Obama Gives Illegal Aliens Happy New Year

It will be a very happy new year for illegal immigrants thanks to several Obama initiatives, including the cancellation of an effective federal-local immigration enforcement program, slashing the number of deportations and the extension of a controversial hurricane amnesty.

The president even signed a rare private bill a few days ago to grant a Nigerian immigrant living in Michigan with an expired visa permanent U.S. residency. The man, Victor Chukwueke, came to the U.S. more than a decade ago with a special visa to undergo medical treatment and never left. So Congress decided to reward him by passing a private bill granting him permanent residency and the commander-in-chief proudly signed it into law.

The influential open borders movement is surely popping the champagne as 2013 gets underway. The administration has also cancelled a crucial local-federal partnership known as 287(g) that calls on local police to notify federal immigration authorities whenever they arrest an illegal immigrant. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then takes custody and begins deportation proceedings.

The program has been effective in reducing violent crime in local communities nationwide and aiding in the deportation of tens of thousands of criminal illegal aliens who would otherwise fall through the cracks. But open borders advocates assert it leads to racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics so ICE is nixing it by not renewing any of its agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies that operate task forces under the 287(g) program.

Officials in Virginia, where a drunken illegal immigrant with a lengthy criminal record killed a nun in 2010, are outraged. Judicial Watch obtained Homeland Security records that show Obama’s Department of Homeland Security released the illegal immigrant (Carlos Martinelly-Montano) despite multiple arrests. The commission chairman in Prince William County, where the tragic crime occurred, told a local news conglomerate that the violent crime rate has come down nearly 50% since 287(g) was implemented and police have turned over 5,500 criminal aliens to the feds in the last few years. This occurred without a single instance of racial profiling, according to the commission chair, Corey Stewart.  

Another administration gift to illegal immigrants is a continued decline in deportation orders, allowing otherwise removable aliens to remain in the country. The feds have slashed monthly deportation orders by an average of 25%, according to the nonpartisan New York-based data research center, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), that studies government.  

The administration is also working behind the scenes to extend special programs like hurricane amnesty for violators of student visas like the 9/11 hijackers. The announcement was first made in November in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In it, the Homeland Security agency in charge of legal immigration said that it “understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to maintain a lawful immigration status.”

The agency recently extended the storm amnesty an additional 18 months for Haitian nationals “given the impact Hurricane Sandy has had on regions where Haitians reside…” Approximately 60,000 Haitian nationals (and people having no nationality who last habitually resided in Haiti) are eligible, according to the announcement posted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).