Obama Fundraises as the Border Disintegrates

pic_giant_061014_SM_Border-Crisis-in-TexasAs the orchestrated chaos at America’s southern border remains unrelenting, President Obama is doing what he does best: ignoring another crisis in favor of fundraising. And despite that fundraising taking place in Texas, the state hardest hit by the onslaught of illegal alien children, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisted Monday that Obama had no intention of visiting the border. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was incensed. “President Obama needs a wakeup call — and visiting the border and seeing firsthand the severity of this ongoing crisis is that wakeup call,” he said in remarks prepared for airing on Senate floor.

It’s not going to happen, and even Democrats are beginning to get exasperated. On Sunday, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), whose congressional district sits on the U.S.-Mexican border, accused the White House of being late to the game. “With all due respect to the administration, they’re one step behind. They should have seen this coming a long time ago,” Cuellar told CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union.”

Actually they did, and not just recently. On January 29, 2014 an ad placed at the FedBizOpps.Gov website was looking to procure escort services for 65,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs). Contained in the same ad was a far greater indicator of the Obama administration’s ultimate intentions once that crisis developed. Whoever provided the escort services was also expected to transport “these juveniles to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelters located throughout the continental United States.” That would be the ORR whose mission is to “provide people in need with critical resources to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society.”

In other the words, the administration was not only anticipating a crisis before one developed, it had seemingly decided that the massive influx of illegals would be categorized as “refugees.” Yesterday the United Nations got into the act, urging the administration to embrace that definition as a means of making thousands of illegals eligible for asylum, rather than sending them home. When asked whether the administration considered the current border assault a refugee crisis, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was “a humanitarian situation that requires urgent attention.”

Yet urgent attention is exactly what is lacking, and the administration is citing the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 as the reason. Enacted by a Democratically-controlled Congress and signed by President Bush, the law offers additional protections to UACs who are not from Canada or Mexico. Those protections include an opportunity to appear at an immigration hearing, consult with an advocate, possibly retain counsel, and receive placement by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is tasked with placing the child “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.”

Unfortunately for Obama, another Democrat has challenged his interpretation of the statute. “That law already provides the administration with flexibility to accelerate the judicial process in times of crisis,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who helped craft the Act. “The administration should use that flexibility to speed up the system while still treating these children humanely, with compassion and respect.”

Again, it’s not going to happen, and Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse website nails down exactly why. He explains that the Obama administration’s strategy of telling the public one thing, and doing exactly the opposite behind the scenes, is in full swing. “In the foreground we will continue to see President Obama and fellow travelers say they are opposed to the influx and committed to stopping it,” he writes. “However, in the background they are giving specific instructions to the federal agencies to continue promoting the process and affirming the intent.”

Thus, as Fox News reports, Obama is “holding off on seeking legal changes to speed up the deportation process for illegal immigrant children.” Instead, the president is seeking a whopping $3.7 billion for housing, immigration judges, detention facilities, and legal aid, associated with latest influx of illegals. The AP lays out the details—and plays a devious game in the process. They note the largest allocations include $1.1 billion “for the Department of Homeland Security to help deter border-crossers and increase enforcement,” $433 million “for Customs and Border Protection to cover overtime costs and for additional facilities to detain unaccompanied children while they are in Border Patrol custody,” and $1.8 billion “to the Department of Health and Human Services for the care of unaccompanied children, including shelter and medical care.”

Note that the overwhelming amount of this spending is directed at maintaining a status quo that does nothing to address the ongoing assault on our borders. As for the level of seriousness, there is another $600 million dollar request in the package—for fighting wildfires in Western states. In the meantime, there is no timetable for speeding up the deportation process.

Yet note something far more important: last weekend, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) issued a calculating directive to its personnel. According to an internal ICE email obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies and shared with Breitbart News, usage of the term “UAC” is to be discontinued and replaced with “unaccompanied children.” The email goes even further. “The appropriate messaging on documents should be using the term : unaccompanied children all lower case. (Unless capitalizing would be grammatically correct),” the email states.

Less than a week later, the Associated Press has taken its cues, as the leftist impulse to control the narrative takes hold. That impulse was abetted to the point of absurdity by radical leftist Sally Kohn who contends the words “illegal immigrants,” or “illegals” are the equivalent of calling black Americans the n-word, and gay americans the f-word. “Today, most people find the n-word and the f-word incredibly offensive,” she explains. “Let’s hope that most if not all people will feel the same way about the words ‘illegals’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ in the not too distant future.”

As for the reality of speeding up the deportation process, Obama claims he will get to it, and the Republican House is reportedly working on an effort to change the 2008 law. But the president knows for certain the Democratically-controlled Senate that passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill last summer isn’t about to alienate its pro-amnesty constituency. A senior Democratic staffer in the Senate illuminated pre-ordained reality regarding Obama’s ostensible effort. “He can’t get it passed,” the staffer insisted.

And because Obama can’t get anything resembling an enforcement bill passed, the spending package is in jeopardy as well—which may be exactly what the president wants. That reality was inadvertently revealed by the Washington Post:

Republicans argue that Obama must stop the flow of illegal immigrants to the border and ensure that the entire border is secure before focusing on the tens of thousands who are already in detention facilities there…Democrats, meanwhile, say that the first step must be to provide more funding to pay for new detention facilities and legal services to work through the debilitating backlog of children who are already at the border. Providing an influx of money for detention centers and to pay for additional judges, several Democrats have argued, is more urgent than altering the 2008 law in terms of addressing the current crisis.

Such a stalemate aligns perfectly with a president far more interested in paying lip service to the nation’s problems than dealing with them, even as it allows him to once again paint Republicans as the obstructionist party for failing to embrace the “bigger picture” of comprehensive immigration reform.

As an added bonus, the president can get back to his fundraising. Fundraising that includes visits to Dallas and Austin, where he will be rubbing elbows with pro-amnesty Hollywood stars at events where ticket prices range from $5,000 to $32,400. One of those fundraisers will be at the Austin home of Mexican director Robert Rodriguez, whose movie “Machete” depicts the murders of people opposed to illegal immigration. Obama has even agreed to meet with Texas Governor Rick Perry on Wednesday in Dallas to discuss the current crisis.

Dallas is more than 400 miles from the Mexican border.

In the meantime, the crisis continues unabated. Illegal immigrant children afflicted with tuberculosis, scabies, chickenpox and lice remain at Lackland Air Force base in Oklahoma, illegal alien criminals are being released in Virginia and Arizona, the ongoing protests in Murrieta, CA threaten to escalate, and a leaked DHS internal report from ICE reveals that only 0.1 percent of the Central American minors illegally entering the U.S. were deported in FY2013.

And amidst it all, the restrictions the Obama administration are attempting to impose on members of Congress and the media are astounding. The HHS is telling members of Congress visiting the immigration detention center at Lackland that they cannot take pictures, use recording devices, or interact with staff or children. On Thursday when the media’s tour begins, they will be subjected to the same restrictions.

The Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell offers the proper perspective on this administration’s efforts. “Imagine after Katrina that reporters are getting ready to go to New Orleans, and the Bush administration says to reporters, now one thing: no recording devices, no questions, no interacting with staff or children, no photos, and no interviews, but other than that you can cover Katrina,” he said yesterday on Fox’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “The response would be that this is the statement of a dictatorship,” Bozell added.

This is indeed Obama’s Katrina moment with one giant difference: the same mainstream media that completely excoriated George W. Bush as indifferent at best, and racist at worst for flying above the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina remain appalling passive in the face of transparent insensitivity borne of nothing more than crass political calculation. “We’re not worried about those optics,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest responding to a reporter who asked him if the Obama administration should be worried about how it will look for the president to be in Texas and avoid the border. Americans might ask themselves what kind of leader sees thousands of Third World children as “optics.” Or perhaps more accurately, political props for advancing a pro-amnesty agenda.

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  • jwmiller

    There’s something definitely amiss if Obama wants to pass up a Photo-Op Session. Believe Obama&Co don’t want to be associated with this particular self-created crappola in video/pictures; and, now, want to completely lay this mess at Congresses’ feet & claim Obama has no choices. Nevermind that Pen&Phone he so arrogantly boasts of. There is so much subversion going on here it could choke an elephant which, by the way, is part of their deviousness. Pelosi summed it up in her little jaunt to So. Border by proclaiming there are no Borders in the Americas (‘we’re all Americans’) Can you say NWO?

  • windywillows357

    Hey why not take the buses of illegals to the convention and tell them there is a party for them inside with free food! Let the Dems experience what an invasion is.

  • Bert

    Obama is deliberately offending the people of Texas by ignoring their border and going to his fund raisers. He knows that it will look bad and more Americans will turn against him, including a few Democrats. So why do it? Answer: He no longer cares about the law or what people think. He is now willing to force his control on Americans and show that no one can stop him. Let that reality sink in.

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  • john van vliet

    At least Americans get what they voted for a corrupt socialist dictator for who does not care. except for Obama, the progressive and the conservatives are just f talkers and do nothing else while the country is going downhill in a record tempo. But you have only to blame yourself and the burocrates in Wasington…it is jut a mess with all the corruption and time is now to take severe action to stop this in-experienced men ruin the country even further…. 5 years ago I wrote that this man has no experience and is a talker…..I, sorry to say, am right also I am certainly taken that most young Americans h and they have no clue about politics, but voted this guy in……A total disaster for the USA….. and the people who will pay the bill for all the screw ups of Obama !!!!

  • rbla

    Politicians like Cornyn who expect Obama to do something if he personally sees what is going on are quite naïve. They are like the good German who hearing about the death camps says “if only the Fuhrer knew what was happening he would put a stop to it.”

  • nimbii

    Pilosi and her ilk are gleefully calling this a stroke of masterful genius. Overwhelm the system and get Dem reelection insurance for decades to come.

  • Sassy Serf

    There is no reason to be surprised and no excuse for being shocked, at this point, by what Obama does or doesn’t do. I am, however, still surprised and still shocked by what the American people will passively submit to.

  • Hard Little Machine

    I think if you press him Obama would admit that he wants to see the US ‘return’ all of the South West to Mexico and then when the US border is the Mississippi river, engineer a way to get those people across that new border as well.

  • kasandra

    I don’t understand why the Republicans don’t immediately introduce a bill to amend the 2008 law to allow these invaders to be turned away right at the border. I imagine it wouldn’t take more than just lining out a few sentences. It probably wouldn’t pass the Senate but it would force the open border crowd to go on record opposing it, allowing the voters to see who they are and, in four months, make their views known at the ballot box.

  • okokok
    • kasandra

      Are you insane? You really think Louis Gohmer is dumber than Sheila Jackson Lee, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz or Mark Greyson? What color is the sky on you planet?

      • okokok

        It’s not the color of Obama derangement syndrome…

        • Elizabeth Cape Cod

          As opposed to Bush derangement syndrome?
          You people invented derangement.

          • okokok

            delusional folks like you are usually locked up; we kicked most of you out of Reagan country, took it over and are coming for you!

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            obama has recently been voted the worst president since World War II, say 33 percent of American voters in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released on July 2, 2014. Another 28 percent pick President George W. Bush.

            You’re the one on the losing end. Liberals are running scared because they know the people are fed up with your incompetence and corruption.

          • okokok

            we don’t care what you delusional bigot freaks think or do about anything; just take the rest of your ilk out of CA…lol lol

            The audacity and pure arrogance of the republican party never ceases to amaze me. After the Bush administration lied to take us into two unnecessary wars for greed, broke the Geneva convention, destroyed a country for no reason but greed, outed a CIA agent, yet you choose to ignore all of his sins, After being guilty of this and so much more, has said he does not feel he owes anyone an apology and you completely ignore HIS sins, HIS atrocities and think Obama owes us an apology???? Man you are dense and I suspect a racist.

            “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

            -Sinclair Lewis

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            That’s life, honey. Your side loses.

          • okokok

            lol lol….you don’t get it, we ALREADY won!;most of you morons are gone; we raised revenues [The real problem is we had 3 consecutive GOP governors after Reagan from 1983–thru 2011 who each served 2 consecutive terms [except for Davis] for 8 years each who almost ruined the state financially; finally, we threw them all out in EVERY office at the state level and now have a supermajority in the state legislature; it will also happen in most other states–the GOP wants to do nothing but give the rich more money– lying about “creating jobs”. Their bs has run its course; folks are on to them..}
            CA is now doing great, relatively speaking, in spite of bagger rule in the old south… http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/08/29/216150644/how-california-is-turning-the-rest-of-the-west-blue lol
            do you live in one of the moocher states? http://www.businessinsider.com/red-states-are-welfare-queens-2011-8 lol lol

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            California is in financial ruin. The top welfare states have voted, between the years 1980 and 2013, more often for democrats than republicans. They just happen to be a republican period to clean up the mess left by democrats.

          • okokok

            Truly another uneducated ignorant utterance…go away! Lol

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            And there you have the typical liberal mindset: If facts are inconvenient, ignore them and make them go away.

    • Elizabeth Cape Cod

      There is a tidal wave of illegals pouring into Texas. Obama saw it coming, and instead of being proactive to stem the flow by demanding of Mexico and Central American presidents to stop the onslaught, he sends out a federal jobs request in January, 2014 , to recruit escorts to meet illegal minors at the border. He’s a POS!

      • okokok

        That’s just plain hillbilly ignorant.

        • Elizabeth Cape Cod

          And you don’t have a rebuttal.

          • okokok

            To ignorance and stupidity? That’s your expertise…lol lol

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            And you don’t have a rebuttal. If you can’t defend this POS in chief, why are you wasting our time?

          • okokok

            Are you institutionalized?

          • Elizabeth Cape Cod

            Why? Are you looking to meet someone?

  • 95Theses

    Obama – our Tfelon® president.

  • iluvisrael

    Even the formerly fawning and drooling crowd over at unwatched msnbc is turning on lil barri.

  • Christopher Riddle

    At this stage in”W’s”Presidency,he had attended 216 fundraisers:Obongo(at the same stage)has attended 393!!!!!!!!Besides”Attending Fundraisers,Golfing,and going on holiday,just WHAT does This A$$H*LE FInd Time FOR???????????????????

  • RobiMac

    Is anyone really showing up at that jackasses fundraisers and giving him money?