The city of Los Angeles has become a focal point for several different efforts, triggered by raids last month that “swept up more than 100 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who entered the country and stayed illegally,” as the Los Angeles times noted.

“The seizures motivated church leaders nationwide who say they feel compelled to offer physical protection on their premises even if it violates federal law,” as the paper added, with at least three L.A.-area churches “vowing in recent weeks to offer refuge to Central Americans with deportation orders[.]” It is the Obama administration that has taken heat for the roundups:

“Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics and other Christian leaders across the country say they are outraged with the Obama administration’s actions, said Noel Andersen, a grass-roots coordinator with the Church World Service group for refugees. The group has built a network of sanctuaries for Central Americans targeted by ICE.”

Sanctuary schools

At the same time that California churches have shifted toward the approach that defined the state’s so-called “sanctuary cities,” schools and universities have also advanced complementary new policies. Los Angeles Unified Schools, for instance, have declared themselves to be ICE-free zones. “The school board has banned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from setting foot on any campus without the district’s permission,” according to Fox 11 Los Angeles. Not only must the Superintendent of Schools approve any ICE presence, by the terms of the new vote, but LAUSD lawyers must as well:

“ICE claims that they do not come to schools looking for students, but parents fear sending their kids to school after information they received of ICE agents conducting a series of raids across the U.S. in January targeting Central American immigrants.”

Simultaneously, administrators in the UC system have forged ahead with plans to extend so-called DREAM loans to students who could potentially be deported. “Officials at California’s four-year public universities are reaching out to an estimated 10,000 undergraduate students who might qualify for a special loan aimed at reducing their tuition,” as U-T San Diego reported, “a program that further distinguishes the state as a national trendsetter in providing services to unauthorized immigrants.”

“The California DREAM loan program’s initial $7 million allotment — $5 million for the UC and $2 million for CSU — will be distributed to eligible applicants in the following weeks,” the paper noted. “The state provided half of the sum and the two university systems covered the other half. The loans are for the 2015-16 academic year, and they’re retroactive to last fall.”

Driving policy

As the public education establishment has come to the aid of would-be deportees, the state of California itself has continued to reward those who go public in some fashion with their legal status. California’s program to extend slightly modified drivers license privileges to otherwise undocumented immigrants far outpaced predicted demand. “Under the new law, 605,000 undocumented residents received licenses, accounting for 40 percent of all of the licenses issued last year,” the International Business Times reported. “Exceeding expectations, even more attempted to obtain a license: Around 830,000 undocumented immigrants have applied for a license since Jan. 2, 2015, the first day of the new policy at the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

The state’s aggressive action on normalizing residents who immigrated unlawfully has been rooted in two realities — first, the relatively vast and stable population of long-time residents crossing over from Mexico and Central America, and, second, the prevailing political agenda of Democrats wielding near one-party control over state policy for years on end. “California is among 12 states that now allow immigrants in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses, areas covering an estimated 37 percent of that population,” the Times observed, citing a recent Pew report. But California has also surpassed all other states in its percentage of unlawful residents eligible for a license, according to the report.

By Chriss Street

President Barack Obama’s Executive Order to suspend the deportations of 800,000 illegal aliens for two years will act as a magnet to motivate millions of people from around the world to come to the United States and claim they have been quietly living here with relatives for the last five years.

The legal term for the president’s directive is “deferred action,” which has the effect of a two-year blanket suspension of Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations for these “unlawful” aliens. This will allow “lawful permanent residents” to work, go to school, collect welfare benefits and join the direct pathway to citizenship.  Although the Form I-551 Permanent Resident green card has not always been colored green, President Obama just made a gift of billions of green dollars to buy the loyalty of tens of millions of future voters and their extended families.

Aliens who desired the opportunity to come to the United States and become lawful permanent residents have been required to qualify under a preference system each year for a finite number of visas set by Congress.  Preference was given first to direct family members, then specialty employment skills,and then political refugees.  In 2010, there were a total of 480,000 green cards issued.  Family-based green cards were issued to 226,000 relatives of citizens and permanent residents, 150,000 to specialized workers and another 100,000 to refugees and political asylum seekers.  By law, no nation’s citizens were allowed to receive more than 25,000 green cards.

Dream Act

The Executive Order implements most of the Dream Act legislation that pro-immigrant congressional representatives have tried and failed to pass for a decade.  President Obama dishonestly claimed his Executive Order was focused on giving permanent residence status to children when he said:

“These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. They were brought to this country by their parents — sometimes even as infants — and often have no idea that they’re undocumented until they apply for a job or a driver’s license, or a college scholarship.”

But research by the Center for Immigrant Studies determined that, of the 1,998,000 individuals expected to be covered by the Dream Act, 1,139,000 (57 percent) would have been adults and only 859,000 (43 percent) would have been minors.

In the past, citizens and permanent residents who applied for direct family member visas for their relatives to come to the U.S. legally were required to provide financial sponsorship by signing a Form I-864 Affidavit of Support.  This contractual agreement made the sponsors personally liable to pay back the government if their sponsored relative became a “public charge” and collected public assistance benefits based on need.  Millions of lawful permanent residents undoubtedly now will reapply for green cards on deferred status to get financial releases for their sponsors.

Mass immigration

There are approximately 18.5 million “lawful permanent residents” in the United States, and 15 million unlawful permanent residents.  No one knows how many people around the world would like to immigrate to the United States.  But each year an average of 15 million people apply for the United States “green card diversity lottery” to compete for 50,000 visas, with the odds of winning at 300 to 1.

Mexicans are not eligible to participate in the lottery because more than 25,000 Mexicans enter the United States each year.  But if Mexicans, who represent 30.1 percent of all current U.S. immigrants, had been allowed to apply for the lottery, the number of lottery participating would have risen to at least 21.5 million and the odds of winning would have jumped to 428 to 1.

Given that there will be no way to prove if a person has been quietly living in the United States for 5 years, or just arrived, I estimate at least 6 million people will eventually apply to become “lawful permanent residents” as a result of the Executive Order.  The flood of new applications will generate billions of dollars of business for key Obama supporters.  For each application, an immigration lawyer will collect $4,000 in fees and a local newspaper will pocket $,1000 to publish the required “legal notices”.

Last year, deportations of U.S. illegal immigrants reached an all-time record high of 400,000.  But President Obama described his suspension of deportations in a speech from the White House’s Rose Garden as: “It’s the right thing to do, period.”

At a time when there are 20 million unemployed Americans, the president’s Executive Order will act as a magnet to attract millions of aliens to take American jobs, burden our schools and suck up social welfare benefits.

Ali Meyer:

This afternoon Gov. Jerry Brown signed the “Dream Act” bill AB 130. By Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, the bill will “allow undocumented immigrants who live in California to apply for scholarships funded with private donations,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

This bill is one part of the Dream Act initiative.  Part two, AB 131, would allow these students to be available for public financial aid, paid for by state taxpayers. Brown also is expected to sign it.

This isn’t the first time the Dream Act was introduced.  Cedillo has been attempting to pass the bill since 2006.  Introduced as SB 1460 in 2010, the bill passed both houses of the state Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on September 30, 2010.  Now that Schwarzenegger is gone, Cedillo has found luck with Gov. Jerry Brown.

The Dream Act, Cedillo said, is a “bill that recognizes that in the year 2025, this economy of the eighth largest economy of the world is going to be missing one million people with bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. And the question is, where will these people come from?”

Where will they come from? Isn’t there already a surplus of college students with degrees attempting to find jobs? Not to mention adding undocumented immigrants to the list?

“I suggest to you part of where they come from is from this group, this community of students, that are called dream students,” he continued.

The opposition mentioned the state’s endemic budget problems.  “The problem we have right now with the state of California’s budget is that we don’t even have enough money to provide financial aid for students that are here legally, let alone ones that are here illegally,” said state Senator Bob Dutton, R-Riverside.

July 25, 2011