The Obama administration said it would focus its enforcement of illegal immigration laws by targeting workplace activities, but a recent report shows that while audits of employers are slightly up over the Bush administration, worker arrests are down drastically since the end of 2008.

arrests of illegal immigrants way down under obama administration

Under Obama, employer audits are up 50 percent, fines have tripled to almost $3 million and the number of executives arrested is slightly up over the Bush administration.

But under President Obama, the numbers of arrests and deportations of illegals taken into custody at work sites plummeted by more than 80 percent from the last year of the Bush administration. In the current fiscal year 2010, which ends Sept. 30, ICE has arrested 900 workers.

That compares to immigration agents under Bush raiding hundreds of businesses from factory to farm — and arresting and deporting more than 6,000 illegal immigrants in raids in 2008 — more than 5,000 simply for being in the country illegally.

Current Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton reinforced claims of a tough stand by the Obama administration against illegal workers, telling Fox News recently that his agency has deported more illegal aliens — and criminal illegals — than at any other time.

“No administration in the history of this nation removed more illegal immigrants from the country than we did last year and I expect the records to continue. We’re serious about enforcement. We’re going to go out and we’re just going to do it,” he said.

But while both administrations agree that jobs are the magnet that attracts illegal immigrants to the United States, critics say it makes no sense to allow employees known to use fake or stolen identification to go free to duplicate the fraud again.

“When ICE is not following up on those aliens you have them going down the street to obtain another job and that is just moving the problem,” said Julie Myers, an ICE director under Bush

Myers said while she agrees with the Obama administration’s approach of targeting employers, “when I was at ICE, we didn’t think we could ignore the aliens we encountered.”

“It is tough when you have law enforcement turning a blind eye to entire categories of aliens — and that is what is happening here — it is a de facto amnesty,” she said.

Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, defended the administration’s policy, saying that “rather than high-profile raids that target workers and let employers off the hook this administration has decided to focus on criminal and bad actor employers.”

“No one is talking about giving a free pass for fraud, or ID theft is to be taken lightly, but we know the vast majority of the workforce did not commit any crime,” Fitz said.

Employment is the driving force behind illegal immigration, which is why experts say work site enforcement is important. Bush aides say their high profile raids acted as a deterrent to both employer and employee, and punished both for breaking the law.

But others say the raids did little more than upset Latino communities, and advocates of Obama’s approach say paper audits of employers — not raids — does more to turn off the job magnet.

The Road Home program, which state officials developed in July 2006 to funnel grants of up to $150,000 to Louisianans whose homes were destroyed or damaged by huricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005, has disbursed about $8.6 billion to about 127,000 families.

Racism in post Katrina LA?

But officials of the Louisiana Office of Community Development acknowledged this week that more than $777 million remained in the fund as the fifth anniversaries of the devastating storms approach. That money should be going in direct payouts to about 3,000 eligible families and to help cover other recovery costs.

The unallocated Road Home funds have sat around for so long that they’ve outlived the state agency that initially ran the program. Road Home is on its second parent after the Community Development Office’s Disaster Recovery Unit assumed oversight when the Louisiana Recovery Authority — which oversaw rebuilding from the hurricanes — went out of business at the end of June, as planned by legislators in the wake of the storms.

“We’re sitting on almost $800 million in homeowner money that’s not been expended. Is that right?” state Rep. Neil Abramson, a Democrat from New Orleans, disbelievingly asked at a meeting Tuesday night of the Legislature’s Hurricane Recovery Committee, which was packed with angry residents.

“They don’t have no staff,” said one of them, Malcolm Russell. “You call, you can’t get nobody. You can’t get the right answers.”

Patricia Hebert, another frustrated homeowner, said she sent in her application more than a year ago, but “I haven’t heard from anybody since.”

“I sent that letter June 23, 2009,” said Herbert, who said a Road Home agent “looked for it in the computer and said, ‘We don’t have that.’

“Where did it go?” she asked.

Judge proves ignorance in finding program discriminatory
Robin Keegan, who ran the Louisiana Recovery Authority and is now executive director of the Disaster Recovery Unit, said much of the money remains undistributed because of paperwork issues.

“One of the things we’ve done is brought on legal services into our program in order to help those families having succession issues who need to transfer their title,” Keegan said.

But John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or LDF, said the backlog was also due to a racially discriminatory funding formula used by state officials — a position with which a federal judge agreed Monday.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ordered state officials to stop using the formula, which calculated payouts using one of two criteria: the pre-storm value of the home or the cost of repairs, whichever is lower.

Kennedy found that the program disproportionately used the pre-storm value when dealing with families from predominantly black neighborhoods while preferring the repair value for families in more affluent neighborhoods.

Editor’s Note: Just more proof of how truly out of touch this president and his administration are. 70% of the country is against this blatant insult and scathing lack of sensitivity to the victims of 9/11, their loved ones and to America.

President Obama is under fire after jumping into the middle of a cultural clash Friday night in favor of building a mosque near ground zero, a stance that has elevated the contentious issue to the presidential level ahead of a difficult election season for Democrats.

President Obama and the proposed mosque's site at Ground ZeroSome victims' advocates and Republicans have strongly condemned Obama's support for the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic community center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see,” said Debra Burlingame, a spokeswoman for some Sept. 11 victims’ families and the sister of one of the pilots killed in the attacks.

Building the mosque at ground zero, she said, “is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah.”

“President Obama has this all wrong and I strongly oppose his support for building a mosque near Ground Zero. Freedom of religion might provide the right to build the mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero, but common sense and respect for those who lost their lives and loved ones gives sensible reason to build the mosque someplace else. President Obama had the chance to show leadership by calling on the mosque’s supporters to find a more appropriate location.”

Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center, said the president had failed to understand the issue. “As an Obama supporter, I really feel that he’s lost sight of the germane issue, which is not about freedom of religion,” she said. “It’s about a gross lack of sensitivity to the 9/11 families and to the people who were lost.”

Obama sought to clarify his comments on Saturday while he and his family were on vacation in Florida.

“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said in response to a reporter’s question after he spoke about efforts to aid the Gulf Coast region. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”

Still, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the president is “wrong.”

“It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero,” he said in a written statement.

“While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much,” he said. “The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from ground zero. Unfortunately, the president caved into political correctness.”

Entering the highly charged election-year debate, Obama surely knew that his words would not only make headlines in the U.S. but be heard by Muslims worldwide. The president has made it a point to reach out to the global Muslim community, and the over 100 guests at Friday’s dinner in the State Dining Room included ambassadors and officials from numerous nations where Islam is observed, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

While his pronouncement concerning the mosque might find favor in the Muslim world, Obama’s stance runs counter to the opinions of the majority of Americans, according to polls. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week found that nearly 70 percent of Americans opposed the mosque plan while just 29 percent approved. A number of Democratic politicians have shied away from the controversy.

Opponents, including some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, see the prospect of a mosque so near the destroyed trade center as an insult to the memory of those killed by Islamic terrorists in the 2001 attacks.

Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told Fox News that Obama seems to misunderstand that Islam is not just a religion, but also a political doctrine. He also said the mosque is being run by a man who accused the U.S. of being an accomplice in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Santorum compared the ground zero mosque to a minister who wants to builds a church near the location where the Rev. Martin Luther King was killed but preaches racial separation and the notion that King brought his death upon himself.

“I don’t think Barack Obama would say, ‘Well we have religious tolerance, we’re going to allow them to do that,’” he said. “That is the wrong way to look at this. This is not whether it’s a legal right to do it. People have legal rights to do a lot of things in this country.”

“We have the will of the American public,” he said, noting the polls show most oppose the mosque. The imam is “ignoring the will of the American public, as by the way, Barack Obama is by siding with him.”

Editor’s note:  Two human beings of the same sex have no business having sex. Check the equipment folks, it doesn’t fit! Besides, it’s sick and disgusting.

gay marriage what an offense against god

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Thursday that gay marriages can resume in California next week unless an appeals court intervenes — a decision that disappointed gay couples hoping to start tying the knot immediately while conservative opponents got a few more days to try to block them.

Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled last month that California’s gay marriage ban was unconstitutional, said Thursday the stay of that ruling would remain in effect until 5 p.m. Wednesday, giving time for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to weigh in. Gay marriages then could resume or be put off indefinitely, depending on how the appellate court rules.

Dozens of gay couples who lined up outside City Hall in San Francisco hoping to get married Thursday will now have to wait another six days to find out the fate of their planned nuptials.

But state and local lawmakers praised the ruling for setting a date when the marriages could resume.

“I am pleased to see Judge Walker lift his stay and provide all Californians the liberties I believe everyone deserves,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a written statement. “Today’s ruling continues to place California at the forefront in providing freedom and equality for all people.”

“I applaud the decision by Judge Walker to lift the stay in this case and allow same-sex marriages to resume,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “Throughout the City of Los Angeles, countless couples have long and patiently awaited this decision.”

“For the innumerable same-sex couples who own property together, have children together, and who have lived together as spouses despite the passage of Proposition 8, this decision comes not a moment too soon,” he added. “I look forward to once again presiding over same-sex marriages at City Hall after August 18 at 5:00 p.m.”

Walker struck down the state’s voter-approved gay marriage ban last week in a case many believe is destined for the Supreme Court.

But he moved to suspend gay weddings until he could consider arguments from both sides on whether the marriages should be allowed during an appeal of his ruling. He now says gay marriage should resume, but he gave conservatives the extra time to get the appeals court to weigh in.

California voters passed Proposition 8 as a state constitutional amendment in November 2008, five months after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions and an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples already had tied the knot.

Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown and lawyers for gay couples had filed legal motions Friday asking that same-sex marriages be allowed to resume immediately.

Walker said ban proponents didn’t convince him that anyone would be harmed by allowing same-sex marriages to resume.

“The evidence at trial showed, however, that Proposition 8 harms the state of California,” Walker said.

Walker also turned aside arguments that marriages performed now could be thrown into legal chaos if Proposition 8 is later upheld by an appeals court.

Walker said such weddings would appear to be legal even if the ban is later reinstated. He pointed to the 18,000 same-sex couples who married legally in the five months that gay marriage was legal in California as proof.

Walker also said that no one can claim harm by allowing same-sex weddings to go forward, but banning them harms gays.

Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama’s inaugural address to the nation, and he’s referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing  summer sojourns – or forgoing them altogether – the Obamas don’t seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with a few of her “closest friends.” According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of  Obama’s Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierni in Marbella, “luxurious,” “posh” and “a millionaires’ playground.” Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.

Perhaps it could be that the Obamas, who seem to fancy themselves more along the lines of international celebrities than actual leaders, espouse a different view of sacrifice. When Michelle Obama accompanied her husband to Copenhagen along with best buddy Oprah Winfrey, she billed the trip – an ultimately unsuccessful bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago - as follows: “As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the President to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”

A quick jaunt to Denmark is a sacrifice? What portraits in courage!

The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. From lavish trips to Spain to reportedly flying Bo, the President’s Portuguese water dog, on a separate aircraft to vacation with them in Maine, to a date night in New York City that perhaps cost nearly $100,000, their idea of austerity is really just the lap of luxury, at least for ordinary folks.

Incredibly, the Obamas have long portrayed themselves as precisely such commoners. Just this month, Obama told ABC the First Couple is “not that far removed from what most Americans are going through.” And that “it was just a few years ago that we had high credit card balances, we had two kids, thinking about college. We had our own retirement accounts, wondering if we were going to be able to get enough assets in there.”

If that’s true, why not select a more appropriate destination like the California coast? The scenery is just as gorgeous as that of Spain, and instead of patronizing a foreign country they would be pumping money into an American economy that desperately needs it. Camp David wouldn’t exactly be slumming it, either. A long weekend there would really send a message of responsibility, leadership and compassion. For a couple that has sharply criticized former President George W. Bush so widely, they could stand to follow his example for once and select a more low-key locale, as Bush regularly did in his Texas vacations.

Instead, Michelle Obama seems more like a modern-day Marie Antoinette - the French queen who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects’ plight – than an average mother of two. While she’s spent her time in the White House telling parents they should relieve their chubby kids’ dependency on sugar and stressing the importance of an organic veggie garden, hopping a jet to Europe to meet with Spanish royalty isn’t the visual the White House probably wants to project. Perhaps they’ve forgotten the damning image of John Kerry, on the eve of the 2004 election, windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket

I don’t begrudge anyone rest and relaxation when they work hard. We all need downtime – the First Family included. It’s the extravagance of Michelle Obama’s trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama’s demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between the country and its leaders. Toning down the flash would humanize the Obamas and signify that they sympathize with the setbacks of the people they were elected to serve.

In January, President Obama insisted that “everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good. Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game.”

If sacrifice is the precursor to change, what will the family that ran on change offer up? Elitist doublespeak won’t cut it.

A Catholicism instructor fired from the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for saying he agrees with the church’s teaching that homosexual sex is immoral has been reinstated.

Adjunct professor Kenneth Howell said he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining Catholic beliefs on homosexuality to his students preparing for an exam.

Professor Kenneth Howell dismissed for his Catholic beliefs is reinstated

Now the University of Illinois says Howell will return next semester.

“The department of religion will continue Kenneth Howell’s adjunct appointment for the fall semester, and has offered him the opportunity to teach Religion 127, Introduction to Catholicism,” school spokesman Robin Kaler said in a statement.

Howell, who had been teaching at the university since 2001, was relieved of his teaching duties based in part on an anonymous complaint sent to university officials on May 13 saying an e-mail Howell sent to his class amounted to “hate speech.”

“Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY,” Howell wrote in the May 4 e-mail. “In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.”

Howell was then called into a meeting on May 28 with Robert McKim, the Head of the Department of Religion, at which McKim told Howell that, due to complaints generated by the e-mail, a “higher official” decided Howell would no longer be able to teach at the university, according to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Howell.

The Alliance Defense Fund attorneys sent a letter to university officials on July 12 requesting he be reinstated on the grounds that the university’s actions violated his First Amendment rights.

The school responded with a July 28th letter that admitted no wrongdoing but stated, “The School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics will be contacting Dr. Howell to offer him the opportunity to teach Religion 127, Introduction to Catholicism, on a visiting instructional appointment at the University of Illinois, for the fall 2010 semester.”

The University says it will continue its review of the situation surrounding the earlier decision not to offer Dr. Howell a teaching assignment for the fall semester.

“This offer of appointment does not affect the process or outcome of a review by the Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” Kaler said. “The University of Illinois is committed to upholding principles of academic freedom and the requirements of the First Amendment.”

The school also says it will begin paying the salary of instructors teaching any Catholic studies courses that can be taken for university credit; they were previously funded by an on-campus Catholic Center.