.[ix]
• Many DACA recipients are from non-Spanish-speaking countries.[x]
  • At least 36 of the nations of origin listed by USCIS are European, including: Portugal, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland.
  • Applicants also originate from at least nine Asian countries with fully developed or rapidly developing economies, such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia.
  • 360 nationals of Israel have applied for DACA benefits. Israel is a developed nation, with a thriving economy, that – as a matter of law – accepts all returned citizens and provides free instruction in Hebrew to returnees and immigrants.
• Many DACA recipients are from terror-prone or hostile nations.
  • More than 1,000 DACA applications were accepted from Pakistani nationals despite concerns over growing anti-U.S. sentiment within the country and the Pakistani government’s overt support of jihadist terror groups.[xi]
  • At least 60 applicants were accepted from Iran, and more than 2,000 from Venezuela, even though both nations remain overtly hostile to the United States. Since DACA does not require a thorough vetting process, it’s impossible to know whether these individuals are fleeing these governments or if they retain sympathies for the failed states.[xii]
  • Applications were accepted from Libyans, Syrians, and Yemenis even though the Obama administration had placed travel restrictions on nationals from these countries due to terrorism concerns at the time of the program’s implementation.[xiii]

The evidence shows that most DACA recipients are not shining valedictorians or medal-of-honor recipients like open border proponents and the mainstream media commonly suggest. Furthermore, neither are they typically young children who were brought into the country by no choice of their own. Instead, they are mostly adults in their 20s and 30s, many of whom did not even meet the basic qualifications for the program but were offered DACA status anyways. Tens of thousands of recipients are criminals.

Here.

Center for Immigration Studies

Todd Bensman on September 17, 2021

A New Beachhead Opens in the Biden Border Crisis

Del Rio, Texas – Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants (joined by Cubans and other nationalities) have poured entirely unopposed across the Rio Grande and occupied a massive beachhead here on the Texas side that is unparalleled in size, filth, and as an escalating management challenge to a Joe Biden administration that has so far refused to publicly acknowledge it. But this remarkable development in the border crisis will not be ignored for long as hundreds of new migrants per hour arrive, far faster than Border Patrol agents and National Guard personnel process them.

Photo by Todd Bensman.

In barely a week, the number of illegal immigrants who have walked over a cyclically low Rio Grande reached 10,000, city officials – notably not federal representatives – said Thursday during a tightly managed press “tour” arranged by the city of Del Rio that was stopped some 200 yards from the migrants. The numbers appear to be growing by the hour with no end in sight, ballooning from some 2,000 on Sunday to 6,000 by Wednesday, to 8,000 by Thursday morning and then to 10,000 by that evening.

“In my 20-year career, I have never seen anything this out of control,” one CBP officer told CIS.

The migrants have spread out over a sandy mix of open and vegetation-thick land, the greatest concentrations centered for 200 yards under the international bridge but spreading westward along a riverbank “drag” road for at least a half mile. The migrants seem content – for now – to allow themselves to be contained by chain link perimeter fencing on the north to await Border Patrol “processing” into the United States as temporary legal residents. Most will end up taking buses or planes to resettle throughout the country on an honor system that presumes they will claim asylum at some point.

The Center for Immigration Studies gained rare access to the Del Rio beachhead Thursday afternoon and toured it by vehicle (see accompanying video at the end of this post), despite a media blackout ordered by federal authorities. At first glance, the constantly expanding throngs of roaming, moving, sitting, sleeping, working, and standing men, women, and children of all ages seemed as chaotic as any newly established developing-world refugee camp.

Photo by Todd Bensman.

But soon, the outlines of some method to the mayhem began to come clear.

At the beachhead itself, there are two main breaches through which immigrants could be seen splashing across the river until reaching the Texas shore, with hundreds more lined up on the Mexican side waiting their turn. Border Patrol vehicles are parked at these Texas-side entry points, each with National Guard personnel inside, who merely watch the migrants illegally enter, dry themselves and family members. Some of those migrants then put on dry clothing.

Once they have gathered themselves and their belongings, they walk east along the sand drag road toward the bridge to take a numbered ticket from a station staffed by either Border Patrol agents or National Guard personnel. The tickets are akin to a standard carnival coupon and sit on tables in large circular rolls. Overhead signs at mobile shade stations for federal employees demark that this is where immigrants can take their ticket. In another line, immigrants who already have had their tickets for days stand in place for their number to be called. They will go through a preliminary processing and be taken to a Border Patrol station for further processing that will take a day or two. There, they’ll be released into the country with papers granting them temporary authority to remain and stating where and when they should report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or an immigration office.

The exact motivation for this rush of Haitians remained a subject of speculation Thursday. CIS did not interview any of the migrants at length but will seek to do so and answer that question in coming days.

During the city’s near-site press briefing, Mayor Bruno Lozano said federal authorities have told him that so many immigrants have filled the site that wait times have reached three weeks at current federal resources.

In this calculus, of course, the wait times will only extend further the more migrants arrive from Mexico. And CIS saw migrants constantly arriving at the two packed river crossings. Some reports say tens of thousands more are heading to Del Rio through northern Mexico.

All of which explains other activity CIS saw at the beachhead. Migrants were building huts out of available materials, clearly planning to stay for a time. In fact, a makeshift village was forming. Some families brought camping tents. Others were tearing down trees for branches to use as framing over which they might put a tarp or blanket.

Other processes seem to be developing for basic needs. For instance, CBP has expanded the number of portable toilets but is not, evidently, providing food or water. Hence, CIS noticed a steady counter-traffic of people crossing back into Mexico, against the flow of new arrivals or returning procurers, to purchase food, fresh water, and other necessities and then to bring the items back into the beachhead. At the crossing points, therefore, crowds of people swirled and mingled, some carrying retail goods on their heads.

The migrants bathe in the Rio Grande and wash their clothing, leaving it to dry on lines strung between trees or on rocks.

Everywhere, trash piled up and lay strewn along the ground….Please read the rest here from CIS.org

Center for Immigration Studies

The “Biden Effect

July Apprehension Numbers Have Entered Historic Crisis Level

From the Center for Immigration Studies

“It was a great problem for the town to have, hundreds of U.S.-bound immigrants a day: Haitians, Cubans, South Americans, Africans of all stripes, Russians, Uzbeks, Bangladeshis, and Arabs from Iraq and Syria. Everyone’s finally becoming financially whole again, Luis said. He thinks at least 10,000 have come through town since the American election and he’s quite the optimist.”

A United Nations of Mass Illegal Immigration, Part 1

 

By Todd Bensman on June 29, 2021

Nicaraguan soldiers about to accept three Haitian immigrants brought by a human smuggler named “Felix”. The Haitians and many other nationalities from around the world similarly enter Nicaragua bound for the U.S. southern border. Photo by Todd Bensman.

NEAR LOS CHILES, COSTA RICA — Two Nicaraguan soldiers carrying AK-47s motored up on a single scooter and dismounted on their side of the border, a mud road and a downed barbed-wire fence. The sergeant eyed the three young Haitian men and their smuggler, a purple-shirted Nicaraguan named “Felix” who had brought them and a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyst. The camouflage-uniformed soldiers were hardly interested in border security; the Haitians were going to pay them to enter, Felix explained just before their arrival.

“This is the entrance where we have the illegal crossings. Here in Nicaragua, the boys from the Army should be somewhere around here in hiding or in specific places such as this one waiting for the foreigners to cross so that they can get some coinear [money],” he said. “Don’t be scared because nobody’s going to fire on us or anything similar.”

The Nicaraguan soldiers were there as arranged to cash in on a vast new bonanza passing through along an underground railroad that runs from South America, through Panama, and now Costa Rica on up through Mexico. It’s congested now with Haitians and people from around the world — a United Nations of illegal immigration — all heading for the American southern border to enjoy its new openness under the administration of President Joe Biden, many immigrants and several smugglers around here say.

After polite introductions, the Nicaraguan army sergeant refused all comment, wagging a finger, and demanded that CIS put down the camera. The young private moved off to one side and readjusted his weapon. After exchanging quiet words with Felix, the smuggler announced that it was now time for everyone to leave. Except for the Haitian men, of course, and the money in their pockets.

For probably $150 each — a full month’s pay for privates — the soldiers would bring up motor bikes for them and then escort them five miles inside Nicaragua to the San Juan River, where civilian confederates of Felix’s would float them over to a highway and deliver them to confederate drivers who would get them up to Honduras, for yet more money.

As a waystation, the Los Chiles borderland region of far northern Costa Rica presents an illustrative microcosm of the wider development along the intercontinental trail connecting the world to the U.S. southern border. By all indications, the world route is more congested than at any time in recent memory, with people from Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Russia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and dozens of other countries. As will be explained below, this aspect of the U.S. mass migration crisis carries persistently ignored burdens and concerns for the American public, policy-makers, and homeland security agencies that are very distinct from those posed by Central Americans and Mexicans, who occupy center stage.

Escalating Numbers “Since Trump Was Not in Office”

Tallying exactly how many extra-continental immigrants are coming through presents a challenge. Governments at key bottlenecks along the way — Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, for instance — either ignore the traffic so long as it keeps moving to the next country north or miss much of it since smuggling is an often-successful art of evasion. Some countries may feel a need to undercount their statistics. But a good place to start is with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) immigrant encounter statistics.

CBP statistics kept for the last 12 years through 2019 (but apparently no longer reported at this level of detail) show that illegal immigrants in this category hail from more than 140 different countries. Migrants in the long-distance flow have always made up a relatively small piece of total illegal immigrant encounters at the southern border, which reached a 25-year apex in May of 180,000.

But that piece has suddenly sprouted high as Central American nations have started to lift pandemic border closure orders and Trump left office, releasing a pent-up wave. The latest CBP encounter statistics released in June show the agency’s encounters of non-Mexican, non-Central American immigrants skyrocketed from 1,308 in May 2020 to more than 40,000 in May 2021. That’s more than 30 times as many, albeit Trump had fully instituted deterring push-back policies in May 2020.

This May’s more than 40,000 non-Central American and non-Mexican illegal immigrants add to a tally of 137,000 for FY 2021 so far.

While the numbers tell much, so do the human smugglers, hoteliers, and business people in the Los Chiles area. They are perhaps as good a barometer of what is happening to the American border as any other measure of trail traffic because they are prospering from it. They also show no inclination toward discretion since international media has bypassed this area and Costa Rica immigration and law enforcement told CIS their interest and resources are limited to occasionally busting significant smugglers.

One not-so-big human smuggler/driver named Luis, who CIS found on a public street trying to sell passage to three Senegalese, said everyone in town had been suffering from the effects of Trump’s deterrence-based border policies, especially the pandemic-related ones where all immigrants were returned to Mexico. This, he said, heavily damaged the local economy. But everyone has been catching up on the money-making “since this president [Joe Biden], and since Trump was not in office,” he said.

“Since Trump left, we started seeing this large horde of people,” Luis explained. “They tell me they’re giving out papers to everyone … Venezuelans, Cubans — everyone! They say they’re going to the U.S. to work. The border was too tight before.”

“Once there was a time when they collapsed the whole town. There was not one single room here available,” Luis continued. “They were sleeping even at the bus stops, and they even had to take them to the churches.”

It was a great problem for the town to have, hundreds of U.S.-bound immigrants a day: Haitians, Cubans, South Americans, Africans of all stripes, Russians, Uzbeks, Bangladeshis, and Arabs from Iraq and Syria. Everyone’s finally becoming financially whole again, Luis said. He thinks at least 10,000 have come through town since the American election and he’s quite the optimist.

There is more to the report here.

 

Criminal Alien Amnesty Hiding in Biden Amnesty Bill

Andrew Arthur

March 1, 2021

Center for Immigration Studies

Hidden within President Biden’s amnesty bill is a “sleeper” provision that grants amnesty to criminal aliens — or at least makes them eligible to seek it. The fact is, the difference is not that great, as I will explain. You could call it the “Drug Trafficker, Pimp, and Rapist Relief Act” (and include murderers, child sex offenders, and those who convicted of slavery, too).

You have to get down to section 1204, at p. 73, to find the provision, euphemistically named “Restoring Fairness to Adjudications”. Sounds reasonable. Until you read it.

That section would add new waivers to sections 212(c) and 237(a)(8) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Let me give you some history to better explain how breathtakingly lenient those provisions are.

History of Section 212(c) of the INA

There had been a waiver in section 212(c) of the INA since 1952, but that was removed in 1996 by Congress in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Why was section 212(c) removed by IIRIRA?

Because it provided relief to some pretty unsavory criminal aliens. Here’s how that provision read, from 1952 to 1990:

Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence who temporarily proceeded abroad voluntarily and not under an order of deportation, and who are returning to a lawful unrelinquished domicile of seven consecutive years, may be admitted in the discretion of the Attorney General without regard to [their excludability under section 212(a) of the INA].

I will stop right there to explain what that means. The old 212(c) waiver was originally only available to aliens with green cards, and only then if they had been living in the United States for seven years. And it was originally meant to grant them a waiver if they were returning from abroad.

In 1976, however, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) held that it also applied to green card holders who had not left the United States, finding on due process and equal protection grounds that it was not fair to treat returning immigrants differently. That made section 212(c) waivers a form of relief from deportation.

In 2001, the Supreme Court held that: “The extension of § 212(c) relief to the deportation context has had great practical importance, because deportable offenses have historically been defined broadly.” In other words, if you were a lawful permanent resident criminal who had not left the United States, until 1976, you were likely to be deported (because that is what Congress wanted).

And it was granted pretty liberally: Between 1989 and 1995, more than 10,000 aliens were granted 212(c) relief, many if not most because those green-card holders were deportable on criminal grounds. One immigration judge (IJ) before whom I appeared told me that she would usually grant it to an alien at least once.

Recognizing that, again, some serious criminals were benefitting from this waiver, in 1990, Congress barred aliens convicted of aggravated felonies from 212(c) relief if they had served a sentence of five years or more for those crimes. That still allowed some serious criminals to stay, because even though many criminals are sentenced to more slammer time, few actually are in prison for a half decade.

Congress narrowed the waiver even further six years later, in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996. It barred 212(c) relief to an alien convicted of any aggravated felony, drug crimes, firearms offenses, and some crimes involving moral turpitude.

But even then, five months later 212(c) was rescinded by IIRIRA and replaced by a different form of relief, cancellation of removal for certain permanent residents (42A cancellation), available only to lawful permanent residents who have not been convicted of aggravated felonies.

The decision to rescind 212(c) relief was hardly partisan — it was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton… more here.