The many ties between the Biden administration and immigration activist groups likely help explain why Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested only eight people out of more than 3.1 million visa overstay leads, according to a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report. The report attributes the low number of investigations, in just 496 visa-overstay cases, in part to a September 2021 enforcement-priorities memorandum from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Just three months before Mayorkas’ memo, a coalition known as We Are Home urged the agency to exercise broad prosecutorial discretion and choose not to pursue older immigration violations, including visa overstays. Some coalition leaders had moved into top roles in the Biden White House and administration by the time of Mayorkas’ memo. “Of course,” Lora Ries, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told the Daily Signal when asked whether the immigration activist coalition likely shaped the administration’s approach. “The campaign was the administration—the same people.” According to the OIG report, when ICE received the 3.1 million leads, it categorized only 3.3% of them (104,049) as potential national security and public safety concerns. Of these, ICE deemed 21,885 leads viable for investigation. The 496 investigations represent 2% of the leads viable for investigation. Ries condemned the prosecutorial discretion. “Visa overstays have long been estimated to make up at least 40% of the deportable population,” she told the Daily Signal. Under the Mayorkas framework, ICE focused on a narrow category of “Priority 1” cases, while millions of other leads were treated as nonpriority matters. The We Are Home Campaign Launched in January 2021, We Are Home brought together dozens of immigration-advocacy organizations, including America’s Voice, Immigration Hub, and the American Civil Liberties Union. On June 16, 2021, three months before Mayorkas’ memo, the campaign sent an email to Mayorkas titled “Recommendations for the Use of Prosecutorial Discretion.” The document urged DHS to presume certain categories of migrants merited prosecutorial discretion and should generally not face arrest, detention, or removal. “DHS should decline to arrest or initiate proceedings against people who became deportable because of conduct (including unauthorized entry, visa overstay, or contact with the criminal legal system) that occurred over 3 years prior” to ICE deportation proceedings, the email states. By the time Mayorkas drafted the memo, multiple figures associated with the We Are Home coalition groups already held influential policy positions inside the administration and the White House. Nathaly Arriola directed We Are Home before becoming a special assistant to President Biden. Ur Mendoza Jaddou directed DHS Watch at America’s Voice before taking the helm at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tyler Moran and Esther Olavarria, both affiliated with Immigration Hub, later held senior White House immigration-policy positions. Andrea Flores went from deputy director of immigration policy at the ACLU to the White House National Security Council. Jaddou led the team that shaped the makeup of DHS under Biden, and Olavarria and Flores also served on that team. The Daily Signal reached out to Arriola, Moran, Olavarria, and Flores through their current employers, but none responded. A representative for Ur Mendoza Jaddou’s current employer, the Niskanen Center, said Jaddou declined to comment. The personnel overlap does not prove that DHS adopted We Are Home’s recommendations. Criticism Ken Cuccinelli, former acting deputy secretary at DHS, emphasized the ties between the campaign and the administration. “The Biden administration clearly and on an unwritten basis entirely adopted these policies that are the deportation corollary to Biden’s open borders policy,” he told the Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “Given the old saying that ‘personnel is policy,’ we can see by the fact that Jaddou was put in charge of USCIS, along with so many White House positions filled by these pro-criminal, pro-open borders people, that this was a conscious choice by Joe Biden and his Democratic administration.” He accused the administration of putting “illegal aliens and their own radical politics before even the safety of the American people.” Ries noted that the low number of visa overstay investigations “is just one indicator of how that administration intentionally refused to enforce immigration laws.” “Their intention was not just to usher millions of illegal aliens into the country, but to keep them here permanently,” she said. ICE’s Current Policy As the inspector general report notes, the Trump administration rescinded the Mayorkas enforcement-priorities framework and returned to broader immigration-enforcement authority. DHS responded to the report by highlighting three illegal aliens who overstayed their visas and went on to commit crimes. “The degree of the Biden Administration’s dereliction of duty, which needlessly put American lives at risk, is staggering and enraging,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. DHS did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment regarding how many investigations ICE has opened into visa overstays.

Why Are Americans So Pessimistic?

Scott Jennings Repeatedly Flusters Dem Strategist by Asking a Simple Question About the SAVE Act

‘Suck It’: Sophie Cunningham Just Told the Blue-Haired WNBA Mob Exactly Where to Go

Any type of liquid can spell disaster for you if it's spilled on your laptop, but how long should you wait for liquid to dry before using it again?

HEAVEN — Heavenly residents have gathered in rapt anticipation, excited to finally get the answer to the age-old question of who would win a fight between God and Mike Ditka.

CHICAGO, IL — A plastic shopping bag that accidentally blew inside the Chicago Museum of Modern Art sold at auction for $10 million.

Ben Vereen has spent six decades making the hardest things look easy. The singer, dancer and actor turns 80 on October 10, and the theater world is not letting the milestone pass quietly. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center has announced Ben Vereen’s 80th Birthday Concert for Saturday, November 21, in Newark. Vereen himself will perform. Melba Moore and Brian Stokes Mitchell are on the bill, and so are Lillias White and Shoshana Bean. They will have plenty of material to choose from. Vereen was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, in 1946 and was a Broadway star before he turned 30. He earned a Tony nomination as Judas in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and won the Tony the following year for ‘Pippin.’ Television viewers met him in 1977 as Chicken George in ‘Roots,’ the miniseries that changed America, and the role brought him an Emmy nomination. Two years later he lit up Bob Fosse’s ‘All That Jazz.’ Children of the ’80s knew him as Uncle Phil on ‘Webster.’ Ben Vereen’s Greatest Comeback RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM AND BAILEY CIRCUS 116th EDITION, Ben Vereen, aired April 16, 1986, ©CBS/courtesy Everett Collection His most remarkable performance may have been his own recovery. In 1992 Vereen suffered a stroke and was struck by a car while walking along a highway in Malibu. He was left with a broken leg and faced a long, painful rehabilitation, and he worked his way back. He has known deep sorrow as well. He lost his daughter Naja in 1987 and his son Ben Jr. in 2020. Ben Vereen / Wikipedia Through all of it he kept performing. In 2025 the Chita Rivera Awards honored him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. At 80 he has earned the right to sit back and let others do the singing. Nobody who has seen him work expects him to stay in his seat for long. Ben Vereen / Wikipedia Next up: ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’ Opened 40 Years Ago, And Kathleen Turner Was Not The First Choice For The Role The post Ben Vereen Turns 80, And Broadway’s Best Are Lining Up To Sing Him Happy Birthday appeared first on DoYouRemember? - The Home of Nostalgia. Author, DYR Staff

Tanya Tucker turns 68 on October 10, and she has been a country star for 54 of those years. Born in Seminole, Texas, in 1958, she was just 13 when “Delta Dawn” made her a sensation in 1972, a little girl with a voice that sounded like it had already lived three lifetimes. Most child stars fade. Tucker did the opposite. Tanya Tucker Grew Up In Front Of Everyone Tanya Tucker / Everett She is one of the rare performers who started as a child and carried her audience with her into adulthood, never losing the grit that made her different. The hits and the headlines came in equal measure for decades, and she outlasted every prediction that she would burn out. A Comeback That Became A Coronation Veteran artist Tanya Tucker, who will be celebrated alongside Bob McDill and Patty Loveless / Everett Collection In 2019 she returned with While I’m Livin’, produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, and won her first Grammys for it. Four years later she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The women she came up alongside have stayed close, too, as we saw in the last piece of advice Dolly Parton gave her. Her full career record reads like country music’s own stubborn survival story. Sixty-eight years old, and Delta Dawn still has not run out of road. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – NOVEMBER 13: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Kimberly Schlapman and Karen Fairchild of musical group Little Big Town, Sara Evans, Crystal Gayle, Jennifer Nettles, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, Martina McBride, Gretchen Wilson, Amanda Shires and Maren Morris of The Highwomen, Tanya Tucker, Brandi Carlile and Natalie Hemby of The Highwomen perform onstage during the 53rd annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on November 13, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images,) Next up: Ben Vereen Turns 80, And Broadway’s Best Are Lining Up To Sing Him Happy Birthday The post Tanya Tucker Turns 68, 54 Years After “Delta Dawn” appeared first on DoYouRemember? - The Home of Nostalgia. Author, DYR Staff

BRISBANE, Australia—Investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger has called on the Australian government to abandon its proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, warning that it could grant authorities…