Border Loopholes

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Like Snoopy chasing the red baron, President Obama is in hot pursuit of a phantom menace in tax breaks for corporate jets. But when it comes to the real threat posed by porous borders, the evidence keeps piling up that the administration's immigration enforcement is largely window dressing.
Despite regularly touting record deportations, the Obama administration has twice been caught red-handed discussing an administrative amnesty for illegal immigrants. Senate Republicans obtained a memo circulated within the upper reaches of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) outlining ways immigration bureaucrats and attorneys could use their discretion in individual hardship cases to effectively amnesty illegals without Congress changing the law. TAS later acquired a similar document making its way around the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Just brainstorming, administration spokesmen promised. No policymaking. DHS issued a less-than-reassuring statement that they would not grant humanitarian parole or deferred action to the entire illegal immigrant population.

Last week, the Houston Chronicle uncovered a connection between the Obama administration's immigration words and deeds. After spending nearly a year investigating the issue, the Houston paper obtained emails and internal memos showing the administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to avoid removing illegal aliens who were not "top" enforcement priorities -- and then to downplay their actions when controversy ensued.

Records show that hundreds of cases were dismissed against illegal aliens in the Houston area. "A string of emails shows the dismissals had the blessings of top attorneys at ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C., last summer," the Houston Chronicle reports, "and that other ICE legal offices across the country were encouraged to consider measures to better use the agency's limited resources to target dangerous criminals."