By Debbie Schlussel

Obama’s top illegal alien deportation official says most of the illegal alien “youths” at the Southern border are here to stay. Not news to me or to you if you’ve been reading this site of late.

As I told you recently, you can thank both the Obama Administration AND Bush and Congress (and Angelina Jolie) for that. Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order encouraged tens of thousands of illegal alien kids to come here beginning three years ago. And Bush signed into law–and Congress nearly unanimously passed–added “protections” and benefits enabling illegal alien “kids” and women to stay here ad infinitum. So it’s funny to hear House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Michigan Congresswoman Candice Miller grandstanding about this. Did either of them demand a recorded roll call vote when the House, in 2008, passed this welfare safety net for illegal aliens? Nope. And they probably joined the Yes votes.

I’ve already told you what a snake and a liar Thomas Homan, Obama’s top deportation official, is (he lied about my work at another Congressional hearing). But I cannot blame him for the problem at the border or the fact–which he testified to at Goodlatte’s committee, yesterday–that most of the “youths” who’ve overwhelmed the Southern border are here for good and won’t be deported . . . ever. For once, Homan–ICE’s Associate Executive Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)–is telling the truth. Oh, and those “Notices to Appear” that they give these illegal alien youths, once they are released into the Great American Abyss? Many of my friends at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) call them, “Notices to Disappear.” That’s what they are. You expect these “youths” to show up to be ordered to leave, when they are having such a good time here, paid for by you? Good luck with that.

Goodlatte asked Homan, “By the time a removal order is issued, won’t these individuals be so low on the totem pole for removal that ICE’s state priority is . . . that they’ll never actually be removed?”

“I can say that every unaccompanied child and every family unit member are served with NTAs [DS: Notices to Appear] and scheduled to be put in front of an immigration judge, so that they have their proceedings scheduled, but it’s years out. There’s a lack of immigration judges, so some of these hearings take years. It can take two years. It can take five years. Last year we removed 1,800, but again as I said about the immigration courts: When we looked at all the unaccompanied alien children that were filed with the immigration court in the last five years, 87 percent of them are still in proceedings. We have no final orders,” Homan said. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the federal immigration court system has a backlog of more than 360,000 cases.

Well, you know what that means, don’t you? That means the 87% who are “still in proceedings from five years ago will mostly be “in proceedings” for a very long time, and they are here to stay.

Soon, you’ll be hearing President Hillary saying what you already heard President Barack say over and over again, “they are as American as you and me, except on paper.” And, then, they will be given the paper.

And, as I said, you can blame not just Obama for this but Bush and your Senators and Member of Congress for voting to make it easier for them to stay and near impossible for ICE to deport them.