Report reveals 92 percent of foreign nationals in federal prisons are illegal immigrants
A new report published Thursday by the Trump administration shows that 92 percent of foreign nationals in federal prisons are in the U.S. illegally — a revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said proves why the U.S. needs to follow through on President Trump’s proposed immigration reform.
The 2017 report, from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, found that more than one in five individuals imprisoned were not born in the United States. In addition, 94 percent of foreign nationals in the custody of either the Federal Bureau of Prisons or the U.S. Marshals Service entered the U.S. illegally.
Sessions said in a statement that Americans “are being victimized by illegal aliens who commit crimes. … The simple fact is that any offense committed by a criminal alien is ultimately preventable. One victim is too many.”
The attorney general also noted that, based on sentencing data, “non-citizens commit a substantially disproportionate number of drug-related offenses, which contributes to our national drug abuse crisis.”
By the end of the 2017 fiscal year, 58,766 known or suspect foreign nationals were imprisoned in the United States.
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen added that the report highlights “that more must be done,” and added the department “will continue to pursue President Trump’s immigration priorities.”
The report did not include information on incarcerations in state prisons or local jails. “State and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with comprehensive information about their inmates and detainees—which account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population,” the report said.
This past October, the Trump administration announced it was seeking several major changes to the country’s immigration system, as the president pushes forward with his plans for a wall along the Mexico border. The requests included additional crackdowns on “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal immigrants; reducing the number of incoming refugees; 10,000 more Customs and Border Patrol agents; and new initiatives curbing the number of unaccompanied immigrants who come to the U.S. illegally as children. Democrats already have said many of the White House’s terms are off the table.
It remains unclear when the wall might actually go up. Trump campaigned on building it and set an ambitious timetable for construction. But aside from potential funding and political complications, there have been court challenges from geologists.
Critics also have said the barrier would be ineffective and costly. On the campaign trail, Trump said Mexico would pay for the bill, which Mexico has flatly denied. The actual cost of the wall has not been clear.
Thank Obama For This Mess and Don’t For Get Nikki Was Excited To Meet Barry.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, noted this week that there is mounting evidence showing that Iran is indeed arming Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen in violation of the U.N. resolution that codifies the nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers into international law.
During a U.N. Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Haley identified the evidence as Iranian-manufactured anti-tank guided missiles, a drone known as a kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicle and SHARK-33 explosive boat material.
“All of these weapons, recovered from attacks and planned attacks on a G20 country [Saudi Arabia], were made by Iranian weapons industries tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said the U.S. ambassador.
“We have an opportunity to confront the Iranian regime for its actions that are clearly in violation of Security Council resolutions,” she added. “The international community must demonstrate that we are committed to ensuring accountability for the full spectrum of Iran’s malign behavior.”
Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are regional rivals fighting a proxy war in Yemen.
“This is the Secretary-General’s fourth report on the Iranian regime’s lack of full compliance with Resolution 2231,” also said Haley, referring to the U.N. resolution that put the nuclear deal into international law form. “And it is the most damning report yet. This report makes the case that Iran is illegally transferring weapons.”
In its fourth and most recent report on the issue, U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres cautions that Iran may be ignoring the international body’s call to stop developing ballistic missiles, adding that the United Nations is probing the Islamic Republic’s suspected transfer of weapons to Houthis in Yemen.
Jeffrey Feltman, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, highlighted steps the international body can take to pressure Iran into abiding by the nuclear pact, notes CBS News.
“Based on the violations of the Secretary-General’s report, there are a few options that we can use to put pressure on Iran to adjust their behavior: The Security Council could strengthen the provisions of Resolution 2231; We could adopt a new resolution that makes clear that Iran is prohibited from all activities related to ballistic missiles,” proclaimed Feltman.
In October, U.S. President Donald Trump refused to re-certify Iran’s compliance to the controversial nuclear agreement reached by the Islamic Republic and world powers led by the previous U.S. administration in July 2015.
Haley has accused Iran of violating the terms of the agreement, recently revealing what she described as “irrefutable evidence” that the Islamic Republic broke the rules by providing military assistance to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In his most recent report, the U.N. secretary-general “refers to debris from missiles fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia in July and November of this year … The inventory at the warehouse in Washington removes any shred of doubt that the missiles are from Iran.”
During a press conference in Washington, DC, last week, Haley presented what she described as recovered pieces of an Iranian-made Houthi missile fired from Yemen into Saudi Arabia in November.
At least since the Houthi takeover of the Yemeni capital Sanaa in late 2014, U.S. and Saudi Arabia officials have asserted that Iran has been arming the Shiite rebels.
In March 2015, the Saudis formed a U.S.-assisted coalition to combat the Houthi threat in neighboring Yemen and restore the internationally-recognized government of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The Houthis in Yemen have repeatedly fired missiles allegedly built by Iran across the border into Saudi Arabia.
Houthis have also targeted the U.S. Navy in international waters off the coast of Yemen with missiles that allegedly originated in Iran.
Tehran has long denied the assertions that it is providing military support to the Houthis.
Palm Springs Will Remove ‘Racist Trees’ Separating Black Neighborhood from Golf Course
The city of Palm Springs, California, announced that it would remove a row of trees blocking a black neighborhood from viewing a municipal golf course.
Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon and other city officials told residents Sunday they would be removing the line of trees and a chain link fence separating the properties after residents said the trees kept property values in the predominantly black neighborhood down, the Desert Sunreports.
Residents in the area say the trees were planted there in the 1960s as a form of racism — because the invasive tamarisk trees blocked views of the golf course and the San Jacinto mountains, keeping property values low so black families could not make money on their property.
We want in your “HOODS” Damit!
City manager David Ready warned that the tree removal would not happen right away because the full city council would have to vote on the issue. He added that the trees would be down in three months.
The city estimates that the tree removal would cost $169,000.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration “derailed” a DEA operation targeting Hezbollah’s multi-million-dollar drug trafficking activities in Latin America to secure approval of the controversial Iran nuclear deal, reports Politico.
Iran’s narco-terrorist proxy Hezbollah is involved in a plethora of criminal activities in Latin America, ranging from money laundering to massive drug trafficking.
“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” David Asher, a veteran Pentagon illicit finance expert deployed to combat the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise, told Politico, referring to the DEA operation, dubbed Project Cassandra. “They [Obama administration] serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
For years, the U.S. military has been sounding the alarm on the threat against the United States posed by the presence of Iran and Hezbollah in America’s backyard — Latin America.
However, the Obama administration argued that Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere was “waning,” reported the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ watchdog arm, in late September 2014, months before world powers and Iran approved the nuclear deal in July 2015.
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), the chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, chastised the Obama administration for undermining the DEA operation.
In a statement, Pittenger, the vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing, declared:
The nexus between terrorists organizations, including Hezbollah, and Latin American drug cartels is a subversive alliance which provides hundreds of millions of dollars to global jihad. “The witnesses providing account of the Obama administration derailing and stonewalling the prosecution of this illicit funding investigation has resulted in the most serious consequences of the misguided and injudicious actions of President Obama and his team.”
In June 2016, Michael Braun, a former DEA agent, told lawmakers that Hezbollah is generating hundreds of millions from a “cocaine money laundering scheme” in Latin America that “provides a never-ending source of funding” for its terrorist operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Iran has deployed thousands of Hezbollah militants to fight on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a move that has allowed the ruthless leader to remain in power.
Both the U.S. military and State Department have warned against the menace that Hezbollah and Iran’s presence in Latin America represents.
Politico reveals:
As Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.
Soon after U.S.-led world powers and Iran approved the nuclear pact, Obama predicted that Iran would use sanction relief funds to boost its terrorist proxies, namely Hezbollah, saying in August 2015:
Let’s stipulate that some of that money will flow to activities that we object to … Iran supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. It supports proxy groups that threaten our interests and the interests of our allies — including proxy groups who killed our troops in Iraq.
A day after the deal’s approval, Obama also said:
Do we think that with the sanctions coming down, that Iran will have some additional resources for its military and for some of the activities in the region that are a threat to us and a threat to our allies? I think that is a likelihood that they’ve got some additional resources. Do I think it’s a game-changer for them? No.
They are currently supporting Hezbollah, and there is a ceiling — a pace at which they could support Hezbollah even more, particularly in the chaos that’s taking place in Syria. So can they potentially try to get more assistance there? Yes.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Iran has dramatically increased its financial support to Hezbollah from $200 million to $800 million per year, two years after the nuclear deal was signed by Iran and world powers.
In 2010, John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and then CIA director, confirmed that former president’s administration was trying to build up “moderate elements” within Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a prominent Shiite political party in Lebanon, reported Reuters.
A lawyer for the Trump presidential transition team is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office of inappropriately obtaining transition documents as part of its Russia probe, including confidential attorney-client communications, privileged communications and thousands of emails without their knowledge.
In a letter obtained by Fox News and sent to House and Senate committees on Saturday, the transition team’s attorney alleges “unlawful conduct” by the career staff at the General Services Administration in handing over transition documents to the special counsel’s office.
The transition legal team argues the GSA “did not own or control the records in question” and the release of documents could be a violation of the 4th Amendment – which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America, wrote in Saturday’s letter that the GSA handed over “tens of thousands of emails” to Mueller’s probe without “any notice” to the transition.
The attorney said they discovered the “unauthorized disclosures” by the GSA on December 12th and 13th and raised concerns with the special counsel’s office.
“We understand that the special counsel’s office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims,” Langhofer writes.
The transition attorney said the special counsel’s office also received laptops, cell phones and at least one iPad from the GSA.
Trump for America is the nonprofit organization that facilitated the transition between former President Barack Obama to President Trump.
The GSA, an agency of the United States government, provided the transition team with office space and hosted its email servers.
“We continue to cooperate fully with the special counsel and expect this process to wrap up soon,” Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Saturday.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment Saturday.
Langhofer wrote that some of the records obtained by the special counsel’s office from the GSA “have been leaked to the press by unknown persons.”
The transition lawyer also argued the actions “impair the ability of future presidential transition teams to candidly discuss policy and internal matters that benefit the country as a whole.”
Langhofer requests in the letter that Congress “act immediately to protect future presidential transitions from having their private records misappropriated by government agencies, particularly in the context of sensitive investigations intersecting with political motives.”
The letter was sent to the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight Committees.
The committees did not immediately return a request for comment.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/16/trump-lawyer-mueller-improperly-obtained-transition-documents-in-russia-probe.html
