The drunken illegal immigrant who killed a nun in Virginia last month was not only released by federal authorities after previous arrests, he was issued a special Homeland Security work permit after two criminal convictions.

Just when you thought that government negligence had plateaued in the tragic incident, several news reports reveal that it gets worst. It turns out that the illegal alien from Bolivia (Carlos Montano) somehow obtained a special federal work permit—issued by the Department of Homeland Security—while he was awaiting deportation for previous offenses.

Montano already had two drunken driving convictions yet federal authorities released him on his own recognizance while he awaited a removal hearing. In the interim the illegal alien, intoxicated and with an expired license, swerved over a median in Prince William County and slammed into a vehicle carrying three Catholic nuns. One died and two were critically injured.

Montano’s federal employment authorization card, known as an I-766 permit, was discovered only because Virginia authorities revealed that he used it to obtain a state identification card. Because of the Montano case, Virginia no longer accepts the federal card as proof of legal presence for those seeking state IDs or licenses from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Incredibly, the government regularly issues work permits to illegal immigrants who are scheduled to be deported for criminal conduct. In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Prince William County’s police chief diplomatically requests that the “glaring gap in DHS policy” be “reconsidered” and “corrected.”

As it moves to approve the first genetically engineered animal for human consumption, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is evaluating the product as a veterinary drug to avoid public disclosure of the process.

The government agency responsible for protecting public health and safety plans to sign off on a hugely controversial product, genetically modified fish, but wants to keep the gory details from Americans who will eventually eat it. To keep information secret, the FDA is assessing the fish as a veterinary drug because it allows the agency to deliberate behind closed doors. The classification also permits critical data and research submitted by the company that will create the product to remain confidential.

Called AquaAdvantage, the altered salmon could be served in U.S. households within the next few years. So far FDA scientists claim the modified fish is “as safe to eat as food from other Atlantic salmon” and that they’ve seen “no biologically relevant differences” between the real fish and its artificial counterpart. Most assuring is that the covert FDA evaluations have determined that there’s a “reasonable certainty” of no harm from consumption of food from “triploid salmon.”

The only difference between the natural and enhanced salmon is that the modified species is given a special gene and growth hormone that makes it develop twice as fast. The Massachusetts company (Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc.) that came up with the idea claims its specially engineered version is identical to the Atlantic salmon except for the speed of its growth.

Those willing to take a chance on this lab creation should at the very least have full disclosure from the government agency that approves it. Not that the FDA is trustworthy. The scandal-plagued agency is notorious for compromising public health to protect the profits of companies that pay it hundreds of millions of dollars in “fees” to get their products approved.

Among the many examples is a controversial FDA-approved cervical cancer vaccine (Gardasil) linked to the deaths of dozens of girls and adverse reactions in thousands more. Pharmaceutical giant Merck manufactures Gardasil and the FDA has gone out of its way to cater to the powerful drug company by expediting expanded approval of the vaccine, which has been promoted as a sort of miracle shot that can prevent certain strains of cervical cancer caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

Judicial Watch has extensively investigated the contentious vaccine, obtained government files on adverse effects through public records requests and published a special in-depth report on the matter. Click here to view Judicial Watch’s work related to Gardasil.

As the mainstream media focuses on a study that reveals a sharp decline in the nation’s illegal immigrant population, monthly welfare payments to children of undocumented aliens increased to $52 million in one U.S. county alone.

The hoopla surrounding last week’s news that the annual flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. dropped by two-thirds in the past decade overlooked an important matter; the cost of educating, incarcerating and medically treating illegal aliens hasn’t decreased along with it, but rather skyrocketed to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually.

Those figures don’t even include the extra millions that local municipalities dish out on welfare payments to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, commonly known as anchor babies. In Los Angeles County alone that figure increased by nearly $4 million in the last year, sticking taxpayers with a whopping $52 million tab to provide illegal immigrants’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare benefits for just one month.

That means the nation’s most populous county, in the midst of a dire financial crisis, will spend more than $600 million this year to provide families headed by illegal immigrants with welfare benefits. In each of the past two years Los Angeles County taxpayers have spent about half a billion dollars just to cover the welfare and food-stamp costs of illegal immigrants. Additionally, the county spends $550 million on public safety and nearly $500 million on healthcare for illegal aliens.

About a quarter of the county’s welfare and food stamp issuances go to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their anchor babies, according to the figures from L.A. County’s Department of Social Services. Nationwide, Americans pay around $22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare perks that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children.

As if government spending wasn’t already out of control, urban “gang rehabilitation” groups stand to get a $1.6 billion taxpayer infusion under a bill circulating in Congress.

The Youth Promise Act will give the cash to nonprofits in major U.S. cities that claim to save and heal gang bangers by hiring and nurturing them. Among recipients of the money will be Homeboy Industries, a rehab center in Los Angeles that addresses “the escalating problems and unmet needs of gang-involved youth.”

Among the services that U.S. taxpayers will finance at groups like Homeboy if the measure passes are tattoo removal, job training and placement, legal services and mental health counseling for gang members. There is also “pre-release” (from prison) and transition counseling as well as a variety of educational opportunities.

The legislation to funnel such a huge chunk of public money into these groups was introduced by a Democrat congressman (Bobby Scott) from Virginia and has 235 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. So far only 14 senators back the measure but support is growing and the bill could end up becoming law.

The infusion is necessary because budget cuts have forced groups like Homeboy Industries to stop paying gang members to attend work training sessions and carry out maintenance work at centers that offer them a variety of free perks. Some do administrative jobs to help out, but they still get regular checks.

Americans who may have concerns about how their money is spent under the Youth Promise Act can rest assured because the gang rehab facilities will be required to create panels that demonstrate their programs are effective. More assuring is that the so-called panels will have at least one city official along with a law enforcement presence.

The top law enforcement official in a major U.S. county is vigorously working to withdraw from a federal program that checks criminals’ immigration status because it violates the area’s sanctuary policies.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who operates the county jails, has for months tried to bail on a program (Secure Communities) that requires local authorities to check the fingerprints of arrestees against a federal database. The idea is to deport dangerous criminals, many of whom have fallen through the cracks over the years.

But the veteran elected sheriff says the arrangement violates San Francisco’s longtime sanctuary law, which forbids public employees and police from asking anyone about their immigration status. The famously liberal city by the bay also offers illegal aliens official government identification cards and all sorts of taxpayer-financed public benefits.

The policies have protected violent criminals from deportation, including those who have been convicted of atrocious felonies. A few years ago a Salvadoran gang member with two felony convictions murdered a father and his two sons because San Francisco law enforcement agencies never turned him over to federal authorities for removal. Secure Communities was implemented nationwide in 2008 precisely to avoid situations like those.

Incredibly, the sheriff’s priority is to continue shielding illegal aliens from deportation even when they commit crimes in the community he’s been elected to protect. Earlier this year Hennessey formally requested that California’s attorney general exempt his agency from participating in Secure Communities and when the request was denied, he asked the feds directly.

In rejecting the exemption request California’s attorney general said that Secure Communities “serves both public safety and the interests of justice" because it “advances an important law enforcement function by identifying those individuals who are in the country illegally and who have a history of serious crimes or who have previously been deported."

In the politician’s version of America’s Dumbest Criminals, a prominent Maryland state lawmaker actually kept a detailed list of the illegal favors he did for executives of a grocery chain that paid him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in bribes.

As chair of the state’s powerful senate taxation committee, Democrat Ulysses Currie sold his influence to the supermarket chain (Shoppers Food Warehouse) that he helped land government business and other favors that financially benefitted the company. Federal prosecutors say the grocery chain put Currie on its payroll for about six years, making monthly payments of up to $7,600 to the corrupt legislator.

In an 18-count grand jury indictment, the feds claim that after Currie became chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee in 2002, he asked to be put on the supermarket chain’s payroll to conceal the bribes. He later said his part-time grocery job was as a consultant of “minority recruitment and outreach, community relations and public affairs.” Instead the 73-year-old politician repeatedly used his power and leverage to benefit the firm and its top executives, prosecutors say.

In fact, Currie created a list, “Accomplishments on Behalf of Shoppers,” documenting his unscrupulous deeds for the grocer and justifying his bribes. Among them: Currie helped Shoppers secure a $2 million government handout for a Baltimore location and a $3 million grant for supermarket road improvements, used official letterhead to repeatedly lobby state highway officials for traffic signals at stores in two counties and coerced a county liquor board to allow the transfer of a liquor license.

Currie also persuaded government officials to give up the right to buy precious land—owned by the Washington Transit Authority—so that the property could be used to expand an existing Shoppers facility. Several executives from the grocery chain have also been indicted and the company has agreed to pay a $2.5 million penalty. Curie faces decades in prison.

The Obama Administration’s taxpayer-funded Islamic defense program has been quite busy this week, filing several discrimination lawsuits on behalf of Muslims in different parts of the country and holding Justice Department meetings to discuss prosecuting “anti-Muslim hate speech.”

The legal actions come on the same week that the White House and various federal agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security—hosted a special workshop to provide members of radical Islamic groups with direct access to U.S. government funding, assistance and resources. Read all about that here.

Now the administration is flexing its legal muscle in its ardent quest to befriend the enemy. A federal civil rights agency known as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed discrimination lawsuits against companies in Nebraska, California and Colorado for discriminating against Muslims by not accommodating prayer breaks and forbidding a headscarf on the job.

The government sued meatpacking plants in Greeley Colorado and Grand Island Nebraska for religious and racial harassment because dozens of Muslim employees were “denied prayer time” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The lawsuit seeks changes to policies and procedures to accommodate Muslim workers, payment for past and future damages and punitive damages.

In a third lawsuit filed this week the EEOC claims that an outdoor apparel store discriminated against a Muslim female job applicant in northern California because she wore a headscarf known as a hijab. The company has a longstanding employee dress code banning any sort of head covering but the government asserts that in this particular case it’s discriminating on the basis of religion.

Also this week, the Justice Department met with a coalition of Islamic groups that demand the administration criminally prosecute anti-Muslim rhetoric as hate speech. Besides investing more resources to combat discrimination against Muslims, coalition leaders want Attorney General Eric Holder to “make a strong public statement” condemning hate crimes, harassment and discrimination against Muslims.

An Obama Administration program launched with great fanfare last summer to punish businesses that exploit illegal workers has given hundreds of flagrant offenders a free pass after Homeland Security audits determined they employed large numbers of undocumented immigrants. 

It’s the one area of immigration enforcement that President Obama vows to pursue, penalizing companies that benefit from cheap illegal alien labor rather than workplace raids that lead to mass deportations. To fulfill the mission, the commander-in-chief launched a “bold, new audit initiative” last July to inspect businesses suspected of hiring large numbers of illegal workers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents scrutinize hiring records to determine if companies are complying with employment eligibility laws.

The inspections have determined that hundreds of companies throughout the U.S. have significant numbers of illegal immigrants on their payroll yet none have been punished, according to a Houston newspaper that obtained internal ICE records through the Freedom of Information Act. At least 430 audit cases listed as “closed” by the agency had high percentages of workers with “questionable” documents yet they faced no consequences.

The records show federal inspectors specifically identified more than 110 companies with suspect documents for multiple workers yet none of them were fined or criminally charged. They include a California business with suspicious documents for 93% of its employees, an Illinois firm with dubious paperwork for nearly all of its 200 employees and a Texas manufacturer with bogus files for more than half of its 107-member workforce.

Additionally, ICE agents in Atlanta reached a secret agreement with a manufacturing firm that had questionable records on file for 574 of its 1,187 employees. The undisclosed agreement allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution on the condition that it complies with certain agency requirements, though ICE would not provide additional details.

So much for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s promise that, under her leadership, the agency will focus on “renewing a priority on employers who are making money off of these illegal immigrants and giving them jobs that should be going to American workers.”