Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest

Bailey: Knew this was coming!

A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.
In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans. I have agreed to not to disclose their identities because they fear retaliation and prosecution.

My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.

“There were several of us who wanted to talk about the camps, but the agents made it clear we would be arrested,” a psychiatric counselor told me. “We were under orders not to say anything.”
The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the Baptist Family & Children’s Services, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.
The sources say security forces called themselves the “Brown Shirts.”
“It was a very submissive atmosphere,” the counselor said. “Once you stepped onto the grounds, you abided by their laws – the Brown Shirt laws.”
She said the workers were stripped of their cellphones and other communication devices. Anyone caught with a phone was immediately fired.
“Everyone was paranoid,” she said. “The children had more rights than the workers.”
She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.
“It was not a good atmosphere in terms of health,” she said. “I would be talking to children and lice would just be climbing down their hair.”
A former nurse at the camp told me she was horrified by what she saw.
“We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness – all this stuff coming into the country,” she said. “We were very concerned at one point about strep going around the base.”
Both the counselor and the nurse said their superiors tried to cover up the extent of the illnesses.
“When they found out the kids had scabies, the charge nurse was adamant – ‘Don’t mention that. Don’t say scabies,’” the nurse recounted. “But everybody knew they had scabies. Some of the workers were very concerned about touching things and picking things up. They asked if they should be concerned, but they were told don’t worry about it.”
The nurse said the lice issue was epidemic – but everything was kept “hush-hush.”
“You could see the bugs crawling through their hair,” she said. “After we would rinse out their hair, the sink would be loaded with black bugs.”
The nurse told me she became especially alarmed because their files indicated the children had been transported to Lackland on domestic charter buses and airplanes.
“That’s what alerted me,” she said. “Oh, my God. They’re flying these kids around. Nobody knows that these children have scabies and lice. To tell you the truth, there’s no way to control it.”
I don't mean to upset anyone's Independence Day vacation plans, but were these kids transported to the camps before or after they were deloused? Anyone who flies the friendly skies could be facing a public health concern.  
The counselor told me the refugee camp resembled a giant emergency room – off limits to the public.
“They did not want the community to know,” she said. “I initially spoke out at Lackland because I had a concern the children’s mental health care was not being taken care of.”
She said the breaking point came when camp officials refused to hospitalize several children who were suicidal.
“I made a recommendation that a child needed to be sent to a psychiatric unit,” the counselor told me. “He was reaching psychosis. He was suicidal. Instead of treating him, they sent him off to a family in the United States.”
She said she filed a Child Protective Services report and quit her job.
“I didn’t want to lose my license if this kid committed suicide,” she told me. “I was done.”
The counselor kept a detailed journal about what happened during her tenure at the facility.
“When people read that journal they are going to be astonished,” she said. ‘I don’t think they will believe what is going on in America.”
So it was not a great surprise, she said, when she received a call from federal agents demanding that she return to the military base and hand over her journal.
She said she declined to do so.
“I didn’t go back to Lackland,” she said.
Both workers told me while they have no regrets, they want to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“They’re going to crush the system,” the nurse told me. “We can’t sustain this. They are overwhelming the system and I think it’s a travesty.”
Baptist Family & Childen’s Services spokeswoman Krista Piferrer tells me the agency takes “any allegation of malfeasance or inappropriate care of a child very seriously.”
“There are a number of checks and balances to ensure children are receiving appropriate and adequate mental health care,” she said.
Piferrer said the clinicians are supervised by a federal field specialist from HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. She also said BFCS have 58 medical professionals serving at Lackland.
“Every illness, whether it is a headache or something more serious, is recorded in a child’s electronic medical record and posted on WebEOC – a real-time, web-based platform that is visible to not only BFCS but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.
As for those brown shirts, the BFCS said they are “incident management team personnel” – who happen to wear tan shirts.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“This is just the beginning,” one source told me. "It is a long-term financial responsibility.”

HILLARY CLINTON

HILLARY CLINTON IS being dogged by questions about her family's fortune as she sets out on her book tour and possibly a presidential run — but with the former first couple raking in millions in speaking fees, at issue is not just their net worth but how they've made that money.

Home Care Ruling

Obama sending 200 American troops to Iraq to secure US Embassy, airport

President Obama announced Monday that he is sending approximately 200 American troops to Iraq to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Baghdad International Airport, as the country wages a bloody battle against jihadists.
The troops will serve a different mission in Iraq than the 275 advisory troops sent to Iraq earlier this month in response to advances by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Syria (ISIS). The additional troops will serve to solely augment security.
“The presence of these additional forces will help enable the Embassy to continue its critical diplomatic mission and work with Iraq on challenges they are facing as they confront (ISIS),” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
Obama notified House and Senate leaders in a letter on Monday. Obama said the additions include security forces, rotary-wing aircraft, and support for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Obama has ruled out sending combat troops back into Iraq, but he said the additional troops will be equipped for combat. He said their purpose is to protect U.S. citizens and property if needed.
Obama said the troops will stay in Iraq until security improves so that the reinforcements are no longer needed.
Fox News' Wes Barrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Obama pursuing executive actions on immigration, after House effort stalls

King Obama

President Obama (King) vowed Monday to bypass Congress and pursue unilateral changes to the country's immigration system, defying House Republicans who say his executive actions are part of the problem. 
The president, speaking in the Rose Garden, said he is forced to go it alone because the House has failed to act on a comprehensive overhaul. He said Speaker John Boehner informed him last week the House will not vote on an immigration bill this year. 
"America cannot wait forever for them to act," Obama said. He said he's launching a new effort to "fix as much of our immigration system as I can, on my own, without Congress." 
The president's announcement is sure to infuriate congressional Republicans. Obama is pushing for new executive actions in defiance of Boehner's vow last week to pursue a lawsuit against the president over alleged executive overreach. Even before Monday's announcement, Boehner and his colleagues alleged that the president has gone too far in making changes without Congress to immigration policy, the Affordable Care Act, environmental regulations and other issues. 
This new push would go further still. 
In a written statement, Boehner called Obama's announcement "sad and disappointing," and said executive orders "can't and won't fix these problems."
During his remarks in the Rose Garden, Obama cited the current surge of illegal immigrant children crossing the southern border and said the "crisis" should underscore the need to pass a comprehensive bill. But Boehner claimed that it was Obama's past executive orders -- those easing deportations for some illegal immigrants -- that "have led directly to the humanitarian crisis along the southern border." 
Boehner said "additional executive action from this president isn't going to stem the tide of illegal crossings, it's only going to make them worse." He also referred to last week's Supreme Court ruling that Obama overstepped in making recess appointments, saying the court "reminded us" that there are "sharp limits" to presidential power. 
As for his conversation last week with the president, Boehner said he only told Obama what he's been saying for months: that until the public and elected officials trust him to enforce the law, "it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue." 
Obama, though, said he would still prefer to seek changes via Congress, and he'd continue to press the House to act. 
But for the time being, the president announced two steps. First, he's directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to move "available resources" from the interior to the border to address security. Further, the president said he's directed a team to "identify additional actions my administration can take on our own within my existing legal authorities to do what Congress refuses to do and fix as much of our immigration system as we can." 
According to a White House official, those recommendations are due back by the end of the summer. 
Obama's decision effectively declares that a broad based change in immigration policy is dead for the year, and perhaps for the remainder of his administration. Changing immigration laws and providing a path to citizenship for about 11 million immigrants in the country illegally has been one Obama's top priorities as he sought to conclude his presidency with a major second-term victory. 
Meanwhile, the president is still grappling with the surge of illegal immigrant children and families along the border. Earlier in the day, Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders asking for more flexibility on that front, seeking increased powers to send unaccompanied children from Central America back from the U.S. border to the countries they're trying to flee. 
Obama also asked for increased penalties for people who smuggle immigrants who are vulnerable, such as children. And he is asking Congress for emergency money that would, among other things, help conduct "an aggressive deterrence strategy focused on the removal and repatriation of recent border crossers." Obama's letter to Boehner, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says the administration is confronting the influx with a coordinated response on both sides of the border.
"This includes fulfilling our legal and moral obligation to make sure we appropriately care for unaccompanied children who are apprehended, while taking aggressive steps to surge resources to our Southwest border to deter both adults and children from this dangerous journey, increase capacity for enforcement and removal proceedings, and quickly return unlawful migrants to their home countries," Obama wrote.
The Border Patrol in South Texas has been overwhelmed for several months by an influx of unaccompanied children and parents traveling with young children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Unlike Mexican immigrants arrested after entering the U.S. illegally, those from Central America cannot be as easily returned to their countries. Obama is seeking authority to act more quickly
The Border Patrol has apprehended more than 52,000 child immigrants traveling on their own since the start of the 2014 budget year in October.
Immigrant advocacy groups, already frustrated by Obama's lack of executive action to ease record levels of deportations, immediately pounced on the administration's decision.
Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said the influx of children across the border "really requires a humanitarian response, not an increase in deportations."

IRS Cartoon

Pelosi calls surge of illegal immigrant children an ‘opportunity’

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi argued Saturday that the surge of illegal immigrant children and families crossing into the U.S. is more of an "opportunity" than a "crisis" -- even as the Obama administration was scrambling to free up more resources to handle the influx.  
The administration itself appears to be treating the surge as a crisis, assigning a point person -- FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate -- to coordinate the federal response. President Obama also plans to appeal to Congress on Monday for more funding to address the surge on the border. 
But Pelosi, D-Calif., visiting the Texas-Mexico border on Saturday, suggested those crossing should be welcomed and not treated as a problem. 
"This crisis that some call a crisis, we have to view as an opportunity," Pelosi said. "If you believe as we do that every child, every person has a spark of divinity in them, and is therefore worthy of respect -- what we saw in those rooms was [a] dazzling, sparkling, array of God's children, worthy of respect." 
Pelosi acknowledged that the surge "does have crisis qualities," but again urged the public to use it as an "opportunity to show who we are as Americans, that we do respect people for their dignity and worth." 
Republican lawmakers have blamed the surge -- largely made up of illegal immigrant minors trekking from Central America, through Mexico and across the Rio Grande Valley in Texas -- on the Obama administration's policies, arguing that they've only encouraged more illegal immigration. 
The Obama administration, for its part, has tried to telegraph to Central American countries that their residents will not be given a free pass to stay in the U.S. 
Due to the backlog in the immigration system and other factors, however, the reality is that the U.S. government is housing many of those crossing for an indeterminate period of time. 
Obama reportedly plans to seek more than $2 billion to help respond to the crossings, and seek "fast track" authority for the Department of Homeland Security to more quickly screen and deport children crossing the border illegally.
A White House official confirmed to Fox News that Congress will be asked to approve more funding and "added flexibility" so the government can "deal with the significant rise in apprehensions of children and individuals from Central America who are crossing into the United States." 
The administration, according to the official, so far has deployed additional immigration judges, immigration attorneys and asylum officers to handle the glut of cases, and has been seeking additional space to hold some of those crossing the border.

Decision Day: Hobby Lobby team ‘very confident’ ahead of Supreme Court ruling

Supporters of the arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby -- the business at the center of one of this session's most closely watched Supreme Court cases -- are sounding a confident tone ahead of Monday's expected decision in their case challenging ObamaCare's so-called contraception mandate. 
The court meets for a final time Monday to release decisions in its two remaining cases before the justices take off for the summer. 
The most contentious is that brought by Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby and a furniture maker in Pennsylvania. The for-profit businesses have challenged the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that employers cover contraception for women at no extra charge among a range of preventive benefits in employee health plans. It is the first major challenge to ObamaCare to come before the court since the justices upheld the law's individual requirement to buy health insurance two years ago. 
Supporters of Hobby Lobby cite a few factors potentially leaning in their favor, including the tone of oral arguments in March and a unanimous decision last week finding President Obama overreached in making recess appointments to a labor board. 
"Absolutely, we win -- we are very confident after oral argument in March that we will prevail in this case," Hannah Smith, senior counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby, told Fox News. She suggested this, too, is a case of government "overreach." 
Citing recent unanimous decisions, she added: "We're hopeful we might see some unanimity here."   
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., also said he's hopeful the court will "uphold the rights of individuals for their expression of their religious freedoms." 
He, too, cited the ruling Thursday that Obama "exceeded his constitutional authority" in speculating that the court might deliver another blow to the administration on Monday. 
The court, though, has surprised onlookers before when it comes to ObamaCare. In the major Supreme Court challenge to the law's individual mandate two years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts cast the pivotal vote that saved the health care law in the midst of Obama's campaign for re-election. 
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., speaking on "Fox News Sunday," predicted the Supreme Court would rule against Hobby Lobby. 
"I believe that the Supreme Court will find that no business ... should be allowed to [discriminate] against women," he said. "The owner has a right to his or her religious beliefs, but that doesn't mean you get to discriminate against women if [they] have different beliefs than what the owner has." 
During arguments in March, Justice Anthony Kennedy, often seen as the pivotal swing vote, voiced concerns about the rights of both sides of the issue. 
At one point, though, he seemed troubled about how the logic of the government's argument would apply to abortions. "A profit corporation could be forced in principle to pay for abortions," Kennedy said. "Your reasoning would permit it." 
Dozens of companies, including Hobby Lobby, claim religious objections to covering some or all contraceptives. The methods and devices at issue before the Supreme Court are those the plaintiffs say can work after conception. They are the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, as well as intrauterine devices, which can cost up to $1,000. 
The court has never recognized a for-profit corporation's religious rights under federal law or the Constitution. Indeed, if the court did here, the Constitutional Accountability Center's Elizabeth Wydra told Fox News this would be an "entirely unprecedented step." 
But even some supporters of the administration's position said they would not be surprised if the court were to do so on Monday, perhaps limiting the right to corporations that are under tight family control. 
Both sides of the debate are gearing up for a major decision of some sort on Monday, lining up conference calls to press their points on the heels of the ruling. 
The Obama administration says insurance coverage for birth control is important to women's health and reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, as well as abortions. 
Several justices worried at the argument in March that a decision for Hobby Lobby would lead to religious objections to covering blood transfusions or vaccinations. Prominent Washington lawyer Paul Smith said another important question is how the decision would apply to "laws that protect people from discrimination, particularly LGBT people." 
In the Hobby Lobby case, even if the court finds such a right exists, it still has to weigh whether the government's decision to have employee health plans pay for birth control is important enough to overcome the companies' religious objections. 
It is no surprise that this high-profile case, argued three months ago, is among the last released. 
The other unresolved case has been hanging around since late January, often a sign that the outcome is especially contentious. 
Home health care workers in Illinois want the court to rule that public sector unions cannot collect fees from workers who aren't union members. The idea behind compulsory fees for nonmembers is that the union negotiates the contract for all workers, so they all should share in the cost of that work. 
The court has been hostile to labor unions in recent years. If that trend continues Monday, the justices could confine their ruling to home health workers or they could strike a big blow against unions more generally.