Sen. Reid Pressured DHS Over Investor Visas for Casino
“The Obama administration overruled career Homeland Security officials and expedited visa applications for about two dozen foreign investors for a politically connected Las Vegas casino hotel after repeated pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff, according to internal government documents obtained by The Washington Times,” the Washington Times writes.
“The move to overturn what is normally a non-appealable visa decision came despite concerns about “suspicious financial activity” involving some of the visa applicants from Asia, and it ultimately benefited several companies whose executives have donated heavily in recent years to Democrats, the documents show. It also ensnared Mr. Obama’s current nominee to be the No. 2 Homeland Security official, Alejandro ‘Ali’ Mayorkas, whose appointment is to be reviewed by the Senate on Wednesday.”
Amnesty Supporters Plan Last Push Today
“With [amnesty]off the table in 2013, activists are planning to converge on Washington one last time to pressure lawmakers for action – and assure them they’ll be back next year,” CBS News reports.
“Advocates of a reform bill that want to see a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States have gotten more aggressive in their efforts to convince the House Republican leadership to put a bill to a vote, stopping by their homes, offices and even breakfast spots, uninvited, to visit and pray. They’ve even heckled President Obama, who shares many of their objectives, asking him to unilaterally halt deportations.”
House Judiciary Considers Worker Plan
“John Boehner gave the House Judiciary Committee more power over immigration legislation than it has had in years when he announced last month that the House would not go to conference with the Senate on its comprehensive immigration bill,” National Journal writes.
“The House speaker’s statement gives the committee free rein to put together an immigration package on its own schedule and terms without the pressure of matching the Senate bill, something of a rarity at a time when many major issues are grabbed up by the chamber’s top leaders.”
Why Did Biden Say His Ancestors Were Illegal Aliens?
“Perhaps Vice President Joe Biden was trying to give respectability to today’s illegal immigrants by proclaiming his own ancestors to have been illegal immigrants, too, when they fled the Irish potato famine of the 1840’a. Trouble is, the Vice President’s claims are simply not true,” says Jan Ting, now a law professor at Temple University.
“We all need to pay more attention to immigration history as it colors the perpetual debate over legal and illegal immigration. For the first century of the American republic, there were no limits on immigration. Anyone from anywhere in the world was free to come here. Indeed, our labor needs were so great that people who didn’t want to come here were forced to come here against their will in grotesquely cruel circumstances in the first half of our first century.”