Arizona Governor Jan Brewer created the policy last August to help counter the Obama administration’s stealth amnesty program, which is sparing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from deportation. Under the plan, called “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” illegal immigrants under the age of 30 who came to the U.S. as children can remain in the country and obtain work permits. President Obama sidestepped Congress and created it in June via executive order.

Brewer fought back with her own order to stop illegal immigrants who obtain work permits under the federal program from getting taxpayer-funded perks or licenses in her state. In the document Brewer explains that allowing Arizona’s 80,000 deferred action recipients improper access to state or local benefits will have significant and lasting impacts on the state’s budget, its healthcare system and additional public benefits that taxpayers fund.

The open borders movement sued, asserting that the measure is unjust and unconstitutional because it violates the supremacy and equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution. In a 32-page complaint the open borders groups—including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—claim the young immigrants are Americans in their heart, mind and in every single way but one: on paper.

A federal court didn’t buy it, however, ruling this month that Arizona can deny driver’s licenses to the illegal aliens spared under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The Phoenix federal judge wrote in his ruling that the plaintiffs “have not shown a likelihood of irreparable injury and have not otherwise met the high burden for a mandatory injunction” of Arizona’s license measure.  

Of course the immigration rights groups will continue pursuing further legal action, forcing Arizona to waste more taxpayer dollars to defend its measure. Governor Brewer assures that she will “vigorously defend” Arizona law and called the ruling “a victory for states’ rights, the rule of law and the bedrock principles that guide our nation’s legislative process and the division of power between the federal government and states. “

It marks the latest in a series of heartbreaking examples involving an illegal alien haven blowing up in a local government’s face. We’ve seen this nationwide in municipalities that enable illegal immigrants to commit atrocious crimes by protecting them from the feds. There are too many cases to list here, but examples include a Salvadoran gangbanger who murdered a father and his two sons in San Francisco, an illegal alien member of a notoriously violent street gang who killed a high school football star in Los Angeles and a Bolivian with an extensive criminal record who killed a nun while driving drunk in Virginia.

In each case, the illegal immigrant was protected by a sanctuary city that shielded him from deportation. Judicial Watch investigated all of the incidents and obtained public records from the various agencies involved in the cases, which occurred years apart. JW has also sued the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for banning officers from inquiring about a suspect’s immigration status, a policy that clearly played a role in the prep football standout’s murder because the gangbanger had an extensive criminal record and should have been deported.

 Now Maryland’s largest city is experiencing firsthand the tragic consequences of providing sanctuary for illegal immigrants. This month Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that a 31-year-old Ecuadorian named Henry Estrella-Cordova was arrested in Silver Spring because he’s a suspect in “an extremely violent rape against a 9-year-old child” in Baltimore. Estrella-Cordova entered the United States illegally at an unknown place and at an unknown time more than a year ago, according to ICE.

Perhaps he was attracted to the area after hearing about Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s sanctuary order, which is supposed to help Baltimore recruit 10,000 families in a decade. That’s why last spring Rawlings-Blake signed the measure prohibiting police and social agencies from asking anyone about their immigration status. The order also prohibits city funds, resources or personnel from investigating individuals suspected of violating federal immigration law.

“The Governor’s Commission of Hispanic Affairs Annual Report 2008-2009 reports that Maryland’s Hispanic population has increased by 65%,” the mayor’s order says. “It is incumbent upon us to ensure that the newest members of our community are extended the same rights and protections the rest of us seek to preserve and enjoy.”

This month alone two states—Oregon and Maryland—passed measures that allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and a third (Colorado) is close to doing the same. For years Washington State and New Mexico were the only to offer illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. That changed earlier this year when Illinois passed a law, with strong bipartisan support, that’s expected to give about a quarter of a million illegal aliens the right to apply for a valid state driver’s license simply by providing a photo identification from their native country and some sort of proof that they’ve lived in Illinois for a year.

It appears to have started a trend. Now Connecticut and the District of Columbia are considering laws to let illegal immigrants drive in the state. Rhode Island was contemplating the same, but put the bill on hold for the year when a 39-year-old illegal immigrant struck and killed a 6-year-old boy while driving a pickup truck without a license. The illegal alien, Andres Morales, is being held by the feds on immigration charges.

That doesn’t mean Rhode Island’s bill is dead, however, because lawmakers have indicated that it will be introduced during the next legislative session. Connecticut’s proposal will likely become law, according to media reports, because it has widespread support from state and local leaders, including the governor, legislators and a number of mayors. In fact, last month they held a news conference at that state capitol to endorse the initiative.

In D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray introduced a bill just a few days ago to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses in the nation’s capital. This would happen via a two-tiered system in which illegal aliens would receive a card that wouldn’t be accepted on the federal level, to board a plane or enter a government building. In 2011 Gray, who has been embroiled in a variety of scandals, signed an executive order to make D.C. a sanctuary for illegal immigrants by forbidding police and other city agencies from asking people about their immigration status.  

Also this month, Colorado passed a bill granting illegal aliens discounted tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities. About a dozen other states—including California, Illinois, New York, Utah and Texas—already offer the perk which annually costs U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars. To celebrate the law’s passage, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper attended a rally at one of the state’s public universities and said the measure will grant illegal students with a “path forward.”

As if it weren’t bad enough that the measure, known as the Schumer-Rubio bill after the New York Democrat and Florida Republican pushing it, already offers 11 million illegal aliens instant amnesty. A nonpartisan group dedicated to researching legal and illegal immigration into the U.S., discovered the provision in the course of dissecting the monstrous legislation, which at last count spans 844 pages.

The group’s Director of Policy Studies, a former State Department foreign service officer, found this interesting little tidbit that the mainstream media is unlikely to mention; the bill expands an old visa criteria by adding three new categories of family-sponsored immigrants that will instantaneously be allowed into the U.S. They include single and married adult sons and daughters as well as siblings.

This will allow more than 1.4 million family visa applicants to bypass the current waiting list and be admitted immediately and will permit an additional 2.9 million visa hopefuls to enter the U.S. as temporary visitors. This is outrageous since we all saw what “temporary visitors” did on 9/11. It’s fair to assume that this can only weaken national security, which isn’t all that strong to begin with.

This expansion is found in Section 2308 of the legislation, on “V Non-immigrant Visas”. Originally, the V visa was created to allow the eligible kids and spouses of legal U.S. residents (green card holders) to enter the country if they had been waiting a minimum of three years. The change will reward a much larger group with immediate U.S. entry under a perk intended for children and spouses of those living in the U.S. legally.

Here’s another interesting detail; a chunk of the new immigrants can get work permits upon admission and will be processed similarly to immigrant visa applicants, with pro forma fingerprint and medical screenings. Those not entitled to a work permit can still stay in the U.S. up to 60 days a year and it’s likely many won’t leave. “Why should they? After all, they have already discovered that following the rules is not rewarded (many have been on the waiting list for several years) and overstaying is a better deal,” the immigration research group points out in its analysis.

Earlier in the week another well-known D.C. organization published a report asserting that the pending immigration legislation will cost American taxpayers an astounding $6.3 trillion. That’s because newly legalized immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits—such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and workers’ compensation—and services while paying only $3.1 trillion in taxes.

It’s political correctness on steroids, actions by the powerful mainstream media that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the masses. We’ve already seen this sort of political correctness gone amok involving this issue in local governments as well as the judicial system, both at the state and federal levels.

In 2008 Judicial Watch reported that Arizona’s Supreme Court chief justice (Ruth McGregor) began enforcing the Hispanic Bar Association’s demands of banning the terms “illegal” and “aliens” in all of the state’s courtrooms. The chief judge agreed with the group, known as “Los Abogados,” that the terms are inflammatory and using them in trails or hearings creates perceptions of judicial bias. Acceptable terms to describe illegal immigrants in Arizona courts include “foreign nationals” and “unauthorized workers.”

About a year later, Obama’s first Supreme Court appointee, Sonia Sotomayor, made her debut on the nation’s highest court by introducing a pair of new terms aimed at describing illegal immigrants in a more friendly and politically correct way. Sotomayor used “undocumented immigrant” and “undocumented worker” in lieu of illegal immigrant in her first opinion (Mohawk Industries, Inc. vs. Carpenter) as a Supreme Court Justice. The Supreme Court had never before used the phrase “undocumented immigrant” though “illegal immigrant” has appeared in a dozen decisions.

Last year lawmakers in Somerville, a Massachusetts town of 76,000, passed a resolution forbidding the word “illegal” for all human beings. The city’s mayor and alderman passed the measure after hearing from a team of youths who urged officials to give immigrants who live in the city the respect they deserve as human beings by not using terms like “illegals” to describe undocumented people. The word “illegal” is demeaning, discriminatory and unfair, according to a Colombian youth who addressed Somerville legislators.

This month two of the nation’s most influential media outlets—the Associated Press (AP) and the New York Times—have joined the bandwagon, adding illegal immigrant to a list of taboo phrases. The AP acted first by rewriting its stylebook, which is widely followed by many mainstream newspapers, to prohibit the use of “illegal” to describe a person. The word is to be used only to describe an action, according to the AP’s bulletin titled “Illegal immigrant no more.”

The AP attributes the change to the “always-evolving English language” which “might soon yield a different choice” to describe illegal immigrants in stories. The taboo words can be included in a direct quote, however, but it must be essential to the story with one blanket exception; those brought to the country as children cannot be described as having immigrated illegally.

The New York Times makes it a point to say it did “not go as far as the Associated Press” in banning illegal immigrant in its coverage, but the paper “encourages reporters and editors to consider alternatives when appropriate to explain the specific circumstances of the person in question, or to focus on actions.” This means it’s highly unlikely that the paper will publish any piece that contains illegal immigrant in it.

Does this mean the media should treat all lawbreakers in the same way to avoid hurting their feelings? That would be utterly ridiculous, according to a political news site that compares it to calling drug dealers unlicensed pharmacists, shoplifters nonpaying customers and robbers community wealth redistributors. Here’s another good one; people who run Ponzi and money laundering schemes are really undocumented bankers!

If it wasn’t so scary it would certainly be funny. As we approach the 12^th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history, our elected officials are making these seemingly empty promises to once and for all secure our borders with these measures which should have been implemented long ago. This is almost comical.

After duking it out for weeks, the bipartisan group of U.S. Senators crafting an immigration reform bill is ready to announce its plan to the American people. Here are the key points, which are being heavily touted by Florida Republican Marco Rubio, one of the geniuses working on the bill. Border security would finally be tightened in the coming years, the outdated foreign visa system that let several of the 9/11 hijackers remain in the country to plan their attack will be modernized and employers who hire undocumented workers will be punished.

A draft of the bill will include a number of measures to achieve “real border security, including fencing,” Rubio said in a national media interview. “If the Department of Homeland Security does not secure the border, does not meet the metrics of 100 percent awareness [of illegal border crossings] and 90 percent apprehension [of those crossing the border illegally] within in the first five years, then they lose control of the issue,” Rubio explained. “Then it goes to a border commission made up of people that live and have to deal with the border and they will take care of that problem. And it’ll be funded to ensure that that happens.”

Sure sounds like a lot of rambling. Let’s move on to the modernized visa system, which Rubio claims will monitor foreigners that enter with temporary visas but don’t leave when they expire. Government audits have for years exposed how the U.S. loses track of millions of visa over stayers but little has been done to correct the problem. In fact, nearly half of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants actually entered the U.S. legally but overstayed their visa, according to a federal report. The new law will have an entry and exit system to track visas, Rubio promises without offering specifics.  

The mandatory employment verification system, known as E-Verify, has been floating around for years but it hasn’t been very effective because it’s not consistently enforced. Rubio says this will change under the plan he’s promoting. In fact, he assures that illegal immigration will be discouraged by creating a forbidden job market for undocumented workers. Illegal immigrants simply “wont’ be able to find a job” if they can’t pass the E-Verify check, the senator asserts. It gets better; employers will have a “strong disincentive” to hire illegal aliens because they will finally face consequences for doing so, Rubio says.

Geez, why didn’t anyone think of this before? Promoting these common-sense measures that should have been implemented long ago as a grand immigration reform plan is insulting. Makes you wonder if Rubio has been out in the scorching Florida sun too long, after all he represents the Sunshine State in the Senate.

The case comes out of Texas and it is quite serious. A special agent in charge of DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Eugenio Pedraza, directed agents to engage in a scheme to falsify documents in open criminal investigative case files, including numerous probes in which DHS employees were suspected of participating in the illegal smuggling of undocumented aliens and/or narcotics into the United States.

The cover up is believed to have affected at least seven investigations into Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents (both are DHS agencies) accused of taking bribes to allow drug shipments and illegal immigrants through ports of entry in the U.S. between 2009 and 2011. Pedraza was trying to conceal severe lapses in the field office, including the deficient investigative standards of the OIG he ran, according to federal authorities.

Additionally, authorities say Pedraza was trying to cover up his failure to provide his subordinates with adequate training and supervision and his failure to ensure the FBI was being appropriately notified of inspector general investigations. This is how the plan worked, according to the feds; at Pedraza’s direction, DHS employees created and placed into investigative files backdated memoranda of activity that falsely reflected investigations that never occurred; worksheets that falsely reflected supervisory case reviews by Pedraza with his agents and backdated, unsent letters were signed by Pedraza that purported to inform the FBI of an inspector general probe.

Pedraza has been charged with six counts of falsification of records in federal investigations, five counts of obstructing an agency proceeding, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of conspiracy. Another agent, Marco Rodriguez was also charged with two counts of falsification of records in federal investigations, two counts of obstructing an agency proceeding and one count of conspiracy.

At least five other federal agents have been implicated but were not criminally charged this time around. Besides Pedraza and Rodriguez, another DHS special agent (Wayne Ball) involved in the scheme previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to falsify records in federal investigations. In federal court appearances this week both Pedraza and Rodriguez pleaded not guilty.

It’s bad enough that corrupt federal agents are putting national security at risk by selling U.S. entry to the highest bidding drug dealer or illegal immigrant smuggling ring. This case exposes an even scarier scenario; that the watchdog charged cracking down on it is instead part of the problem. There are 64 inspector general offices that work to rout out federal government waste, fraud and corruption. As per a 1978 law, they are required to act independently when they investigate their respective federal agencies.

We saw a similar situation a few years ago when the scheduled deportation of an illegal alien was abruptly suspended at the request of the renowned civil rights organization, which is also running the show at the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ). In fact, Judicial Watch has obtained records that show the DOJ worked hand-in-hand with the ACLU in mounting their respective legal challenges to Arizona’s get-tough illegal immigration law.

In mid-2011 the DHS suddenly halted the deportation of an illegal immigrant arrested in a domestic violence dispute after she headlined in an ACLU-sponsored press conference advocating on her behalf. The woman had been in a county jail and identified as being in the U.S. illegally through a program called Secure Communities. The DHS agency charged with deporting illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), quickly reversed course and instead decided to “terminate the removal proceedings” against the woman.

In a similar move ICE did an about face this month involving the case of a California farm worker in removal proceedings after getting arrested by local police. The 38-year-old woman, Ruth Montano, is a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. illegally for 14 years. She was reportedly arrested after returning from the store with her three children because neighbors complained that her dogs were barking too loudly.

When local authorities ran her fingerprints, Montano was identified as an illegal immigrant and ICE was notified. As per federal law the agency placed a detainer on Montano and started the deportation process. In an effort to stop Montano’s deportation, the ACLU joined forces with a Latino organization that raises awareness about social justice to release a video of the case. The illegal immigrant blames racism against Hispanics for her run-in with the law.

The ACLU even issued a nifty press release on Montano’s behalf quoting the illegal immigrant, who doesn’t even speak English, as saying this: “Given my experience, I believe that the governor needs to take seriously the fact that police are treating Hispanics differently knowing that any arrest they make can lead to deportation.”

This is part of a broader ACLU-Obama administration effort to do away with, or at the very least severely weaken, Secure Communities, the program that orders federal detainers for illegal immigrants arrested by local police. The ACLU has for years fought to stop placing the holds (which ultimately result in deportation) on illegal aliens who don’t have serious criminal conviction. Because California has the nation’s highest illegal immigrant population the ACLU has been especially active in the state.

This alarming security gap obviously means that the southern border is far from secure, but rather porous and incredibly vulnerable. It also leaves Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, with egg on her face. After all, the former Arizona governor has repeatedly toured the southern border region guaranteeing that it is “as secure as it has ever been.”

It turns out that the U.S. government’s own technology has proven this to be far from the truth. The story comes from a mainstream newspaper that reports on the state-of-the art radar system that’s turned out to be quite an embarrassment for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In a sampling of a small stretch in southern Arizona, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended fewer than half of the foreign migrants and smugglers who had crossed into the 150-mile area.

During a two week period in which the technology was used, 1,874 illegal immigrants were detained in the Sonora Desert while 1,962 in the same area evaded arrest and disappeared into the United States. “The number of ‘gotaways,’ as the Border Patrol calls those who escape apprehension, is both more precise and higher than official estimates,” the story says.

Operated from a predator surveillance drone, the airborne radar system is so precise that it detects and tracks individuals on foot from five miles overhead by using synthetic aperture radar to collect high-contrast black-and-white images in real time. The technology was developed to track Taliban fighters planting roadside bombs in Afghanistan, according to the news article, and has found new use along the Mexican border where it has revealed gaps in security.

This credible assessment of a border that’s far from secure could complicate the president’s effort to rush through legislation that reforms immigration laws by, among other things offering illegal aliens amnesty. To appease Americans and some concerned lawmakers, the commander-in-chief asserts that the nation’s borders are better patrolled than ever and that hundreds of thousands were apprehended last year.

The reality is that the southern border is a dangerous area with violence so out of control that both Mexican and American journalists have stopped reporting it out of fear that drug cartels will retaliate against them and their families. This benefits the Obama administration because it can skew statistics and general information to its benefit.

Judicial Watch has for years reported on the discrepancy between reality and the administration’s line that the Mexican border is secure. The truth is that overwhelmed federal agents are increasingly attacked by heavily armed drug smugglers and the U.S. Border Patrol has ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting.

The violence has inevitably spilled into U.S. communities near the southern border, forcing local law enforcement agencies to create special units dedicated to combating criminal activity related to illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels. In the absence of federal action, border crime has risen sharply in the last decade and will only get worse, according to statistics provided to congressional leaders by frustrated Arizona authorities.

 This means Americans will be kept in the dark about the crisis along the porous and increasingly dangerous Mexican border. We certainly can’t expect the truth from the government. Remember that the nation’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, insists that the region is “as secure as it has ever been.” This delusional assessment has been repeated by Napolitano over and over again in a seemingly desperate effort to make people believe it.

Without accurate information—say, from the media—to counter the Obama administration’s version, the public is likely to swallow the government’s less than accurate assessment. First Mexican journalists dropped like flies, either as victims of drug-cartel violence or out of fear, and stopped reporting crime in the region. U.S. journalists located in American border cities soon followed and have stopped reporting on drug-related violence.

 “Mexican journalists, because of fear for their own lives and the safety of their families, are increasingly reluctant to cover drug cartels’ violence and mayhem,” according to Lee Maril, the director of the Center for Diversity and Inequality Research (CDIR), a university group that studies human diversity and social inequality. Maril recently published a piece on the topic in a Homeland Security news site. “What has occurred in recent months is that American reporters located in American border cities also have stopped reporting on drug-related violence across the border for the same reasons as their Mexican counterparts.”

That means no one really knows the true magnitude of the violence, though it’s apparent that the U.S. government is downplaying it. “It would seem that drug violence only stops at the Mexican border in the imaginations of Washington politicians,” Maril says, offering a recent example in Reynosa, the twin border city of McAllen in south Texas. A small local newspaper reporter dared to publish this: “Fear and panic filled the streets as rival gunmen battled during a three-hour firefight that saw automatic weapons and grenades used.”  

For the most part American reporters have stopped crossing the border into cities like Reynosa because they are afraid, according to Maril. National journalists from major newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times simply ignore major stories of drug-cartel violence like what just occurred in Reynosa, says Maril who monitors the coverage closely with his group of academic researchers.

Judicial Watch has for years reported on the discrepancy between reality and the administration’s line that the Mexican border is secure. The truth is that overwhelmed federal agents are increasingly attacked by heavily armed drug smugglers and the U.S. Border Patrol has ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting.

The violence has inevitably spilled into U.S. communities near the southern border, forcing local law enforcement agencies to create special units dedicated to combating criminal activity related to illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels. In the absence of federal action, border crime has risen sharply in the last decade and will only get worse, according to statistics provided to congressional leaders by frustrated Arizona authorities.