Conservative Blogger
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
White House seeks extra $1.4B to address surge in children crossing southern border
President Obama on Monday described a surge in unaccompanied immigrant children caught trying to cross the Mexican border as an "urgent humanitarian situation," as the White House asked Congress for an extra $1.4 billion in federal money to cope. Obama said the U.S. will temporarily house the children at two military bases.
Obama appointed the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, to be in charge of the situation.
In its new estimates, the government said as many as 60,000 children, mostly from Central America, could be caught this year trying to cross the Mexican border illegally, costing the U.S. more than $2.28 billion to house, feed and transport the children to shelters or reunite them with relatives already living in the United States. The new estimate is about $1.4 billion more than the government asked for in Obama's budget request sent to Congress earlier this year.
Obama described the growing humanitarian issue at the border in a presidential memorandum Monday that outlined a government-wide response led by Fugate.
Obama's director of domestic policy, Cecilia Munoz, said the number of children traveling alone has been on the rise since 2009, but the increase was larger than last year. Munoz said the group also now includes more girls and larger numbers of children younger than 13.
"All of these things are contributing to the sense of urgency," Munoz said. "These are children who have gone through a harrowing experience alone. We're providing for their proper care."
The growth has surpassed the system's capacity to process and house the children. Last month, the federal government opened an emergency operations center at a border headquarters in South Texas to help coordinate the efforts and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Health and Human Services Department, turned to the Defense Department for the second time since 2012 to help house children in barracks at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio.
Mark Greenberg, an assistant secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, said about 1,000 children were being housed at the Texas base and as many as 600 others could soon be housed at a U.S. Navy base in Southern California.
The number of children found trying to cross the Mexican border without parents has skyrocketed in recent years. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of children landing in the custody of Refugee Resettlement fluctuated between 6,000 and 7,500 per year. In 2012 border agents apprehended 13,625 unaccompanied children and that number surged even more -- to 24,668 -- last year. The total is expected to exceed 60,000 this year.
More than 90 percent of those sheltered by the government are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, many driven north by pervasive violence and poverty in their home countries. They are held in agency-contracted shelters while a search is conducted for family, a sponsor or a foster parent who can care for them through their immigration court hearings, where many will apply for asylum or other special protective status. Border Patrol agents have said that smugglers are increasingly notifying authorities once they get children across the Rio Grande so that they can be picked up.
Rampant crime and poverty across Central America and a desire to reunite with parents or other relatives are thought to be driving many of the young immigrants. Munoz said Monday the administration is aware of false rumors that have circulated that migrant children who get to this country would be automatically allowed to stay here or benefit from some future immigration reform legislation.
Migrant kids remain in removal proceedings even after they're reunited with their parents here, though many have been able to win permission from a judge to stay in the U.S.
The Office of Management and Budget said in a two-page letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, last month that the increase in children trying to cross the border alone could cost the government as much as $2.28 billion. The administration originally asked Congress for $868 million for the "Unaccompanied Alien Children" program run by Health and Human Services, the same amount Congress approved last year.
Brian Deese, deputy director of the budget office, said the Homeland Security Department would also need an extra $166 million to help pay overtime costs for Customs and Border Protection officers and agents, contract services for care of the children and transportation costs.
A House appropriations subcommittee voted last week to add $77 million to the original request. Deese sent the letter to Mikulski a day after the House subcommittee vote.
Monday, June 2, 2014
WH petition to free Marine Tahmooressi from Mexico prison reaches 100K online signatures
A petition on the White House website asking President Obama to demand the release of a Marine sergeant in a Mexico prison has garnered more than 100,000 online signatures -- a threshold that typically elicits an administration response.
“The effect of this unjust incarceration on a decorated combat Marine is despairing,” says the petition, which as of Saturday afternoon had 116,051 signatures.
Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi was arrested March 31 after crossing the Mexican border with three guns in his truck.
Tahmooressi said he accidentally crossed the border and immediately told Mexican authorities that he had three guns in his possession and that he was unable to make a U-turn.
He said he was handcuffed and taken to prison and that his treatment worsened when he tried to escape.
Tahmooressi, who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, said guards hit him so many times in face that he felt his jaw fall out of place.
He also said he was stripped naked and chained to a bed, with his feet on one end and his hands on another.
A State Department official, in a letter on Friday to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has been pushing for the Marine's release, said consular officers have visited Tahmooressi 12 times.
The State Department said last week they have raised concerns with Mexican authorities about his treatment.
“We've been very engaged,” said department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “We'll continue to press the case.”
She also said Secretary of State John Kerry has been involved in the situation.
The White House describes the online petition effort as “a new way to petition the Obama administration to take action on a range of important issues.”
Some administration responses are messages posted on the site, which now has 82 petitions.
Hill leaders vow Shinseki’s resignation won't dim spotlight on Veterans Affairs' woes
Top Capitol Hill lawmakers said Sunday that the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will not take the spotlight off the agency’s widespread patient-care problems and suggested a criminal probe into the situation.
Florida GOP Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, told “Fox News Sunday” the intensity in Congress will not wane.
“I can promise you that,” he said. “The American people are so disgusted it's not going to fade out.”
Shinseki gave his resignation to President Obama on Friday, about five weeks after allegations surfaced that officials at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Phoenix were keeping “secret” records of patients waiting to get an appointment to conceal the extensive backlog.
Bipartisan calls for Shinseki’s resignation increased following the release Wednesday of an inspector general’s report that confirmed the secondary lists in Phoenix and evidence at 42 other VA medical facilities of “manipulation of VA data that distort the legitimacy of reported waiting times." However, the report did not confirm allegations that some veterans died while waiting.
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said years of reports indeed made clear that the VA doesn’t have enough doctors and staff.
However, the larger issue is “the system was then gamed, which is absolutely reprehensible, which must be dealt with through criminal prosecution,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We need to make sure that that never happens again.”
Sanders said he’s going to introduce legislation Monday or Tuesday that he hopes will help veterans waiting extensively for care get treatment at a private facility or community health center.
Sanders said Congress and “everybody” responsible for helping veterans “can bear some of the responsibility” for the VA situation.
“When you send men and women off to war, when they come home, we have a moral responsibility to make sure that all of them get the health care and the benefits that they deserve. And that is the responsibility of the United States,” he said.
Miller also was skeptical about Obama’s assertion that years of reports -- as many as 18 since 2005 -- never reached Shinseki’s desk.
“It's very difficult for me to believe that the [VA] central office here in Washington, D.C., did not have any idea about the cooking of the book and the illegal activity,” he said.
He also defended Congress on the issue by saying his committee issued recommendations based on the reports, but members were “lied to” about the follow-up numbers.
Miller argued that Shinseki last month told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the Phoenix situation was isolated, despite the general knowledge that the problem was “pervasive throughout the country.”
He also suggested that one way to cut the backlog is to allow VA facilities to do what they do best -- treat battlefield, traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries -- while perhaps allowing older veterans from the Korea and Vietnam wars to get outside care.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
CASEY ANTHONY ADOPTS A BABY
(Bailey) "This shows you how screwed up the laws in America are!"
ORLANDO, FL – Sources close to Casey Anthony’s attorney confirmed today that Casey has adopted a baby girl from Romania.
Reporters from Orange County confirmed that Casey Anthony applied to adopt a baby girl (2 years old) from Eastern Europe in early 2010. Sources say she was accepted by the Romanian government – pending the conclusion of her trial.
Casey has plenty of money rolling in now with book deals, movie deals and a porn video that she is slated to shoot in early August. She is already worth over $8 million dollars because of her book deal. READ about it here.
Sources close to friends of Casey say she offered the Romanian adoption agency $75,000 for the baby.
Casey will reportedly fly to Bucharest on July 25th to pick up the baby. Her adoption attorney will not say where Casey and the baby will live, but many are speculating that she will return to the U.S. and live with her aunt in Texas.
Romanians are appalled about the adoption and are trying to stop it from going forward. “We do not want one of our babies being adopted by that monster,” said Flaviu Trasicu. “We have standards here that citizens of the United States do not. As a society, we cherish our children and punish child abusers.”
Casey has not chosen a name for the baby girl she is going to adopt, “but it’s not going to begin with a ‘C’, that’s for sure.”
Americans are outraged about the verdict… and now this! Some feel that maybe she should stay in Romania…
GOP lawmakers: Prisoner exchange violated law
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican lawmakers on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaking the law by approving the release of five Afghan detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for a U.S. soldier believed held by Islamist insurgents for five years.
The White House agreed that actions were taken in spite of legal requirements and cited "unique and exigent circumstances" as justification.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, of Hailey, Idaho, was handed over to U.S. special operations forces by the Taliban. In return, five Afghans who were held at a U.S. detention facility in Cuba were released to the custody of the government of Qatar, which served as a go-between in negotiations for the trade.
Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said in a statement that Obama is required by law to notify Congress 30 days before any terrorists are transferred from the U.S. facility. They said Obama also is required to explain how the threat posed by such terrorists has been substantially mitigated.McKeon is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Inhofe is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In response, the White House said it moved as quickly as possible given the opportunity that arose to secure Bergdahl's release. Citing "these unique and exigent circumstances," the White House said a decision was made to go ahead with the transfer despite the legal requirement of 30 days advance notice to Congress.
While saying they celebrate Bergdahl's release, McKeon and Inhofe warned that the exchange "may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans."
"Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk," they said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement that "the safe return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is an answer to the prayers of the Bergdahl family and a powerful reinforcement of our nation's commitment to leave no service member behind."
___
Associated Press writer Douglass K. Daniel contributed to this report.
State, local officials blast ICE for dumping overflow of illegal immigrants -- including kids -- at bus stations in their cities
Scores of illegal immigrants, caught by authorities in Texas trying to sneak into the country via the Rio Grande Valley, are being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in places like Arizona, New York and Maryland.
If the immigrants had been from Mexico, authorities would release them back across the border. But these would-be immigrants come from Central American countries, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and trying to get them back to their country of origin has been a costly and largely unsuccessful endeavor.
Lawmakers in Arizona, which has been battling for years to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the state, wasted no time blasting the practice.
"What an astonishing failure of leadership at every level inside the Beltway," said Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Smith.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Reuters, “essentially, they have gotten successfully into the country and it’s unlikely that they’re going to leave.”
The number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley has shot up in recent years, with south Texas now the main gateway for illegal immigration along the southwest border with Mexico.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 154,453 immigrants last year – up from 97,762 the previous year.
More shockingly, some say, is the unprecedented surge of children making the more than 1,000-mile journey from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border to escape violence in their home countries.
Multiple media outlets have reported horrific stories from border districts on youngsters, ranging from toddlers to teens, being raped and murdered on their way to the U.S. border.
Floridalma Bineda Portillo and her two young boys were part of a group of about 400 Central Americans who were flown from Texas to Tucson last weekend. Bineda Portillo and others were then shuttled to Phoenix after the Tucson Greyhound station ran out of space.
When they arrived at the station in Phoenix, a volunteer nurse found Bineda Portillo's five-year-old son, Hugo David, wheezing and struggling to breathe. His asthma inhaler had been lost when the family was processed by immigration. The boy's three-year-old brother developed a cold after sitting on the floor for hours in the detention center, his mother said.
"We all started crying because we didn't know what was going to happen to us. It was brutal," the Guatemala native said in Spanish.
"This is a humanitarian crisis and it requires a humanitarian response," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told Reuters.
Most of the families apprehended so far in Texas have been flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley.
The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it does not want to lock up minors in detention centers or split up families.
They are expected to return to Texas on their own once their deportation process nears completion in an honor system of sorts.
“After screening by DHS authorities, the family units will be released under supervision and required to report in to a local ICE office near their destination address within 15 days, where their cases will be managed in accordance with current ICE enforcement priorities,” according to an ICE statement.
Bineda Portillo said she fled Guatemala because of growing violence and to escape domestic abuse. Her mother, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, sent her money for the bus ride there.
In the meantime, volunteers from the Phoenix Restoration Project, a humanitarian group, have been at the Greyhound station since Tuesday handing out food, clothing, diapers and other supplies.
"It's always heart-wrenching, especially when we're working with women, because they're less likely to be able to read and sometimes are coming from very rural areas of Central America, and Spanish isn't their first language," volunteer Cyndi Whitmore said. "We see a lot of women who are very scared, very vulnerable."
VA hospital hides Jesus behind curtain
I may have figured out why the Department of Veterans Affairs had such difficulty finding time to treat patients. It’s because it was working overtime to give its chapels a religiously neutral makeover.
But as VA officials in Iron Mountain, Mich., learned, one man’s renovation is another man’s desecration.
Some folks in Iron Mountain became infuriated earlier this month when they discovered that statues of Jesus and Mary, along with a cross and altar, were hidden behind a curtain in the chapel of the VA hospital there.
The chapel still has stained glass windows, though for how long is unclear. A VA hospital spokesman told me they are still trying to figure out what to do with the windows.
The decision to hide the religious icons came after the National Chaplain Center conducted an on-site inspection and determined the hospital’s chapel was not in compliance with government regulations.
Richard Riley, pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, called the move “exceedingly disappointed.”
He posted photographs of the hidden religious icons on the church’s Facebook page.
“We are not a politicizing kind of church,” Pastor Riley told me. “But we also believe Christians have constitutional rights. We have a right to voice our opinion. Just because you are a Christian doesn’t mean you lose your First Amendment rights.”
Riley said the decision to turn the formerly Christian chapel into a religiously neutral room is evidence of a bigger problem.
“Christianity, not only globally, but particularly in the United States, is really under attack,” he said. “Christianity is coming under some horrendous conflict from the media and to some degree from our own government.”
The situation in Michigan is not unique. In April something similar took place at Fort Meade Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Fort Meade, South Dakota. There was concern over a makeover to the facility’s chapel.
In a written statement to the Rapid City Journal Black Hills Health Care System Director Stephen R. DiStasio said “the VA Black Hills is sensitive to each veteran whose care often includes spiritual counseling and access to their religious symbols. … Their [the chapels] key purpose is to provide a designated space for a religious service at the request of the veteran and their family, a space for personal reflection and a space for community services," he said. "This plan necessitates some changes in the appearance of the chapels, but it continues to support our ability to meet the spiritual needs of veterans and others."
Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council called the hiding of Christian icons an “assault on the Christian faith.”
“It’s an egregious violation of tradition as well as religious liberty,” Boykin said. “Most of these hospitals were built at a time when there was no issue associated with public displays of Christianity.”
Brad Nelson, a public affairs officer for the Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center, told me the edict to make the chapel religiously neutral came from Washington.
“It’s a policy that’s been in place since 2008 that we were not in compliance with,” Nelson told me.
That policy mandates that “the chapel must be maintained as religiously neutral, reflecting no particular faith tradition.”
“The only exception to the policy on maintaining chapels as religiously neutral are the chapels at VA facilities which were built with permanent religious symbols in the walls or windows before the establishment of the Veterans Affairs Chaplain Service in 1945,” the policy states.
I suspect the only reason they granted the exemption was because of the cost they might incur by hiring demolition crews to rip crosses from the walls.
“Only these chapels and those permanent religious symbols that pre-date the Chaplain Service are allowed to remain because of their historical, artistic and architectural significance,” the policy further states.
I couldn’t help but notice the government policy does not mention the religious symbols’ “spiritual” significance.
To comply with the government orders, Nelson told me the Iron Mountain hospital decided to erect curtains.
“We put up some nice curtains,” he said. “When not being used for Bible study, prayer or services, they are closed.”
As it now stands, whenever there’s a Christian service, Jesus is allowed to be displayed. Otherwise, he’s hidden behind the curtain.
Heaven forbid someone finds himself offended at the sight of a cross. For the record, the public affairs officer told me that 98 percent of the patients there identify as Catholic or Christian. So the curtains are for the remaining 2 percent.
Pastor Riley told me it’s as if Christians are being marginalized.
“We need to be active,” he said. “As Christians, we don’t throw our First Amendment rights out the door.”
It’s not the first time Veterans Affairs has been accused of stifling the Savior. Last Christmas a group of Georgia high school students were given a list of government-approved carols to sing at a VA hospital in Augusta. A VA hospital in Texas refused to accept holiday cards that included the phrase, “Merry Christmas.”
And two Baptist chaplains told me they were forced out of a VA chaplaincy program when they refused to stop praying in the name of Jesus Christ. They said they were also told to stop using references to the Bible during classroom sessions.
While certainly not new, Boykin said the VA policy on religious neutrality is evidence of what he called a “Marxist agenda.”
“Marx called religion the opiate of the masses,” he told me. “This is all part of a Marxist agenda to remove God and replace God with government – government regulation, government control, government influence. The sad fact is we are letting it happen and very few of us are protesting.”
Considering the VA hospital’s recent troubles, you’d think they would welcome all the prayer they could get.
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