Stephen Dinan

Obama’s deportation policy leaves most illegal immigrants untouched: study

President Obama has generally kept true to his vow to deport only criminals and repeat immigration violators, according to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute Wednesday that undercuts many of the fears immigrant-rights advocates have about the severity of his policies.

October 16, 2014

Court strikes down Arizona’s no-bail law for immigrants

Illegal immigrants have the same constitutional right to bail that U.S. citizens do, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision striking down an Arizona statute designed to make sure criminals without any community ties didn't flee in the face of a looming trial.

October 15, 2014

Feds’ tax-take hits all-time high

The federal government collected a record amount of taxes in fiscal year 2014, topping $3 trillion in revenue for the first time in its history, according to Treasury Department numbers released Wednesday that show the influx helped drop the deficit to its lowest level under President Obama.

October 15, 2014

Benghazi indictment confirms 2012 attack was terrorist plot

Federal prosecutors won an 18-count indictment against accused Benghazi attacker Ahmed Abu Khatalla on Tuesday, which charges him with leading the assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and makes him eligible for the death penalty.

October 14, 2014

Ebola sparks political battle over research funding

The Ebola finger-pointing kicked into a higher gear Monday as politicians in Washington blamed each other for cutting research funding, even as the federal government's top disease chief apologized for suggesting workers at a Dallas hospital failed to follow protocols, leading to this weekend's first U.S.-contracted case of the deadly virus.

October 13, 2014

Ebola nurse’s dog in Texas won’t be euthanized

The search is on for a location to take care of the dog belonging to the nurse who was diagnosed over the weekend with Ebola, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

October 13, 2014

Disease chief says more doctors, nurses could have Ebola in Texas

The chief of the Centers for Disease Control said Monday he would "not be surprised" if more doctors or nurses come down with Ebola from the Dallas patient who died last week, after the first U.S.-contracted case was diagnosed over the weekend in one of the patient's nurses.

October 13, 2014

Hispanics want Obamacare for illegal immigrant ‘dreamers’

Top Hispanic leaders asked President Obama last week to grant some illegal immigrants access to Obamacare, saying the "dreamers" to whom the White House has given tentative work permits are already paying taxes, so they deserve government benefits.

October 12, 2014

Lawmakers clamor for their airports to be added to Ebola screening list

Prominent Texas Republicans requested Friday that the Homeland Security Department add two of their state's international airports to the list where officers will be doing extra screening to try to weed out passengers with Ebola.

October 10, 2014

Illegal immigration leaps for third straight year

Illegal immigration on the southwestern border spiked 14 percent over the past year, marking the third straight increase, though Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said it was almost all because of the surge of illegal immigrant children and families from Central America — a crisis he said is subsiding.

October 9, 2014

U.S. commander warns of Ebola threat at Mexican border

While the Obama administration plans to start checking travelers from West Africa for Ebola at five U.S. airports, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command is warning that West Africans already are entering America illegally at the porous southern border.

October 9, 2014

FEC deletes unconstitutional campaign regulations, embraces Citizens United

The Federal Election Commission finally agreed Thursday to recognize the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that unshackled corporations and unions to play a more active role in political advocacy.

October 9, 2014

EPA to admit it lost agency chief’s text messages

The EPA is poised to "do an IRS" — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that's suing to get text messages under an open-records request.

October 8, 2014

Photo ID laws do hurt voter turnout: study

Requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls does lower turnout, the Government Accountability Office, Congress's non-partisan watchdog, concluded in a major report released Wednesday that said young, black and newly registered voters were most likely to stay home.

October 8, 2014

Feds run $486B deficit in 2014 — smallest of Obama administration

The federal government ran a deficit of just $486 billion in fiscal 2014, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates released Wednesday that show the budget, while not in the black, is on much firmer ground than when President Obama took office.

October 8, 2014

Immigration activists court Luis Gutierrez for presidential bid

Stung by President Obama's on-again, off-again attitude on immigration, one prominent activist is launching a Draft Gutierrez petition designed to convince Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, to run for president in 2016 as an independent.

October 7, 2014

Obamacare opens door for inmates to get taxpayer-funded Medicaid: study

Obamacare has made most prison and jail inmates eligible for Medicaid in states that expanded the federal-state health program, according to a new study Monday from the Government Accountability Office — but few inmates are actually getting the kinds of services that can be reimbursed by federal taxpayers.

October 6, 2014

Disease plagues illegal immigrants; lack of medications, basic hygiene blamed

Communicable diseases continue to be a problem at the New Mexico facility built to house illegal immigrant families surging across the U.S.-Mexico border, and the immigrants themselves aren't taking their own health care very seriously, according to an audit released Monday.

October 6, 2014

One in five in the U.S. don’t speak English at home, immigration report says

Nearly half of all California school-age children speak a language other than English at home, as do a third of Texans and Nevadans, a report being released Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies found.

October 6, 2014

Voting rights on docket as Supreme Court term opens; gay marriage, Obamacare fights possible

With the country's voters so evenly split, both Republicans and Democrats are increasingly turning attention to the rules for voting, hoping to gain an edge — and their disputes will make their way to the Supreme Court in the term that begins Monday.

October 5, 2014