Report: Jared Kushner Driving Immigration Policy Debate in White House

For me, as goes Stephen Miller, so goes the nation!***
Miller, if you don’t know, was Senator Jeff Sessions chief aide on immigration when Sessions was the Senator holding his finger in the dyke to stem the flood of illegal and LEGAL immigration flooding America.

Kushner and Miller
Is Kushner side-lining immigration expert Stephen Miller?

The Dems want the “new American” voters and powerful business interesting in the Republican Party want a large pool of immigrant laborers to compete with American workers for jobs (at all levels!).
Now we are learning that Miller, who is one of only a few who went from the campaign to the White House with Trump (and survived, so far) is being sidelined as Jared Kushner, the first son-in-law, wants to practice his bipartisan deal making skills on the issue of immigration.
Here is McClatchy reporting on Kushner’s latest play,

Jared Kushner privately working on reshaping legal immigration

And, pushing Stephen Miller to the sidelines?

WASHINGTON
As debate in public rages about illegal immigration and a border wall, Jared Kushner has been holding private meetings in the West Wing on ways to overhaul the legal immigration system, according to six people familiar with the conversations and documents obtained by McClatchy.
President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law is operating on at least two tracks — the first is working with a small group studying specific ways to redistribute employment visas and the second is helping lead a series of “listening sessions” with about three dozen interest groups important to Trump to see if there is a position that Republicans can rally around before the 2020 elections.
[….]
What is clear from conversations with participants and both current and former Trump officials is that Kushner has helped kicked (sic) off a fresh discussion on immigration that reflects a new paradigm in the White House. It’s a shift away from priorities of 2017 that sought to prevent the influx of foreign workers who could displace American workers in favor of a new approach preferred by more traditional Republicans, particularly those close to the corporate sector who are desperate to attract more foreign workers to fill U.S. factories and tech hubs.
[….]
According to meeting agendas obtained by McClatchy, those invited to sessions with Kushner come from some of Trump’s core constituencies in the worlds of religion, law enforcement, agriculture and business. They include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, Association of Builders and Contractors, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Council on National Policy, George W. Bush Center and Select Milk Producers.

I want to remind readers that the Heritage Foundation may be good on illegal immigration, but they sure did get wobbly on refugees awhile back, so I wouldn’t count on them being your voice at these meetings.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce openly supports more immigration of all kinds. I don’t know what the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s views are on immigration, do you?
Kushner wants a deal!

“He’s a smart guy,” one of the participants said. “But he doesn’t care about the issues. He’s there to find out where the deal is. Where is the sweet spot?”
The senior administration official said the White House is rethinking some policies that it supported before, such as the Sen. Tom Cotton’s RAISE Act, which would institute a merit-based system to determine who is admitted to the country — that the White House continues to support — but would also slash legal immigration.
Jessica Vaughan
“The president said many times he wants to raise immigration,” the official said.
Such language is concerning to conservative immigration groups. Indeed, between Kushner’s business background and the large number of guests with corporate interests, conservatives are worried that the changes Kushner is pursuing run counter to Trump’s “Hire American” priorities.
“There is a real dance going on in the White House on all the legal immigration issues as they work on their vision for reform,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, who is in regular discussions with the administration. “It’s hard for me to tell sometimes what is based on actual policy goals and what is meant to assuage an interest group and who is just being stroked and whose ideas have been convincing to Kushner and his group.”

Kushner edges-out Stephen Miller!

Adding to that anxiety is the feeling that Kushner has edged out Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief architect on some of the toughest proposals and a favorite in conservative circles, in the policy area on which Miller is best known.
“That is how you have to understand it,” said a former Trump official who remains in contact with White House officials. “And look, Steve may be willing to go along with it, because he’s there for the long game. And there is always other battles to fight. He’s more strategic than people think he is. But there is no doubt that he’s not getting what he wants out of this move.”
The White House emphasized that discussions are still in the early stages. It could take weeks or months before anything is presented to the president. Trump may also decide not to do anything with the information if they can’t get enough buy in.

More here.
While we are beguiled by the media on the subject of the Smollett hoax, a serious policy shift could be occurring in the Trump White House.
By the way, NumbersUSA, the largest grassroots group concerned with protecting American workers by keeping immigration numbers low is very concerned by what they are hearing.  See one story here.

question markWhat do you do?  Let the White House know what you think about the Kushner coup going on under the President’s nose.  Do it today and every day! Your job is to make your voices louder than those of the Open Borders forces and thus keep the White House on track!

***Stephen Miller is my barometer.  I can’t imagine him staying if the Trump White House gets too wobbly on immigration and if he is fired (like Bannon and others) then you know it’s all over for those of us who want to see immigration numbers lowered.

Refugee Resettlement Contractor wants Rep. Ilhan Omar to Tone it Down

EditorIt’s a snow day here in the East so hopefully I will have more time to check e-mails and post your comments.  Sorry that sometimes I’m AWOL!
Yesterday I told you that we should want to keep Minnesota Somali Representative Ilhan Omar talking.  Consider her Minnesota’s gift to America!
I’m guessing her cocooned life in Minneapolis, surrounded by thousands of her own ethnic group, didn’t prepare her for a national stage and so she doesn’t have her mentor’s (Keith Ellison) slickness.

Omar and Sarsour
Hmmmm! “Unapologetic leaders”

Therefore the savvy hard Left political organizations that do understand that she might be putting her foot in it, want to school her and tone her down.
One of those savvy political organizations is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) headed by CEO Mark Hetfield.  See one post of a very large archive at RRW about HIAS.
Over the many years I’ve followed their activities, contrary to what you might assume, HIAS has demonstrated no great love for the state of Israel.
I’m guessing that they are saying, ‘damn we are bringing in Muslim refugees, Omar’s friends and family, and then we get dumped on by Omar!’
(I’ve seen it mentioned in a recent news report about HIAS that some of their supporters are questioning why HIAS resettles Muslims in the first place!).
The story (about a CONFIDENTIAL phone call!) is widely reported.
Here it is at The Times of Israel,
(emphasis is mine)

Ilhan Omar apologizes to Jewish groups for hurt caused by AIPAC tweet

In a brief confidential conference call with Jewish organizations, Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized for any hurt caused by her tweets suggesting that AIPAC pays politicians to support Israel.
“Let me reiterate my sincere apology for any actual hurt my words have caused,” Omar, a freshman Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, said on Tuesday afternoon, according to someone present on the call.
“I know there are a lot of people who in the last weeks have expressed support in trying to say this isn’t anti-Semitic or this shouldn’t be looked at in that way,” she added.

hetfield-at-ny-anti-trump-rally1
Mark Hetfield at an anti-Trump rally in early 2017.  Then Rep. Keith Ellison headlined the rally for a group that is 50% or so federally funded!

But Omar said it is up to the Jewish community to define anti-Semitism.
“I do not want to give space or energy to anyone who wants to minimize the hurt,” she said.
Omar came under fire last week for posting successive tweets suggesting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, pays politicians to be pro-Israel. Democratic and Republican leaders condemned the tweets as echoing anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews, money and power. The allegation is also false, as AIPAC does not donate to candidates or endorse them.
Omar subsequently apologized for the tweets.
The call Tuesday included a range of centrist and liberal Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Americans for Peace Now and Bend the Arc.
Omar kept her remarks brief but promised to meet face to face with the groups in the near future.
 

More here.

Meanwhile Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan told Omar not to apologize, see here.

A prominent refugee espousing views that are deemed anti-Semitic is someone HIAS needs to shut the heck up!
Keep talking Ilhan!

question markHere is something you can do (and probably are doing!) especially you Minnesotans, find every word she has uttered in her meteoric rise to power there and publish those words (and actions)— focus especially on those words that educate people about Islam.  Do it in a drip, drip fashion in order to keep her in the news.

Fox News Attempts to Explain why Minneapolis Somalis became Jihadists

Okay, okay, I’m at least thankful that a national cable news outlet is finally getting around to the US Somali refugee radicalization problem that has been going on for at least twelve years, but I want to scream about how long it takes for the national media to catch up with serious issues like this one.

Ilhan Omar capitol
Don’t shut her up!  Let Rep. Ilhan Omar keep talking because she is helping to educate more Americans about Islamic supremacist views.  If it weren’t for her, this Somali terrorist story at a major cable news site would never have been published.

And, I guess we should be thankful that Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress, because her words and actions have become a focal point (a news hook) for stories like this one.
I honestly think she does us a great service by being in Congress—let her keep talking!
I can’t and won’t write a book here, but everyone should take time to read the Fox story, and to read about my trip to Washington in 2009 when I attended a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the radicalization of Minnesota Somalis.

You will see that the FBI brushed off the idea of any Islamic connection and spokesmen testifying were fixated on their main point—the poor disenfranchised refugee “youths” were going back to defend Somalia from Ethiopian aggression (Move along, nothing to see about a broader reason for jihad recruitment).
Who headed the FBI in 2009?  Robert Mueller.

And, by the way, Senator Amy Klobuchar never set foot into that hearing room that day even though she had constituents testifying!

Not a surprise that Klobuchar wants nothing to do with any suggestion that her Somali voters could be terrorists or have a radical agenda.  Watch her pander!

Here is how the Fox News story begins,

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.
FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.
In the case of the Somalis, it’s no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.
So what has made the area such a hotbed for such activity? And what has been Rep. Ilhan Omar’s record in addressing the issue – either before she was elected, or since?
The answers matter because federal authorities say they remain “highly concerned” about the terrorist connection with the Minneapolis Somalis – even though al-Shabab is struggling against the Somali government, and the so-called ISIS “caliphate” has crumbled under a sustained U.S.-led military campaign.
“We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time,” one federal official told Fox News. “Based on historical experience, we had (an uptick) in 2007 and 2008 going for al-Shabab, then a lull. Then, as ISIS came back, we saw a whole bunch of people no longer headed for Somalia. They were headed for Iraq and Syria. That really caught us off-guard, we didn’t see that coming. It didn’t make sense to us. We understood why kids were going back to Somalia, but going to Syria was another we (sic) issue.”

I can’t tell you how much that last paragraph above pisses me off! 
The reason they were surprised is that they had completely focused, during Robert Mueller’s tenure at the FBI, on the idea that the kids were only going home to fight for Somalia, not as jihadists for Islam!
Read the rest of the Fox story, here.
And, again, here is the link to my post on attending that Senate hearing a decade ago! If you are really ambitious, you can read dozens of my posts (beginning in 2008) on the “missing Somali youths” here at RRW.

question markNow what do you do?  Help spread the Fox News story and while you are at it send out the 2-minute video showing Klobuchar pandering to her Somali fans.

 

What We Lost When Trump Fired Jeff Sessions

 

 “He obsessed over the connection between crime and immigration, and he believed that Islam was an inherently violent religion.” 
(Andrew McCabe says of Jeff Sessions)

Trump and Sessions in Alabama
Sessions went out on a limb to become first US Senator to support the Trump presidential bid in early 2016.  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/alabama-s-jeff-sessions-becomes-first-senator-endorse-trump-n527661

On the day after Trump’s big cave that will now allow more migration to your towns and cities, the Leftwing publication ‘Slate’ joyfully tells us about how the liar and fraud—former Deputy Director of the FBI Andy McCabe—described his former boss Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Of course this is meant to further denigrate a man who for decades fought tirelessly in the US Senate against amnesty for illegal aliens and was the first US Senator to back Donald Trump in his bid for the presidency.
 
From the hard Left Slate,

According to a Wall Street Journal review of the book, McCabe wrote in his book that Sessions was only interested in immigration issues. He obsessed over the connection between crime and immigration, and he believed that Islam was an inherently violent religion, according to the Post. When presented with a counterterrorism case, he would first ask where the suspect was born or where the suspect’s parents were from. “He blamed immigrants for nearly every societal problem and uttered racist sentiments with shocking callousness,” Miller concluded from McCabe’s book.
McCabe’s assessment is surprising in only that it comes so bluntly from a man who once was acting head of the FBI but now seems intent on speaking out against the men who made his professional and personal life so difficult for 10 months (before he was fired just hours before his planned retirement, blocking him from receiving his full pension benefits). Sessions has a long, long history of making racist and anti-immigrant comments, while also implementing racist and anti-immigrant policies.

 
You can go read more if you wish, but let me ask you, don’t you agree with Sessions’ assessments (here cast, of course, in the harshest of terms by Slate)?  You must, or you wouldn’t be reading my blog!

question markOne day maybe we will know if it was Jared (and his open borders business pals) who really wanted Sessions out of the way!  If Stephen Miller (who came to the Trump campaign with Senator Sessions) leaves the White House you will then know that the open borders (cheap labor) business lobby has succeeded. 

Vermont Progressive Somali Running for Elective Office Apologizes for Sexist Tweets

Diversity is beautiful alert!
His friend says the mistake was made because:  “…it was based on someone who came from a place where women are considered lower class — in Africa, especially in Muslim countries.” 
But, he is a changed man says the friend who is a “new American” like Jafar.
Here is the story headline,

Jafar Vows to Remain in Burlington Council Race Despite Sexist Tweets

Mohamed Jafar vowed to stay in the race for Burlington’s South District city council seat despite a VTDigger.org story published Monday that described a series of sexist tweets the candidate had sent as recently as 2015.

Mohamed Jafar
Jafar is running in the Democrat Primary for City Council

“I sincerely apologize to those I’ve offended. I sincerely apologize to those who were really surprised” by the tweets, Jafar, 22, told Seven Days. “My personality and character have evolved since then.”
[….]
Though he was contrite on Monday, Jafar, a Progressive running on a platform of equality and civic engagement, said that there’s “no chance” he’d withdraw from the race as a result of the revelations.
[….]
In the race for the South End seat, Jafar faces incumbent Joan Shannon, a Democrat, and Paco DeFrancis, an independent. Shannon and DeFrancis each told VTDigger.org that they were troubled by the tweets.
Screenshot (875)
Just a sampling, more tweets at Vermont Digger. https://vtdigger.org/2019/02/11/progressive-burlington-council-candidate-apologizes-sexist-tweets/

Progs contacted by Seven Days on Monday appear to be standing by their man. Councilor Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7) said he was initially disappointed by the tweets but would continue to support the candidate. Dieng has campaigned for and spoken publicly in support of Jafar. Both men are New Americans; Jafar is Somali and was born in a Kenyan refugee camp. He was 7 when his family immigrated to the U.S.
Dieng noted that Jafar was young when he tapped out the offensive tweets. “Where the mistake was made, it was based on someone who came from a place where women are considered lower class — in Africa, especially in Muslim countries,” Dieng said. “His life has definitely shown he has changed.”

More here.

question markEvery one of you should be getting your own Vermont Diggerlike website up and running, how about a Virginia Digger, Minnesota Digger, or my favorite would be a Maryland Digger!
Or if there is something similar in your state, promote it!