Monday, September 4, 2017
Hill Republicans revive ‘Dream Act’ talks as Trump decides fate of Obama program
Congressional Republicans are looking to revive
legislation that could give a deportation reprieve to thousands of
illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, in turn easing the
pressure on President Trump as he faces a deadline to decide the fate of
a related Obama-era program.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is
leading the charge on a conservative version of the so-called Dream Act.
The talks come as Trump prepares to announce whether he’ll keep the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program – which was former
President Barack Obama’s unilateral, executive-action version of Dream
Act legislation.
The timing for a Trump announcement has been fluid.
In the most recent guidance, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders
said the decision will be made next Tuesday.Trump initially had said the call could come as early as Friday or this weekend, without going into detail. Asked if ‘Dreamers,’ or those affected by the policy, should be worried, Trump told reporters: "We love Dreamers. We love everybody."
One official told Fox News earlier that Trump ultimately is expected to end DACA, while allowing those in the country who qualified under the program to stay until their work permits expire.
Such a move would infuriate Democrats – as well as some moderate Republicans. However, if lawmakers can draft legislation that accomplishes similar goals, it could give Trump some leeway to end DACA without significant impact.
A senior administration official suggested Friday that the onus was back on Congress to pursue a legislative solution.
"Congress has to do this,” the official told Fox News.
Some Republicans support the goals of Obama’s DACA but think the former president committed an overreach by doing it through executive action. Tillis’ office pointed to this distinction in describing his legislative effort.
“Regardless of the policy itself, DACA is an executive overreach that sets immigration policy through executive order instead of the proper channel—legislation,” Tillis spokesman Daniel Keylin told Fox News. “It’s the responsibility of Congress, not the President to offer a long-term legislative fix.”
Congress has been considering legislation to shield young illegal immigrants from deportation for years, dating back to the George W. Bush administration. Lawmakers tried again to pass a bill during the Obama administration, but couldn’t muster the votes amid flagging Republican support. The Obama administration announced the DACA policy in 2012.
According to Keylin, Tillis will be working with Republicans on “conservative legislation” to address the “long-term uncertainty” undocumented minors face. Kelyin told Fox News that they needed to create a “fair but rigorous process” for legal status, requiring individuals 18 or older to either be “employed, pursue post-secondary education, or serve in the Armed Forces.”
While the legislation is still being drafted, McClatchy reported that Tillis' bill is expected to be similar to one introduced by Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla. Curbelo’s bill, the “Recognizing America’s Children Act,” would offer an eventual path to U.S. citizenship to immigrants who entered illegally before Jan. 1, 2012 and were 16 years old or younger, according to the Miami Herald.
“The White House has sent a very strong message by preserving the executive order that protects these young people,” Curbelo said in an interview with the Miami Herald in March. “We know that they’ve been very aggressive when it comes to immigration policy, so it certainly stands out that they have left the DACA executive order untouched.”
On Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he supported a legislative solution to protect undocumented minors, but also urged the president to reconsider scrapping DACA.
"I actually don't think he should do that and I believe that this is something that Congress has to fix," Ryan said on radio station WCLO in Janesville, Wis., Friday. "President Obama did not have a legislative authority to do what he did."
Ryan added: "There are people who are in limbo. These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also weighed in on the issue, calling on the president to halt rescinding DACA, saying it would “further complicate a system in serious need of permanent, legislative solution.”
Hatch added that the “solution must come from Congress,” and that he will be working with colleagues and the administration to pass “meaningful immigration reform” and provide a “workable path forward for the Dreamer population.”
Then-candidate Trump promised to terminate DACA during the 2016 presidential campaign, but since taking office has weighed whether to preserve components of it.
Looming in the background is the threat of potential legal action by state attorneys general led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other AGs who oppose DACA. Paxton said Thursday that his office would stick to a previously determined Sept. 5 deadline set by officials from Texas for a decision.
Fox News’ John Roberts, Chad Pergram and Kelly Chernenkoff contributed to this report.
Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.
DACA: Trump expected to end 'Dreamers' immigration program
President Donald Trump is expected to announce the
end of an Obama-era program that allowed undocumented immigrants who
came to the U.S. as children stay and contribute to the country, sources
told Fox News late Sunday.
An official announcement to the end
of the program will be on Tuesday, the sources said. After the
announcement, Congress will have a six-month window to act.
The program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
was established in 2012. DACA, as it is usually referred to, protected
young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children without legal status.About 800,000 people have signed up to be part of the program. Many people have protested the end of the program and discussed fear of deportation.
According to a report from the Center for American Progress and FWD.us, ending DACA will have a massive economic impact.
The report said 91 percent of DACA recipients are employed and removing them from the work force would put 700,000 people out of jobs. For all those who would lose their jobs, it would cost $3.4 billion to replace them.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Friday that he believes Trump should keep the program and let lawmakers decide. Several Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Marco Rubio, have said they hope “we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Friday Trump is "in the process of finalizing and will make a decision Tuesday of next week," Sanders said. "He loves children and wants to make sure this decision is done correctly."
The decision to end the program, Sanders said, is not one Trump "takes lightly." The President, Sanders said, "takes time and diligence to make sure he goes through the process," adding that the choice he will make "is weighing on him, certainly."
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez tweeted shortly after the AP report, saying, “Democrats are going to fight tooth and nail for DREAMers, today, tomorrow, and every single day.
In rare move, Trump slams South Korea's approach to North Korea
President Trump on Sunday appeared to rebuke South
Korea for its “talk of appeasement” with North Korea prior to this
weekend’s huge nuclear test, saying Pyongyang only “understands one
thing.”
“South Korea is finding, as I have
told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not
work, they only understand one thing!'' Trump said on Twitter.
Some questioned Trump's jab at an important U.S. ally.Patrick Cronin, an Asia expert with the Center for a New American Security, said Trump's comment on South Korea was probably "intended to stiffen the spine of an ally." He said he agreed with the intention.
"I think Washington is very serious about showing some unexpected resolve," he said. "We need our ally and we need to remain ironclad. But at the same time, we can't afford South Korea to go weak in facing down this growing danger."
Kim Jong Un's regime on Sunday claimed "perfect success" in an underground test of what it called a hydrogen bomb. It was the North's sixth nuclear test since 2006 — the first since Trump took office in January — and involved a device potentially vastly more powerful than a nuclear bomb.
Ely Ratner, a national security official in the Obama administration, told The New York Times that the U.S. is going to need “close cooperation with not only South Korea but China as well, he’s coming out swinging at all of them rather than trying to build support and coordination.”
Trump also suggested putting more pressure on China, the North's patron for many decades and a vital U.S. trading partner, in hopes of persuading Beijing to exert more effective leverage on its neighbor. Trump tweeted that the U.S. is considering "stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea." Such a halt would be radical. The U.S. imports about $40 billion in goods a month from China, North Korea's main commercial partner.
Ratner told The Times that this weekend’s test may have a “chance of pushing China into a place it’s never been before.”
Trump warned last month that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely" and that the U.S. would unleash "fire and fury" on the North if it continued to threaten America. The bellicose words followed threats from North Korea to launch ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, intending to create "enveloping fire" near the military hub that's home to U.S. bombers and other aircraft.
The U.S. has about 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea and is obliged by treaty to defend it in the event of war.
In South Korea, the nation's military said it conducted a live-fire exercise simulating an attack on North Korea's nuclear test site to "strongly warn" Pyongyang over the latest nuclear test. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the drill involved F-15 fighter jets and the country's land-based "Hyunmoo" ballistic missiles. The released live weapons "accurately struck" a target in the sea off the country's eastern coast, the JCS said.
"Denuclearization is not a viable U.S. policy goal," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security, but neither should the U.S. accept North Korea as a nuclear power. "We should keep denuclearization as a long-term aspiration, but recognize privately that it's unachievable anytime soon."
North Korea reportedly appears to be readying for new launch
What a shame that one IDIOT is going to end up getting his whole nation destroyed. |
North Korea appears to be preparing to launch a ballistic missile-- possibly an ICBM, South Korean media reported Monday.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said
North Korea appeared to be planning a future launch to show off its
claimed ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons, though
it was unclear when this might happen.
Chang Kyung-soo, an official with South Korea's
Defense Ministry, told lawmakers that Seoul was seeing preparations in
the North for an ICBM test but didn't provide details about how
officials had reached that assessment. Following U.S. warnings to North Korea of a "massive military response," South Korea on Monday fired missiles into the sea to simulate an attack on the North's main nuclear test site a day after Pyongyang detonated its largest ever nuclear test explosion.
The heated words from the United States and the military maneuvers in South Korea are becoming familiar responses to North Korea's rapid, as-yet unchecked pursuit of a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles that can strike the United States.
The most recent, and perhaps most dramatic, advancement came Sunday in an underground test of what leader Kim Jong Un's government claimed was a hydrogen bomb, the North's sixth nuclear test since 2006.
Chang also said the yield from the latest nuclear detonation appeared to be about 50 kilotons, which would mark a "significant increase" from North Korea's past nuclear tests.
In a series of tweets, President Trump threatened to halt all trade with countries doing business with the North, a veiled warning to China, and faulted South Korea for what he called "talk of appeasement."
South Korea's military said its live-fire exercise was meant to "strongly warn" Pyongyang. The drill involved F-15 fighter jets and the country's land-based "Hyunmoo" ballistic missiles firing into the Sea of Japan.
The target was set considering the distance to the North's test site and the exercise was aimed at practicing precision strikes and cutting off reinforcements, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Each new North Korean missile and nuclear test gives Pyongyang's scientists invaluable information that allows big jumps in capability. North Korea is thought to have a growing arsenal of nuclear bombs and has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range missile to eventually carry smaller versions of those bombs.
Both diplomacy and severe sanctions have failed to check the North's decades-long march to nuclear mastery.
In Washington, Trump, asked by a reporter if he would attack the North, said: "We'll see." No U.S. military action appeared imminent, and the immediate focus appeared to be on ratcheting up economic penalties, which have had little effect thus far.
In briefs remarks after a White House meeting with Trump and other national security officials, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that, “We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said after meeting Trump and his national security team. “But as I said, we have many options to do so.”
Mattis said the U.S. will answer any threat from the North with a "massive military response -- a response both effective and overwhelming."
Mattis also said the international community is unified in demanding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that Kim should know Washington's commitment to Japan and South Korea is unshakeable.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Cleveland police, EMS unions won't hold flag for NFL's Browns after players knelt for anthem
Bailey: "I will not be going to or watching on television the football games of any team that have players that will not stand for the national anthem of America".
Cleveland police and emergency services unions have
declined an invitation from the NFL's Cleveland Browns to hold an
American flag for the team's season opener after some Browns players
knelt for the national anthem during a preseason game.
EMS union president Daniel Nemeth told Fox 8 Cleveland
on Friday that the offer to participate in a pregame ceremony sounded
great until a dozen Browns players refused to stand for the anthem, in
support of free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick, a former member of the San Francisco
49ers, started a firestorm last season when he decided to kneel for the
playing of the anthem before games as a protest against mistreatment of
blacks and other minorities in the U.S."This hit home with me. I am a veteran, an 8-year veteran with the U.S. Marine Corps. So, to disrespect the flag by taking a knee is not something I was going to be a part of," Nemeth said.
Steve Loomis, the Cleveland police union president, told the station his officers will not participate either.
“ … if the ownership of the Browns and the league are going to allow that type of stuff to happen, and then come to us and say, ‘We want you to help us with the flag,’ that’s hypocritical. We’re not gonna participate.”
The Browns organization has not commented on the decision by the unions to not hold the flag for the first game of the season, but has supported its players in their decision to sit out the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
“As an organization, we have a profound respect for our country’s national anthem, flag and the servicemen and servicewomen in the United States and abroad,” the team said last month. “We feel it's important for our team to join in this great tradition and special moment of recognition, at the same time we also respect the great liberties afforded by our country, including the freedom of personal expression.”
The Browns are scheduled to open the NFL season Sept. 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Ryan Gaydos is a homepage editor for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.
Quake in North Korea may have been nuclear test
It would be in the best interest of the North Korea people to overthrow the fat little stupid guy that kills his own family just to stay in power. |
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake in North
Korea early Sunday was likely the result of the country's sixth nuclear
test, media reports said.
North Korean state media claimed early Sunday that the blast was a test of a hydrogen bomb.
The test was estimated to have a yield of 100
kilotons, meaning a blast that was four to five times more powerful than
the explosion in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, a South Korean defense
official told the country's Yonhap News Agency.Pentagon officials told Fox News early Sunday that the U.S. government would have no official response until after the U.S. fully assesses what happened.
South Korea's presidential office says the security chiefs for Seoul and Washington have spoken. The office says U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster spoke with his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong, for 20 minutes in an emergency phone call about an hour after the detonation.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency initially pegged the earthquake at magnitude 5.6, but the 6.3 reading came from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The epicenter was determined to be near a well-known North Korean test site, according to media reports. U.S. intelligence agencies have been closely watching the test site since at least March, when initial signs of test prepartions were visible.
U.S. officials at the time told Fox News to expect a nuclear test in the near future. Now, more than five months later, the rogue communist regime appears to have followed through.
In his New Year's address, Kim Jung Un said his nation had entered the "final stage" preparing for the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In July, North Korea successfully test-fired two ICBMs.
Now just hours after photos emerged showing the North Korean dictator inspecting a new thermonuclear warhead in a lab, North Korea claims to have conducted its sixth nuclear test and first since September 2016.
The U.S. Air Force has WC-135 "sniffer" planes in Japan that will be measuring the air samples near the Korean Peninsula to confirm the presence of radioactive particles in the atmosphere and confirm the nuclear test. The Japanese military also has radiological detection equipment in some of its jets as well.
On Thursday Fox News asked Defense Secretary James Mattis if the Pentagon was seeing evidence of an upcoming nuclear test in North Korea. He declined to comment.
The previous day, before sitting next to his South Korean counterpart, Mattis said "We are not out of diplomatic options."
The quake was detected at 12:36 p.m. in North Korea’s North Hamgyeong province, Yonhap reported, citing information from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).
Reuters gave the location as 55 kilometers north northwest of Kimchaek, citing U.S. Geological Survey information. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the news agency said.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had recently said North Korea was showing "restraint" in its recent actions.
"Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we’ve not seen in the past," he said at the State Department.
President Trump, at a rally in Phoenix in late August, said North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un was starting to "respect" the United States.
In April, Tillerson told Fox News' Bret Baier that China had asked North Korea not to conduct any more nuclear tests.
“We’re asking a lot of the Chinese,” Tillerson said at the time. “We are going to test China’s willingness to help address this serious threat.”
'Absolutely unacceptable'
Early Sunday, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly commented that if the quake was indeed a nuclear test by North Korea, it would be "absolutely unacceptable."
The quake came just hours after the regime of leader Kim Jong Un bragged of developing a more advanced nuclear warhead, Britain’s Guardian reported. The epicenter of the quake was estimated to be at 10 kilometers underground, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The Kim regime has been engaged in a heated rhetorical battle with the United States in recent months – largely because of missile tests North Korea has conducted.
Shortly after the initial quake, Yonhap said a second quake was detected with a magnitude 4.6, but South Korea's weather agency denied another quake occurred. There was no word from the military in Seoul about the possible second quake.
North Korea conducted its fifth test last year in September. In confirmed, the latest test would mark yet another big step forward in North Korean attempts to obtain a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching deep into the U.S. mainland.
The U.S. State Department had no immediate reaction. South Korea's presidential office said it will hold a National Security Council meeting chaired by President Moon Jae-in.
Torrid pace
North Korea conducted two nuclear tests last year and has since maintained a torrid pace in weapons tests, including flight-testing developmental intercontinental ballistic missiles and flying a powerful midrange missile over Japan.
Earlier Sunday, photos released by the North Korean government showed Kim talking with his lieutenants as he observed a silver, peanut-shaped device that was apparently the purported thermonuclear weapon destined for an ICBM. What appeared to be the nose cone of a missile could also be seen near the alleged bomb in one picture, which could not be independently verified and which was taken without outside journalists present. Another photo showed a diagram on the wall behind Kim of a bomb mounted inside a cone.
Aside from the factuality of the North's claim, the language in its statement seems a strong signal that Pyongyang will soon conduct its sixth nuclear weapon test, which is crucial if North Korean scientists are to fulfill the national goal of an arsenal of viable nuclear ICBMs that can reach the U.S. mainland. There's speculation that such a test could come on or around the Sept. 9 anniversary of North Korea's national founding, something it did last year.
As part of the North's weapons work, Kim was said by his propaganda mavens to have made a visit to the Nuclear Weapons Institute and inspected a "homemade" H-bomb with "super explosive power" that "is adjustable from tens (of) kiloton to hundreds (of) kiloton."
Jump in progress
North Korea in July conducted its first ever ICBM tests, part of a stunning jump in progress for the country's nuclear and missile program since Kim rose to power following his father's death in late 2011. The North followed its two tests of Hwasong-14 ICBMs, which, when perfected, could target large parts of the United States, by threatening to launch a salvo of its Hwasong-12 intermediate range missiles toward the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam in August.
It flew a Hwasong-12 over northern Japan last week, the first such overflight by a missile capable of carrying nukes, in a launch Kim described as a "meaningful prelude" to containing Guam, the home of major U.S. military facilities, and more ballistic missile tests targeting the Pacific.
Vipin Narang, an MIT professor specializing in nuclear strategy, said it's important to note that North Korea was only showing a mockup of a two-stage thermonuclear device, or H-bomb. "We won't know what they have until they test it, and even then there may be a great deal of uncertainty depending on the yield and seismic signature and any isotopes we can detect after a test," he said.
To back up its claims to nuclear mastery, such tests are vital. The first of its two atomic tests last year involved what Pyongyang claimed was a sophisticated hydrogen bomb; the second it said was its most powerful atomic detonation ever.
It is almost impossible to independently confirm North Korean statements about its highly secret weapons program. South Korean government officials said the estimated explosive yield of last year's first test was much smaller than what even a failed hydrogen bomb detonation would produce. There was speculation that North Korea might have detonated a boosted fission bomb, a weapon considered halfway between an atomic bomb and an H-bomb.
Invaluable information
It is clear, however, that each new missile and nuclear test gives the North invaluable information that allows big jumps in capability. A key question is how far North Korea has gotten in efforts to consistently shrink down nuclear warheads so they can fit on long-range missiles.
"Though we cannot verify the claim, (North Korea) wants us to believe that it can launch a thermonuclear strike now, if it is attacked. Importantly, (North Korea) will also want to test this warhead, probably at a larger yield, to demonstrate this capability," said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
North Korea is thought to have a growing arsenal of nuclear bombs and has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range missile to eventually carry smaller versions of those bombs.
South Korea's main spy agency has previously asserted that it does not think Pyongyang currently has the ability to develop miniaturized nuclear weapons that can be mounted on long-range ballistic missiles. Some experts, however, think the North may have mastered this technology.
The White House said that President Donald Trump spoke with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan regarding "ongoing efforts to maximize pressure on North Korea." The statement did not say whether the conversation came before or after the North's latest claim.
A long line of U.S. presidents has failed to check North Korea's persistent pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons. Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.
'Great destructive power'
The North said in its statement Sunday that its H-bomb "is a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals."
Kim, according to the statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, claimed that "all components of the H-bomb were homemade ... thus enabling the country to produce powerful nuclear weapons as many as it wants."
In what could be read as a veiled warning of more nuclear tests, Kim underlined the need for scientists to "dynamically conduct the campaign for successfully concluding the final-stage research and development for perfecting the state nuclear force" and "set forth tasks to be fulfilled in the research into nukes."
The two Koreas have shared the world's most heavily fortified border since their war in the early 1950s ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 American troops are deployed in South Korea as deterrence against North Korea.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and Jennifer Griffin and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
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