Last Thursday the Obama Administration announced it was stopping deportation of non-criminal illegal aliens. Now, the Feds will redirect those enforcement resources against illegals who are also criminals. In this exclusive OC180NEWS report, we get the Obama Administration’s side of the story, plus reaction from a current West Orange County representative, a candidate who wants to represent West OC, and the Orange County Roman Catholic Church.
OC180NEWS Editorial Policy on Political Issues
It is the policy of OC180NEWS to avoid coloring our articles with our opinions on political issues as much as possible. We attempt to present what our politicians say in their own words with minimum spin, whether we might agree with them, or not. We will, whenever possible, publish both sides of the issues. But beyond that, we will leave it to our readers to assess what our representatives have to say or write. Let the readers beware.
We begin with what the Administration actually said they are doing. This comes to us by way of two White House blog entries. First a bit of a backgrounder, then a direct statement of their intentions.
Here’s their backgrounder:
“In the Debate Over Immigration and Deportations, the Facts Matter
Posted by Cecilia Muñoz on August 16, 2011 at 05:35 PM EDT
As too often happens in the debate over immigration, anger and heated rhetoric from all sides dominate while the facts tend to get lost along the way. So it’s important to set the record straight. Fixing the broken immigration system so that it meets America’s economic and security needs has been and continues to be a priority for President Obama. The President has laid out a clear, detailed blueprint for reform, but the only way to do what’s necessary is for Congress to act and pass bipartisan legislation the President can sign into law. Failing to act simply perpetuates a broken system. Unfortunately, as the President has said, he needs a dance partner across the aisle to move legislation forward, and so far the floor is empty.
“While the President continues to work every day to fix what’s broken about our immigration system, he has also been clear that the executive branch has a responsibility to enforce the law, and to do it in a way which is both vigorous and smart. So while legislation is pending, this Administration has focused on improving our immigration system by making enforcement smarter and more effective. The fact is, Congressional funding for immigration enforcement and deportations has been on the rise for the past decade. For the first time ever, those resources are being used in a strategic and targeted way to ensure we’re maximizing public safety.
“Under the President’s direction, the Department of Homeland Security for the first time ever has prioritized the removal of people who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. The Secure Communities Program, which relies on a federal information sharing program that utilizes FBI fingerprint checks conducted by law enforcement officials as they fight crime in their communities, is central to this strategy. It is the primary reason that the deportation statistics show a dramatic increase in the number of criminals deported from the United States. The results of this strategy are striking:
•There was a greater than 70% increase in the deportation of those with criminal records from FY2008 to FY2010, and a decrease of those without criminal records.
•Today more than half of all removals are people with criminal records.
•And among those removed who had no criminal records, more than two thirds were either apprehended as they crossed the border, were recent arrivals, or were repeat violators of immigration law, meaning that they had previously been deported.
Those statistics matter. While we have more work to do, the statistics demonstrate that the strategy DHS put in place is working. At the same time, the Administration has also been open and receptive to feedback from communities across the country. On June 17, DHS announced important changes to the Secure Communities Program, including creating an ongoing review of the program so that DHS can assess its effectiveness, and taking care to protect witnesses or victims of crimes. Nothing can make up for the lack of comprehensive reform, but the facts show this has been a good strategy we can be proud of.
“The Secure Communities Program is a powerful tool to keep the government’s immigration enforcement resources focused where they belong – on those who fit within DHS’s highest enforcement priorities, such as those who have committed crimes in the United States.”
Now, on to their statement of exactly what they are doing differently:
“Immigration Update: Maximizing Public Safety and Better Focusing Resources
Posted by Cecilia Muñoz on August 18, 2011 at 02:00 PM EDT
“President Obama is deeply committed to fixing our immigration laws and has been aggressively searching for partners in Congress who are willing to work with him to pass a new law. As he focuses on building a new 21st century immigration system that meets our nation’s economic and security needs, the President has a responsibility to enforce the existing laws in a smart and effective manner. This means making decisions that best focus the resources that Congress gives the Executive Branch to do this work. There are more than 10 million people who are in the U.S. illegally; it’s clear that we can’t deport such a large number. So the Administration has developed a strategy to make sure we use those resources in a way that puts public safety and national security first. If you were running a law enforcement agency anywhere in the world, you would target those who pose the greatest harm before those who do not. Our immigration enforcement work is focused the same way.
“Under the President’s direction, for the first time ever the Department of Homeland Security has prioritized the removal of people who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. And they have succeeded; in 2010 DHS removed 79,000 more people who had been convicted of a crime compared to 2008. Today, they announced that they are strengthening their ability to target criminals even further by making sure they are not focusing our resources on deporting people who are low priorities for deportation. This includes individuals such as young people who were brought to this country as small children, and who know no other home. It also includes individuals such as military veterans and the spouses of active-duty military personnel. It makes no sense to spend our enforcement resources on these low-priority cases when they could be used with more impact on others, including individuals who have been convicted of serious crimes.
“So DHS, along with the Department of Justice, will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis and make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk. And they will take steps to keep low-priority cases out of the deportation pipeline in the first place. They will be applying common sense guidelines to make these decisions, like a person’s ties and contributions to the community, their family relationships and military service record. In the end, this means more immigration enforcement pressure where it counts the most, and less where it doesn’t – that’s the smartest way to follow the law while we stay focused on working with the Congress to fix it.”
Cecilia Muñoz is White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs
Next, we will read what one of our current West Orange County U.S. Representatives thinks of this plan. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher represents Seal Beach, up the coast through Long Beach to PV, out to Avalon, and down to Huntington Beach. Next year, his district moves south out of Los Angeles County and goes further down the coast to include Laguna. So far, we have not heard of any serious challengers to Rohrabacher For this reconstituted congressional district, known as the 48th.
Rohrabacher, a long time conservative Republican, is no stranger to controversy. In fact, one of his reactions to the Administration’s moves was to schedule a media availability for last Saturday so he could be sure to get his point across. We received this statement from him yesterday:
“The move by the administration is simply a way to circumvent Congress and institute a backdoor amnesty through executive fiat. This action of halting deportations of over 300,000 illegal immigrants continues to take away resources, benefits and jobs that should be going to Americans and legal residents. The use of the term “prosecutorial discretion” by the administration is simply code for their politically motivated desire to implement the DREAM Act through executive order rather than through proper legislative procedure since it has been rejected several times by Congress and the American people.”
Now we turn to what might be a new name on the West OC political scene, Long Beach City Councilman Gary Delong. Delong, a Republican, has announced plans to run in what will become next year, the congressional district for Rossmoor and Los Alamitos, among other parts of West OC.
Those West OC areas currently represented in congress by Ed Royce are not likely to retain him as their congressman after next year’s elections. See our related articles on redistricting below.
Hence, Meet Gary Delong. We spoke to him yesterday to get his take on this deportation issue.
“I see it more from a macro level,” Delong told OC180NEWS. “I think part of the problem of the past is we tend to focus on one specific area, and say we’re going to fix that. Then, it may, or may not have unintended consequences. I think you have to grapple with the whole thing. For example, I think we need to do a better job of working with the folks that are already here, even if they’re here illegally, but working with them and figuring out how do we give them a path to, if not citizenship, at least to a guest worker program and turn them into tax paying residents of this country. I think we absolutely need to do that. I think that we also need to focus on securing our border.”
Of course, there are not a lot of politicians saying we shouldn’t secure the borders. But since the Administration claims the change in deportation priorities is a short term approach, and not their primary strategy, we pressed Delong to say what he would do with limited resources while the more macro level solutions are working their way through the legislative process.
“I can understand the predicament they are in, since we’re getting limited government resources at all levels, and as we start cutting the budget to bring it into balance, we’re going to have even fewer resources in the future to work with,” Delong told OC180NEWS. “But I think that we have to do both. I don’t see any reason why we can’t simultaneously take some of our enforcement efforts and rather than deport people that are already here, take these law enforcement efforts and move them to the border so we can do a better job securing our border. We’re still going to work to deport criminals. But, I would rather see us put the law enforcement efforts at the border than sending someone back for the mere reason, the only reason, that they’re here illegally.
“We certainly need to maintain, if not increase, our law enforcement efforts towards the criminals. I don’t think we should ever back off that until the problem is solved. But, if there’s limited resources, and you’re saying, would you rather spend those law enforcement resources seeking out and identifying people that are here illegally and shipping them back, verses, would you rather invest those resources in securing the border and preventing more people from coming over, clearly, I would go for enforcing the border.”
Finally, we have the Roman Catholic Church. This publication has tried on many previous occasions to get the Roman Catholic Church on record because they have been pretty outspoken on the subject of immigration. We are thankful to Stephen R. Bohannon, Office of Media Relations, Diocese of Orange, for providing the following statement in response to our questions.
“The Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States have consistently called for comprehensive immigration reform, including: Global anti-poverty efforts; temporary worker programs; broader-based legalization; restoration of due process; and, expanded opportunities to reunify families. The focus of the church is family. The initiative of the Obama Administration is clearly a step in the right direction. These ‘priorities’ set forth in the deportation process is a welcome measure of restoring human dignity and maintaining the family structure.”
- Office of Respect Life, Justice and Peace
- Diocese of Orange
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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