As stated in the ICE document Performance-Based National Detention Standards 2011, “upon request, appropriately trained medical personnel within their scope of practice shall provide detainees with non-directive (impartial) advice and consultation about family planning and birth control, and where medically appropriate, prescribe and dispense birth control.”  The revised standards also specify conditions under which “ICE will assume the costs associated with a female detainee’s decision to terminate a pregnancy” in the case of rape or incest.

With regard to transgender detainees, the document notes that those “already receiving hormone therapy when taken into ICE custody shall have continued access to” and shall be provided with “transgender-related health care and medication based on medical need.”

On September 24, 2012, Judicial Watch sent a FOIA request to ICE, which is part of the DHS, seeking access to the following:

• Any and all records pertaining to family planning or birth control services provided to detainees in ICE’s custody.

• Any and all records pertaining to the termination of pregnancies by female persons in ICE’s custody, including records concerning transportation arranged for or provided to detainees for the purpose of receiving abortion services and any and all records regarding costs associated with such services.

On the same day, Judicial Watch sent a separate FOIA request to ICE seeking access to any and all records pertaining to hormone therapy and other health care services and medications provided to transgender detainees of ICE, as well the cost of any such services.

In both cases, the records being sought are for Fiscal Year 2011, or from October 1, 2010, through September 30, 2011.  The requests specifically stated that no information was being sought about the identity of any detainee or health care provider.

ICE has acknowledged receipt of both requests. A response regarding Judicial Watch’s request for records related to birth control services was due on November 19, 2012. A response to Judicial Watch’s request for records related to health services for transgender detainees was due on November 6, 2012. To date ICE has failed to respond to either these FOIA requests, prompting Judicial Watch’s lawsuits.

“It will surprise most Americans to know that illegal alien detainees can receive birth control, sex change procedures, and abortions courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This is an embarrassing scandal for the Obama administration, which is why the administration has violated the law in refusing our requests for information.”

The shift is striking, according to the nonprofit university group that obtained government records outlining the drastic change. The New York-based nonpartisan research center, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), provides detailed information about the operation of hundreds of government agencies.  Immigration is one of many areas it researches.

This week TRAC revealed that during the first three months of fiscal year 2012, cases disposed of in the nation’s immigration courts showed a serious drop in deportation orders and an increase in the number of individuals allowed to stay in the U.S. That means that individuals were ordered removed in only half of the cases, the lowest rate in the past two decades.

An additional 14.0 percent received a “voluntary departure” order to leave the country, up slightly from 13.2 percent during the previous quarter, the records show.  Counting both removal and voluntary departure orders, slightly fewer than two out of every three cases (64.8 percent) in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 ended in a deportation order, also a historic low.

The government records also show that, among individuals determined by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have violated immigration laws, more than one in three (34.4 percent) were allowed to stay in the U.S. This also represented a historic high, which is illustrated in a chart that includes figures for the last several years.

Clearly, the Obama Administration’s stealth amnesty plan to suspend the deportations of most illegal aliens is in play here. The scandalous measure, which has led to a monstrous increase in the dismissal of deportations, was first reported by Texas’s largest newspaper in 2010. Shortly after the story broke, Judicial Watch requested records on the deportation suspensions from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

After DHS stonewalled the release of records for nearly a year, JW filed a lawsuit last spring. A few weeks ago the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling criticizing the Obama DHS for failing to abide by FOIA law. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly chastised the agency for its inadequate explanations for withholding certain documents, ruling in part that the agency failed to provide sufficient factual context for much of the information withheld.

While on the combined subject of lying and illegal immigration, last month TRAC exposed DHS records that show the agency repeatedly lied to Congress, the American people and the media by drastically increasing the number of individuals that have been apprehended, deported or detained. Check that story out here.

The idea is to give the groups the necessary resources to improve security and make them less susceptible to an attack. The DHS calls it “target hardening activities” and the official program is known as Urban Areas Security Initiative, specifically the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

A total of 269 nonprofits across the U.S., all considered high-threat, high-density urban areas, will split the cash and the money will be used for security-related training and to install physical security equipment. The goal is to help them prevent, respond and recover from acts of terrorism.

But a look at the long list of recipients raises questions about how the money is allocated for this particular cause. While the majority of the grants went to Jewish centers and groups that could feasibly be targeted by radical Islamic terrorists, some are private medical facilities, catholic groups and a profitable Baptist hospital. In California and New York Planned Parenthood abortion clinics got the target hardening grants.

In Maryland, the Islamic Society of Baltimore got a target hardening grant as well as an interfaith center that includes a Roman Catholic church and a Methodist/Presbyterian church. All 30 of the grants distributed in Illinois went to Chicago-area nonprofits, including a politically-connected college foundation with more than $5 million in assets and several Catholic hospitals.

Funds are allocated based on risk analysis, effectiveness and integration with broader state and local preparedness efforts, according to the DHS. To be considered, nonprofits must demonstrate that they are at high risk of a terrorist attack and located within one of the specific eligible urban areas. How exactly does a group do this?

The government has a formula that includes the following: Identification and substantiation (e.g., police reports or insurance claims) of prior threats or attacks against the nonprofit or closely related group by a terrorist organization, network, or cell ;  symbolic value of the site as a highly recognized national or historical institution that renders it as a possible target of terrorism; role of the applicant nonprofit organization in responding to or recovering from terrorist attacks; findings from previously conducted risk assessments including threat or vulnerability.

Much has been reported about the administration’s intention to implement a stealth amnesty plan if congress doesn’t act to spare the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens, but this is the first confirmation that it’s come to fruition. Beginning this week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will review all deportation cases and start a nationwide “training program” to assure that enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys don’t remove illegal immigrants who haven’t been convicted of crimes.  

About 300,000 immigration cases are currently pending before overwhelmed U.S. courts and the goal is to expedite them, according to DHS officials cited in the news report. To accomplish this, the agency will focus on removing only those who committed serious crimes or pose a national security risk. Immigration agents will be instructed to close deportations that “fall outside” these department “priorities,” which means a large class of illegal aliens will be granted de facto amnesty.

This backdoor amnesty plan has been in the works for some time and has actually been implemented unofficially for more than a year. In fact, in 2010 Texas’s largest newspaper published an exposé about a then-secret DHS initiative that systematically cancelled pending deportations. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who say the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.

Judicial Watch has been a front runner in investigating the Obama Administration’s stealth amnesty program by pursuing DHS records concerning “deferred action” or “parole” to suspend removal proceedings against a particular group of individuals. Earlier this year JW sued DHS to obtain information because the agency ignored a federal public records request that dates back to July 2010.

1. Documents Uncovered

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detailing behind-the-scenes efforts by the Obama administration to bypass Congress and grant amnesty at least one million illegal aliens by suspending immigration deportation proceedings against “DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act kids” and other illegal aliens. The records include internal DHS strategic documents, as well as extensive email communications within the DHS and with the Obama White House. The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed on March 23, 2011 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 11-604) and Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 11-606)).

The records include emails from press outlets investigating the Obama administration’s efforts to suspend the deportations of students who would be covered under The DREAM Act, which was under consideration by Congress. The DREAM Act would have permitted certain immigrant students who have grown up in the U.S. to apply for temporary legal status, eventually obtain permanent legal status, and become eligible for U.S. citizenship if they go to college or serve in the U.S. military. The DREAM Act has failed repeatedly to pass Congress. The DREAM Act initially could provide amnesty for over one million illegal immigrants and would have cost over $6 billion a year.

Highlights from the newly disclosed documents include the following:

• In an April 20, 2010, email from Melissa Crow, former DHS Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Office of Immigration and Border Security, to Roxana Bacon, Chief Counsel for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Crow states: “Since we met, I’ve done my best to encourage ICE to grant deferred action in the DREAM Act cases…brought to my attention.”
• In an email chain about “one of the DREAM [Act] kids” who was being detained by authorities suggests confusion at DHS regarding how to handle requests for “deferred action” from illegal alien students. In the email chain, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Chief of Staff Suzanne Barr writes to DHS Deputy Press Secretary Matthew Chandler, “we r f’ed up,” to which Chandler responds, “Yep. And we wonder why pp’l FOIA us.” The student was granted a stay of removal for six months.
• In response to a USA Today inquiry into whether aliens are required to carry identification, DHS General Counsel John R. Sandweg writes, “Ugh. Yes. Fed law does require aliens to carry their paperwork. I don’t know if it is a criminal offense, but this provision has gone relatively unnoticed by media and [redacted].” “…I think some groups of aliens are exempted from this requirement as they don’t really have paperwork (folks who were issued deferred action). Either way, it is not routinely enforced.”
• In a memo from Mariela Melero, Chief of the Office of Public Engagement of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas, entitled “Stakeholder Input of Administrative Reforms,” Melero sets forth suggested reforms “outside of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” which includes the opinion that the director – unless otherwise required by law – has the authority to judge if the evidence presented for deferred action is “probably true.” Another reform would allow a 501(c)3 organization in “good standing… to design and implement voter registration programs at USCIS offices across the country.”

The Obama administration’s campaign to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens has been subject to intense scrutiny since 2010, when the press uncovered a USCIS memo that contemplated various “administrative alternatives” to bypass Congress and implement stealth amnesty for illegal aliens. A subsequent Houston Chronicle story exposed an effort by the administration to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens who supposedly have not been convicted of any “serious” crimes. Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch show that DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of the immigration enforcement policy change, which gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases – including the dismissal of charges against illegal alien criminals convicted of violent crimes. The Obama administration announced last week that it would effectively halt any enforcement actions (on an alleged “case-by-case” basis) against any illegal alien who hasn’t committed any other serious crimes. The administration denied that this was a blanket or categorical amnesty, but these new documents show otherwise.

“These documents show the Obama administration is lying about its stealth amnesty activities and its alarming contempt for Congress and the rule of law. Frankly, these documents show that Obama immigration officials don’t even know what the law is! The Obama administration cannot simply pick and choose which federal immigration laws it will enforce. In its zeal to curry favor with the illegal alien lobby and secure Hispanic votes for a second term, the Obama administration is exercising raw executive power to change the law by granting illegal aliens amnesty in a way that strikes at the heart of our constitutional system and the rule of law. This is a festering constitutional crisis,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Documents Uncovered

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8
• Part 9
• Part 10

1. FOIA Request Seeks DHS Communications with Obama White House

FOIA Request Seeks DHS Communications with Obama White House

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

1. DHS Documents

Suspect Released By Obama DHS Despite Multiple Arrests

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305