Misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy behind surge of illegal children, report says

A new intelligence assessment concludes that misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy – and not Central American violence – are fueling the surge of thousands of children illegally crossing the Mexican border.
The 10-page July 7 report was issued by the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which according to the Justice Department website is led by the DEA and incorporates Homeland Security. Its focus is on the collection and distribution of tactical intelligence, information which can immediately be acted on by law enforcement.
"Of the 230 migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC (unaccompanied children) and adult females OTMs (other than Mexicans) traveling with minors,” the report said.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., told reporters Tuesday, "It's a critical situation and if we don't deal with it urgently but well- done right- then we're facing a crisis of just huge proportions." 
Diaz-Balart, who along with other lawmakers just visited Central America, described how human smugglers -- known as coyotes - are exploiting perceived changes to U.S. immigration law after the Obama administration decided in 2012 to practice prosecutorial discretion in cases where individuals were brought into the U.S. illegally as minors.
"The violence isn't new. The situation in those countries is not new," Diaz-Balart said. "These cartels have seen a weakness in the system. They've seen statements coming from the administration that they have used in order to just frankly increase the number of people coming over.
“Remember this is not a five-year-old or an 11-year-old can't just walk over the border and get to the United States. These are organized coyotes doing this.”
The intelligence assessment, which is unclassified but not meant to go beyond law enforcement, also cited data from the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime Statistics saying despite an explosion in the number of illegal minors, crime data for Central America actually showed a dip in violence.
"There's no doubt the message went out- go across border now the United States won't do anything about it," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. "That came primarily from the coyotes who were transporting these kids. These coyotes - it really was something we weren't prepared for - they sort of advertised themselves, actually advertise, as social workers- we're gonna help you take your kids out of the poverty and the danger they have in these countries and put them in the United States, where they'll receive an education and be taken care of. And that was the message."
A draft chart obtained separately by Fox News, and circulating on Capitol Hill, showed data from Homeland Security projects that if current trends continue, as many as 90,000 illegal children will enter the U.S. by the end of this year and nearly double that,160,000, next year.
"We need a combination of things, want to swiftly and humanely return them to their home, said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “Only until we do that will we stop the flow. So we need a message of deterrence." 
While customs and border protection officials issued no statement about the intelligence report, Homeland Security officials stressed that a combination of factors, including a bad economy and security concerns, were behind the surge. Earlier this month, a media campaign was launched by the U.S. government in Central America to combat misperceptions about American laws.

Israel warns Gazans to leave homes as Hamas urged to accept cease-fire

Israel resumed its aerial offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, one day after the Islamic militant group rejected a cease-fire plan proposed by Egypt. 
A Hamas website claimed that Israel had fired missiles at the homes of four senior leaders. The BBC reported that Israel officials said that senior Hamas militants had died in strikes carried out overnight. It was not clear if the two reports were about the same people.
The Israeli military had warned thousands of Palestinians living in the eastern and northern parts of Gaza to leave their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday local time (1 a.m. Eastern Time). An Israeli military spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal that residents of Beit Lahiya, a town of approximately 70,000 people in northern Gaza, as well as the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighborhoods of Gaza City had been warned by telephone. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 100,000 automated calls had been made to Gaza residents, but that number was not confirmed by the military. 
Gaza residents told The Journal that most of Beit Lahiya had already emptied out even before the latest warnings. But many residents in other parts of northern Gaza have decided to stay.
The Wafa Rehabilitation Center in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, received several calls demanding the patients evacuate, director Basman Ashi told the Associated Press. He said an Israel shell hit near the building, causing damage to the second floor, but no injuries. Ashi added that he wouldn't evacuate his elderly patients, claiming that  they had nowhere to go.
Four foreign volunteers -- from England, the U.S., France and Sweden -- have set up camp at the rehabilitation center to deter the military from targeting it.
English volunteer Rina Andolini, 32, said the patients range in age from 12 to over 70 and none can walk or move without assistance. She said there are also 17 Palestinian staff members.
Andolini said the patients are living in a constant state of fear, intensified by the Israeli tank shelling from across the border.
Gaza health officials say that 204 Palestinians have died in the nine days since the fighting began. However, it is not clear how many of the dead are civilians and how many are Hamas militants. 
Hamas has come under pressure from the international community to reverse its initial rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, which would have gone into effect Tuesday morning had both sides agreed. Instead, Hamas announced its rejection of the proposal moments after Israel announced that its Security Cabinet had accepted the proposal.
"I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to operate a cease-fire," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.
"I hope the Hamas leadership now understand the best thing to do is to call a halt, have the negotiation, discussion, and sit down with everybody to work out a long-term, viable plan for Gaza," former British Prime Minister and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair told Sky News.
Egyptian officials told the Wall Street Journal they were still confident a truce deal could be reached and were keeping up their efforts. President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi planned to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Wednesday. Abbas has expressed support for the Egyptian proposal.
Meanwhile, Israel's decision to accept the cease-fire exposed fault lines in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Late Tuesday, Netanyahu dismissed his deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, after he said Mr. Netanyahu had made a mistake in accepting the cease-fire. 
Other members of Netanyahu's government, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have advocated for a ground invasion of the territory, with Lieberman telling a press conference "The Israel Defense Forces must finish this operation in control of the entire Gaza Strip."

World Cup Cartoon

VA is making disability payment errors in rush to cut backlog, watchdog says

The Department of Veterans Affairs is making disability payments to thousands of veterans without adequate evidence they deserve the benefits as the agency attempts to cut the huge backlog of claims, a department watchdog said Monday.
Without improvements, the VA could make unsupported payments to veterans totaling about $371 million over the next five years for claims of 100 percent disability alone, said Linda Halliday, an assistant inspector general, in prepared testimony at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.
VA whistleblowers also revealed widespread problems at VA regional offices at the hearing, saying mail bins of disability claims were ignored or shredded so employees could work faster.
Committee member Rep. Tim Huelskamp said the “unbelievable” testimony showed that while agency officials have told Congress the backlog was being reduced in a timely and accurate manner, it seemed to be a sham.
“That’s all baloney,” said Huelskamp, R-Kansas. “They are all concerned about numbers and not veterans.”
Halliday said spot inspections revealed that VA also made errors in one in four claims involving traumatic brain injury. Special initiatives designed to remove older claims and to speed processing of new claims are worthwhile, Halliday said, but in some cases they "have had an adverse impact on other workload areas such as appeals management and benefits reductions."
"Improved financial stewardship at the agency is needed," Halliday said. "More attention is critical to minimize the financial risk of making inaccurate benefit payments."
The VA used the hearing to claim "tremendous progress" in reducing a disability claims backlog that reached about 611,000 in March 2013. The backlog is now about 275,000 — a 55 percent decrease from the peak, said Allison Hickey, undersecretary for benefits at the VA.
Last year, the Veterans Benefits Administration completed a record 1.2 million disability rating claims, Hickey said, and the agency is on track to complete more than 1.3 million rating claims this year. More than 90 percent of the claims are being processed electronically, she said.
The VA has set a goal to process all claims within 125 days at 98 percent accuracy in 2015, but so far has fallen far short. The VA now processes most claims within 154 days at a 90 percent accuracy rate, compared with an accuracy rate of 86 percent three years ago, Hickey said. At one point, veterans were forced to wait an average nine to 10 months for their disability claims to be processed.
"It has never been acceptable to VA ... that our veterans are experiencing long delays in receiving the benefits they have earned and deserve," Hickey said. She said the department has spent the past four years redesigning and streamlining the way it delivers benefits and services.
Halliday, however, said her investigators have found numerous problems in handling VA benefits, including faulty claims processing that "increases the risk of improper payments to veterans and their families."
Inspectors surveying Philadelphia's VA benefits center in June found mail bins brimming with claims and associated evidence dating to 2011 that had not been electronically scanned, she said.
Inspectors also found evidence that staffers at the Philadelphia regional office were manipulating dates to make old claims appear newer. The findings are similar to problems that have plagued VA health centers nationwide. Investigators have found long waits for appointments at VA hospitals and clinics, and falsified records to cover up the delays.
In Baltimore, investigators discovered that an employee had inappropriately stored thousands of documents, including some that contained Social Security data, in his office "for an extensive period of time." About 8,000 documents, including 80 claims folders, unprocessed mail and Social Security information of dead or incarcerated veterans, were stored in the employee's office, Halliday said.
Kristen Ruell, an employee at the VA's Pension Management Center in Philadelphia, told the committee that mail routinely "sat in boxes untouched for years" at the pension office. Once, after becoming concerned that unopened mail was being shredded, Ruell opened the boxes and took photos. Instead of addressing the problem, she said, VA supervisors enacted a policy prohibiting taking photos.
"A lot of the mail that should not have been shredded was shredded," she said.
After VA officials in Washington issued a directive last year ordering that a backlog of claims older than 125 days be reduced, the Philadelphia office "took this to mean that they could change the dates of every claim older than six weeks," Ruell said. While pension center managers later told the IG's office that the mislabeling was based on a misunderstanding of the directive, Ruell said, "these behaviors are intentional."
The incorrect dates "are used to minimize the average days pending of a claim to make the regional office's numbers look better," she said. For instance, claims that should have been dated 2009 were dated 2014, "therefore making the claim appear 'new,' " she said.
"The VA's problems are a result of morally bankrupt managers that through time and (government service) grade have moved up into powerful positions where they have the power to and continue to ruin people's lives," Ruell said.
The VA has long struggled to cope with disability claims. The backlog had intensified in recent years as more solders returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the VA made it easier for Vietnam-era veterans to get disability compensation stemming from exposure to Agent Orange.
Lawmakers in both parties have complained about the Obama administration's handling of the problem and some have called for an independent commission to address it.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Forty illegal immigrants returned to Honduras amid massive influx

Some 40 illegal immigrants, including both adults and children, were returned to Honduras from a U.S. detention facility in New Mexico on Monday, Homeland Security officials confirmed to FoxNews.com.
The group had been housed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, N.M., and was among thousands of illegal immigrants from Central American countries, including Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, apprehended at the border.
After the plane landed, U.S. officials touted the move as a step in the right direction.
“As President Obama, the vice president, and (Department of Homeland Security) Secretary (Jeh) Johnson have said, our border is not open to illegal migration and we will send recent illegal migrants back,” Homeland Security officials said in a written statement.
The proverbial pat on the back for sending 40 Hondurans home came as close to 82,000 illegal immigrants remain in the country. Of that number, minors make up about 57,000.
Homeland Security officials said Monday’s flight was just the “initial wave” of deportations. Immigration officials have seen a spike in immigration in recent months as false rumors spread of a June deadline under which they could legally stay in the U.S.
Many of those who crossed the border said they came to America looking to escape atrocities back home.
As required by law, recent border crossers subjected to expedited removal are screened for “credible fear,” DHS said, adding that despite quick removal proceedings, adults and children “maintain important due process rights, including the ability to seek asylum, appeal to an immigration judge the denial of a credible fear finding, and the ability to seek legal representation.”
Last week, the president of Honduras declared a humanitarian emergency and announced that the country would create a revolving fund to coordinate the deportation and reintegration of children.
In Honduras, immigration officers review the documents of deportees before they leave the plane. They are then moved to a processing center where they get their “documentation, coffee, hygiene kits, and their property (i.e. luggage),” ICE officials said.
Representatives from the Labor Office are there to help them with employment, and, in a separate office, the National Registry of Persons signs them up for national identification if they don’t have any.
For minors, the child welfare agency in Honduras tries to connect them with family members living in the country.

Earnest defends notion of 'most transparent administration' in US history (Is this a joke or what?)

The White House on Sunday stood by President Obama's position that he continues to be the most transparent president in U.S. history, despite widespread complaints from journalists and other Americans about a lack of information or apparent misinformation.
“I have a responsibility in this job to try to help the president live up to his commitment to be the most transparent president in history,” new White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
Earnest said he “absolutely, absolutely” sticks by Obama’s line about having the most transparent administration, after continued criticism about apparent attempts to not make full disclosures.
Among the criticisms are that the president and his administration misled Americans by telling them they could keep their existing health insurance plans under ObamaCare, intentionally tried to conceal what sparked the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya in which four Americans were killed and prosecuted federal employees who should have been protected under the whistleblower protection act.
Last week, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Poynter Institute and others sent a letter to Obama complaining about the lack of access to information from federal agencies, citing several recent examples.
And last month, Steve Thomma, a senior White House reporter for McClatchy newspapers and president of the White House Correspondents Association, expressed some frustration about the White House posting its own photographs of official events.
“We have no problem with the White House sending out that stuff,” he told FoxNews.com. “But we’d also like to be in the room.”
Earnest suggested at least some of the complaints were part of the traditional struggle between reporters and government.
“They're all journalists,” he said. “The day that they sort of sit back and say, you know, we don't need to write a letter, the White House is telling us everything that they're supposed to, is the day that they're no longer doing their jobs.”
Earnest also said the administration has taken several steps “to give people greater insight into what's happening at the White House.”
He argued the White House guest log is routinely and voluntarily posted on the Internet and that reporters now have access to presidential events held in private homes.

Netanyahu vows 'any means necessary' to stop Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will use “any means necessary” to stop Islamic militant group Hamas from bombing civilians but declined to say when his military action will stop or whether he will continue using ground troops.
Netanyahu said on “Fox News Sunday” that his objective was to reach “sustained quiet” and that he’ll continue “until it’s achieved.”
The prime minister spoke as Israeli ground troops moved into the Gaza Strip early Sunday for the first time in the increasing bloody battle with Palestinians, sparked by the recent killings of three Israeli teens, then the apparent revenge killing of an Arab Palestinian youth.
The troop movement also has prompted concerns about whether the Gaza attack, the first such since 2009, will result in a full-scale ground war.
The week-long dispute until Sunday has been limited to Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli rocket and airstrikes that have killed an estimated 160 Palestinians, in a decades-long battle between both sides in Israel.
Israel has launched more than 1,300 airstrikes since the offensive began, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Sunday.
Palestinian militants have launched more than 800 rockets at Israel, including 130 in the last 24 hours, the Israeli military said Sunday.
Several Israelis have been wounded, but there have been no fatalities.
“We cannot accept that and will take the necessary action to stop it,” said Netanyahu, who declined to get into specifics. “We’ll do what any country would do."
He also apologized for the civilian casualties but blamed Hamas for trying to use residents as human shields.
Former U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross, who also appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” speculated that Netanhayu’s goal is to restore calm, not dismantle Hamas.
He suggested a foray into Gaza to eliminate Hamas creates too much risk for a high number of civilian casualties, which could result in international opposition.
“I’m not sure what you would achieve,” Ross said.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday criticized the United States for not condemning Israel’s attacks, which he described as a “slaughter” on “men, women and children.”
“We don’t see any move by the United States to condemn this,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Israel on Sunday briefly deploying troops inside the Gaza Strip resulted in roughly 4,000 people fleeing southward.
Neither Israel nor Palestinian militants show signs of agreeing to a cease-fire to end their week-long conflict, despite calls by the United Nations Security Council and others that they lay down their arms.
With Israel massing tanks and soldiers at Gaza's borders, some fear the latest Israeli threats could signal a wider ground offensive that would bring even heavier casualties than the Palestinian deaths already registered.
Early Sunday, Israeli naval commandos launched the brief raid into northern Gaza to destroy what the military described as a rocket-launching site, an operation it said left four of its soldiers slightly wounded.
The Israeli Air Force later dropped leaflets warning residents to evacuate their homes ahead of what Israel's military spokesman described as a "short and temporary" campaign against northern Gaza, home to at least 100,000 people.

Israel military says it has shot down drone along southern coastline

Israel's military said Monday that it had downed a drone along its southern coastline, marking the first time it had encountered such a weapon in its week-long campaign against Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip. 
The drone came from Gaza and was shot down by a Patriot surface-to-air missile near the southern city of Ashdod, the military said. It did not say what the drone was carrying and there was no immediate confirmation from Gaza on the use of unmanned aircraft.
However, the use of drones with an offensive capacity could potentially inflict significant casualties -- something the rockets from Gaza have failed to do, largely because of the success of the military's 'Iron Dome' air defense system in shooting them down.
In addition to the drone, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says that militants have launched 971 rockets at Israeli cities in the six days since Israel launched "Operation Protective Edge," a bid to halt such attacks. No Israeli fatalities have been reported, though a teenage boy was seriously injured by rocket shrapnel in the town of Ashkelon on Sunday.
The military says that due to years of generous Iranian shipments, thousands of rockets remain in Gaza, and there is no quick way to eliminate the threat. The army says Hamas has an arsenal of some 10,000 rockets, including longer-range, foreign-made weapons capable of reaching virtually anywhere in Israel. The current round of fighting has seen air-raid sirens sound in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, Israel's three largest cities.
Israeli analysts say that most of the remaining long-range rockets are believed to be stashed beneath residential buildings, and that the only way to completely remove the threat would be to re-conquer Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005, and stay there for a lengthy period. Such a scenario would carry great risk, and Israeli leaders are wary.
On Monday morning, The Times of Israel reported that the IDF had declared an area just north of the Gaza Strip border to be a closed military zone. The significance of the declaration was not immediately clear, but the paper reported that ground forces were continuing to muster on the border. 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the current Israeli operation could last for "a long time" and that the military was prepared "for all possibilities." That includes a wide-ranging Gaza ground operation, which would likely cause heavy casualties in the coastal strip.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says 172 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, though it is not clear how many are civilians and how many are operatives of Hamas or other militant groups. 
The IDF says its goal is to inflict so much pain on Hamas that it will be deterred from attacking Israel again — just like Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have largely remained on the sidelines for the past eight years.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the military estimated 20 percent of the rockets in Gaza have either been fired or destroyed by Israel. Besides diminishing Hamas' future capabilities, he said Israel's assaults were mostly aimed at convincing Hamas never to try it again.
"When they come out of their bunkers and they look around, they are going to have to make a serious estimation of whether what they have done was worth it," he said. "And people will look in their eyes and say 'Why did you do this? What did you gain from this?'"
But Netanyahu is coming under increasing international pressure to end the operation soon. On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate cease-fire while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced American "readiness" to help restore calm. Egypt, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, continued to work behind the scenes to stop the conflict.
Hamas has sent signals it may be ready to consider a cease-fire but appears to be waiting for some tangible military or diplomatic achievement before moving ahead on that front. For his part, Netanyahu wants to show the Israeli public that he has succeeded in significantly degrading Hamas's ability to strike at its Israeli targets before moving ahead diplomatically.