American Press Laments Travel Restriction for Oscar Nominated Syrian "FilmMaker'

Today the AP is running a propaganda 3 for 1 special. How can the Associated Press spin Obama's illegal war in Syria to smear Trump while tying it into the heavily politicized Hollywood award show called the Oscars? Headline, read all about it ...

SYRIAN WHO WORKED ON NOMINATED FILM CAN'T ATTEND OSCARS 

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities are barring entry to a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation's civil war, "The White Helmets," that has been nominated for an Academy Award. 

According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security has decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars. 

Khateeb was scheduled to arrive Saturday in Los Angeles on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul. But his plans have been upended after U.S. officials reported finding "derogatory information" regarding Khateeb. 

Derogatory information is a broad category that can include anything from terror connections to passport irregularities. Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Gillian Christensen, said, "A valid travel document is required for travel to the United States." 

"The White Helmets," a 40-minute Netflix documentary, has been nominated for Best Documentary Short. If the film wins the Oscar, the award would go to director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara. Khateeb is one of three people credited for cinematography; Franklin Dow is the film's director of photography. 

Oscars: Street artist  Sabo's work meets Redbox

The film focuses on the rescue workers who risk their lives to save Syrians affected by civil war. Many of the group's members have been killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad's air forces. The group also was nominated for last year's Nobel Peace Prize. 

"The White Helmets" includes emblematic scenes of the deadly 6-year-old conflict: people digging through destroyed homes looking for survivors, at constant risk of "double tap" attacks that target first responders after they've arrived at the scene of a strike. 

Khateeb had been issued a visa to attend the ceremony with Hollywood's biggest stars. But Turkish authorities detained him this week, according to the internal U.S. government correspondence, and he suddenly needed a passport waiver from the United States to enter the country. 

The correspondence indicated he would not receive such a waiver. There was no explanation in the correspondence for why Turkey detained Khateeb.

Surely the average uninformed American would think that preventing the oscar nominee to travel to the United States is unfair but there is more to the story, Much more. The White Helmets is a propaganda piece by every measure.  Who and what are the 'White Helmets"?  What was really going in Obama's illegal war in Syria?  The Obama administration aided and funded Al Qaeda in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi and then moved on to Syria supplying and aiding rebels in Syria to overthrow Assad. Rebels that included ISIS, Al Qaeda and their affiliates.  Why do you think Benghazi was covered up? Because of the RAT LINE of arms from Libya to Syria via Turkey among other things including elections.

Politico

Shielding Obama and his assumed successor Hillary Clinton from any criticism and scandal was eagerly performed by the legacy media in the United States and the coverage of the illegal Syrian war in general has been lacking in most other countries around the world.  In fact, coverage in Syria by CNN was exposed as fraudulent years ago with Syria Danny and now we have the 'White Helmets' What does a real independent journalist have to say about Syria, the press and the 'White Helmets' ? Watch:

Yes, Hollywood is in the propaganda business and always has been. Unfortunately, the legacy news media in the United States has totally abandoned its role as the fourth estate and the lines have been totally erased between news and entertainment, fact and fiction and speaking truth to power. The Church committee revealed decades ago that the Deep State controls the media through secret programs like Operation Mockingbird . While  newer secret programs remain unnamed, the results of their efforts are obvious to anyone that critically reads the headlines and examines the FAKE NEWS. For everyone else the Oscar goes to ....

Police Chief Blames Obama Admin, State Govt Policies in Murder of California Woman by Illegals

The lawless Obama adminstration has a lot of blood on its hands. From the failed gun-walking in Operation Fast and Furious to Obama's self-admitted illegal executives actions on immigration, the murder and mayhem resulting from this administration's political agendas has racked up quite a large body count.  The latest couple of murders of American citizens by illegal aliens that weren't deported because of progressive policies have drawn ever increasing attention. Illegal alien murderers and illegal executive actions are the legacy of this administration.

Excerpted from CNN:
Police Chief Blames Immigration, Crime Policies in Murder of California Woman

When a California woman died after an undocumented immigrant and another man allegedly sexually assaulted her and beat her with a hammer, a police chief wasted little time blaming top officials of his state and the United States. 

"I think it starts in Washington, D.C., with this administration that we see and their policies. I think you can draw a direct line over to Sacramento with the policies of, I'm going to say, this governor and the Legislature," Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin told reporters. "And I am not remiss to say that from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, there's a blood trail into the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis."

Pharis was sleeping at her home just before 10 a.m. on July 24 when Victor Aureliano Martinez, 29, and Jose Fernando Villagomez, 20, allegedly broke into her home and assaulted her, Santa Maria police said in a news release. 

The victim, who worked for the Air Force as a civilian contractor, called police and when officers arrived, dogs led them to a nearby home where they found Martinez, who had allegedly broken into the home in an attempt to evade police, the statement said. Martinez, who was in the country illegally, according to Martin, was arrested without incident and charged with attempted murder, sexual assault and residential burglary, it said. 

Villagomez was arrested five days later -- on a probation violation -- and he was charged August 4 in the attack on Pharis, according to police.

 Continued:

Two weeks before this murder, Santa Maria police officers arrested him for possession of meth, and you know what we had to do? We had to cite him out. That's the problem with this system. This is not just in Santa Maria. This is all over the state of California and all over the United States," Martin said. 

The chief singled out California's Assembly Bill 109 -- an effort to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's mandate to reduce the prison populations in state prisons -- and Prop 47, which makes most nonviolent drug and property crimes misdemeanors, as the reasons that Martinez was able to commit the crimes of which he's accused.

More:

In a statement accompanying the timeline of Martinez's and Villagomez's arrests and releases, the sheriff's office said that in response to questions about the suspects' incarceration histories and immigration statuses, it was releasing the suspects' data to set the record straight. 

State law, the statement said, dictates when police can detain someone based on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer request, while a federal court has ruled that placing someone in custody based only on an ICE detainer request may leave a local law enforcement outlet liable for violating that person's constitutional rights. 

"Based upon the constraints created by the above noted laws, it is the policy of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, that DHS/ICE must obtain a court order or arrest warrant signed by a Federal judge or magistrate, before we will continue to maintain custody of an individual who does not have local charges that require the individual to be held in our custody," the statement said 

It continued, "The impact of these two laws causes a significant legal and moral conflict for California Sheriffs when handling ICE immigration detainer requests. It is imperative that the Federal government work to remedy this conflict and provide clear guidance to California Sheriffs." 

Santa Barbara authorities have received a detainer request for Martinez, but no court order signed by a federal judge, police said in a statement. 

ICE said it "is monitoring the case closely and has lodged a formal request with the custodial law enforcement agency seeking notification in advance of his release or transfer from local custody." 

In order to deport someone, that person must have committed a "crime of moral turpitude," must have multiple criminal convictions or must be guilty of an aggravated felony, according to federal law. 

U.S. immigration policy relating to criminals came under new scrutiny when Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a felon who had been deported to Mexico five times, was accused of killingKate Steinle of San Francisco on July 1. Lopez-Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to murder and weapons charges and is being held on $5 million bail.

Read the whole story at CNN 

Progressive policies and pandering to certain demographics to win more elections is a very deadly mistake. Will the Obama administration or the very liberal state of California ever be held accountable for the failure to enforce the laws of the land ?

347,000 Convicted Criminal Illegal Immigrants in the Country Roam Free

Conveniently hidden under the headline at TheHill.com is the fact that 347,000 convicted illegal immigrant criminals roam our streets, even though the Obama administration says it deports criminals. Somehow they are are deported while hundreds of leftist run cities passed sanctuary city ordinances that somehow supersede Federal law to prevent such deportations.

From TheHill.com:

Fed data: 1,400 released immigrants convicted of new crimes

More than 1,400 immigrants on the path to deportation who have been released by the federal government have gone on to be convicted of new crimes ranging from sexual assault to burglary, according to federal data. 

Additionally, there are more than 347,000 convicted criminal immigrants in the country illegally who have been released onto the streets. About half of those are currently in removal proceedings, and the rest have received orders to be removed from the country but are still roaming free.

The new data released by the House Judiciary Committee, which received it from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is sure to rile conservative critics of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement policy. 

The Democrats Promise, but  NEVER secure the border

The news comes on the heels of a woman’s killing in a popular San Francisco waterfront that authorities say was committed by an undocumented immigrant who had been convicted of a felony and had been deported from the country five times. 

“Despite DHS’s [the Department of Homeland Security] pledge to prioritize the removal of serious criminal aliens, in the last year the number of administrative arrests of criminal aliens has fallen by a third and the department continues to release thousands of such aliens onto our streets,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said during a hearing with department Secretary Jeh Johnson on Tuesday. 

“This effectively releases criminal aliens onto the streets, with all too tragic results,” he added. 

In the wake of the San Francisco killing, conservatives have jumped on the chance to blast“sanctuary cities” that ignore federal immigration orders, and accuse the administration of letting them get away with it.

“The clear answer to this problem is for DHS to mandate compliance with detainers and for this administration to defend the mandatory nature of detainers in federal court,” Goodlatte railed on Tuesday. 

"The last time I looked we had a supremacy clause [in the Constitution], so federal law trumps state law, and God knows it trumps the law in San Francisco," echoed Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). 

Johnson refuted the criticism.
While he encouraged cities to abide by federal orders, he said that they should not be forced to do so. 

“I do not think we should mandate the conduct of state and local law enforcement though legislation,” Johnson said. 

Instead, “the most effective way” to get jurisdictions to abide by its orders “is through a cooperative effort with a program that removes the legal and political controversy," he said.

This administration and the Democrats have no desire to secure the border. In fact, their open embrace of lawlessness starts at the top with Barack Obama.  He admitted that his executive action on immigration would be illegal yet he did it anyway. 

Then again, the Democrats have always lied about 'immigration reform' 

Previous Blog on the San Francisco Murder at Pier 14:
Democrat Sanctuary City Enables Criminal Alien to Kill American Woman in Broad Daylight

Democrats Push to Close Illegal Immigrant Detention Centers

The open-border-welfare-state Democrat's latest move on immigration is outrageous to say the least.  Rule by fiat and Obama's self-admitted  illegal use of executive action is how the Democrats prefer to govern and 'hispander' to a growing voting block.

From The Hill

House Democrats are amplifying their calls for the Obama administration to ease its detention policies for illegal immigrant families at the southern border. 

The lawmakers, newly returned from a visit to a pair of detention facilities in Texas, said the "jail-like" conditions pose psychological and other health risks for the thousands of women and children being held for processing, many of whom arrived during last summer's migrant surge.
They're pushing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to close the facilities and release the families into less restrictive settings while their cases proceed.

Judicial Watch digs deeper into the latest move by the Dems on Immigration - (PIC)

"Let me just make clear: Our goal is to shut the facilities down," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). "These kids, they shouldn't be in there. ... There is damage being caused to these kids that they're going to have to live with for the rest of their lives." 

Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the Democratic whip, said he found the conditions "troubling" for the sheer number of young kids being held. He suggested the facilities be transformed into temporary holding stations where families remain for only "a few days" before being released while their asylum claims are heard. 

"There's a difference between using beds while [the courts] are making a determination ... and treating them as a locked facility, where they are now, treated as criminals," Hoyer said. "We are urging ... that these facilities, for the purpose they're being used, be closed." 

The two lawmakers were part of an eight-member group of Democrats who traveled this week to the Karnes County Residential Center, a 532-capacity facility in Karnes City, Texas, and the South Texas Family Residential Center, a 2,400-capacity facility in Dilley. 

Judicial Watch also mentions: 

Of interesting note is that Johnson failed to mention the driving force behind his agency’s new policy. His name is Luis Zayas and he is the dean of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. In late May a group of pro-illegal alien members of congress, led by amnesty champion Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, wrote Johnson a letter demanding an end to the use of family detention for illegal immigrants. “It is undeniable that detention in a secure facility is detrimental to mothers and children and is not reflective of our values as a nation,” the letter states. “Children require special protections and should not be placed in jail-like settings.”

To back the claim, the lawmakers cite an affidavit written by Zayas, who asserts that children of undocumented or illegal immigrants are often the unintended victims of deportation policies. The professor has examined the effects of deportation on the psychosocial functioning of U.S.-born children of illegal alien Mexicans, according to his university biography, and often testifies in immigration courts on behalf of children and their families. “Presently, Zayas is focusing on the plight of citizen-children whose parents are being deported,” the public university biography states.

This background information is important because Zayas is the expert cited in the persuading letter Congress fired off to Johnson. Zayas determined that the detained illegal immigrant children are “facing some of the most adverse childhood conditions of any children I have ever interviewed or evaluated.” The professor further concluded that “detention has had serious and long-lasting impacts on the psychological health and well-being” of families at one center and that these impacts were evident in families who were detained for as little as two weeks. Days later the agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation from another terrorist attack, actually caved into this absurd assessment.

The Hill Continues: 

As of this week, there were 461 people in the Karnes center and 2,043 in the South Texas facility, according to a DHS spokesperson. A third center, in Berks County, Pa., currently houses an additional 89 people. 

The centers have been under a spotlight since last year, when tens-of-thousands of families and unaccompanied children crossed the southern border –– most of them into Texas's Rio Grande Valley –– marking a huge increase over past years. The flood quickly swamped the border authorities who scrambled for ways to detain, process and, in many cases, deport the kids back to their homes. 

The crisis sparked a decidedly partisan fight on Capitol Hill over both the cause of, and the appropriate response to, the migrant surge. 

Johnson on Wednesday said DHS, after evaluating the family detention system, recognizes the need to make "substantial changes" to better the conditions for the detained women and children. 

With guidance from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Sarah Saldaña, he announced a series of reforms the agency will undertake, including allowing the release of families "who are successful in stating a case of credible or reasonable fear of persecution in their home countries" and an effort to lower bond requirements to "reasonable and realistic" levels.

"In short, once a family has established eligibility for asylum or other relief under our laws, long-term detention is an inefficient use of our resources and should be discontinued," Johnson said in a statement.

The Democrats have ALWAYS lied about immigration:



Barack Obama's self-admitted illegal executive action on immigration is celebrated by the leftist totalitarian freaks. 

Stringing along the illegal immigrant 'hispanics' who DEMAND citizenship is Obama's specialty.



What is the end game of the Democrats and their open-border welfare state besides maintaining power?

WhiteWASH: IG Report - No Widespread Problems at Secret Service

No widespread problems at Secret Service?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Homeland Security Department's inspector general's report says there is no evidence of widespread misconduct within the Secret Service.
The 145-page report was issued Friday. That's more than 18 months after the agency in charge of protecting the president was embroiled in a high-profile South American prostitution scandal.

The inspector general's office made its conclusions based on a survey answered by about 41 percent of the agency's staff and interviews with 200 managers and supervisors.
In April 2012, 13 agents and officers were accused of carousing with female foreign nationals at a Cartagena, Colombia, hotel where they were staying in advance of President Barack Obama's arrival.

Some of the women were prostitutes and the incident became public after one prostitute and an agent fought over payment.

On December 17, 2013, this news item gets little attention:
 Under fire, DHS IG Asks to be Reassigned Before Senate Hearing 



Coverups, lies and corruption are a hallmark of the criminal Obama administration.

Under fire, DHS IG Asks to be Reassigned Before Senate Hearing

Under fire, DHS IG asks to be reassigned

By CNN chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper

(CNN) - Under fire from Congress for allegedly unethical practices, the acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Charles Edwards, has been reassigned, sources tell CNN.

Last Thursday, a senior DHS official tells CNN, Edwards "formally requested a voluntary reassignment ... to another career position, in another office within the Department. In line with existing protocols and procedures, that request for a voluntary reassignment was processed, and based on the employee's experience and technical background he has been reassigned to a career position at Science and Technology."

In June, as CNN reported at the time, the chair and ranking Republican on the Senate subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight described a number of potentially damaging allegations against Edwards, one of which was the allegation that he was susceptible to political pressure to the point that an investigation into Secret Service misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia, was scrubbed of damaging information. In the public report about the misconduct, whistleblowers told the senators, damaging information was “intentionally changed and withheld."

Other allegations by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, included that Edwards “violated anti-nepotism laws and policies” to employ his wife, Madhuri Edwards, as a supervisory auditor in his office. Beyond that, Edwards is alleged to have misused staff to help his wife pursue a Ph.D. at a local community college, and intervened improperly to allow her to telecommute from India for seven months with an office-issued international BlackBerry phone. The allegations against Edwards also suggest that he retaliated against staff who “brought or attempted to call attention to (his) misconduct," the senators said. 

Edwards could not be reached for comment.

“Inspectors general are supposed to serve as the eyes and ears of taxpayers within our agencies, guarding against waste, fraud, and abuse of power, and we expect them to abide by the same high standards of behavior they apply to agency officials," Sens. McCaskill and Johnson said in a joint satement.

"We hope that Mr. Edwards’ departure will pave the way for a new level of accountability and transparency within the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, and we plan to continue rigorous oversight to achieve that goal,” they said.

 Homeland Security's acting deputy IG resigns before Senate hearing 

  By KELLY COHEN | DECEMBER 17, 2013

Acting Deputy Inspector General Charles K. Edwards has resigned, according to officials with the Department of Homeland Security.

Edwards has been the subject of a Senate probe of numerous allegations ranging from misusing agency money for personal travel to favoring his spouse for government positions.

Carlton Mann, the current assistant IG, will now be the acting deputy IG, DHS said.
Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson called on Edwards to resign in an Oct. 30 letter.

 McCaskill is chairman and Johnson is ranking minority member of the Senate's subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight. Edwards was to appear before the committee Dec. 19.

FINDER: Radar for Locating Disaster Victims in Rubble

Detecting Heartbeats in Rubble: DHS and NASA Team up to Save Victims of Disasters

When natural disasters or man-made catastrophes topple buildings, search and rescue teams immediately set out to recover victims trapped beneath the wreckage. During these missions, time is imperative, and quickly detecting living victims greatly increases chances for rescue and survival. 

A new radar-based technology named Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) has been developed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the National Aeronautics Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to detect a human heartbeat buried beneath 30 feet of crushed materials, hidden behind 20 feet of solid concrete, and from a distance of 100 feet in open spaces. In the past several months, S&T and JPL have been testing and developing several FINDER prototypes. Last June, DHS and first responders used the prototype to conduct more than 65 test searches with two Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) teams: the Virginia Task Force One (VA-TF1) at the Fairfax County Fire Department training center and Virginia Task Force Two (VA-TF2) in Virginia Beach, Va. 

“Testing proved successful in locating a VA-TF1 member buried in 30 feet of mixed concrete, rebar, and gravel rubble from a distance of over 30 feet,” said John Price, S&T program manager. “This capability will complement the current Urban Search and Rescue tools such as canines, listening devices, and video cameras to detect the presence of living victims in rubble.”

In disaster scenarios, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, the wreckage is made up of twisted and shattered materials. Radar signals bounce back so signals are complex. “Isolating the relatively weak signal of a heartbeat within the noisy signals becomes a difficult task,” said Edward Chow, JPL program manager. “JPL's radar expertise helps in this challenge.”

JPL uses advanced data processing systems to pick out faint signals. The microwave radar technology is sensitive enough to distinguish the unique signature of a human's breathing pattern and heartbeat from other living creatures.  The advantage of this technology is in allowing first responders to quickly ascertain if a living victim is present in the debris. The technology is sensitive enough that victims, whether conscious or not, can easily be detected, which helps responders decide the most efficient course of action.
“It is anticipated that a commercialized technology could be ready to be used in search and rescue operations as early as spring 2014,” Price said.

 Detecting Heartbeats in Rubble: DHS and NASA Team up to Save Victims of Disasters