US citizens detained for speaking Spanish

ICE's No Tolerance Policy is Wreaking Havoc

The 5 Best Arguments Against Immigration—and Why They're WRONG

M.A.M.O.N. - Latinos VS. Donald Trump short film cortometraje

Published on Oct 30, 2016

M.A.M.O.N. (Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide) is a satirical fantasy sci-fi shortfilm that explores with black humor and lots of VFX the outrageous consequences of Donald Trump´s plan of banning immigration and building an enormous wall on the Mexico - US border. 


Editor's Note: Have you seen this? It is hilarious. I want to assure my Mexican friends that those of us who did not like Hillary will not let Trump destroy the Constitution.

Reports find that immigrants commit less crime than US-born citizens

BY RAFAEL BERNAL - 03/19/17 08:00 AM EDT

© Getty

Immigrants commit crimes and are incarcerated at a much lower rate than U.S. citizens, according to two separate studies released this week.

A study by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice research and advocacy group, found that "foreign-born residents of the United States commit crime less often than native-born citizens." 

Another study, by the libertarian Cato Institute, compares incarceration rates by migratory status, ethnicity and gender. 

"All immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population," the Cato study reads.

On the campaign trail and as president, Donald Trump has portrayed illegal immigration as a dual risk: an economic threat and a source of increased crime.

Under President Trump's 2018 budget request, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) budget would grow by $3 billion to fund his proposed border wall and executive orders on immigration.

When he launched his presidential bid, Trump said that illegal immigrants “are bringing crime.” And in speeches, he frequently mentions individuals whose loved ones have been killed by illegal immigrants.

"It's all enforcement-only, following the rhetoric of Trump that he used in the campaign and continues to use, making immigrants at fault for everything, from crime to the economy," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

But the two studies don’t point to immigrants posing more of a threat of crime than citizens born in the U.S.

Among people aged 18-54, 1.53 percent of natives are incarcerated, as are 0.85 percent of undocumented immigrants and 0.47 percent of documented immigrants, according to the Cato study of comparative incarceration rates.

The Cato study found that there are about 2 million U.S-born citizens, 123,000 undocumented immigrants and 64,000 documented foreign citizens in U.S. jails. 

If natural-born citizens were incarcerated at the same rate as undocumented immigrants, "about 893,000 fewer natives would be incarcerated," read the study. Similarly, if native citizens were incarcerated at the same rate as documented immigrants, 1.4 million fewer would be in prison.

The Sentencing Project study even goes so far as to suggest that increased immigration "may have contributed to the historic drop in crime rates" since 1990.

While the study is "not definitive in proving causation," it links crime trends — 730 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens in 1990 compared to 362 per 100,000 in 2014 — and immigration trends in the same period. According to the study, there were 3.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 1990, and 11.1 million in 2014.

Democrats say it's a well-known fact that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, but they say Trump is using fear of immigrants for political gain among his voter base.

"There's always the horrible, fallacious view that you have to go after immigrants and then you point out a few immigrants that have committed horrible crimes," said Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.). 

"You could do the same with mothers. I remember quite well a mother taking her children and driving them into a lake, and they all drowned. You wouldn't make the argument then that mothers are bad and we have to go after mothers because mothers are criminal," he added. 

Grijalva said the tactic would ultimately backfire on Republicans.

"The weakest of people in this country are the ones being made the scapegoats for everything, and unfortunately, facts don't matter, logic doesn't matter," said Grijalva.

"It's a rush to deal with a campaign issue that I think Republicans in general and the Trump administration specifically feel that an anti-immigrant strategy is going to be something that will serve them well in the next round of elections. I don't think so, I think it's going to catch up with them," he said.

But for Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the issue isn't whether the Trump administration enforces existing laws based on statistical information, but whether those laws are adequate. He criticized both Trump and former President Obama for their immigration priorities.

"This president is emphasizing border security — the last president deported more people than anybody in history. Both of those approaches, I think, don't deal with a big part of what is broken, which is a legal system that is just dysfunctional," Diaz-Balart said.

Diaz-Balart added that the border is "porous" and that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises by focusing on border security. 

But Democrats have a sense of urgency in reversing Trump's initial actions on immigration, both because they believe that immigrants are less prone to crime, and because they disagree with Trump's budget proposal. 

"I live in San Diego. A high number of immigrants live there, both documented and undocumented, and that's one of the reasons why it's such a safe area. The crime rate among immigrants is much lower than it is among the general population. So spending all this money to go after immigrants, a safer population, really makes no sense at all," said Vargas.

Editor's Note: Of course you cannot ignore that undocumented people are breaking the law but the statistics of low crime is accurate. In my view this doesn't argue for more immigration or sanctuary cities.  It does suggest that immigration reform is needed as well as the fair enforcement of our laws and border security. My personal experiences with immigrants-legal and undocumented has been positive. 

Stockholm Syndrome, The Rape Capital of Europe.

Ask A U.S. Citizen: Do Immigrants Commit More Crimes?

San Francisco Police Department Suspends Participation With FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force

February 1, 2017 8:40 PM

Filed Under: FBI, Immigration, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Police, San Francisco, SFPD, Trump

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — San Francisco Police Department officials announced Wednesday evening that they have suspended participation with the FBI’s controversial Joint Terrorism Task Force.

According to San Francisco Police Commission protocol, all contracts require approval by the Board of Supervisors after 10 years.

The JTTF Memoranda of Understanding was signed in 2007, so that time has come, according to department officials.

The department will update its guideline for First Amendment activities and will “seek clarification” from the Police Commission as to this guideline’s application to JTTF investigations.

Once that new guideline is adopted, the department may consider renegotiating the JTTF memoranda with the FBI with guidance from the police commission.

Last month, the Asian Law Caucus, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ San Francisco Bay Area office and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California sent a letter to San Francisco Police commissioners urging them to cease the department’s participation in the JTTF.

In the Jan. 5 letter, the groups speculate that, following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the JTTF would likely increase surveillance of Muslim communities like the New York City police did after Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the FBI, 71 JTTF field offices have been established since 2001. The first was established in New York City in 1980.

“The SFPD is committed to public safety and will continue to work diligently to keep San Francisco safe for everyone,” San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Andraychak said in a statement.

San Rafael Protests for Sanctuary Cities and against President Trump 1/20/2017

Why California is wrong to defend sanctuary cities

Why California is wrong to defend sanctuary cities

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee speaks at City Hall on Nov. 14 to reaffirm the commitment to being a sanctuary city against deportations. Jeff Chiu Associated Press


BY BEN BOYCHUK

Special to the Bee

Forget #Calexit. We don’t need to wait until 2018 for a silly vote. California has all but decided to secede from the union.

How else to interpret our officials’ lawless course in the coming fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration?


Randy Pench rpench@sacbee.com


They’ve laid down their markers. They’ve drawn their lines. Gov. Jerry Brown: “We will protect the precious rights of our people.”

Sacramento Mayor-elect Darrell Steinberg: “We are going to make it very clear that Sacramento will continue to be a sanctuary city.”

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf: “I like to compare this to conscientious objector status. We are not going to use our resources to enforce what we believe are unjust immigration laws.”

University of California President Janet Napolitano: “All members of our community have the right to work, study, and live safely and without fear at all UC locations.”

This week, Napolitano joined Cal State University chancellor Timothy White and Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor-designate of California Community Colleges, in a joint letter to the president-elect, urging him to leave alone an estimated 74,000 undocumented immigrants enrolled in one of the three systems.

“These sons and daughters of undocumented immigrants are as American as any other child across the nation,” they wrote. These students “should be able to pursue their dream of higher education without fear of being arrested, deported or rounded up for just trying to learn.”
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First, they aren’t children. Second, they aren’t at risk of arrest and deportation “for just trying to learn.” They’re at risk of arrest and deportation for being in the country illegally.

Contrary to Steinberg, Schaaf and others, immigration is not a civil rights issue. Or a “resistance” issue (to borrow a loaded term appearing in news stories with disturbing regularity).

It’s a sovereignty issue.

“Sovereignty,” “citizenship” and “assimilation” seem like quaint concepts in an era of “prosecutorial discretion” and “executive action” undertaken by a president and an administration entirely unafraid to wield their pens and phones. But they are at the heart of the immigration question.

Over the past decade, California has sought deliberately to blur the lines between citizen and non-citizen, between green card holder and “unauthorized immigrant.” Illegal immigrants may obtain driver’s licenses. They may receive in-state college tuition and now may hold professional licenses. Some cities let non-citizens vote in municipal elections.

Eliminating the distinction between citizen and non-citizen, between legal and illegal immigrant, undermines social cohesion and the rule of law.

Our officials know it, too.

For anyone who cared to notice, Trump has walked back some of his more incendiary rhetoric on immigration. But on the question of deporting criminal aliens, Trump has not wavered: cities that do not cooperate could lose federal funding. All of it.

According to the New York Times, Oakland stands to lose as much as $140 million in federal money for homeless shelters, meals for the elderly and low-income preschool programs, while Los Angeles could lose upwards of $500 million of its $9 billion budget.

Understandably, local law enforcement officials find themselves in a bind. “I depend on [undocumented immigrants] to be witnesses to crime, I depend on them to report crime, I depend on them to support the police department,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told an interviewer last month. “And none of that is as likely to happen if we become an arm of immigration enforcement.”

Which is exactly what you would expect to happen when you look the other way for decades. But that isn’t what the law says. That isn’t how a properly functioning immigration and naturalization system is supposed to work. And it isn’t fair to American citizens.

Our immigration system needs an overhaul. But states and cities don’t get to make immigration policy. California will pay dearly for its lawless stance.
Editor's Note: We favor immigration reform, not the creation of a "quasi legal citizen" for immigrants which subjects them to all sorts of abuse by government and the private sector.  

‘Sanctuary California’ Faces Bankruptcy if Trump Withholds Federal Funds

‘Sanctuary California’ Faces Bankruptcy if Trump Withholds Federal Funds

by CHRISS W. STREET 26 Nov 2016Newport Beach, CA

Although Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti warnedPresident-elect Trump that defunding Sanctuary Cities would cause “social, economic and security problems,” Sanctuary California could face bankruptcy if the Trump administration follows through on threats to pull billions in federal funding.

There are 300 “Sanctuary Cities” and counties around the United States that have policies in place blocking local law enforcement from complying with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests for immigration holds.

An ICE detainer is a written request for a local jail or other law enforcement agency to detain an individual for an additional 48 hours (excluding weekends and holidays) after his or her release date, in order to provide ICE agents extra time to decide whether to take the individual into federal custody for removal purposes.

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG) issued a memorandum in August that advised that sanctuary city practices violate federal law. The IG finding empowers Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), if confirmed as U.S. Attorney General, to strip sanctuary cities — including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. — of certain federal law enforcement grants. He can also seek court orders to strip federal grants from any government entities refusing to comply with U.S. laws.

Sessions applauded the finding: “Now, the law and the American people demand that this Administration cease its acquiescence in this illegality. The Obama Administration must immediately take action to withhold significant federal law enforcement funding for these offending jurisdictions.”

Mayor Garcetti and other big city Democrat mayors have defiantly said after Trump’s election that despite the federal government providing an average of 25 percent of state and local government general revenues, they still will not comply with ICE holds.

The reason local government can afford to flout the incoming Trump administration without much fear,is that 95 percent of the $620 billion in federal intergovernmental transfers are block-granted directly to states, who then make transfers to their cities and counties. Direct federal block grants to local government amount to only about $30 billion, and half of that is untouchable as public health and Homeland Security funds.

But there are four Democrat-controlled “Sanctuary States” that are also defying federal law by refusing to honor ICE detainer requests for immigration holds. Connecticut, New Mexico, and Colorado receive relatively small amounts of federal dollars due to low population. But the State of California, with the largest population, is the top receiver of federal funds in the nation.

Of California’s $252.5 billion in total estimated government spending for fiscal year 2015, the federal government provided $93.6 billion, or 37 percent. That works out to a stunning $6,451 for every man, woman and child in the state.

The breakdown of California’s federal funding, by department, includes: 52 percent for Health and Human Services (Medicaid); an average of 25 percent of all state and local government’ general revenues for Labor and Workforce Development, 14 percent for Education; 6 percent for Transportation; 2 percent for Legislative, Judicial and Executive; and 1 percent for General Government, which includes Natural Resources, Environmental Protection, Corrections and Rehabilitation, State and Consumer Services.

Breitbart News reported in May that Moody’s Global Credit Research fiscal stress-tests found that California was already the least prepared large state to weather the next recession. The credit rating service followed up in August with a warning to municipal bondholders that the plummeting financial condition of many California counties, cities, school districts and other agencies would soon result in large numbers of municipal bankruptcy filings.

The only time in the last 40 years California that suffered a 3.7 percent or more of GDP decline was the 4.4 percent plunge in 2009 during the Great Recession. Given the state’s precarious financial condition, any cut-off of federal funds by the Trump Administration could bankrupt California and many of the state’s local government entities.

Donald Trump and the Coming Battle Over Legal and Illegal Immigration: Q&A with Shikha Dalmia