Immigrants

Fourth Bus of Migrants Sent From Texas Arrives In L.A. With 41 Aboard, Including 6 Children

July 20, 2023 By Jeremy Childs 5 Comments

A bus carrying 41 migrants arrived at Union Station on Tuesday evening, according to Mayor Karen Bass, the fourth sent to Los Angeles by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

“One bus with migrants on board from Texas arrived around 6:30 p.m PT today at Union Station,” said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass’ office. “The city has continued to work with city departments, the county and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year. As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.”

Abbott’s office confirmed a bus from Texas arrived Tuesday in L.A.

The city opened a temporary emergency shelter for 14 of the people while officials try to make arrangements for their travel or pickup, according to the mayor’s office.

According to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), about half of the people aboard the bus were from Venezuela, with others coming from Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras. A spokesperson for the nonprofit said the bus left Brownsville, Texas, at 4:25 p.m. Monday.

The group comprised 35 adults and six children, including a 1-year-old, the coalition said in a statement. Initially, 45 asylum seekers left Texas, but a family of four got off the bus in Arizona to meet with their sponsors, according to a spokesperson for the coalition.

After the bus arrived at Union Station, the asylum seekers received a full meal, clothing, hygiene kits and a basic health screening, CHIRLA said. Over a dozen in the group plan to stay in Los Angeles, while others will continue to other destinations, including Phoenix, Washington state and elsewhere in California, the coalition said.

Since the first bus arrived at Union Station in mid-June, the coalition has welcomed 154 migrants sent from Texas to Los Angeles by the Abbott administration.

“We do not mistake these busing episodes as well-intentioned. Texas and Florida have shown a callous disregard to the human experience, especially as it relates to asylum seekers with black and brown skin,” Angelica Salas, CHIRLA’s executive director, said in a statement. “Busing migrants anywhere in the middle of a scorching summer is not kind, it is cruel and unjustified.

“As an organized collective in Los Angeles and as advocates for a more humane and just society for immigrants, we will do what we must to protect the dignity and safety of these families whenever they arrive,” Salas said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Illegal Immigration, Immigrants, Migrants

Migrants’ Trip to Sacramento Aboard Private Jet Appears to Have Been Arranged by State of Florida, Officials Say

June 5, 2023 By Connor Sheets 3 Comments

More than a dozen migrants from South America who were recently flown on a chartered jet from New Mexico and dropped off in Sacramento were carrying documents indicating that their transportation was arranged by the state of Florida, the California attorney general’s office said Sunday.

The documents appear to show that the flight was arranged through the Florida Division of Emergency Management and that it was part of the state’s migrant transportation program, according to a spokesperson with the attorney general’s office who did not want to be identified.

The contractor for that Florida program is Vertol Systems Co., which coordinated similar flights that took dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts last year, the spokesperson said. Also last year, eight Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to Sacramento.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta could not be reached for comment Sunday. Officials declined to comment further because the incident remains under investigation.

The 16 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were initially transported by bus from El Paso to New Mexico, where they boarded the flight to Sacramento, officials said. They were dropped off at the doorstep of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento on Friday.

Their arrival, for which no politician or organization has yet to publicly claim responsibility, adds fuel to a controversy over similar ploys by conservative politicians in Republican-led states.

They and their supporters have said the efforts are aimed at raising awareness of the influx of migrants over the southern border and bringing the issue to the doorsteps of authorities in states led by Democrats. Opponents describe the moves as cruel political stunts that use immigrants as pawns and leave them many miles from family, resources and even the courthouses where they are often expected to appear to plead their cases for asylum.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement that he and Bonta, also a Democrat, met on Saturday with more than 12 of the migrants, who “were transported from Texas to New Mexico before being flown by private chartered jet to Sacramento and dumped on the doorstep of a local church without any advance warning.”

Newsom added that his office and the California Department of Justice are working together “to investigate the circumstances around who paid for the group’s travel and whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping.”

Bonta confirmed that his office is “investigating the circumstances by which these individuals were brought to California” in a statement Saturday.

“We are also evaluating potential criminal or civil action against those who transported or arranged for the transport of these vulnerable immigrants,” he added. “While this is still under investigation, we can confirm these individuals were in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida.”

The situation in Sacramento is playing out against a backdrop of intense national debate over how to handle the influx of migrants who enter the U.S. across the Mexican border each year. That debate has come to a head in response to similar efforts championed and supported by Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida that have displaced thousands of migrants and generated widespread controversy in recent years.

In September, Abbott bused about 100 migrants to Washington, D.C., where they were dropped off outside the Naval Observatory, the home of Vice President Kamala Harris. That same month, DeSantis — who is now a top contender for the GOP presidential nomination — sent a group of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal haven off the coast of Massachusetts.

Neither governor’s office responded immediately to requests for comment on Sunday.

Newsom has made a habit of attacking DeSantis and Abbott over a host of issues that divide the nation, routinely blasting their stance on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, gun control and abortion. He launched a political action committee this year aimed at supporting Democrats running in red states. In a video announcing the effort, Newsom said “authoritarian leaders” are a problem for the country as images of DeSantis and Abbott flash across the screen.

Jaime Soto, bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento, said in a statement Saturday that the diocese is working with other groups to help the new arrivals.

“The urgency to respond was heard by Catholics and people of goodwill,” he said. “We are thankful to our partner organizations who took up the holy work of hospitality, dedicating their time and resources to ensure that every migrant did not feel alone and abandoned.”

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called for an investigation into the latest incident in a Saturday statement.

“Human trafficking is not only despicable; it’s a felony. … Whoever is behind this must answer the following: Is there anything more cruel than using scared human beings to score cheap political points?” he said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Florida, Immigrants

By Transporting Migrants, GOPGovernors are Exposing Democrats’ Hypocrisy

September 18, 2022 By Michael Goodwin 6 Comments

Next time, Joe Biden should be more precise when he calls for national unity. Because he and his fellow Democrats don’t like the kind of unity they’re getting from Republican governors.

The decision by GOP leaders in Texas, Florida and Arizona to “share” their abundance of foreign migrants with northern cities and states that boast of their sanctuary status is apparently not a gift the Dems appreciate. In fact, the president and his party are so mad they’re setting fire to the welcome wagons.

Shipping the migrants north is outrageous, a stunt, pure politics, they wail. The White House is making noises about assigning its chief partisan enforcer, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to stop it.

That would be the height of irony because the same White House has for months secretly shipped tens of thousands of migrants around the country, often in the middle of the night with no notice to local officials. No Dems complained then, so where did their love go?

Naturally, the media is eager to echo the left’s sudden pain, with Chuck Todd of NBC News showing why he deserves to replace Brian Stelter, late of CNN, as the most mocked man in television. Todd declared it “inhumane” to send 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard because it’s a “literal island that doesn’t have any infrastructure designed to help them at all.”

Hillary Clinton can usually be counted on to say something ridiculous, and she didn’t disappoint. “Literally human trafficking” is what she called the Vineyard dispatch, the brainchild of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Like Todd, Clinton not only doesn’t get the irony, she misses the point.

The Dems running New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and, yes, Martha’s Vineyard, are being hoisted on their own petard.

They supported virtually unfettered immigration, but didn’t bargain on thousands of the world’s unwashed popping up in their neighborhoods. In aiming their fire at Republicans sending the migrants north, they’re only shooting the messengers.

Their hypocrisy is a thing to behold and the GOP governors deserve an award for delivering a comeuppance for the ages.

More broadly, Biden’s border fiasco is the latest proof that the left has plenty of fanciful ideas about creating paradise but none on how to govern in the real world. The defund-the-police movement led to a sickening surge in violent crime that continues as cops are demonized and criminals are coddled.

Blunders piling up

The war on fossil fuels led to the dramatic rise in oil prices and helped fuel the historic inflation eating family paychecks. Biden is so far detached from reality that he actually threw a party to celebrate yet another spending bill that will keep the inflation fires roaring.

It is simply incredible how much damage he has inflicted on the nation in just 20 months.

And now the blue havens are getting a taste of the disaster that is the open-border policy. Unprecedented waves of people are crossing over, including many who flew to Mexico from far-off countries, knowing they could simply walk into America.

Immigration restrictions were a mainstay of both parties for generations, but the leftward shift of Dems led to less tolerance for barriers. Then, as with so many other issues, the presidency of Donald Trump saw them jettison common sense and go nuts as a form of protest.

Radical activists began preaching the gospel of massive immigration as a key to social and racial justice.

Biden, a sucker for anything anti-Trump, rejected his predecessor’s success in limiting illegal crossers and the abuse of the asylum system, which lets people stay in the US for years because of bureaucratic inertia. Making them wait in Mexico until their claims were adjudicated, as Trump did, persuaded many the dangerous trek north was not worth the risk.

Biden foolishly dismantled those restrictions, stopped building the wall and essentially issued an invitation for the whole world to come to America.

Click here to read the full article at the NYPost

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Immigrants, Immigration, Immigration Reform

CA churches and schools protect illegal immigrants from deportation

February 19, 2016 By James Poulos 10 Comments

Amid a fresh wave of immigration enforcement crackdowns, several powerful organizations in California have flexed their muscle to protect or benefit those present in the state illegally.

The city of Los Angeles has become a focal point for several different efforts, triggered by raids last month that “swept up more than 100 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who entered the country and stayed illegally,” as the Los Angeles times noted.

“The seizures motivated church leaders nationwide who say they feel compelled to offer physical protection on their premises even if it violates federal law,” as the paper added, with at least three L.A.-area churches “vowing in recent weeks to offer refuge to Central Americans with deportation orders[.]” It is the Obama administration that has taken heat for the roundups:

“Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics and other Christian leaders across the country say they are outraged with the Obama administration’s actions, said Noel Andersen, a grass-roots coordinator with the Church World Service group for refugees. The group has built a network of sanctuaries for Central Americans targeted by ICE.”

Sanctuary schools

At the same time that California churches have shifted toward the approach that defined the state’s so-called “sanctuary cities,” schools and universities have also advanced complementary new policies. Los Angeles Unified Schools, for instance, have declared themselves to be ICE-free zones. “The school board has banned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from setting foot on any campus without the district’s permission,” according to Fox 11 Los Angeles. Not only must the Superintendent of Schools approve any ICE presence, by the terms of the new vote, but LAUSD lawyers must as well:

“ICE claims that they do not come to schools looking for students, but parents fear sending their kids to school after information they received of ICE agents conducting a series of raids across the U.S. in January targeting Central American immigrants.”

Simultaneously, administrators in the UC system have forged ahead with plans to extend so-called DREAM loans to students who could potentially be deported. “Officials at California’s four-year public universities are reaching out to an estimated 10,000 undergraduate students who might qualify for a special loan aimed at reducing their tuition,” as U-T San Diego reported, “a program that further distinguishes the state as a national trendsetter in providing services to unauthorized immigrants.”

“The California DREAM loan program’s initial $7 million allotment — $5 million for the UC and $2 million for CSU — will be distributed to eligible applicants in the following weeks,” the paper noted. “The state provided half of the sum and the two university systems covered the other half. The loans are for the 2015-16 academic year, and they’re retroactive to last fall.”

Driving policy

As the public education establishment has come to the aid of would-be deportees, the state of California itself has continued to reward those who go public in some fashion with their legal status. California’s program to extend slightly modified drivers license privileges to otherwise undocumented immigrants far outpaced predicted demand. “Under the new law, 605,000 undocumented residents received licenses, accounting for 40 percent of all of the licenses issued last year,” the International Business Times reported. “Exceeding expectations, even more attempted to obtain a license: Around 830,000 undocumented immigrants have applied for a license since Jan. 2, 2015, the first day of the new policy at the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

The state’s aggressive action on normalizing residents who immigrated unlawfully has been rooted in two realities — first, the relatively vast and stable population of long-time residents crossing over from Mexico and Central America, and, second, the prevailing political agenda of Democrats wielding near one-party control over state policy for years on end. “California is among 12 states that now allow immigrants in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses, areas covering an estimated 37 percent of that population,” the Times observed, citing a recent Pew report. But California has also surpassed all other states in its percentage of unlawful residents eligible for a license, according to the report.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: DREAM Act, ICE, Immigrants, LAUSD, UC System

They can’t vote, but undocumented immigrants are California’s newest political force

May 6, 2015 By Roxana Kopetman 2 Comments

As reported by the Orange County Register:

They live in the country illegally. They pepper their rallies with the chant “undocumented and unafraid.” And they cannot vote.

Still, some politicians have heard their voices.

In California, undocumented immigrants have political clout.

“Today, we remind the rest of the nation that California is different,” said state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, in an April news conference to promote 10 bills he and others believe will help people in the country illegally.

The proposals ranged from a $1 billion plan to extend state-subsidized health care to the undocumented, to the establishment of a new state office that would make it easier for some immigrant crime victims to avoid deportation.

Click here to read the full article

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Immigrants, Immigration, Kevin de Leon, Legislation, OC Register, State Senate