RadioFreeLiberal.com

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is aggressively lobbying for an additional $1 billion to boost deportations to their highest levels yet under President Trump, according to a budget document obtained by The Washington Post.

The agency urged Congress last month to include the extra funds in a stopgap spending measure that lawmakers must pass to avoid a government shutdown when the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

On Thursday, congressional leaders from both political parties agreed to postpone a fight over Trump’s plan for building a border wall until after the November elections. The deal would keep the government open using a series of spending bills, including a “continuing resolution” that would fund federal agencies through Dec. 7. ICE asked Congress to include the $1 billion increase in the continuing resolution.

[Congress planning to avert government shutdown]

In the funding request, officials said they anticipated deporting more than 253,000 immigrants during the next fiscal year, which goes from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2019. That would be the government’s highest target since 2014, when the Obama administration expelled more than 300,000.

Recent statistics show the administration is on track this year to deport substantially more than the 226,000 immigrants deported in 2017, though final numbers won’t be available for several weeks. Officials are deporting roughly 20,000 immigrants a month, and had expelled more than 191,000 as of June 30.

Without the extra money, officials warned in the request, they may be forced to suspend arrests and deportations of people deemed “threats to public safety” until Congress passes a full spending bill. Officials also said that thousands of immigrants detained in federal custody may suffer “reductions in services” if Congress denies the funding, though they did not provide specifics.

Katie Waldman, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the proposed $1 billion increase mirrors the agency’s $8.2 billion budget request for fiscal 2019.

“If the Congress approves the request, ICE would have the funding for operations necessary to support and increase staffing and operations as the DHS Secretary determines to be appropriate,” Waldman said in a statement.

A group that includes billionaire Detroit businessman Dan Gilbert is reportedly eyeing the purchase of Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money, the New York Post reported Monday.

The Post said the group is being assembled by Josh Pollack, from Los Angeles-based Velocity Entertainment. It also reportedly includes best-selling author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins................

Less than a month into the school year, a Detroit charter school is shutting its doors — leaving nearly 200 students and their parents in the lurch.

In a contentious, emotional meeting Wednesday, the board of education for the Detroit Delta Preparatory Academy for Social Justice voted 4-1 to shut down, effective Oct. 1.

The decision left many of the high school's students in tears.

"Everybody was breaking down," said Ajah Jenkins, 17, a senior at the school, which had just begun its fifth year of operation.

Ajah called her mother, Kelye King, "crying, hysterical, screaming, saying, 'My school's closing. How am I going to graduate,' " King recounted.

Saturday is supposed to be the school's homecoming. It's unclear whether it'll still happen, said King, who is upset because she believes the school should have given parents a heads-up that this might happen.

By the beginning of the next school year, Detroit schools likely will be outfitted with water hydration stations that district leaders say will provide students and staff with the safest option for drinking water.............

........"Day one starts tomorrow," Moore said. "Somebody better do something about our schools and make sure our water is safe."

Nicole Conoway, a teacher at East English Village Preparatory Academy, said she believes the money is there to fix the problem.

"You need to fight for it, by whatever means you can ... to demand that we get all the resources we need."........

......And yet, when Ford says it needs more than $239 million in public tax incentives to make good on its $740 million promise to redevelop the Michigan Central Depot and adjacent parcels— more than $100 million from cash-strapped Detroit — what I want to know is, are you kidding me?

That Ford, with $16.7 billion in cash on hand, per its last earnings report, can ask a city that emerged three years ago from bankruptcy to forego future tax revenue is astounding.

And it should be ironclad proof that tax incentives, the routine granting of same, the accompanying song-and-dance that justifies them and the lens through which we view development is more concerned with scoring high-profile wins than making sustainable progress toward a healthy city and state. The rest of the tax incentives Ford is seeking would come from the state (also facing a deficit), Wayne County (still recovering) and the public schools (where to even start?)........cut



........Ford execs told Bloomberg last year that the company needs $20 billion to weather the next recession. It's worth asking what Detroit — a city that still struggles to provide services, is still losing population, still has an unemployment rate almost double the state's and still faces a balloon payment to its pension funds in 2024 — would need to weather the next recession; the city had a fund balance of $593 million at the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

If it's hard to understand how a multinational corporation can soak a struggling school district for tax breaks, it's even harder to understand how government officials can justify foregoing tax revenue now in exchange for convoluted estimates of future employment: New jobs, construction jobs, indirect jobs.........