Tag: immigration

Immigrants Can’t Naturalize if They Own a Marijuana Dispensary, Court Says

Running a state-legal marijuana dispensary is grounds to deny a legal resident’s application for U.S. citizenship, a federal appellate court ruled earlier this month.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Maria Elena Reimers’ application for naturalization could be denied because she operates a licensed marijuana business in Washington state. While her business is legal under Washington law, marijuana remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The court affirmed that violating the CSA “categorically precludes her from qualifying for naturalization” since it demonstrates a lack of “good moral character.” The ruling rejected Reimers’ claim that she is treated differently than marijuana business owners who are U.S. citizens. Washington has licensed almost 500 marijuana dispensaries since legalizing recreational sales in 2012.

Reimers has no criminal record, yet in a letter announcing the denial of her naturalization application, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) described her as an “illicit trafficker of a controlled substance.”

“We have a legal business and pay taxes, tons of taxes to the government. And yet they say I’m not morally fit to be a citizen,” Reimers tells Reason.

Reimers immigrated legally to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2004 with her now-husband Rick, who was born in the United States. Rick started Cannarail Station, a recreational dispensary in Ephrata, Washington, in 2014. Reimers submitted her naturalization application in May 2017, fully disclosing her involvement with the business.

After her initial interview in August 2017, Reimers says she passed the naturalization test and was scheduled for an oath ceremony. Then USCIS changed her application to pending. In June 2018, she appeared for a second interview, where immigration officers extensively questioned her about the business. Reimers testified honestly that she was a co-owner and employee of Cannarail Station.

In July 2018, Reimers received a denial letter from USCIS. In May 2019 she had an appeal hearing with USCIS, but a year later they reaffirmed the decision. Reimers filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington in December 2020, which granted summary judgment to USCIS in February 2022 solely on the basis of her marijuana business. She appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit, which heard the case in April 2023.

Her attorney, Alycia Moss, tells Reason, “She’s qualified in every other way. The only denial reason was based on lack of ‘good moral character.'”

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Biden Ensures States, Cities Have No Veto Power Over Afghan Refugees

President Joe Biden’s administration may balloon the number of Afghans set to be resettled across the United States following the withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

Days ago, Pentagon officials stated up to 22,000 Afghans — mostly applying for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) and the newly-created P-2 visa — would be arriving at three military bases: Fort Lee in Virginia, Fort Bliss in Texas, and Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

On Thursday, though, refugee resettlement agencies told the Washington Post the number of Afghans “seeking evacuation through a U.S. visa program” is closer to 100,000 and could be as high as 300,000.

Biden has already allocated an additional $500 million to resettle Afghans.

Regardless, Biden has ensured that states and local jurisdictions will not have any say in whether Afghans are resettled in their communities.

In September 2019, former President Trump issued an executive order that gave state governors, county officials, and local governments the power to veto refugee resettlement in their communities. The order was a major win for activists, specifically in Tennessee, who had fought the Obama administration for its dumping of refugees across the state without any input from the governor, mayors, and local citizens.

By January 2020, a federal judge granted a nationwide preliminary injunction — requested by refugee contractors who sued over Trump’s order — that stripped states and local jurisdictions of their veto power until the case was settled.

In early February 2020, Biden rescinded Trump’s order.

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DHS PLANS TO START COLLECTING EYE SCANS AND DNA — WITH THE HELP OF DEFENSE CONTRACTORS

THROUGH A LITTLE-DISCUSSED potential bureaucratic rule change, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to collect unprecedented levels of biometric information from immigration applicants and their sponsors — including U.S. citizens. While some types of applicants have long been required to submit photographs and fingerprints, a rule currently under consideration would require practically everyone applying for any kind of status, or detained by immigration enforcement agents, to provide iris scans, voiceprints and palmprints, and, in some cases, DNA samples. A tangled web of defense and surveillance contractors, which operate with little public oversight, have already begun to build the infrastructure that would be needed to store these records.

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Twitter Locks Account of Republican Senate Candidate Lauren Witzke – Again

Twitter has once again censored the Republican candidate for Delaware’s U.S. Senate seat, Lauren Witzke, over a tweet drawing attention to the consequences of mass immigration for Europe.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Witzke has already been locked out of her Twitter once this month.

The far-left platform, whose CEO, Jack Dorsey, will likely be subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee next week over its censorship of the New York Post’s bombshell Biden-Ukraine story, said the tweet constituted “hateful conduct.”

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