Did Obama Officials Lie About Their Stealth Amnesty Scheme?

Tom Fitton
Big Government
7/18/2011

The Obama administration stealth amnesty scandal that emerged last year is heating up. It all began with an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo outlining ways the Obama administration could bypass Congress to enact amnesty for millions of illegal aliens through “administrative means.”

And then the Houston Chronicle exposed an effort by the administration to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens that supposedly have not been convicted of any “serious” crimes.

JW filed two FOIA lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to get to the truth about this deportation plan. And according to documents our litigation recently pried loose, not only did Obama administration officials skirt congressional authority when implementing this unlawful scheme behind closed doors, but apparently they also lied about it when they got caught.

The documents, which we obtained from the Obama DHS, show that DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of the immigration enforcement policy change which gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases.

And perhaps most shocking of all, officials considered the dismissal of charges against illegal alien criminals convicted of violent crimes!

The documents concern the response by Houston immigration officials to a June 30, 2010, memo from John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to all ICE employees instructing local immigration officials to use their discretion in “prioritizing” illegal immigration deportation cases.

This new policy resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of immigration cases and an overall 40% increase in deportation dismissals with local Houston ICE officials taking a particularly aggressive approach to the policy’s implementation.

In response to calls by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for more information regarding this new, relaxed, deportation policy, DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said, “The idea that DHS is engaged in ‘selective enforcement’ couldn’t be further from the truth.” However, the documents uncovered by Judicial Watch show that Houston immigration officials moved quickly to implement a broad interpretation of Morton’s memo, earning praise from ICE agency headquarters…

…Morton’s new policies have understandably elicited strong opposition from members of Congress. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), for example, announced recently that he plans to fight against Morton’s new directive:

While this authority is justifiable when exercised responsibly, the Obama administration has made clear that it plans not to use but abuse these powers. That is why I will soon introduce legislation to prevent the Obama administration from abusing this authority. The Obama administration cannot continue to pick and choose which laws it will enforce. It is outrageous that they have put illegal immigrants and their liberal political base ahead of the American people.

We couldn’t agree more.

There is no question these documents show that the Obama administration is implementing “stealth amnesty,” which is an end-run around the rule of law and Congress…

Read the complete article at Big Government.

H/T Expose the Media

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