Deportation Numbers Unwrapped  -- Raw Statistics Reveal ICE Enforcement in Decline

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that ICE is arresting and removing noticeably fewer illegal aliens from the interior now than was the case five years ago, and even two years ago. The focus has shifted away from interior enforcement in favor of processing aliens who are apprehended by the Border Patrol. Despite reports of an emphasis on criminal alien removal from the interior, those removals have also declined.

The number of deportations that will be attributed to ICE for FY2013 is 364,700, according to information obtained by the Center despite a gag order from the ICE front office. That number is down 11 percent from 2012. Of these, approximately 216,800 were criminals, which is four percent less than 2012. These numbers fell despite an increase in the number of illegal aliens encountered by ICE agents in the interior.

The Obama administration's assertion that they have achieved a record number of deportations, proving illegal immigration is under control and the time is right for amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants presently in the country, is invalid.

View the entire report  here

"It was astounding to discover that ICE has been arresting and removing so few illegal aliens from inside the country, considering that they have better tools and more resources at their disposal than ever before, and considering that there is an abundance of criminal aliens and illegal workers who should be removed," said Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center. "They have used statistical smoke and mirrors to obscure the disastrous results of so-called prosecutorial discretion and other enforcement-suppressing policies. The next step in immigration reform should be to restore credibility to ICE's interior programs, especially including worksite enforcement and Secure Communities."

Key Findings:

 *  The number of deportations resulting from interior enforcement by ICE declined by 19 percent from 2011 to 2012, and is on track to decline another 22 percent in 2013.

 *  In 2012, the year the Obama administration claimed to break enforcement records, more than one-half of removals attributed to ICE were the result of Border Patrol arrests that would never have been counted as a removal in prior years. In 2008, under the Bush administration, only one-third of removals were from Border Patrol arrests.

 *  Total deportations in 2011, the latest year for which complete numbers are available, numbered 715,495 - the low-est level since 1973. The highest number of deportations on record was in 2000, under the Clinton administration, when 1,864,343 aliens were deported.

 *  When claiming record levels of enforcement, the Obama administration appears to count only removals, which are just one form of deportation, and only a partial measure of enforcement. Beginning in 2011, a shift of some of the routine Border Patrol case load to ICE enabled the administration to count an artificially high number of removals.

 *  Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the division of ICE that is responsible for work site enforcement, combat-ing transnational gangs, overstay enforcement, anti-smuggling and trafficking activity, and busting document and identity theft rings, now contributes very little to immigration enforcement. In 2013 HSI has produced only four percent of ICE deportations, making just a few thousand arrests per year throughout the entire country.

 *  ICE is doing less enforcement with more resources. Despite reporting more encounters in 2013 than 2012, ICE agents pursued deportation of 20 percent fewer aliens this year than last.

 *  Enforcement activity declined in every ICE field office from 2011 to 2013, with the biggest declines in the Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Washington DC/Virginia, and Houston field offices.

 *  Criminal alien arrests declined by 11 percent from 2012 to 2013, despite the completion of the Secure Communi-ties program, which generates more referrals of arrested aliens than ever before. ICE agents took a pass on hun-dreds of thousands of aliens who were arrested by local authorities in those years.

 *  ICE is carrying a case load of 1.8 million aliens who are either in removal proceedings or have already been or-dered removed. Less than two percent are in detention, which is the only proven way to ensure departure.

 *  As of the end of July 2013 there were 872,000 aliens - nearly half of ICE's total docket - who had been ordered removed but who had not left the country.

 *  The State Department continues to issue tens of thousands of visas annually to citizens of countries that refuse to take back their countrymen who are ordered removed from the United States. Many of these are violent criminals.

The data for this report was from a collection of mostly unpublished internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) statistics.

SOURCE

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Leftist Hollywood

Some people are shocked that so many members of the acting profession are liberals. It shouldn't be too surprising. After all, even though some actors are more talented than others, all that's really required is an unnatural desire to live a life of pretense. Although I have known a lot of actors, and even liked a few of them, I confess I have never understood the desire to wear other people's clothes and to have makeup applied in order to recite lines written by someone else and be told where to stand, when to move and how to read those lines by a third party.

It's all harmless enough, I suppose, but as a rule, people outgrow the urge to pretend to be someone other than themselves at a fairly early age. Instead, with maturity, most of us want to become the best possible version of ourselves. But without passing through the maturation process, one has no recourse but to remain forever a child; that is to say, a liberal.

Speaking of actors, one of the better ones, James Woods, recently garnered some notice by saying some extremely honest - that is to say, harsh - things about Barack Obama. That grabbed my attention because when I interviewed Mr. Woods a few years ago for my book, "Portraits of Success," he told me that although some people assumed he was a Republican, they were mistaken.

After reading that he tweeted among other things that "Obama is vile and a true abomination" and "I think Barack Obama is a threat to the integrity and future of the Republic" and, furthermore, "Sixteen years of machine Democrats shredding the fabric of the Republic will toss the greatest democracy on the trash heap of history," I sent him an email.

I asked him if he had changed his politics in the three or four years since our interview. His honest response was that he had always been a conservative, but that he had to eat. He added: "These libs are brutally dangerous and sneaky people."

As you see, there are always exceptions. So, although most actors never really mature, but simply age into character roles, occasionally one does.

In spite of his Oscar nominations, Woods expects he will never work again. How ironic is it that liberals are forever bringing up the blacklist of 60 years ago as if it were on a par with the Spanish Inquisition, but don't seem to mind the practice at all so long as they're in charge of the racks and applying the thumbscrews!

SOURCE

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Bureaucrats Against Healthcare Access

Remote Area Medical (RAM) offers a glimpse into a robust, voluntary health sector, but not if bureaucrats have anything to say about it

Though the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges has dismayed even the law's supporters, the problem the ACA is designed to address is real enough: Millions of Americans, even those with insurance, lack access to adequate healthcare. In a voluntary society, civil-sector groups would step up to provide social services, like healthcare for the needy.

Government intervention in health markets currently crowds out such services-but not completely. Remote Area Medical (RAM), a Tennessee-based charity that is completely privately funded, offers a glimpse of what voluntary healthcare might look like. The group treats all comers at free weekend clinics dotted across the country.

"Remote Area Medical provides stuff that no one else provides," says Dr. David Milzman, a professor of emergency medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine and emergency physician at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. "They can make 1,200 to 1,500 pairs of glasses a day. Talk about a life-changing thing: Doing an eye exam and then giving glasses to someone who's never had glasses."

Originally founded to do expeditions in South America, the group has shifted its focus homeward because of the need here in the United States. At a typical event, over a thousand patients arrive in the wee hours of the night to make sure they get a spot in line. Many drive for hours and sleep in their cars.

In addition to providing general medical care, RAM specializes in dental and vision work because diseases in these areas, although serious, can be permanently resolved in a few hours. Since 1992 RAM has organized over 700 events and seen over half a million patients in Tennessee, Illinois, California, Virginia, Texas, and other states.

But rather than welcome the organization, which operates at no cost to taxpayers, most state governments actively impede its efforts. In 2009, the Washington, D.C., Department of Health assessed RAM a $77,000 facilities fee and forced the group to apply for a certificate of need, which involves "proving" to a panel of bureaucrats that there is a need for services.

According to Milzman, who was part of an ad-hoc group of doctors and nurses who tried to shepherd RAM through the approval process in D.C., the need for more services in the region is obvious. "They have beautiful dental facilities [for the poor] down at D.C. General," says Milzman, "but no one to staff it. They have 15-16 operatories there, but they only staff it with one or two dentists a day. It's crazy."

Ultimately, D.C. officials refused to issue a one-time waiver to the district's occupational licensing law, according to Milzman, who relates D.C. officials' response as, "There is no medical problem in D.C. and we didn't need a free clinic." Milzman adds: "This was a disaster."

Unfortunately, few states allow health workers licensed in other states to see patients-even when they are working for free. And the majority of RAM's network of volunteers crosses state lines for events. "It's a question of mathematics," says RAM founder Stan Brock. More volunteers mean the group can see more patients.

According to Brock, occupational licensing laws are the biggest hurdle the group faces. Health officials cite safety concerns to justify barring out-of-state volunteers; for instance, how are California officials to know a nurse licensed in New Jersey is qualified?

But the objection rings hollow. All medical professionals must meet certification requirements administered by national specialty boards. Standards are thus nearly identical across states; the licenses themselves serve little purpose beyond raising revenue for state treasuries and keeping nurses' salaries higher than they might be otherwise.

According to Brock, RAM has worked with over 80,000 volunteers without encountering an incompetent practitioner. Nonetheless, health officials regularly insist on licenses-even in emergencies. After a hurricane demolished Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, RAM sent its mobile eyeglass clinic to help in the relief effort. But it had to turn around without making a single pair of glasses because it couldn't find a state-approved optometrist and opticians.

Medical malpractice liability is another stumbling block. The cost and complexity of insurance keeps many otherwise-willing practitioners from volunteering outside their regular practices. But efforts to ease liability rules face obstacles in state legislatures.

In Missouri this year, the state's trial attorney association objected to a bill lifting liability except for cases of "willful misconduct." Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the bill, which he mischaracterized as providing "blanket immunity" for volunteers. (Last month, legislators overrode the veto, prompting RAM to begin planning an event in St. Louis, the group's first in the state.)

But an absence of regulatory obstacles remains the exception, not the rule.

"The frequent comment that I get from would-be volunteers," says Brock, "is that they throw up their hands and say, `Gosh, it's easier for me to volunteer my time in Guatemala than it is in my own country.'"

Advocates for more government intervention often insist on referring to the pre-ACA status quo as the "free market." RAM provides a useful corrective to that narrative. In a free market, would intransigent officials have so much power to stifle voluntary efforts to address one of the country's most pressing problems?

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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