Two key congressional Republicans asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano how the new policy mimicking the DREAM Act will be enforced without costing American taxpayers extra money.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) want clarification behind the fees assessment for the application process, which starts Aug. 15. The rules were unveiled Friday, and Smith criticized the guidance as letting illegal-immigrant students go to the front of the line ahead of immigrants applying and waiting in the standard legal route.
“Historically, the refusal of USCIS to charge enough in application/processing fees to cover the actual costs of processing those applications resulted in an enormous backlog of legal immigration benefits applications and in very long processing wait times for legal immigrants and aspiring U.S. citizens. Per USICS request, Congress provided funds to USCIS specifically to hire personnel to reduce that backlog,” Smith and Grassley wrote Napolitano.
Individuals will be able to request deferred action consideration by submitting a request to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) along with the standard $380 fee to process an employment authorization application and the $85 fee that is charged to all immigrants to cover the cost of the biometric check. The new process charges no additional fees for the DREAMers who will rush to submit applications on opening day.
“The decision not to charge a fee for form I-821D processing threatens a return to enormous backlogs and another request to Congress for appropriated funds,” they wrote. “It is wrong to put the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of legal immigrants and U.S. citizens. And it is an additional insult to make U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for this massive amnesty program.”
“For the sake of preserving our immigration system and ensuring that policies are fiscally sound, we would like to understand the Department’s rationale for the fee assessment for illegal immigrants who will benefit from the directive. We deserve honesty and accountability, and seek to ensure that legal immigrants and taxpayers will not be hurt by this faulty plan.”
It doesn’t matter whether they are charging fees or not. What USCIS is doing is not a lawful policy, and those executing it are acting under the color of authority, not actual lawful authority. They need to be charged with the appropriate violation–misuse of Federal funds/resources if nothing else– since “following orders is not an excuse”. The orders must be lawful, in addition to being an order.
The conumdrum may ge that blatant violations of law may be more than are stoppable by the political force that the GOP thinks it may be able to possess by normal means. What then?
Say the election goes against the GOP the same as last, 52-48. I don’t think it will either go against or be that percentage, but for the sake of argument let’s say it does. Does 48% of the population simply have to put up with rule by fiat simply because it is 48%?
Is winning a majority the *only* legitimization argument needed these days? And if not, what to do next?
And the ever-present corollary questions–other than that imposed by dint of force, what obligation does a populace have to obey a government ruling by law when the government itself will not obey law?
How about we enforce the actual immigration LAWS and not Obama’s dictatorial POLICY?!
– free in America.
What a farce. Instead of quibbling over the price, why the hell aren’t Smith and Grassley demanding an investigation into this illegal arrogation of power, and why isn’t the rest of the GOP team working on taking this thing to court? Ah right, so they can put up their token resistance to try to smoke screen the base, then quietly let it fade away, lest they offend their mythical potential Latino Republicans.
1 @Anonymous
what obligation does a populace have to obey a government ruling by law when the government itself will not obey law
I belive that was addressed in a subversive document produced over 100 years ago called the Declaration of Independence.
Selective enforcement of the law is an abdication of the rule of law. We are no longer a nation of the rule of law we have the rule of man. Coming soon Pres 0bama’s new tax code. Just as 2,634 page health care law emerged very quickly, I speculate, the new tax laws are being written right now.
The US government is not going to do anything about illegal immigration, they have proven that. At some point we’ll have to fight Mexicans in the streets because of it.
My guess is Grassley et al are raising this issue as a formal prelude to refusing to grant the funding necessary to implement this blatantly illegal scheme. The Nightmare Act was not passed into law, and with good reason. Now, by the stroke of the dictator’s pen, its close equivalent has been enacted into “law”. Well, here’s a memo to that kinyun in DC… just because YOU think something is cool, or moves us toward your addled brain’s version of “utopia”, does not make it legal OR right.
Let us hope Grassley and his cohorts will stand as strongly on this issue as they have on Fast and Furious, and deny the necessary finding to enable this travesty of justice to move forward…. or, more accurately, move US backward. Much more of this nonesense and we WILL be fighting the illegals in the streets. Make no mistake, while this “law” is framed to address Mexican illegals, it will apply just as easily to non-Mexicans…. and in case somone fails to read between the lines, let me spell it out… it will also apply to those of “middle eastern” descent.. yes, moslems bent upon the subjugation of our nation.
Tionico, I think you’re right on this. Congress can’t fight this fiat directly without going to court, but they can undermine it so badly that it becomes untenable without actual legislation.
Grassley is just beating around the bush. He has nothing to stop unilateral executive action so its this.
Pitiful that the congress has so little concern for their own constitutional power that they let the politics of one upsmanship strip them of it. It is a precedent that is sure to come back and bite us in the behind.