illegal immigrant minors
streamed across the border from Mexico at an
ever-accelerating
pace.
On June 12 - some six months
after the ICE request for escorts -
the New York
Post reported what it
described as a "'Katrina' of illegal immigrants
flooding into border states daily."
According to a Fox News July 14, 2014,
report:
Life jackets of all sizes
and the occasional punctured raft are strewn
along the banks of the Rio Grande, just south of
Mission, Texas, where a relentless onslaught of
illegal immigrants eagerly surrender to
beleaguered Border Patrol agents around the
clock.
It's a cycle for which there
is no end in sight.
"You're going to be out here
a long time," Fernando, an El Salvadoran child,
told FoxNews.com shortly after surrendering to
Border Patrol authorities after midnight
Saturday. "There are thousands of
us.'
On July 3, 2014, the New York
Times reported that "240,000 migrants
and 52,000 unaccompanied minors ... crossed the
border illegally in recent months." According to
the Times article, the
illegal aliens would be "turned over to
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and
probably released to find relatives already
living in the United States." David Jennings,
ICE Southern California Field Director,
reportedly told the Times, "The most
humane way to deal with this is to find out
where they are going and get them
there."
There is good reason to
believe Obama's nullification of our immigration
laws directly contributed to this security
breakdown along our nation's Southwestern
border. And that it was not by
happenstance.
That's why on October 16, we
filed a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit against the DHS
seeking records about that January 2014 ICE
request for a contractor to provide "on-demand
escort services" for 65,000 unaccompanied alien
children.
Just for the record, here is
part of what DHS/ICE asked for in its unusual
request for escort services. As you will readily
see, as far back as January, they knew something
the rest of the American people didn't. In
short, they were preparing - or, more precisely,
laying the groundwork - for an
invasion:
"The Contractor shall
provide unarmed escort staff, including
management, supervision, manpower, training,
certifications, licenses, drug testing,
equipment, and supplies necessary to provide
on-demand escort services for
non-criminal/non-delinquent unaccompanied alien
children ages infant to 17 years of age, seven
(7) days a week, 365 days a year. Transport will
be required for either category of UAC or
individual juveniles, to include both male and
female juveniles. There will be approximately
65,000 UAC in total: 25% local ground transport,
25% via ICE charter and 50% via commercial air.
Escort services include, but are not limited to,
assisting with: transferring physical custody of
UAC from DHS to Health and Human Services (HHS)
care via ground or air methods of transportation
(charter or commercial carrier), property
inventory, providing juveniles with meals,
drafting reports, generating transport
documents, maintaining/stocking daily supplies,
providing and issuing clothing as needed,
coordinating with DHS and HHS staff, travel
coordination, limited stationary guard services
to accommodate for trip disruptions due to
inclement weather, faulty equipment, or other
exigent
circumstances."
Judicial Watch filed the
FOIA lawsuit after the Obama administration - as
usual - refused to respond to our simple FOIA
request. Let me show you the lawless, mendacious
secrecy of the Obama gang by giving you some
details I usually leave out about the hassles
our investigators must go through just to get
ignored by the Obama
administration.
We
filed our FOIA request about this issue on July
8. The DHS then told us it didn't receive our
request until July 30 and also gave itself a
ten-day extension under the law, ostensibly to
process the request. DHS was obligated under the
law to make a determination within 30 days of
receipt of our initial request whether they will
supply the requested material, or inform us they
will not comply and then advise us of our right
to appeal if a negative determination occurs.
That 30-day deadline expired, and DHS failed to
act as the law requires. Even then, we gave them
another month, and still no response! And now
the case is in the federal court here in
D.C.
Does this process and
gamesmanship sound "transparent" to
you? You can see why I give so much
credit to our expert investigators who navigate
these administrative hurdles and to our smart
lawyers can make sense of the obfuscation and
get results (meaning documents) through the
courts.
The effort is worth it
because the public interest is served,
especially in light of the threats to our
security, health, safety, and pocketbooks caused
by the Obama amnesty border
crisis.
As
JW previously
reported,
illegal alien minors (who are often really
adults and/or accompanied by numerous adults)
are bringing serious diseases with them across
the border. This could include the swine flu,
dengue fever, possibly the Ebola virus, and
tuberculosis. The reckless abandonment of border
security and the lack of enforcement of our
immigration laws jeopardizes the hardworking
taxpayers being forced to foot the bill for the
Obama administration's reckless, feckless
"children's crusade" against American
sovereignty.
The surge isn't
over. I took special note of
a report in the Washington
Examiner this week that the number of
illegal alien minors may approach 130,000 this
year, far exceeding prior worst case estimates
of 90,000:
As
President Obama readies a post-election
immigration plan expected to clear a path for
citizenship for millions of illegals, his
immigration czar on Tuesday said that the border
is bracing for another surge of undocumented
children, raising this year's wave across the
southern border to some
130,000.
Leon Rodriguez, the new
director of U.S. Citizen and Immigration
Services, said that the federal government is
already working to "prepare for another
potential surge" across the
border.
You can see how our FOIA
lawsuit is more than about the failure of yet
another Obama administration agency to comply
with the federal transparency law - it is about
the future of our
country.
Exclusive: Obama
Plans to Import Ebola-infected Foreigners from
Other
Countries
I'm sure you've been
following the news out of New York, and contrary
to what President Obama and other top government
officials have said, the Ebola crisis appears to
be getting worse in the U.S. Judicial Watch is
striving to pry loose the truth from reticent
federal agencies that have a responsibility for
public safety and our national
security.
We
have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests with the Department of Defense
(DOD) and
the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration.
In light of the potential danger from this
deadly disease, the administration's long
history of delaying and obstructing information
requests could have severe consequences for
members of the public who
have been
told that they are safe. We
are prepared to go to court to force the release
of critical pieces of information. Our Ebola
FOIA requests ask for
an immediate
clarification of the DOD's plans for
the evacuation of U.S. personnel from Africa if
an Ebola outbreak occurs. We are also looking
for information from OSHA regarding any plans
the agency has for responding to the current
Ebola outbreak and any expressions of concern by
OHSA personnel.
Another key player here is a
cryptic carrier known as Phoenix Air. We know
this air carrier has been responsible for
transporting Ebola victims, but that's all the
American people are being told. How safe is
Phoenix Air and what kind of relationship does
it have with the U.S. government? This much
seems clear: Phoenix Air is more than just a
medical transport unit. It appears to have
significant DOD
contracts.
One definitive move the
administration made that is worth noting is the
recent appointment of Ronald Klain as the Ebola
czar. JW has carefully documented the
constitutional problems with the appointment of
congressionally unaccountable czars throughout
various executive agencies. But there's an
additional problem with Klain's appointment. His
appears to be motivated more by politics and
less by qualifications. Klain is not an expert
in infectious diseases. He is a long-time
Democratic operative who gained notoriety for
his role in the legal challenges surrounding the
2000 presidential election. Klain also
previously served as the chief of staff to
Vice-Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. He's what
you call well-connected in Washington. For the
rest of America, "well-connected" can be
translated as "corrupt" in this
case. Klain's involvement
in Solyndra and the Clinton-era
fundraising scams show just how
well-credentialed and well-suited he is to
represent President Obama. True to
form, Klain's appointment shows that the Obama
White House views the Ebola issue as more of a
political crisis than a stark public safety
issue.
And, as we note in this
important Investigative
Bulletin piece, Czar Klain: No Way to Run a
Republic,
this is another czar who will undermine
transparency and is another Obama end-run around
the U.S.
Constitution:
The Washington
Post reports that Klain is
"tasked with coordinating domestic preparedness
efforts and the U.S. military operation to help
control the virus's spread in West Africa."
He'll report to Homeland Security adviser Lisa
Monaco and National Security Advisor Susan Rice,
the Postsays.
But the Federal Emergency Management Agency is
also a player. And the Defense Department has a
major role. And because it is Africa, so does
the State Department. And so does the Department
of Homeland Security. Power in Washington is in
direct relation to proximity to the president.
So a "czar" operating from the White House
exercises powerful influence over these
departments, which have a measure of
transparency and accountability under the law
that the czars do not have.
As Judicial Watch has
reported,
the Obama administration has named dozens of
them across the executive branch. Many, like
Czar Klain, are unconfirmed by the Senate,
largely unaccountable to Congress, and often
outside the reach of the Freedom of Information
Act. That's a troubling consolidation of power,
and no way to run a
republic.
If
there was any doubt the administration is not
setting the right priorities, these can be
erased by a source who has informed JW of a
secret plan to bring Ebola-infected non-citizens
into the U.S. The plan is both illegal and
dangerous, the source says. Even so, the
administration is pressing ahead with plans to
admit Ebola-infected non-citizens into the U.S.
for treatment. The general idea is bring these
Ebola victims into the U.S. within the first few
days of diagnosis. As is so often the case,
President Obama has decided not to inform
Congress, the source has told us. The plan
includes special waivers of existing laws and
regulations. We do not know how much the
transportation for this dangerous maneuver will
cost. (Will Phoenix Air be
involved?)
Congress followed our lead
again. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA.), who chairs the
House Judiciary Committee,
sent a
letter addressed to the
secretary of state and the secretary of Homeland
Security asking for details about this
plan.
"Please provide me any and
all written memos or other documentation written
by employees of your Departments regarding the
formulation of a plan to allow non-U.S. citizens
infected with Ebola to enter the U.S. to receive
medical treatment," the letter
says.
The committee is giving the
agency heads until the end of this week to
respond. There is one way President Obama can
carry out this initiative. He can do this by
offering foreign nationals
a special
parole.
Under federal regulations, a parolee could be
defined as an alien who is inadmissible to an
inspection officer, but permitted into the U.S.
for humanitarian reasons. Obama has already used
this exemption for the illegal alien "minors"
who illegally crossed our border. He
could do this again, without notice or
announcement, to open the door to foreign
nationals carrying the deadly Ebola
infection.
So, as some argue about
whether to restrict flights and visitors from
Ebola-afflicted countries in West Africa, Obama
plans to allow non-citizens infected with the
virus into the United States. All the
flight and travel bans in the world won't
address this president's abusive use of power to
allow aliens with Ebola into the
country. I see nothing under
discussion in Congress yet that addresses this
clear and present danger. Rep. Bob Goodlatte,
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and some members of
the Senate are on the alert and ready for action
after Judicial Watch's disclosure, but the rest
of Washington is asleep at the
switch. Check in with your elected
officials, wake them up, and tell them to pay
attention to - and act upon - Judicial Watch's
warnings of Obama's reckless plans to endanger
the public health.
Judicial Watch's Fast and
Furious
Breakthrough
Your Judicial Watch has
finally forced the Obama Department of Justice
(DOJ) to provide a detailed listing of all the
records it has withheld from Congress and the
American people about the deadly Fast and
Furious scandal and its cover-up. The documents,
as we suspected, detail the personal involvement
of outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder in
managing the DOJ's media strategy and its
response to congressional
investigations.
But what really stands out
is the disturbing extent to which President
Obama's executive privilege claims over these
records are a fraud and an abuse of his office.
There is no precedent for Obama's Nixonian
assertion of executive privilege over these
ordinary government agency
records. The Obama administration is
even withholding emails between Holder, his wife
Sharon Malone and his mother under absurd claims
of executive privilege. Obama, personally and
through his authority as president of the United
States, claims that the wife and mother of Eric
Holder are entitled to know more about the Fast
and Furious operation than the American people
and the United States
Congress.
As
you may recall from out previous updates, Fast
and Furious was a joint DOJ-Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun running
operation that the administration perpetrated
expecting it would bolster gun control proposals
in the U.S. The idea was to allow guns to find
their way into the arms of Mexican drug cartel
members who would use them in criminal
operations. Some of the weapons used in Fast and
Furious have been implicated in the murder of
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of
innocent Mexicans. We
have also obtained
informationthrough a lawsuit filed
against the City of Phoenix,
Arizona. that shows Congress has
confirmed that an AK 47 rifle used in July 29,
2013, gang-style assault on an apartment
building that resulted in the wounding of two
people was part of the Fast and Furious
program.
A
critical turning point in the growing
controversy over DOJ tactics came on June 28,
2012, when Holder was held in contempt by the
House of Representatives over his refusal to
turn over records that explained why the
Obama administration declined to reveal critical
information to Congress that cut to the truth of
Fast and Furious. The timeline of events says a
lot about the administration's ongoing to
efforts to withhold information. Just a week
before the contempt finding, President Obama
asserted executive privilege over Fast and
Furious records the House Oversight Committee
had subpoenaed eight months earlier. This was a
not too subtle effort to protect Holder from
criminal prosecution and pre-empt the contempt
vote. We filed our Freedom of Information Act
request seeking these Fast and Furious records
just two days after Obama made his assertion of
executive privilege. After the DOJ predictably
denied our FOIA request, we
filed a
FOIA lawsuit on September 12,
2012.
But then the Justice
Department convinced U.S. District Court Judge
John D. Bates to stay our lawsuit, in part to
allow ongoing settlement discussions between the
Holder's government lawyers and the House
Committee to continue. Unsurprisingly, the
"negotiations" between politicians running the
House and the Justice Department went
nowhere.
A
major breakthrough came on July 18, 2014 when
Judge Bates lifted what had been a 16-month
delay of our open records lawsuit. Most
significantly, he ordered the production of
a Vaughn index by October 1. On
September 23, Bates denied the DOJ's request it
be given over an extra month - until November 3
to produce a Vaughn Index.
Holder announced his decision to resign just two
days after this court ruling denying the DOJ's
request for an extension. We do not view this as
a coincidence.
A Vaughn index can
enormously helpful to the cause of openness and
transparency in FOIA litigation as it must
typically 1) identify each record
withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption
claimed; and (3) explain how
disclosure would damage the interests protected
by the claimed exemption. The 1,307-page
draft Vaughn index, which
explains 15,662 documents, arguably fails to
provide all of this required information, but is
highly
revealing.
Our initial review of this
material reveals:
· Numerous emails that detail
Attorney General Holder's direct involvement in
crafting talking points, timing public
disclosures, and handling Congressional
inquiries in the Fast and Furious
matter.
· President Obama has asserted
executive privilege over nearly 20 email
communications between Holder and his spouse
Sharon Malone. The administration also
claims that the records are also subject to
withholding under the "deliberative process"
exemption. This exemption ordinarily exempts
from public disclosure records that could chill
internal government
deliberations.
· Numerous entries detail
DOJ's communications (including those of Eric
Holder) concerning the White House about Fast
and Furious.
· The scandal required the
attention of virtually every top official of the
DOJ and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (ATF). Communications to and
from the United States Ambassador to Mexico
about the Fast and Furious matter are also
described.
The continued fallout from
Fast and Furious to the American people is
difficult to overstate. The guns from the
scandal are expected to be used in criminal
activity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican
border for years to
come.
Once again, Judicial Watch
has proven itself more effective than Congress
and the establishment media in providing basic
oversight of this out-of-control
administration. This Fast and Furious
document provides dozens of leads for further
congressional, media, and even criminal
investigations. Hopefully, they will follow JW's
lead.
News will continue to break
about JW's Fast and Furious find, so check in
often at www.judicialwatch.org this weekend and next
week for updates.
I also ask you to get the
word out to generate additional support for our
work from your family, church, social and
business networks. And any help you're able to
provide allows us to do more of the essential
work to expose government wrongdoing, hold our
elected officials accountable to the law, and,
frankly, protect the safety of the American
people.
Until next week
...
Tom
Fitton
President
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