County Sues Feds To Get Status Of Arrested Illegal Immigrants

In a seldom-seen act, a suburban Virginia county is going up against the powerful forces of the federal government by suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records involving thousands of illegal immigrants who were arrested locally and turned over for deportation.
Officials in Prince William County suspect that many of the criminal aliens, like the drunk driver who killed a nun last summer in their jurisdiction, were simply released under Obama’s backdoor amnesty plan. If so, there could be at least 3,000 criminal illegal immigrants roaming around the county, which is part of the Washington Metropolitan area and has a population of around 400,000.
Local officials demand to know what the feds did with the illegal immigrants after county authorities turned them over for removal. The feds refuse to divulge the information and have blown off two public-record requests from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. Board Chairman Corey Stewart said it’s frustrating that a local government must resort to suing the federal government to get information that should be public and is vital to local law enforcement efforts. He also expressed disappointment in the “lack of cooperation and transparency from DHS.”
The standoff began when Prince William officials discovered that a drunken illegal immigrant with an extensive criminal history killed a Benedictine nun last summer. News reports quickly surfaced that the Bolivian man, Carlos Montano, had been released by federal immigration authorities on his own recognizance after previous arrests. Montano, who had a revoked license, had twice been charged with drunken driving and had been arrested in separate incidents for other traffic-related offenses.
A few months after the nun’s tragic death Judicial Watch sued DHS for documents related to Montano’s case in an effort to answer an important question: Why did federal authorities free him if he had such a serious criminal history? Earlier this year the agency provided a heavily edited report that nevertheless provides insight into the matter. Essentially, Obama Administration policies giving immigration officials “broad discretion” relating to detention resources allow them to release illegal aliens like Montano.
In any case, Prince William County has transferred more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens to DHS custody in the last few years and officials want to know their whereabouts. The program is actually part of a local-federal team effort, practiced by municipalities nationwide, that checks the immigration status of every arrestee. It probably defeats the purpose if the feds are releasing the offenders.

DOJ Follows ACLU’s Lead, Sues State Over Immigration Law

The latest move by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to legally challenge another state’s immigration control law indicates that, under Obama, the agency has become the lap dog of the leftwing civil rights group at the helm of the open borders movement.

For the second time in a year the DOJ and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have apparently colluded to bring down a state measure passed to curb the devastating toll of illegal immigration. Last year Team DOJ-ACLU took on Arizona’s law, which makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally, bans “sanctuary city” policies and allows local police to inquire about suspects’ immigration status.

Judicial Watch uncovered DOJ documents that show the agency worked hand-in-hand with the ACLU in mounting their respective legal challenges to Arizona’s measure. The ACLU has flexed its muscle in related matters as well. A few months ago Homeland Security officials followed an ACLU order to suspend the scheduled deportation of an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles who’s working with the group to nix a program (Secure Communities) that requires local authorities to check the fingerprints of arrestees against a federal database.

This week the DOJ followed the ACLU’s footsteps in filing a lawsuit to block Alabama’s new immigration control law, which makes it a state crime to be an undocumented alien and also makes it illegal for them to work in the state. The measure also allows police to detain those suspected of being in the country illegally and makes it a crime to rent a house or apartment to an illegal alien.

Though they were filed weeks apart, the ACLU and DOJ complaints contain incredibly similar wording and both issued like-minded press releases blasting Alabama’s law as unconstitutional and undermining the federal government’s exclusive immigration enforcement duties. The ACLU used more animated language in its press release, accusing Alabama of passing a “draconian anti-immigrant law” that sanctions “discriminatory and unconstitutional practices.”

The DOJ accuses Alabama of crossing a constitutional line, asserting that the law will lead to “the harassment and detention of foreign visitors, legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens who may not be able to readily prove their lawful status.” The feds also claim that the measure will burden children by demanding that students prove their lawful presence, which in turn, will discourage parents from enrolling them in school.

This appears to be part of a broad movement by the administration to protect illegal immigrants until it figures out a way to grant them amnesty. Last spring the DOJ’s bloated civil rights division, which is headed by a renowned illegal immigrant advocate, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, created a secret group to monitor laws passed by states and local municipalities to curb illegal immigration. The undercover body is known as the National Origin Working Group and it holds special workshops dedicated to monitoring “anti-immigrant laws.”

Security “Gaps” Allow Terrorists To Enter U.S. With Visas

It may seem inconceivable but nearly a decade after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history the government has yet to develop or implement an adequate security program to keep foreign extremists from carrying out a sequel.

Two recent reports illustrate this astounding failure by the government to protect the nation from a catastrophe similar to September 11, 2001. Several of the Middle Eastern terrorists who carried out that horrific foray entered the U.S. legally and remained in the country with expired visas while they planned their sophisticated plots.

With that in mind, Congress allocated huge chunks of money to develop a reliable security system that would prevent a repeat. Incredibly, as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, critical gaps in the program allow terrorists to continue entering the U.S. It’s as if no lesson has been learned from the tragedies that violently ended the lives of thousands of innocent Americans.

The lapse was brought to light recently after authorities discovered that two Iraqi nationals with terrorist ties had been living in Kentucky for several years. The men were granted visas to enter the U.S. despite having fingerprints that linked them to roadside bombs in Iraq. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul called for an investigation and last week the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held a hearing to look into the matter.

After the hearing Paul said he remains “deeply concerned” that the U.S. continues issuing visas despite a backlog that hinders the screening process and allows potential terrorists to enter the country. "If our screening process is broken because of a backlog, then let's fix it,” Paul suggested. “By continuing to allow people into the country without having all relevant information, we put ourselves in grave danger."

A separate federal audit made public on the same day of the senate hearing reveals that four “gaps” cripple the security program that’s supposed to prevent terrorists from entering the United States. Keep in mind that multiple federal agencies have joined forces and spent millions of taxpayer dollars over the last decade to perfect the failing system.

Whether it’s bureaucracy, incompetence or a combination of both, it’s not effective and terrorists continue to enter the U.S. with government-approved visas like the 9/11 hijackers. Why? Because the U.S. doesn’t share information about known and suspected terrorists with foreign governments, doesn’t address the use of fraudulent travel documents—including easily counterfeited or doctored low-quality passports—and fails to combat corruption among immigration officials that allow terrorists to pass through checkpoints.

Those who refuse to believe that their government can be so negligent need only read the summary of the 44-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. It offers appalling details and examples of the seriousness of the matter. Agencies mentioned in the in the report include the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security.

Obama DOJ Sues “Vocal and Aggressive” Pro Lifer

While Obama’s Justice Department dismissed a critical voter intimidation case against a radical black revolutionary group, it’s going after a pro life advocate the agency calls one of “the most vocal and aggressive anti-abortion protestors.”

Ironically, the administration claims that the pro life advocate, a Maryland man named Richard Retta, intimidated and interfered with women seeking abortions in Washington D.C.-area clinics much like members of the New Black Panther Party did to white voters during the 2008 presidential election. The difference is that the Black Panthers, clad in military attire, used weapons, racial insults and profanity to deter voters.

Judicial Watch obtained records that show political appointees at the DOJ ordered the Black Panther case dismissed after the administration colluded with leftwing groups. JW’s investigation also revealed that the official Obama appointed to head the DOJ’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, lied under oath to cover up the Black Panther voter intimidation scandal.

Now Perez is pursuing a pro lifer for violating a Clinton-era law (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) that prohibits any sort of interference with a woman seeking an abortion. Retta physically obstructed a patient and volunteer escorts attempting to enter the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, according to a DOJ complaint filed a few days ago. He also “frequently walks very closely beside patients as they walk to the clinic” and he follows them into the street and oncoming traffic. Sometimes he yells at them, the feds claim.

In announcing the lawsuit, Perez vowed to pursue similar cases, saying that “individuals who seek to obtain or provide reproductive health services have the right to do so without encountering hazardous physical obstructions.” If one unarmed guy is considered such a threat, then a barrier of big, muscular, armed men intimidating voters during a presidential election certainly merits attention from the agency charged with enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States. Yet that case got dismissed.

La Raza Group Teams Up With Feds To Push Govt. Aid In Spanish

President Obama’s favorite La Raza group has teamed up with a federal agency to promote one of the administration’s many government cash giveaways with Spanish ads encouraging Latinos—possibly illegal immigrants—to apply for free U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The new campaign warns Hispanics that time is running out to get up to “$50,000 in help” from Uncle Sam to pay their mortgage, past due charges, taxes, insurance and even legal fees associated with their home. The money is being disbursed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of a billion-dollar Emergency Homeowner Loan Program (EHLP).

In 2008 the agency revealed that some 5 million fraudulent or defaulted home mortgages were in the hands of illegal immigrants, who obtained the loans from banks that were pressured by the government to offer them. In fact, the agency in charge of preserving and promoting public confidence in the nation’s financial system, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), began pushing banks to offer services to illegal aliens years earlier and many still do today.

It’s logical to assume that the involvement of the nation’s most powerful open borders group, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), in promoting government-funded mortgage aid is geared, at least in part, towards undocumented immigrants. The EHLP expired but recently got extended amid record-high unemployment to help people keep their homes. The NCLR, which has seen its federal funding skyrocket since one of its top officials got a job in Obama’s White House, wants to make sure Latinos get a piece of the pie. This week it launched a Spanish-language public service campaign to highlight the program’s “fast-approaching” deadline.

“The biggest challenge now is ensuring that people know about this opportunity and take advantage of it during the short period that it is available,” according to the NCLR director who announced the campaign that will help Latinos “seize” an “opportunity.” In the ad HUD Assistant Secretary Mercedes Marquez alerts Hispanics of the imminent deadline to get their government cash and directs them to a Spanish HUD website that assures the money will be disbursed in a “fair and impartial manner.”

Last year Marquez , a strong ally of the open borders movement, awarded an NCLR affiliate known as Chicanos Por la Causa nearly $40 million in grants to “stabilize neighborhoods and rebuild economies.” The money came from a Neighborhood Stabilization Program that has doled out $2 billion to community groups to combat the negative effects of “vacant and abandoned homes.”

Just a few weeks ago a Judicial Watch investigation revealed that federal funding for the NCLR, which for years has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars, has catapulted since Obama hired its senior vice president (Cecilia Muñoz) to be his director of intergovernmental affairs. In fact, the government cash more than doubled the year Muñoz joined the White House, from $4.1 million to $11 million. Additionally, NCLR affiliates nationwide raked in tens of millions of government grant and recovery dollars last year thanks to the Muñoz factor.

Blagojevich 4th Illinois Gov. Convicted Of Corruption

Rod Blagojevich will join an all-star lineup of disgraced Illinois politicians when he becomes the state’s fourth governor to serve time for corruption in the last three decades.

After deliberating for 10 days a federal jury convicted Blagojevich of 17 corruption charges for, among other things, trying to sell President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat. Prosecutors retried the impeached governor after a jury deadlocked on 23 of 24 counts last summer.

Judicial Watch has for years investigated Blagojevich’s corrupt activities and JW covered both trials in Chicago. In 2007 JW sued to obtain public records relating to Blagojevich’s federal investigation and in 2008 JW Director of Litigation Paul Orfanedes testified before the Illinois House Special Investigative Committee considering Blagojevich’s impeachment.

In 2009 JW obtained public records that prove Obama and Blagojevich had repeated contact after Obama became president even though the White House has vehemently denied it. The subject came up repeatedly at both trials because secret FBI wiretaps capture Blagojevich negotiating a bribe in exchange for appointing Obama’s pal to the senate.

Obama’s top aide (Rahm Emanuel, who recently became Chicago mayor) pushed Blagojevich to appoint the president’s good friend, Valerie Jarrett, to the Illinois Senate seat, according to trial testimony from Blagojevich’s one-time chief-of-staff. A longtime confidante of Obama’s, Jarrett eventually followed him to the White House and serves as a key advisor.

Blagojevich, a two-term governor who won every public office he ever ran for, was also convicted of trying to shake down the head of a children’s hospital and an Illinois racetrack executive. Technically, he could be sentenced to hundreds of years in prison but will likely go away for about a decade, according to legal experts quoted in local press reports.

It will make him the fourth Illinois governor to go to jail for felonies since the 1970s. The most recent, Republican George Ryan, is currently serving 6 ½ years for racketeering and fraud. In 1987 Democrat Dan Walker was convicted of bank fraud and in 1973 Democrat Otto Kerner was convicted of more than a dozen counts of bribery, conspiracy and perjury.

Illinois has a strong public corruption legacy that has seen at least 79 elected officials convicted for wrongdoing in the last few decades. Among them are more than a dozen prominent state legislators, city officials, county judges and even a popular mayor.

The problem is so pervasive that a few years ago the state’s largest newspaper published an editorial declaring a campaign against the Illinois “culture of political sleaze.” The piece lists several examples of public corruption and accuses all Illinoisans of not asking enough integrity from public officials, laws and the people paid to enforce them.

EPA Gives Millions In Foreign Handouts

The Obama cabinet secretary who launched a costly program to make America’s minority communities green has sent millions of taxpayer dollars to environmental causes overseas, including China, Russia and India.

Ranking members of a congressional energy committee call it “foreign handouts” amid record deficits, soaring unemployment and a looming debt ceiling in the U.S. The money—$27 million since 2009—has been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is headed by Lisa Jackson.

The cash was issued via 65 foreign grants that don’t even include Canada and Mexico, according to a report issued this week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Among the enraging foreign handouts are $1.2 million for the United Nations to promote clean fuels, $718,000 to help China comply with two initiatives and $700,000 for Thailand to recover methane gas at pig farms.

An additional $150,000 went to help the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) combat fraud in carbon trading and $15,000 to Indonesia’s “Breathe Easy, Jakarta” publicity campaign. This sort of federal spending does not reflect the priorities of the American people, according to a letter that several lawmakers sent Jackson in the report’s aftermath.

Since being appointed EPA Administrator, Jackson has gone on a manic spending spree to bring “environmental justice” to low-income and minority communities. Under the program, dozens of leftwing groups have received millions of taxpayer dollars to help poor and indigenous people increase recycling, reduce carbon emissions through “weatherization,” participate in “green jobs” training and avoid heat stroke.

The EPA's budget has also surged 34% since Jackson took over to a whopping $10.3 billion. The figure includes $43 million for efforts to reduce greenhouse gases that the agency claims “endanger” public health. Nearly half of the EPA’s budget goes to grants that fund state environmental programs, nonprofits and educational institutions that help promote the agency’s agenda.

Councilwoman Who Stuffed Bribe In Bra Pleads Guilty, Won’t Quit

A prominent Maryland councilwoman who made international headlines for flushing a bribe down the toilet and stuffing another in her underwear has pleaded guilty to a felony but won’t leave her $96,417-a-year public job.

The unbelievably pompous move has led the area’s largest newspaper to blast the lawmaker, Prince George’s County Councilwoman Leslie Johnson, as a “case study in arrogance.” Every day she serves in public office and every act she commits in her official capacity is a disgrace to the county and her constituents, the editorial says.

In November Johnson and her equally corrupt husband (Jack Johnson) got arrested for operating a large-scale bribery scheme. Jack, a former county executive, recently got convicted of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes from developers as the county’s top elected official. Leslie tried to cover up the bribes by flushing a $100,000 check down the toilet and stuffing nearly $80,000 in her bra when federal agents came snooping.

The Johnsons were well known in the state as an African-American power couple. As Maryland’s largest county with a population of about 835,000 and 27 municipalities, Prince George’s County has the distinction of being the nation’s wealthiest with a black majority of residents. The Johnsons have even appeared on the cover of a major newspaper’s Sunday magazine as the stars of an article touting the county as a hub for educated black professionals.

For years the feds suspected that Jack and other county officials had been taking bribes from real estate developers in exchange for personal and business favors. As FBI agents tried to search the Johnson mansion, Jack ordered his wife to flush a bribe from a developer down the toilet and hide the rest in her underwear.

The feds recorded the incriminating telephone conversation and subsequently found $79,000 in cash stuffed into Leslie Johnson’s bra, according to federal prosecutors. The bribes were paid to Jack Johnson by a developer who needed his help securing federal grants for affordable housing projects, according to the feds.

This week Leslie, who is an attorney and once served as a judge in the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty to destroying evidence, but she refuses to resign from the council despite calls from colleagues and the media to quit. “I look forward to continuing to serve and help the lives of those in need,” Johnson said told the media as she left court.

Leslie could go to jail for more than a year, which of course, means that she will then be forced to relinquish her public office. Her sentencing is scheduled for October. Under Maryland law elected officials convicted of felonies must resign but a conviction evidently isn’t final until sentencing. In the meantime, District 6 will be represented by a handsomely paid felon.

JW Probe: Obama’s HUD Violates ACORN Funding Ban

A Judicial Watch investigation has found that the Obama Administration recently violated the ban on federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) by giving the famously corrupt group tens of thousands of dollars in grants to “combat housing and lending discrimination.”
Congress passed a law (Defund ACORN Act) in 2009 to stop the huge flow of taxpayer money that annually went to ACORN after a series of exposés about the leftwing group’s illegal activities. Judicial Watch has been a leader in investigating ACORN by requesting public records and taking legal action to uncover details of its fraudulent voter registration drives, involvement in the housing market meltdown and its close ties to President Obama. Read all about it here.
 This week a JW probe uncovered that Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently awarded a $79,819 grant to an ACORN reincarnation called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). Incredibly, the government’s federal expenditure website openly describes the recipient as ACORN Housing Corporation Inc. and lists the group’s New Orleans address at 1024 Elysian Fields.
 HUD’s press release announcing the award is more discreet, however. It lists the recipient of the $79,819 grant as Florida-based Affordable Housing Centers of America, even though it’s the same ACORN offshoot. In all, HUD awarded 108 “fair housing organizations” more than $40 million to educate the public and combat discrimination. The allocation represents a $13.2 million increase over last year’s allotment to end housing discrimination against minorities.
In addition to disregarding the ACORN funding ban, the grant is astounding because federal investigators have previously exposed fraud by the same ACORN/AHCOA affiliate. Last fall an audit by HUD’s inspector general found that it “inappropriately” spent more than $3.2 million in grants that were supposed to be used to eliminate lead poisoning in its housing program.
A separate investigation, also conducted by HUD’s IG, determined that ACORN embezzled millions of dollars for “housing counseling” and destroyed documents to hide the fraud. In that report, the IG reveals that the scope of ACORN’s money laundering is impossible to fully track, though it determined with certainty that HUD laws and policies were widely violated when ACORN spent big chunks of public funds to pay the lucrative salaries and “fringe benefits” of its employees.

U.S. To Suspend Countless Deportations

In a first for any administration, President Obama has implemented a new system to spare a myriad of illegal immigrants from removal by authorizing—and encouraging—low-level field officers to block deportations by using an outrageously broad list of exemptions.

The unprecedented program will allow droves of undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. by drastically expanding factors that can be considered to exercise “prosecutorial discretion.” That’s when agencies get to decide to what degree they enforce certain laws against particular individuals.

Beginning this week, federal immigration officers, attorneys and other officials can cancel the removal of an illegal immigrant that is breast feeding or pregnant, has pursued an education in the U.S., has a relative in the military, has ties and contributions to the community or a U.S.-born child (anchor baby), to name a few. A “person’s length of presence in the U.S.” will also strengthen their case to stay.

The new prosecutorial discretion guidelines are outlined in a memo issued a few days ago by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton. For the first time ever, employees from field agents to senior officials are empowered to apply the ridiculously broad criteria to help illegal immigrants avoid deportation.

Morton encourages ICE officers, agents and attorneys to quickly consider prosecutorial discretion for illegal immigrants who meet the new benchmarks instead of waiting for their advocate or counsel to “request a favorable exercise of discretion." He claims in the memo that this will “preserve government resources.”

Clearly, this is the Obama Administration’s latest effort to fulfill a secret amnesty plan in case Congress doesn’t pass legislation to legalize the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants. Earlier this year political appointees at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), issued a directive to enact “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action.”

That plan includes delaying deportation indefinitely (“deferred action”), granting green cards, allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. indefinitely while they seek legal status (known as “parole in place”) and expanding the definition of “extreme hardships” so any illegal alien could meet the criteria and remain in the country.

Judicial Watch has sued the Department of Homeland Security to obtain records detailing the stealth amnesty plan because the agency has ignored a federal public records request that dates back to July 2010.

Illegal Immigrant Works Years As Police Officer

In a story that raises questions about how local law enforcement agencies vet candidates to “serve and protect’ communities, an illegal immigrant with a stolen identity spent years as an officer in Alaska’s largest police department.

The unbelievable tale is reminiscent of a similar case in Wisconsin a few years ago. An illegal alien used the identity of his cousin, a deceased American citizen, to work as an officer in the Milwaukee Police Department for five years before getting caught.

Incredibly, this has also occurred at the federal level. A few years ago the U.S. Border Patrol discovered that an agent (Oscar Antonio Ortiz) had used a fraudulent birth certificate to join the Homeland Security agency. The blunder was discovered after Ortiz got busted for smuggling fellow Mexicans into the U.S. in his government vehicle.

In the Alaska case, an illegal immigrant from Mexico (Rafael Mora-Lopez) first worked as a city bus driver for six years before joining the Anchorage Police Department, where he spent another six years as a patrolman before getting caught recently. This month he pleaded guilty to federal charges for passport fraud and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.

As a longtime Alaska resident, Mora-Lopez collected nearly $30,000 in dividends issued to legal state residents from oil profits. He also voted in local and national elections with his assumed identity and used it to bring his future wife to Alaska from Mexico and help her obtain U.S. citizenship.

Incredibly, Anchorage’s police chief defends the illegal alien who duped his agency, saying that he was a “good officer except for the fact he was impersonating someone else.” A local news web site joined the chief this week, pointing out that Mora-Lopez was a “successful and well-liked APD officer who had worked as a bus driver before becoming a cop.”

In the same story, the Alaska Dispatch criticizes the lack of interest in what could be a fascinating story of one family’s efforts to make a new life in the U.S. and how they worked around immigration policy and through government bureaucracy. “Mora-Lopez parlayed his new identity into a pretty good vision of the American Dream,” the piece says.

Mexican Gang Charged With Terrorizing Blacks

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DOJ Lies About Immigration Courts To Hide Corruption

The Department of Justice distorts figures to hide from Congress pervasive corruption in the nation’s immigration court system, which allows deportable aliens to evade hearings without consequences and more than 1 million removal orders to be ignored.

Adding insult to injury, U.S. taxpayers finance the drove of appeals filed by illegal immigrants deported for criminal convictions and fraudulent marriages. From 2000 to 2007, Americans doled out $30 million for aliens’ court costs, according to a new report authored by a former immigration court judge (Mark H. Metcalf) in south Florida, considered a hotbed in the system.

The veteran jurist says the nation’s immigration courts, which are operated by the DOJ, are ruled by deception and disorder and are at the heart of a system that nurtures scandal. About 250 overwhelmed judges preside over hundreds of thousands of cases annually and rarely are their deportation orders enforced.

Even after the 2001 terrorist attacks, 50% of all aliens who were free pending trial disappeared, according to figures provided in the judge’s report. Between 2005 and 2006 the number of aliens who failed to appear at their court hearing grew to 59%.

The DOJ deceptively reported the figure as “only” 39% by combining aliens who were free pending trial with those in custody who were forced by authorities to appear in court. That allowed the so-called bail-jumpers to appear as a smaller part of a bigger overall figure.

The agency also told Congress that immigration courts rule in favor of aliens only 20% of the time when in fact its 60% and that aliens appeal deportation orders in only 8% of cases when the figure is actually 98%. Many more examples are included in the judge’s report, which refers to the DOJ’s findings as a sham.

“Accuracy, credibility, relevance, and timeliness elude this agency and the flow of believable statistics to the public,” it says. The judge suggests that Congress order its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an in-depth probe.

Congress Gives Staff Hefty Bonuses Amid Budget Crisis

While the nation continues suffering through a financial crisis, federal lawmakers from both political parties remain incredibly generous with tax dollars, doling out millions in bonuses to members of their staff including those with six-figure salaries.

Considering that unemployment is at an all-time high and the federal budget is in desperate need of slashing, this is the last thing Americans need to hear. The bonuses, distributed my members of Congress, ranged from $2,000 to about $5,000 and totaled more than $21 million. The money was distributed shortly after the federal government finished the year with a $1.3-trillion budget deficit. The data, which can be viewed here, was compiled by a Washington D.C. nonprofit dedicated to tracking congressional salaries.

The bonuses came out of the public funds that each member of the U.S. House gets for office expenses and salaries. Any unspent money goes back to the government, or in most cases, to pad staffers’ salaries. The worst offender in 2010 was Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite, a Republican who represented east-central Florida before retiring last year. She paid out more than $200,000 in bonuses, according to the database.

Nearly one in 10 House members paid at least $100,000 in staff bonuses in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the compiled stats. Almost half of the lawmakers from California, the state with the largest House delegation, gave their staff bonuses including five who generously distributed at least six figures.

In a local newspaper report several members of California’s delegation explained that bonuses are essential to compete with the private sector. One Democrat from San Jose pointed out that “recruiting quality staff for quality constituent services is difficult enough given limited resources.” Another, who paid an average $5,000 bonus, says it’s a “modest financial recognition.”

Perhaps it wouldn’t seem so modest if the money came out of the legislators’ pockets. Not surprisingly, no one cared to comment on the bonuses that went to congressional staffers who make six-figure salaries.

Bribes Are Part Of Politics, Blagojevich Tells Judge

Chicago—Trading a U.S. Senate appointment for a personal benefit is perfectly legal and politicians throughout history have committed similar acts, according to Rod Blagojevich, who took the stand for a fourth day Wednesday in his corruption retrial.

As a recent example the impeached Illinois governor offered a deal brokered between Barack Obama and his then-rival Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential election. Obama offered to appoint Clinton Secretary of State in exchange for pulling out of the presidential race and gave her $10 million to settle her campaign debt.

This according to Blagojevich, who is charged with 20 crimes including attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud. The most explosive charge involves a scheme to sell the senate seat left vacant when Obama got elected president.

Blagojevich’s defense has two parts; he truly didn’t think he committed any wrongdoing because his actions are commonplace in politics and that he was simply following the recommendations of trusted advisers. In a courtroom hearing outside of the jury’s presence, Blagojevich gave the judge (James Zagel) his spiel about politicians who have participated in similar schemes.

Gerald Ford offered Ronald Reagan two cabinet positions and an ambassadorship not to run for president, Blagojevich said, and Dwight Eisenhower offered Earl Warren a seat on the U.S Supreme Court in exchange for his support. Keeping with tradition, Blagojevich was determined to get something in return for his power as governor to appoint a senator.

“I’m not giving it up for nothing,” he testified, recalling how it all went down in the fall of 2008. “I knew it was a unique opportunity.” His key motivation was to help his constituents, he said. “Good stuff for the people of Illinois came first,” Blagojevich testified.

Throughout the day Judge Zagel admonished Blagojevich for rambling on about unrelated matters after most of his attorney’s questions. When jurors broke for lunch Zagel ordered the defense team to force Blagojevich to answer questions concisely, pointing out that many of his long-winded responses sound like a campaign speech. The excessive chatter is diminishing the jury’s attention span, the judge told defense lawyers.

Federal prosecutors are expected to begin cross examining Blagojevich on Thursday. It will be interesting to see it he’s as relaxed as he’s been while fielding defense softballs. Blagojevich smiles frequently and regularly interjects witty lines into his testimony.