Caroline May

With unseemly rumors swirling about an alleged affair between Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Ellmers reportedly thanked her colleagues for their “prayers and support” during a closed-door meeting Friday.

Illegal immigrant students should be given federal education money, says outgoing Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “The fact that as a nation we have yet to do that is a travesty,” he told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual conference earlier this week.

The Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, introduced by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), will skip the committee process and go directly to the Senate floor. The bill restricts federal funding for sanctuary cities, or jurisdictions that do not comply with federal immigration authorities. It also provides legal protections for localities that do comply with federal immigration law and ups the penalties for illegal re-entry.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) decision to drop out of the speakership race shows “deep divisions and dysfunction” among House Republicans, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) argued Thursday. “As a result of their divisions and their efforts to disrupt Congress’s work, we’ve experienced a government shutdown, a near-default on our debt, and too many missed opportunities to grow our economy and support job creation,” Hoyer said in a statement.

A visa program intended to encourage wealthy foreigners to invest in high unemployment areas in the U.S. is instead being used to direct money to luxury establishments in affluent areas, according to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

As Senate Republicans prepare to take on cities that do not comply with federal immigration authorities, the Center for Immigration Studies reveals that the approximately 340 so-called sanctuary cities in the U.S. have been releasing about 1,000 criminal aliens, combined, monthly.

The Obama administration’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba is generating a surge in immigration from the island nation to the U.S.

The legislation, introduced by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), would restrict federal funds and grants to jurisdictions that serve as sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants and refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The bill would also establish a mandatory sentence of five years for illegal immigrants convicted of re-entering the U.S. after being convicted of an aggravated felony or of illegally re-entering the U.S. twice.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) argue that while DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson has said it is “not acceptable to have no policy of cooperation with immigration enforcement” the Obama administration has failed to take substantive action compelling such sanctuary jurisdictions to comply with federal immigration authorities.

The unemployment rate among black teens was more than six times higher than the national average, and nearly double the overall teen unemployment rate last month, according to data released Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the not seasonally adjusted BLS numbers, in September 24,928,000 foreign-born people were employed in the U.S., growing by 14,000 jobs compared to August when 24,914,000 foreign-born people were employed. Native-born Americans, meanwhile, experienced a loss in jobs, declining 262,000 from August’s level of 124,314,000 to 124,052,000 employed native-born people in September.

More than 56 million women were not of the U.S. labor force last month, according to new government data released Friday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 56,647,000 women, ages 16 and older during the month of September were neither employed nor had made specific efforts to find work in the past four weeks.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a record 94,610,000 people (ages 16 and over) were not in the labor force in September. In other words they were neither employed nor had made specific efforts to find work in the prior four weeks.

The Obama administration’s approval rate for accepting Syrian refugees to the U.S. is currently over 90 percent, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service official testified before a Senate panel Thursday. “Worldwide our average approval rate is about 80 percent,” Barbara Strack, the head the Refugee Affairs Division at USCIS responded when pressed on the current annual approval rate for refugees.

Many Cuban refugees are abusing the American welfare system, with some even living off the generosity of the U.S. taxpayer in their native Cuba, according to an investigation by the Florida Sun Sentinel. According to the Sentinel, Cuban refugees to

“After consulting with our conference, a large majority of our members have made clear they want these elections held next week,” departing Speaker John Boehner says. “With their considerations in mind, the House leadership elections will take place on Thursday, October 8.”

Obama’s Deputies Invite 1,500 Foreigners With Known Terror Links Into U.S.