On December 8, 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 by a margin of 407-19. In order to become law, the bill would need to be passed by the Senate and signed by the President. However, given the broad bipartisan support, it seems quite likely that something similar to H.R. 158 will reach the President’s desk in the near future.
I think that Paul is a tremendous Senator and one of the strongest advocates for small government conservatism. Furthermore, he arguably strikes the best balance between immigration enforcement and immigration reform in the field. However, while his is a voice makes the Republican field stronger, I have too many questions about his support for Israel and his foreign policy views in general to consider voting for him for President.
Carson had an indisputably remarkable career in medicine. However, despite the voting fast approaching, Carson has developed little in the way of concrete policy proposals or in showing that he has a command of the issues facing this country today befitting of a top Republican candidate for President. For all of his virtues, I cannot recommend supporting him in a strong primary field that also contains many more qualified candidates.
The DHS published a guide on how to file a complaint with the DHS in April of 2015. Any person dealing with the DHS should study this document carefully. For this post, I will provide a summary of where the guide discusses complaint procedures that should be of interest for those dealing with the DHS in the immigration context. I will include the pages in the guide on which information for filing the specific complaint may be found.
The Department of State (DOS) has completely renumbered and rewritten chapter 9 of the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM). DOS has provided two cross-reference (crosswalk) charts to help us adjust from the old 9 FAM to the new 9 FAMe.
For years, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma released an annual “Government Wastebook.” Each addition was free to download from the Senator’s website and took a humorous look at some of the more absurd ways that the federal government wastes our tax money and fails at its responsibilities. Senator Coburn retired in 2014. Fortunately, Republican Senator James Lankford, who succeeded Senator Coburn in a special election, has continued Senator Coburn’s annual tradition.
Collateral estoppel is a legal doctrine that precludes subsequent litigation of legal determinations of fact and law that have already resulted in final judgments. The rationale behind collateral estoppel is to prevent abuse of limited judicial resources and harassment. Collateral estoppel can only be applied in circumstances where (1) the issue sought to be relitigated is identical to the issue decided during a prior proceeding; (2) the prior proceeding ended with a final determination on the merits; and (3) the party against whom collateral estoppel is being asserted was a party to the prior proceeding. See Hydranautics v. FilmTec Corp., 204 F.3d 880, 885 (9th Cir. 2000).
Jeb Bush was an exceptional Governor and has an impressive command of the complicated issues that our next President will face. While he lacks the charisma of some of his rivals, he more than makes up for it with his record and policy acumen.
The debate over whether to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees has illuminated one point quite clearly: a disturbing number of pundits and politicians either do not understand what refugee status entails, or are willfully misrepresenting facts to the public. However, a terrific blog post by Andrew C. McCarthy at the Corner Blog on the National Review Online goes against the trend that I described.
