I hope Barack Obama remembered to thank George Bush on behalf of his illegal alien aunt this week. The lame-duck Republican president did the Democratic president-elect a generous — and dangerous — favor right before Election Day: Putting politics above homeland security, the Bush administration ordered immigration authorities across the country to halt all deportation enforcement actions until the campaign season was over.
According to my sources, the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his Kenyan half-aunt, Zeituni Onyango. The Associated Press reported on Nov. 1 that Onyango was a deportation evader — one of an estimated 700,000 illegal alien absconders who have ignored orders from immigration judges to leave the country. The wire report mentioned that the Department of Homeland Security distributed "an unusual nationwide directive within Immigration and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors."
But the politicized order was even worse than the AP reported. The deportation process wasn't simply slowed down for public relations reasons and fear of a media backlash. The process was completely frozen.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement source familiar with Western field offices told me: "The ICE fugitive operations group throughout the United States was told to stand down until after the election from arresting or transporting anyone out of the United States. This was done to avoid any mistakes of deporting or arresting anyone who could have a connection to the election, i.e., anyone from Kenya who could be a relative. The decision was election-driven."
Another source close to ICE operations in a Southern California field office confirmed that immigration officials there received the same directive: "The reason they included all offices in the United States was to show that they were not targeting the district office where Aunti lived. They don't want to pick her up by mistake and cause a big problem."
In other words, the Bush Department of Homeland Security determined that protecting Obama from the negative publicity surrounding a potential arrest of his illegal alien aunt was more important to the general welfare of the country than tracking down untold numbers of deportation absconders who received an extra three-day pass last week.
DHS refuses to comment publicly about the case. Warped homeland security priorities are bipartisan. Democratic Rep. John Conyers has called for an immediate investigation — not into the rank politicizing of our deportation policies, but into who leaked Onyango's deportation fugitive status to the press.
Question: Why shouldn't this information be public?
As for President-elect Obama, his true views about ICE are well known. Despite telling Katie Couric that his aunt should be required to follow the law because "we're a nation of laws. … I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law," Obama scolded ICE agents, who are doing their jobs, for "terrorizing" communities.
Onyango arrived in the United States in 2000 on a temporary visa. Her asylum request was rejected in 2004. She defied the immigration court order to go back to Kenya, moved into Boston public housing and is now hiding with relatives in Cleveland while contemplating how to extend her illegal stay.
Question: Will an Obama White House reinstate the deportation enforcement freeze in Ohio? Wouldn't want to "terrorize" the community.
(Meanwhile, real terrorists have benefited enormously from lax enforcement of deportation orders and asylum loopholes. Ramzi Yousef, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer and Mir Aimal Kansi all exploited our catch-and-release system by invoking asylum and evading swamped authorities before plotting and executing jihadist attacks.)
Onyango's options, like those of hundreds of thousands of deportation fugitives like her, are wide open. With the help of a seasoned immigration lawyer, she can take another bite at the judicial apple and appeal her deportation order. She can take her case all the way to the Supreme Court. She can find an illegal alien sanctuary church to give her refuge. Or she can take advantage of the longstanding congressional practice of creating "special relief" bills to help individual deportation fugitives escape punishment and acquire U.S. citizenship.
The post-9/11 Bush homeland security equation looks pretty much like the pre-9/11 one, and that will continue under Obama: Cowardice plus rank opportunism times political correctness equals a lasting recipe for immigration chaos.
Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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3 Comments | Post Comment
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Well, babe, if you don't like U.S. immigration policy, you need to check in with all the businesses that like it just the way it is. We get the extra goodies that come from all that artificially cheap labor in our economy, and a scary proposition it is to think of taking all that free money for businesses away now, just when we're running out of gimmicks. They are here because they have been asked to come here, and you need to check in with those who are doing the asking. You also need to get a basic education, but that goes without saying.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Masako
Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:19 PM
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Ma'am;... We are all illegal immigrants here.... Even the government admits that they own the country because they took it... Just another example of law justifying injustice... But; You might take a lesson from this other than the obvious one, that if a person can hang on here he is in... The lesson is that your government stands behind every title to every piece of property, as the original owner, and for that reason, property once paid all the support of the government... If you believe, that every piece of property is owned absolutly, without obligation to society, then think again; because no one can defend their own property any more than people can defend their own rights alone...Property should pay for its defense from foreigners and from native interlopers...Not paying taxes on property has allowed extreme concentration of wealth, and forced great poverty on working people; and you cannot stop people owning most from wanting all, so the rich seek to evade all their obligations... Good luck with that... What divides illegal aliens from natives is rights... Having no rights, the illegals can be excluded... But we pay for our rights, even property rights with a common sacrifice... Even if illegals sacrifice far more than the rich for their tenuous hold on America, it gives them no right, because right is also by agreement, by consent... The rich should remember what caused the Romans to kill the Christians... It was not a simple dislike, because the Romans were very tolerant of religious differences... Rather; The Christians refused the common sacrifice of incense to the Gods of Rome and to the Genius of the Emperor... We too have a Genius: Liberty and Justice for all; and the rich can decide whether they want to include themselves in or out of society by their actions... Do they want rights, because we pay for our rights... Do they want the protection of Law, because we pay for our protection, such as it is...Do the rich want our consent to be here, and to continue their bloody exploitation of this land and this people???They should seek our consent, and buy our good will... If we find life is impossible because the wealthy have cornered all we need to live, we will simply find that the rich have no rights we need to respect, and we will push them out of the country. . And, I am not saying that there is a plan, but only what has already happened when the entire wealth of America was taken from those who could not defend it. You should counsel the rich to pay their dues, and support our rights by hiring people with rights ..Or; Would you like to go with the class you serve???Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #2
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:36 AM
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Re: Masako; ..Right on Mr. Masako... Enough of blaming the victims... What the rich do to the immigrants deprives them of their rights, but it is no less than they do to us... We have to stop thinking of all wealth as honorable... We have to look at what people do to other people for their wealth before we judge wealth honorable... if you got wealth the wrong way, and out of injustice, no one should defend your wealth or property... We have to understand that what is taken from the poor and the immigrant is taken as well from us... What this country stands for is liberty and justice, and for all; and all does not stop at any border... It is ultimately human rights we stand for, and if you look at the purpose for which this country was constituted, -not one aim is the support of greater and greater amounts of this country in fewer hands..If our capitalists take from the world, the world will show up at our door looking for their wealth... If they get here, and suffer exploitation where freedom and justice are prized, it does not endear us to them, nor them to us... Let us give justice to all because it is the only way we shall secure justice for ourselves...Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:53 AM
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