Obama Legalizes Young Undocumented Immigrants

The Obama administration has announced that it will stop deporting some undocumented immigrants and will begin granting work permits to those that were brought to the US at a young age.

Shortly after 2 p.m. on Friday, President Obama spoke from the White House rose garden to discuss how his latest initiative will effect America as well the thousands of young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as early as infancy.

“These are young people who study in our schools, play in our neighborhoods, friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their hearts and their minds in every single way but one: on paper,” said the president.

“Today, deportation of criminals is up 80 percent. We’ve improved on that discretion carefully and thoughtfully. Well today were improving it again,” he added.

“Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people. Over the next few months, eligible individuals who do not present a risk to national security or public safety will be able to request temporary relief from deportation proceedings and apply for work authorization.”

“We are a better nation than one that expels young kids,” said Obama.

The president returned to the White House without taking questions from the media but many cameras picked up the voices of attendees asking the president to put the immigration issue into perspective when compared with the high unemployment of US-born workers.

As many as 800,000 undocumented immigrants are believed to be affected by the new initiative, which bypasses Congress to implement provisions similar to some provisions of the 2010 DREAM Act legislation that failed in the US Senate.

“I said time and time and time again to Congress: send me the DREAM Act, put it on my desk and I will sign it right away,” the president said. Although it received widespread support from the left, Republicans in the Senate halted the bill from ever being brought to the White House.

In a memo released early Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledges that the immigration policy update seems only fair when compared to the way the country conducts other business.

“Our nation’s immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner,” Napolitano writes, “But they are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case. Nor are they designed to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have lived or even speak the language.”

“Many of these young people have already contributed to our country in significant ways,” the secretary adds. “Prosecutorial discretion, which is used in so many other areas, is especially justified here.”

Specifically, the policy change will defer attempts of deportation at any current American residents, documented or not, that entered the United States before the age of 16, have continuously lived in the US for at least the last five years, are in school or have graduated school, have a relatively clean criminal record and are currently under the age of 30.

Earlier this year, President Obama told the Spanish-language television network Univision that he was still committed to immigration reform, a promise that had been largely unfilled despite being touted heavily on the campaign trail before Election Day 2008.

“I can promise that I will try to do it in the first year of my second term. I want to try this year,” Obama told Univision’s Al Punto program this April.

From the White House on Friday, Obama said that “there is still time for Congress to pass the DREAM Act this year”and insisted that “we still need to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

Top Obamacare Official Steps Down Ahead of SCOTUS Ruling

The Obama administration official in charge of a key part of health reform is stepping down just two weeks before the Supreme Court decides whether Obamacare is legal or not.

Steve Larsen is resigning as head of HHS’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight effective in mid-July.

He will temporarily be replaced by Mike Hash, who currently heads the HHS Office of Health Reform.

Larsen will become executive vice president at OPTUM, a health services business within UnitedHealth Group, sources tell POLITICO.

Here is the full text of the email Tavenner sent to staffers Friday morning:

Dear Colleagues,

I write to share with you news that Steve Larsen has informed me of his decision to resign his role as Deputy Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) effective in mid July.  As you know, Steve has been an instrumental part of our senior leadership team and I am deeply grateful for his dedication to our work to implement the Affordable Care Act.

Steve and I have worked closely over the past year in our efforts to incorporate the work of CCIIO into CMS.  Together we have leveraged CMS’ strengths as we took on these new responsibilities and I am proud of our efforts to hold insurance companies accountable to consumers and our work with states and others to build a new insurance marketplace.  His efforts helped to lay the foundation for our continued success and have put us on a path to make sure that these new marketplaces are available to consumers in every state in 2014.

In consultation with Secretary Sebelius, we have asked Mike Hash to serve as Interim Director of CCIIO while I work to recruit a permanent successor for this role.  As the Director of the Office of Health Reform, Mike is an invaluable partner to CMS as we work to implement the Affordable Care Act.  His knowledge of CMS and our work uniquely position him to seamlessly continue the progress we have made.

Please join me in thanking Steve for his dedicated leadership and service and giving Mike your full support as we continue our important work together.  I am especially pleased we are able to have a strong leadership team in place at CMS as we move forward and am excited about all that we will continue to do to make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans.

Sincerely,

Marilyn Tavenner

Acting Administrator

The shake-up comes at a sensitive time for the office. If the Supreme Court upholds the healthcare reform law, CCIIO will have a lot of work to do helping states meet an end-of-the-year deadline for preparing to implement health insurance exchanges. But if the law is struck down the head of the agency will have to pick up the pieces.

Ibrahim Mothana: How Drones Help Al Qaeda

An Op-ed in The New York Times from Ibrahim Mothana attempts to explain to supporters of President Obama’s drone wars why civilian casualties are hurting their cause:

“DEAR OBAMA, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,” a Yemeni lawyer warned on Twitter last month. President Obama should keep this message in mind before ordering more drone strikes like Wednesday’s, which local officials say killed 27 people, or the May 15 strike that killed at least eight Yemeni civilians.

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

Mr. Mothana goes on to write:

Misleading intelligence has also led to disastrous strikes with major political and economic consequences. An American drone strike in May 2010 killed Jabir al-Shabwani, a prominent sheik and the deputy governor of Marib Province. The strike had dire repercussions for Yemen’s economy. The slain sheik’s tribe attacked the country’s main pipeline in revenge. With 70 percent of the country’s budget dependent on oil exports, Yemen lost over $1 billion. This strike also erased years of progress and trust-building with tribes who considered it a betrayal given their role in fighting Al Qaeda in their areas.

Yemeni tribes are generally quite pragmatic and are by no means a default option for radical religious groups seeking a safe haven. However, the increasing civilian toll of drone strikes is turning the apathy of tribal factions into anger.

Read more here.

Former Texas Tycoon Allen Stanford Sentenced to 110 Years in Prison for $7 Billion Ponzi Scheme

Former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison for scamming investors out of more than $7 billion over 20 years in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

Prosecutors had asked that Stanford be given the maximum sentence of 230 years in prison after a jury convicted the one-time billionaire in March on 13 of 14 fraud-related counts. Stanford was convicted of conspiracy and wire and mail fraud charges after a seven-week trial.

During his sentencing hearing, Stanford gave rambling statement to the court in which he denied he did anything wrong. Speaking for more than 40 minutes, he said was a scapegoat and that it was the federal government and U.S. appointed receiver who took over his companies that prevented his investors from getting their money back.

“I’m not here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness or to throw myself at your mercy,” Stanford told  Judge Hittner. “I did not run a Ponzi scheme. I didn’t defraud anybody.”

Stanford was once estimated to have a net worth of more than $2 billion. After his arrest, all of his assets were seized and he had to rely on court-appointed attorneys to defend him.

Calling Stanford arrogant and remorseless, prosecutors said he used the money from investors who bought certificates of deposit, or CDs, from his bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua to fund a string of failed businesses, bribe regulators and pay for a lavish lifestyle that included yachts, a fleet of private jets and sponsorship of cricket tournaments.

Defense attorneys portrayed Stanford, 62, as a visionary entrepreneur who made money for investors and conducted legitimate business deals. They accused the prosecution’s star witness — James M. Davis, the former chief financial officer for Stanford’s various companies — of being behind the fraud and tried to discredit him by calling him a liar and tax cheat.

The jury that convicted Stanford also cleared the way for U.S. authorities to go after about $330 million in stolen investor funds sitting in the financier’s frozen foreign bank accounts in Canada, England and Switzerland.

Stanford and his former executives also are fighting a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that accuses them of fraud.