Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on November 24, 2006, 11:04:37 PM
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Peggy Noonan, as usual, in fine form:
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What Grandma Would Say
We don't need to solve the immigration problem forever. We need to solve it now.
Friday, November 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
It is July 10, 1858, a Saturday evening, and Lincoln is speaking in Chicago. The night before his opponent in their race for the U.S. Senate, Stephen Douglas, had referred to him graciously in his big speech, and invited him to take a good seat. Lincoln seized the opportunity and invited Douglas's audience to hear him the next night.
And so here he was, speaking, as usual, text and subtext, on slavery. But near the end, he turned to who populates America. Half or more of his audience, he suggested, could trace their personal ancestry back to the founding generation, "those iron men" who were "our fathers and grandfathers." Remembering their creation of the United States, thinking of "how it was done and who did it," has civic benefits. It leaves Americans feeling "more attached to one another, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit."
What of those who could not trace their bloodlines back to the Revolution? The immigrants of Europe are "not descendents at all," Lincoln said, and "cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us."
"But" he then said.
"But when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' " And that "moral sentiment" connects groups and generations and tells America's immigrants "that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration. And so they are."
"And so they are." With those four words he told the anti-immigrant Know Nothings that new Americans have an equal place. He was saying: Take That, haters of the Catholic Church, spoofers of foreign ways, nonsympathizers with the beset, bedraggled and be-brogued.
I love those words by Lincoln, and believe them. But it continues to amaze that 148 years after he said them, who populates America is still a matter of urgent argument.
Much of course has changed. Immigration in Lincoln's day was open and legal. Now it is open in effect because overwhelmingly illegal in practice. If you want to come across the border, you can, essentially, come. You make the decision about what is best for you; America does not make the decision as to what is best for it. Both Congress and the White House, our official deciders, will likely do in the next session what they did in the last: spend a lot of time trying to confuse people into thinking they're closing the borders without actually closing them. There will be talk again of fences, partial fences, fencelike entities and virtual fences. While they dither and mislead, towns and cities will continue to attempt to make their own immigration policy.
You know the facts. Immigrants are here in huge numbers, unlawfully, in the age of terror. They swell the cost of local life--emergency rooms, schools--which has an impact on local taxes. There are towns and cities that feel, and are, overwhelmed. And no one will help them.
The essential reason, I think, is that America's elites don't want America's borders closed. Businesses want low-wage workers; intellectuals are wed to global visions of cross-border prosperity; politicians want Hispanic loyalty and the Hispanic vote. It's not convenient for any of them to close the borders. If Americans on the ground are enduring difficulties over this, it's . . . too bad. This is further eroding America's already eroding faith in its institutions.
I think there are two unremarked elements of the debate that are now contributing to the government's inability or refusal to come up with a solution.
The problem is not partisanship. It is not polarization, not really. Sentiments on this of all issues in the nation of immigrants are and would be complicated, nuanced. The problem is doctrinaire-ness. Even as both parties have become less philosophical, less tied to their animating philosophies, they have become more doctrinaire. The people who should be solving the immigration problem are holding fiercely to abstractions--to big-think economic theory, to emanations of penumbras in the law--instead of facing a crucial, concrete and immediate challenge.
The second element is definitiveness. Our political figures say they have to concentrate on an overall, long-term, comprehensive answer to the immigration problem. So they huff and puff about the long-term implications of this move or that, and in the end they do nothing.
They are like people in a burning house who sit around discussing the long-term efficacy of various kinds of water hoses while the house burns down around them.
More and more our leaders forget the common sense of grandma. In most everyone's family there was a grandma who used to sit quietly in the corner and say nothing. Then someone would ask her opinion just to be polite, and she'd say something so wise, so commonsensical, it stopped everyone in their tracks. And you realized that she was smart, that she'd lived a life and seen things.
In the case of illegal immigration in America I think grandma would say, "Stop it. Build a wall. But put doors in the wall so when the problem is over, you can open the doors."
America has, since 1980, experienced the biggest wave of immigrants since the great wave of 1880-1920. And we have never stopped to absorb it. We have never stopped to digest what we've eaten. Is it any wonder we have indigestion?
We don't really have to solve the problem forever. We just have to solve it now. One wonders why we don't stop illegal immigration, now. Absorb, settle down, ease pressures--for now. Why not be empirical, and find out what's true? Some say stopping illegal immigration will lead to an increase in wages for low-income workers. This is to be desired. Let's find out if it happens.
And why not give the latest waves of immigrants time to become Americans? Time to absorb our meaning and history and traditions. Isn't that the way to help them feel "more attached" and "more firmly bound to the country we inhabit"?
I'm not sure we need more globalism, but I feel certain we need more grandmaism. A happy Thanksgiving to all, old and new.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
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**Doing the work Americans won't do....**
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53151
HOMELAND INSECURITY
45,000 terror-threat illegals released into U.S. population
Half from countries of 'special interest' let go between 2001, 2005, says report
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Posted: November 29, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
? 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON ? Half of the 91,516 illegal aliens from terror-sponsoring countries and those of "special interest" apprehended at the border between 2001 and 2005 were released into the U.S. population, according to a report by the inspector general's office of the Department of Homeland Security.
The report, "Detention and Removal of Illegal Aliens," released earlier this year with little fanfare or attention, suggests about 85 percent of those aliens ? potentially the most dangerous ? would abscond and likely never be seen by authorities again.
Acknowledging the danger such aliens pose to the national security, the report cites a DHS official testifying that terrorist organizations "believe illegal entry into the U.S. is more advantageous than legal entry for operations reasons."
Budget shortfalls were the explanations for why some 45,008 potential terrorists were released by authorities over a period of nearly five years after Sept. 11, 2001. The budget crunches prompted immigration officials to place strict limits on detention bed space, recruitment, training, travel and expansion of enforcement programs, the report explained.
In addition to the release of these high-risk aliens, 27,947 known criminals were also released between 2001 and 2004 ? including 20, 967 "from countries where the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang members are know to be active."
Given that only one in four aliens attempting to enter the U.S. during this period was caught, that would suggest some 350,000 from high-risk nations entered the country through this five-year period. An additional 400,000 criminal aliens would also have made it into the country between 2001 and 2004, according to the report.
That's a total of 750,000 aliens who would be either known criminals before entering the country illegally or who originated from a terror-sponsoring nation or one in which terrorists are known to operate.
This news hits following WND's report yesterday that 12 Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.
But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws.
While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers ? for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001.
While no one ? in or out of government ? tracks all U.S. accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.
A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.
Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked ? and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.
King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day ? a total of 2,920 annually.
Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.
As the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases, so does the number of American victims.
According to Edwin Rubenstien, president of ESR Research Economic Consultants, in Indianapolis in 1980, federal and state correctional facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. But at the end of 2003, approximately 267,000 illegal aliens were incarcerated in all U.S. jails and prisons.
While the federal government doesn't track illegal alien murders, illegal alien rapes or illegal alien drunk driving deaths, it has studied illegal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons.
In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003. It found the following:
The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests ? some eight arrests per illegal alien;
Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses ? some 13 offenses per illegal alien;
36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.
"While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators," states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration." "That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the 'good' in we get the 'bad' along with them. The question is, how much 'bad' is acceptable and at what price?"
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Reliability of source unknown:
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t’s David and Goliath Time in Hazelton
by Dymphna
The town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania has decided enough is enough where illegal aliens are concerned. Hazleton’s social infrastructure is being systematically dismantled by the crime, health needs, housing demands, and language barriers of Hispanic illegal aliens who have descended on Hazleton in numbers large enough to put a strain on the commonweal of that community. Here's how the mayor puts it:
I believe the United States of America is the greatest nation on Earth. People who are in this country have an incredible amount of opportunities and blessings. But some people have taken advantage of America’s openness and tolerance. Some come to this country and refuse to learn English, creating a language barrier for city employees. Others enter the country illegally and use government services by not paying taxes or by committing crime on our streets, further draining resources here in Hazleton.
Recent crimes - such as a high-profile murder, the discharge of a gun at a crowded city playground, and drug busts - have involved illegal immigrants. Some of those allegedly involved in those crimes were detained by other law enforcement officials over the years, but were somehow allowed to remain in this country. They eventually migrated into Hazleton, where they helped create a sense of fear in the good, hardworking residents who are here legally.
Illegal aliens in our City create an economic burden that threatens our quality of life.
With a growing problem and a limited budget, I could not sit back any longer and allow this to happen.
Thus, the mayor decided to act. In July, he drafted the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, and in September, the City Council passed the measures. Essentially, his draft upholds current American law: it says that landlords may not rent to illegal aliens and businesses may not hire them. All constitutional and within the law.
But of course, there is the ACLU to contend with, not to mention the sympathetic judges who go along with its openly anti-American sentiments. We think we know what the ACLU has been, and what it is now, but we don’t really look beyond the surface of the clever name. Here’s an excerpt from a comprehensive look at the long-established philosophy of the Anti-American, Uncivil, Socialist Union:
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Today’s ACLU still espouses the ideals of socialism under the guise of liberalism. They still defend Communist propaganda [the founder was a Communist and they have a long history with that murderously mistaken idea — d.] One of the goals of the Communist agenda is to abolish all loyalty oaths. It is interesting that the ACLU celebrate the fact that they will not sign oaths promising not to support terrorism.
Whether today’s ACLU is a communist/socialist organization or not their goals most definitely align with the ideologies of socialism. Regardless of what one labels today’s ACLU there are many dangerous positions in practice that have never changed with them. Their unflinching support of abortion, euthanasia, their strange position on the Second Amendment and their open border policy are just a few examples. They consistently work to thwart the government’s efforts to protect its citizens, undermine America’s sovereignty, and defend America’s enemies. They have defended traitors funding Hamas, the PLO, and confessed Al-Qaeda operatives. All of these seem to support their founder’s goal of abolishing of the State itself.
The Pennsylvania branch of the ACLU is particularly annoyed that Senator Santorum allowed two of his staff to help Hazleton establish a web presence. Since the Senator’s main concern had been illegal immigration, their “concern” seems misplaced. Are we to infer some wrong-doing here? —
If you check out the Small Town Defenders website, you’ll be greeted by a smiling Mayor Barletta promoting his small town Illegal Immigration Relief Act. As you know, Sen. Santorum is also a supporter of anti-immigrant efforts, but who would suspect that two of his own staffers contributed to getting Mayor Barletta’s smiling display of bigotry up on our World Wide Web?
To those who support the ACLU, watching a town disintegrate is immaterial. First and foremost, all illegal aliens are welcome anywhere, any time. And if you dare go against that rule, the iron curtain of ACLU hired guns will line you up in their sights. Here’s what Hazleton is facing:
The defense fund was joined in the suit by several branches of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Community Justice Project, as well as the law firms of Cozen O’Connor, Philadelphia, George Barron and Barry Dyller, both of Wilkes-Barre, David Vaida, Allentown, and Peter Winebrake, Philadelphia.
But Hazleton is proving to be a tougher nut to crack than other municipalities who have been forced to knuckle under or face bankruptcy in the form of endless litigation. The mayor says is saying it is prepared to go to the Supreme Court if necessary.
As you well know, the ACLU — like CAIR — bullies its adversaries into submission by, among other things, bankrupting them. And as you can see from the list of attorneys above, they certainly have their fellow-travelers, just as CAIR does.
Hazleton is asking American citizens to donate to the cause. It will be a long, drawn-out battle, but the city’s life is at stake. There is a donation page, and there is also a petition page. For those who are not comfortable with donating online, there is also a snail mail address:
City of Hazleton Legal Defense Fund
c/o Mayor Lou Barletta, City Hall
40 N. Church St.
Hazleton, PA 18201
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The unintended consequence of raising the minimum wage
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I am posting this because I think the question is interesting - how does a raising minimum wage affect the border issue - not because I agree with the answer. I'm still thinking about that. - Doug
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4523270.html
Feb. 3, 2007, 6:36PM
Working toward reform
Effect of $7.25 on immigration
The unintended consequence of raising the minimum wage
By DALE O. CLONINGER
I have yet to see anyone address the effect of a significant increase in the federal minimum wage on illegal immigration. In that void, I offer the following observations: First, if most of the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants came to the United States because of the enticement of jobs and the prospect of earning $5.15 an hour, what do you think increasing that wage to $7.25 an hour would do? If you do not know the answer, I suggest you eschew our southern border lest you be trampled by the surge in illegal immigrants.
Second, given the Law of Diminishing Returns, what do you think the employer response to the sudden and significant increase will be? This question is not answered easily.
Theory suggests employers would reduce the number of employees to help offset the increase in the hourly wage. However, if demand for their products remains high, employers will most likely maintain production levels and look to cut costs (or raise prices) in other ways.
There are at least two ways employers can reduce their labor costs in the short run.
First, employers could outsource more jobs overseas, where labor costs are a mere fraction of those in the United States. Second, faced with paying an American the $7.25 above the table, employers could choose to hire (more) illegal immigrants at a subminimum wage under the table. This practice is not new; it will simply be magnified. The black-market wage will, in all likelihood, also rise — meaning that employers may be unwilling to employ all those scrambling across the borders looking for work. In any event, American workers (as well as legal immigrants) get the short end of the stick.
The heightened exodus across the Mexican border will undoubtedly create greater political pressure for immigration reform — read legal guest worker program. An effective guest worker program will lead to higher labor costs, as the now legal immigrant workers can petition for enforcement of the federal minimum wage law without fear of deportation.
The single most important reason why illegal immigrants are able to find jobs in the United States is that employers can employ them at wage rates significantly lower than their American counterparts. If employers lose this incentive, they will have less reason to offer jobs to immigrants. Fewer jobs for immigrants will mean fewer immigrants. In this manner, an unintended consequence of a higher federal minimum wage may be sound immigration reform that could result, eventually, in fewer immigrant workers in the United States.
There is an important caveat, however.
This conclusion assumes that a guest worker program will stem the flow of illegal immigrants and minimize the black market in their labor — heroic assumptions to say the least. As long as there is a mass of labor willing to work for wages below the minimum, there will be employers who will do so.
Cloninger is professor emeritus at the School of Business of the University Houston-Clear Lake.
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http://www.newt.org/multimedia/default.asp?mi=408
An audio excerpt from a Newt Q&A. I must say, Newt continues to impress me. I hope he will run!
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From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Friday 20APR07 1:30 p.m. EDT
Phone this aft to decry near-agreement on Senate amnesty
FRIENDS, MEDIA SAY THE END IS NEAR ...
PROVE THEM WRONG.
Please call offices of Republican Senators this afternoon.
The story below from CongressDailyAM suggests that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) may be moving slightly toward Republican Senate negotiators who, according to this story, are ready to sign off on an amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens.
If this is true, it means that a lot of Republican Senators are getting ready to back an amnesty even though they and their staffers have been telling you they will NEVER vote for an amnesty.
Your phone calls should not assume that any one of these GOP Senators has decided to sign-off on the Kennedy "compromise" amnesty. But you should express every bit of concern that the story below raises.
SENATE SWITCHBOARD
202-224-3121
It also would be very helpful if you would call the Senators' local offices.
You can get all the phone numbers for your own two Senators at:
http://numbersusa.com/myMembers
You can get phone numbers for other states' Senators at (pick a state, then click on the Senator -- scroll to the bottom of the Profile page for all the phone numbers):
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/
Until yesterday, it had been looking like the differences were going to be too great for Kennedy and the "middle-ground" Republicans like Sen. Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Isakson (R-GA), as well as for Senate GOP leaders like Sen. McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Lott (R-MS). But now, the danger appears to have risen considerably.
I have been meeting all last night and today with congressional staffers and leaders of other immigration-reduction organizations.
The overall consensus is that a disastrous compromise is very, very near. That would mean an amnesty passing the Senate in May and a lot of momentum for the House to pass it in July.
I cannot over-emphasize how important it is for you to give immediate feedback to all GOP Senators to this news.
And remember to state that an amnesty is anything that allows illegal aliens to keep what they broke the law to obtain: (1) residence in the U.S. and (2) jobs in the U.S. Don't let them get by with vague language about opposing a "blanket amnesty" or a "citizenship amnesty" or an "automatic amnesty."
Either these Senators are willing to let illegal aliens live and work in the U.S. legally and indefinitely, or they are willing to stand against amnesty.
And remember that agreeing to a "trigger" just means that illegal aliens will get immediate legal rights to live and work in U.S. but won't get to start the process for a permanent green card and citizenship until the trigger of enforcement is met. Anybody who agrees to a "trigger" is agreeing to an amnesty.
When you call, talk specifically about this article, which nearly all of our Senate contacts are telling us seems to be accurate.
You will see that our Rosemary is quoted as saying that we have all but given up on the Senate. That is true in terms of anything good coming out. But she was taken a bit out of context. We still have high hopes of voters putting enough pressure on their Senators to block the amnesty from coming out of the Senate.
-- ROY
Senate Group Close To Immigration Deal
By FAWN JOHNSON
CongressDailyAM(4.20.07)
A core group of senators that has been meeting almost daily for the last several weeks is close to announcing the outlines of a comprehensive immigration bill that could be the basis for Senate debate in late May.
"I think we've made a ton of progress, and I think next week, we might even be able to talk about it more publicly," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who is part of the group. "The problems are small and manageable."
"There isn't overall agreement," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. "The discussions, I think, are being taken in good faith. ...It's a constructive dialogue."
Two components likely to be part of the agreement are a "trigger" mechanism that would delay implementation of a guestworker program until enforcement mechanisms are in place and a new "Z visa" program for undocumented workers in the United States, according to Martinez.
The negotiators have agreed to use the Z visa to give undocumented workers benefits not available for future guestworkers. "Once you have a Z visa, you can do something for the population here. Give them, not a certain or immediate path to citizenship, but a potential path to citizenship. And then the guestworkers you can deal with just as guestworkers," Martinez said.
The trigger provision might be enough to win support from Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who voted against the Senate immigration bill last year. Isakson wants sophisticated surveillance at the border, bolstered border patrol and biometric ID cards for all foreign entrants into the country.
"If you have a meaningful security outline to trigger the reform, then that makes the reform work," Isakson said. "I've been very encouraged by the progress we've been making."
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Gutierrez have been key players in the talks, which also include Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Ken Salazar, D-Colo., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz.
Last year, when Isakson first floated his trigger idea on the floor, he said it would take two years to satisfy his enforcement criteria. Today, he said, that process would take only 18 months because the Homeland Security Department has beefed up enforcement.
Lawmakers in the negotiations say the administration's stepped-up involvement and its willingness to debate details have gone a long way in mollifying members with differing points of view. "Kennedy and McCain and myself and others have moved. And I think Kyl and Cornyn have also moved," Martinez said.
Menendez concurred. "We've all moved," he said.
If the members of the group can hold together, Republicans who last year did not support the Senate bill could sign on, including Kyl, Cornyn, Isakson, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. That would fit with the administration's goal of attracting a substantial number of Senate Republicans to a comprehensive bill to give cover to House Republicans.
"The Senate is so far removed from reality," said NumbersUSA Government Relations Director Rosemary Jenks, whose group opposes any type of legal status for illegal immigrants. Jenks said she and other opponents have all but given up on the Senate, but they hope to stop a bill in the House that creates legalization opportunities for illegal workers.
House Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who has been handed the task of shepherding an immigration bill through the House this year, is beginning the process with a series of hearings -- up to two a week -- on every aspect of the issue. "We'll know a lot more at the end," she said.
In the House, the plan is to pass an immigration bill in July. It could be the last bill members vote on before departing for the August recess.
In the Senate, lawmakers are considering moving an immigration proposal directly to the floor, bypassing the Judiciary Committee, which is mired in other issues. "And then it goes to the House, and then who knows," said Martinez.
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CD I hear you but,
« Reply #109 on: Today at 09:10:44 AM »
Crafty,
I understand what you are saying and
Well yes that's the argument that is made. And I would submit this has *obvious validity*. For example we made exceptions after WWII to obtain brilliant minded scientists like Von Braun. [ot: I just saw a cable show that (sadly as far as I feel) we allowed not only people who were swept up by the Nazi tidle wave but advid supporters and architects into the US as well.] Von Braun of course was great to have for us a nation.
I still am not convinced that Cao cannot apply for or receive citizenship like everyone else.
There is no shortage of Asian/Middle Eastern American doctors from my vantage point! They are here by the tens of thousands at least in the NYC metro area. I don't see how they could be practicing with a license if they were not legal.
If Cao is so smart he can marry a Chinese American girl? I have a South African niece. It took work, a lawyer, money, time and sweat but she is an American Citizen now.
Like Schwarzenegger.
Was GG protesting this about Cao? GG was the same guy who was proclaiming on his website (in the late 90's) that the export and stealing of military secrets to China was a bogus complaint. He typed on the message board more or less that the Chinese could figure this out anyway so what's the big deal. But if I had to choose I would keep Cao and send Gilder to China.
To set my opinion straight GG is obviously a genius. And he seems an honorable man. He invested his own money with us on his stock picks and his business. He made and lost money with us subscribers to his newsletters. I wonder how many other gurus do this. He was right about the telecosm just off by an unknown number of years. But some of his political ideas are based in fantasy and naivity like some his investment ideas - like "listen to the technology" as the key to investing success. He called Intel, ATT, and Microsoft a bunch of dinosaurs. Maybe they can be viewed that way froma technology point of view but they are not going away.
Somewhat off the topic: I notice Cao left Avanex before it crashed to one dollar a share. Or did someone at the immigration office lose their shirt in Avanex and get him deported? Sorry for my wiseguy remarks here. I lost a lot on Avanex. I take responsibility but it is hard not to be annoyed.
As always I appreciate the divergence of views and being able to express them here.
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Well, lets forget about my effort at a particular example :oops: and stay with the big picture.
Here's this from today's WSJ-- I don't agree with all its points, but think it makes one worth considering well with regard to guest workers:
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The 'Guest Worker' Folly
By PETER D. SALINS
June 6, 2007; Page A19
After years of inconclusive posturing and negotiation, Congress is finally getting serious about a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration policy. The Senate proposal under consideration, to its credit, deals with all three crucial elements of the immigration policy challenge: what to do about the illegal immigrants already here (whom no one honestly believes we would ever deport); how we might secure the border and stem future illegal entry; and whom we should admit in the future.
The bill is a decidedly mixed bag, however, with elements that are good, very good and downright ugly. Unfortunately, the ugly element may fatally outweigh the rest.
First, the good: The proposed legislation's convoluted path to legal status for the country's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants is probably the best compromise to be achieved between the adamant proponents and opponents of "amnesty." It is essential that all immigrants who are permitted to stay actually become members of American society. The legalization provisions, however imperfect, are better than the status quo. More good: On border security, the proposed bill would focus primarily on an electronically supported implementation of employer sanctions. This makes real sense, because employer sanctions have always been a far more effective means of stopping illegal immigration in its tracks than border guards or fences. Those who claim that employer sanctions haven't worked are unaware that they have never been seriously tried. If we mean it this time, employer sanctions will work.
Turkish guest workers in Germany.
Second, the very good: The most commendable aspect of the bill is its retreat from family sponsorship -- indeed any form of sponsorship -- as the only basis for admitting immigrants, in favor of a merit-based point system. The point system is predicated on self-sponsorship, with bonus points for criteria well within the ability of most potential immigrants to meet: English language proficiency, modest levels of education and a set of specific skills. Of all aspects of the current proposal, this is the most far-reaching and creative, because the current family and employer sponsorship system is seriously flawed, at war with our immigration heritage and a major contributor to illegal entry.
Because it sets aside "family reunification," this provision is being vehemently attacked by supposed immigration "liberals" as being cruel and unfair. They have it backward; it is the current system that is cruel and unfair, and it was designed to be that way. It was instituted in the 1920s for only one deplorable purpose -- to keep out the growing number of immigrants from "undesirable" countries, then meaning those from southern and eastern Europe. The family sponsorship criteria that immigration advocates so cherish were designed not out of concern for family values at all, but to skew the immigrant mix toward nationalities already here.
As it happens, by the time the U.S. expanded its quotas after 1965, Europeans were less interested in coming, and Mexicans and other Latin Americans had secured enough of a demographic foothold to give the family sponsorship feature a decided Latino tilt. But family sponsorship is also profoundly unfair, and a major spur to illegal entry, because most potential immigrants -- even from Mexico -- do not have close American relatives.
In any case, the immigration reform bill's deleterious impact on families would be minimal, because it sets aside enough slots to finally clear the entire backlog of current family-sponsored applicants, and would allow point-based admittees to bring their close relatives with them.
Now the ugly: The most ill-conceived element of the Senate bill is its provision for admitting hundreds of thousands of temporary, or "guest," workers. As many critics have already noted, since it is unlikely that all, or even a majority, of temporary workers would actually return to their native countries when their visas expired, the guest-worker mechanism means that we can readily anticipate the next wave of illegal residents -- and is unlikely that we will ever again entertain any kind of post hoc residency legitimation.
But even if all temporary workers went back home after their allotted stay ended, the notion of inviting millions of new immigrants to live in American communities with no possibility of their ever becoming Americans is an affront to our civic and immigration heritage. (The current legislation is quite clear that neither extended stays nor citizenship will be options for temporary workers.) Can our civil society -- so grounded in the notions of assimilation and civic participation by all Americans -- tolerate an army of permanent aliens in our midst? I believe not.
Western Europe's experiment with foreign labor recruitment in the 1960s and 1970s, under various guest-worker rubrics, should give us pause. While the individual nations' policies varied widely, they all shared with the Senate proposal two expectations: that imported laborers would not stay very long, and that they would not assimilate into the national social fabric.
True enough, the guest workers in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia did not assimilate; but the majority have stayed, legally and illegally, residing in alienated economic and cultural enclaves, resentful of and resented by their unwelcoming host citizenry. If we are determined to replicate Western Europe's four decade old guest-worker experiment, we may soon reap the same civil discord it is experiencing today.
The temporary-worker provision has been included in the reform package supposedly at the behest of employers, especially those needing unskilled workers in agriculture and services. But if employers across America really need a larger labor force, this result could easily be achieved under the new point-based quota system. The quota could be enlarged by precisely the number of visas that the bill allots to temporary workers, and under the bill's Labor Department certification provisions, its criteria could be broadened to encompass the kinds of low-skill occupations that temporary workers would presumably fill. But the bedrock principle that must be sustained is that all who come to America must have the potential to become Americans.
As with all compromise legislation, no interest group, policy wonk (like myself), or partisan position gets everything it wants. There is now such a hunger for immigration reform across the policy spectrum that, regardless of our specific misgivings, we are all being asked to take the ugly along with the good and very good. But at this point I feel so strongly that the "guest worker" provision would be catastrophic that I would rather wait for a better bill without it.
Mr. Salins, a professor of political science at Stony Brook University, is the author of "Assimilation, American Style" (Basic Books, 1997).
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Go to uscis.gov and you'll see that we already have guest worker programs in place. There is no need for "reform", there is a dire need for the laws that already exist to be enforced. Secure the borders, enforce the laws, penalize those that employ illegals and the illegals will self-deport. It's really that simple.
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I'm not familiar with the argument about the citizenship vel non of those born to illegal aliens.
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Immigration, Part 2: “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof”?
Would it surprise you to know that more than 20 percent of children born in the United States are born to illegal aliens? As recently as 2002, that figure was 23 percent. Currently, all those children enjoy birthright citizenship and all its favors, despite the fact that there are legitimate questions about the constitutionality of such a right.
More on that in a minute.
Thursday morning, Demo Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attempted to rally a test vote on the so-called “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007,” but Republicans and a handful of Democrats refused to end debate on the legislation. Reid failed to muster the 60 votes necessary for cloture by a wide margin—only 32 Democrats and one Independent voted to close the debate. Thursday afternoon, Reid called again for a vote to end debate and move the legislation to the floor, but strike two. Rather than risk a third strike, Reid pulled the legislation—and it may not be back this year.
In other words, the Senate is a long way from passing an immigration bill of its own, much less coming up with something that can get through the House. Indeed, that’s the good news.
As I outlined in Part One of this series on immigration, the debate is nothing more than political pandering to 12 percent of the electorate—Latino voters—unless it begins with a commitment to secure our southern border and coastlines. As Ronald Reagan declared, “A nation without borders is not a nation.”
Only after the establishment of functional border security can a legitimate immigration debate take place.
At that point, immigration legislation must authorize and fund these priorities: enforcement of current immigration laws; immediate detention and deportation of those crossing our borders illegally; deportation of any foreign national convicted of a serious crime or seditious activity; a guest-worker program (with reliable documentation as a prerequisite) to meet the current demand for both skilled and unskilled labor; penalties against employers who hire illegal aliens; no extension of blanket amnesty or fast-track citizenship (new citizenship applicants go to the back of the line); the preservation and provision of tax-subsidized medical, educational and social services for American citizens and immigrants here legally; and the Americanization of new legal immigrants, including an end to bilingual education and a national mandate for English as our nation’s official language.
Currently, there are deportation orders for more than 600,000 illegal aliens, but virtually no funding or effort to enforce these orders. And while there are substantial penalties for hiring illegal immigrants, there is no funding or effort to enforce these laws, either.
Question: If there is no comprehensive effort to secure our borders and enforce existing immigration laws, what difference would any new legislation make, other than to shore up Latino voter constituencies?
While the swamp rats are sorting out that question, hundreds of thousands of immigrants are birthing children in the U.S. (more than three million at last count). It is assumed that they have a constitutional birthright to citizenship. As such, those children, and their attendant families, are served up a plethora of social services at taxpayer expense. They are also the anchors for a chain of migration because upon reaching age 21, the children of illegal immigrants can petition to have citizenship extended to the entire family.
But does the Constitution authorize birthright citizenship to illegal aliens?
The relevant constitutional clause concerning birthright is found in the 14th Amendment, one of three “reconstruction amendments” proposed after the War Between the States. The 13th Amendment banned slavery, the 14th ensured Due Process and Equal Protection under the law for former slaves and their children, and the 15th banned race-based qualification for voting rights.
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment (as proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It explicitly referred to children born to U.S. citizens and those born to aliens lawfully in the U.S.
Why did the amendment’s sponsors insist on adding, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”?
For insight, consider the words of Sen. Jacob Howard, co-author of the amendment’s citizenship clause. In 1866, he wrote that the amendment “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, or who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States...”
By extension, then, it is fair to conclude that, in addition to the children of those legally in the U.S. under the above exclusion, this would apply to the children of those illegally in the U.S. —until the Supreme Court took up the question of the rights of illegal aliens to taxpayer services in 1982. In Plyler v. Doe, the judicial activists concluded that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”
But Plyler v. Doe is historically and legally inaccurate. In the context of original intent, children born to those who have entered the U.S. illegally—those who are not citizens—are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” One would hope, in the course of the current debate about immigration, that Congress and the courts would actually pay homage to the plain language of our Constitution.
Not much chance of that, though, especially when it’s not politically expedient.
Meanwhile, 12-20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. have hundreds of thousands of children, who are extended birthright citizenship—at an annual cost to taxpayers of between six and ten billion dollars.
On top of that, the “economic benefit” argument for “guest workers” is suffering a significant trade deficit. On average, the households of illegal aliens are paying about $9,000 in various taxes, and receiving about $30,000 in benefits—direct benefits, social services, public services and population based services like education.
Quote of the week
“In 1970, six percent of all births in the United States were to illegal aliens. In 2002, that figure was 23 percent. In 1994, 36 percent of the births paid for by Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid, were to illegals. That figure has doubtless increased in the intervening 12 years as the rate of illegal immigration has risen.” —Mona Charen
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pBvpVDbOKA
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Here's a piece from today's WSJ. I certainly don't agree with some of its points, but worth the reading:
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Immigration Plan B
June 13, 2007; Page A18
Last week the Senate immigration bill was smothered in its crib by the same folks who said the status quo was unacceptable. Now the status quo is what they have. Congratulations. Hope they like it.
Our own view is that the current policy, warts and all, is preferable to some vast new enforcement regime that harasses employers for hiring willing workers. This makes no more sense today than when it was first proposed 20 years ago. We don't see the logic or fairness in punishing business owners for failing to detect and oust illegal aliens in their midst, especially when Citizenship and Immigration Services has proven so inept at performing the same task. Employers encounter enough red tape without also being required to double as deputy immigration cops or risk facing federal raids and steep fines.
We also had problems with some of the measure's proposed changes to our current legal immigration policies, such as replacing family-based migration with a government-run "point system" for newcomers that smacks of industrial policy. Silicon Valley can do a more efficient job than Uncle Sam when it comes to choosing and maintaining the high-skilled workers it needs to keep U.S. companies competitive.
Supporters are saying the Senate bill can be revived, but the legislation was moving in the wrong direction before last week's Senate vote. One amendment cut in half the size of a guest-worker program that probably wasn't big enough to begin with. Given the hostility on the right and left, and the Democratic Congress's desire to deny President Bush any political victory, the measure is probably too ambitious to survive.
The better approach might be to go with a more modest, stripped-down version that avoids the "amnesty" canard and improves things at the margin. Current laws are too restrictive for some industries, especially high-tech and agriculture. The visa quota for foreign professionals is filled faster every year, the market's way of saying make more visas available.
Regarding agriculture workers, the problem isn't the number of visas available; it's the cumbersome and litigation-prone process that employers and workers must navigate to use them. As John Hancock, a former Labor Department official, once put it, "The current program, with its multiple regulations and related requirements, is too complex for the average grower to comprehend and use without the aid of a good lawyer or experienced agent." The result is more illegal immigration.
A more streamlined bill could address both these concerns and in the process test the bona fides of restrictionists who keep saying they like immigrants, so long as they're here legally. The cap on visas for high-skilled workers could be lifted or removed. Congress might also consider exempting from the cap foreign nationals who receive a master's degree and above from a U.S. school. For agribusinesses, the procedure for a farmworker visa could be simplified by reducing paperwork and expediting the labor certification process.
But the most important thing Congress could do before giving up altogether is put in place a guest-worker program for future immigrants. If we want to reduce illegal entries, let's provide more legal ways for foreigners to enter the country. It's worked before and it could again.
Back in 1942, in response to a shortage of agriculture workers caused by World War II, Congress authorized the Bracero guest-worker program. For the next two decades, Mexican workers were permitted to enter the U.S. on a temporary basis to fill gaps in the labor market. As the nearby chart illustrates, illegal border crossings subsequently plummeted. Between 1953 and 1959 they fell by some 95%. In 1960, mainly in response to complaints from labor unions, the program was scaled back and eventually phased out. But there's no reason Congress can't put in place a Bracero- like program with proper worker protections and receive a similar result.
A guest-worker program for newcomers wouldn't solve the problem of the 12 million illegal aliens already here, but it would help ensure that our illegal population doesn't continue to grow. The lesson of the Bracero program is that if we provide immigrants with a regulated, legal way to enter the country, they'll use it.
Some restrictionists will oppose this, too, because their real goal is a "time out" on all immigration, as the Tom Tancredo Republicans put it. That may sell in some precincts on the right, notably among those who worry that the country is becoming less Anglo-Saxon. But that isn't the majority view among conservatives, much less the country.
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The Old Affection
It takes secure boundaries for it to flourish.
Peggy Noonan
WSJ
Friday, June 15, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Go deeper.
That's what I keep thinking as Americans fight the Washington establishment (the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, their big contributors) on immigration. Go deeper. Look at the real emotions driving the struggle as opposed to what politicians and the media claim are "the high emotions surrounding this issue."
You know what I think is the American mood right now on immigration? Anti-immigration and for the immigrant. Against the abstract and for the particular.
We're against gushing borders and illegal immigration, which is at this point even souring the general mood on legal immigration, because we don't trust our bureaucrats to let in the people America needs. We don't trust our bureaucrats and leaders to care a lot about America. (We assume that when senators are together, if someone says, "But what about America?" everyone laughs, and then the top senator says, dryly, "Your concern is duly noted. Next.")
But that's the abstract, "immigration." In the particular--the immigrants we see and work with and know--we're for them.
We're asking for closed borders and pulling for newcomers.
And this isn't ambivalence, and it isn't confusion. It's common sense plus humanity.
The White House is exploiting American alarm at uncontrolled borders to get its way. This of course has added to the sense of national alarm. They believe the alarm works for them: If you don't pass our bill we'll never control your borders--yes, "your"--and you'll suffer! In the general air of agitation, anger festers. People feel powerless. Rage follows, and in this case I believe deep fissures will follow that.
What gets lost in the alarm, and will get lost in the fissures, is the old affection the whole country felt, and still feels, for its newcomers. Not shallow sentiment or softness but something more constitutional, more civic.
As in: I'm in Mass, or in the deli down the street, or the bathroom of a restaurant, and I see a Hispanic woman, obviously hardworking, obviously so far not lucky, not yet. This is what I think: Hi, Grandma. My grandmother was a bathroom attendant on the fifth floor of the A&S department store in downtown Brooklyn. She was an immigrant from Ireland.
When I see new Americans, I think I'm seeing her. And I am not alone. And I know what we feel, and it is not antagonism. It is some kind of old civic love, some kind of connection that echoes back, that doesn't quite have a name but is part of who we are.
In New York last weekend we had the Puerto Rican Day Parade. I walked from midtown to uptown in the throngs. Babies, strollers, mommies, people dressed in red, white and blue. Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States, but some of the people around me were new arrivals. On 86th Street, at the end of the parade, I saw a teenage girl in a silver-white gown. She'd just gotten off a float and was sitting on the curb. She looked like a Miss Universe contestant--brown skin, big eyes, beautiful. She looked like she wants to be Jennifer Lopez. This is a very American thing to want to be. Near her there was another girl in a gown. She was shorter, thicker, and had a tattoo on her arm of the American flag. I thought: She'll be a Marine some day.
Some things were not good, not at all. A young man hurled an obscene epithet. He was that angry I wasn't Latin, and he felt I should know. Another young man deliberately frightened a shopkeeper on Madison Avenue. When he walked by the store, he put out his arm as if he had a gun in his hand, aiming it at her. I was behind him. I looked at the woman as she flinched, and our eyes locked: This is bad.
We're going to have to work on that young man, on both of them.
But we always have to work on young men, don't we?
Lately in the immigration debate we have been discussing and debating statistics on such things as family breakdown, education levels, and criminality among Hispanic newcomers. This reminds me of a number of things, some of them perhaps to this day delicate. One is that among the immigrant Irish of the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were fairly high levels of dysfunction, family neglect, alcoholism. As for criminality, they didn't call it the paddy wagon for nothing. My tribe was an obstreperous one. Many tribes are, at least the interesting ones. People are human and human is messy.
Another thought is that statistical breakdowns on our ethnic groups, Bell Curves and Reports on Out of Wedlock Birthrates, are not in themselves necessarily wrong, but there's something rather rude about them. That is perhaps a sissy thing to say, but what I mean is this: If you have a mother and a father with a big family of kids it would be rude--and unhelpful, and not conducive to promoting peace--for the grown-ups to sit around the table at night and say to their children, "Joey, you're the smart one," and "Elizabeth is dumber and yet dogged," and "Bobby here is our promiscuous one." How exactly would that help? It's not even "realistic": Today's reality can change. An academic might say, "I'm not their father." Fair enough, but you're a grown-up, and if you're a grown-up, you're in charge of America right now.
A little love would go a long way right now. We should stop putting newcomers in constant jeopardy by blithely importing ever-newer immigrants who'll work for ever lower wages. The ones here will never get a sure foot on the next rung that way.
We should close the border, pause, absorb what we have, and set ourselves to "patriating" the newcomers who are here. The young of AmeriCorps might help teach them English. Those reaching retirement age, who happen to be the last people in America who were taught and know American history, could help them learn the story of our country. We could, as a nation, set our minds to this.
We shouldn't be disheartened. So much good could be done once a Great Pause begins, once the alarm is abated.
What will we do about the 12 million here? Nothing radical. We're not really a radical people, Americans.
Having no borders--that's radical.
Saying, to the American people, in essence, Back my big bill or I will not close the borders, is radical.
Insisting on "all or nothing at all" is radical.
Leaving your country wide open in the age of terror is radical.
But America isn't radical. If its leaders only knew! Our leaders are in need not only of wisdom but of faith. And, as always, love, as opposed to mere sentiment, and vanity, and pride.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
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Ten Simple, Direct Steps to a Legal American Immigration System
1: Keep the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli commitment and control the border. In The Reagan Diaries (HarperCollins, May 22, 2007), President Ronald Reagan wrote that he was going to sign the Simpson-Mazzoli bill because "it's high time we regained control of our borders and [this] bill will do this." For national security reasons, it is vital we regain control of our border. Congress should pass a narrowly written emergency border bill to finish the necessary fence in less than a year and to have complete border control within two years.
2: Announce an immediate shift of Internal Revenue Service resources to audit companies that are deliberately hiring people illegally. We do not have to focus on deporting those who want to work. We need to focus on the Americans who are getting richer by deliberately breaking our laws, hiring people illegally and failing to pay taxes. These people are cheating their own country. We should focus on fining and making it economically impractical for Americans to deliberately encourage law breaking. Economic penalties for knowingly hiring someone who is illegal should rise dramatically with each employer (including subcontractors) conviction, making it simply too expensive to cheat. This will eliminate the magnet of illegal jobs, will begin to diminish the flow of new illegal workers and will lead some illegal workers to return home voluntarily.
3: Outsource to American Express, Visa or MasterCard the job of building a real-time verification system so that honest companies can confirm the legal status of all workers and identify people with forged papers before they hire them as fast as your automatic teller machine identifies you and gives you money in a matter of seconds. We must distinguish between companies that deliberately hire illegal workers and companies that hire people who they believe are legal. It is the government's duty to help this second group of companies by providing a real-time verification system for identifying the legal status of all workers so that it is possible to screen out those with illegal documents. The government should outsource the creation of this system so that it is easy, fast and accurate.
4: Focus deportation efforts on criminals. Those who claim that opponents of the Bush-Kennedy-McCain bill support mass deportations are simply wrong. We want a system in which honest work is available for law-abiding workers and in which the natural attrition of declining job availability will reduce illegal behavior. However, there is one group that should be deported immediately, and the law should be modified to make it easy to do so. Criminals have no future in America. In every major city and increasingly in small cities and even small towns, gangs have become a problem and people feel a rising sense of insecurity. There are at least 30,000 illegal gang members now in the United States. The system should focus on deporting criminals so that people who are here illegally understand that breaking the law will get them deported immediately.
5: Cut off all federal aid to any city, county or state that refuses to investigate if a criminal is here illegally. These so-called "sanctuary cities" are in effect abetting the violation of American law and increasing the risk to honest, law-abiding Americans. They should be cut off from all federal aid if they refuse to help enforce federal law.
6: Offer intensive education in English to anyone who wants to learn English, and make English the official language of government. This will begin to reassert the commitment to assimilation and Americanization that has historically been part of legal immigration to America.
7: Ensure that becoming an American citizen requires passing a test on American history in English and giving up the right to vote in any other country.
8: Within the context of these proven changes, establish an economically driven temporary worker program like the Krieble Foundation proposals. Any temporary worker would have to pass a background check to ensure they are not a criminal, would have to give biometric information (retinal scan and thumbprint) for a special card that would be outsourced to American Express, MasterCard or Visa so it would be harder to defraud and counterfeit, and would have to sign a contract committing them to pay taxes and obey the law or be removed from the United States within two weeks without recourse to long court processes.
9: Create a special open-ended worker visa for high value workers who bring specialized education, entrepreneurial talent or capital that will grow the American economy and make America a more prosperous country.
10: Workers who came here illegally but have a good work relationship and community ties (including family), should have first opportunity to get the new temporary worker visas, but instead of paying penalties, they should be required to go home and get the visa at home. This way they are beginning their new career in America by obeying the law. It is amazing that those who advocate a large fine and the new Z visa, which would be administered in a hopelessly expedited manner, suggest that going home to get a new legal admission to the U.S. is somehow too complicated. If people can break the law by entering the county illegally, they should be able to obey the law and enter America legally.
These 10 steps would lead to a controlled border, a profound revitalization of the core values of American civilization, a renewed respect for the law and an economically driven system of legal temporary workers in an orderly and controllable manner.
This program would work vastly better than the dishonest and hopelessly complex Bush-Kennedy-McCain proposal now being pushed so hard by the establishment against the wishes of most Americans.
Why the Bush-Kennedy-McCain Immigration Bill Is Worse Then You Think
And make no mistake about it: the Bush-McCain-Kennedy immigration bill has to be stopped, once and for all. It was bad to begin with, and the Senate isn't making it any better. And it's not like they haven't had the opportunities. Consider these votes:
An amendment offered by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota would have closed the gaping hole in our national security created by so-called "sanctuary cities" -- cities in which city policy forbids police from even inquiring about the immigration status of people they arrest. DEFEATED.
An amendment offered by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas would have denied legal status under the bill to gang members. DEFEATED.
An amendment offered by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma would have required congressionally approved certification that concrete border security and internal law enforcement measures have taken place before the amnesty and guest-worker provisions of the bill are implemented. DEFEATED.
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14 problems with the latest incarnation
http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/LoopholesInS1348.pdf
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RALPH BLUMENTHAL
NY Times
Published: June 20, 2007
McALLEN, Tex., June 15 — Antonio N. Zavaleta, a vice president and professor of anthropology at the University of Texas branch in Brownsville, saw a slight problem in the route of a border fence that federal officials displayed at a community meeting earlier this month.
Dr Antonio N. Zavaleta, a vice president of the University of Texas branch in Brownsville, at the site of the planned fence, which would split the university. “Would the students need to show a passport?” he asked.
“Part of our university,” Dr. Zavaleta said, “would be on the Mexican side of the fence.”
What about traffic between classes, he wondered. “Would the students need to show a passport?”
He was not the only one who was startled. Local leaders throughout South Texas have been voicing puzzlement and alarm at the implications of the barrier, which Congress has authorized the Department of Homeland Security to construct along 370 miles of the United States-Mexico border, including 153 miles in Texas, by December 2008.
Some of the gravest concern involves the effect on wildlife in the 90,000 acres of national refuges in South Texas, where bumper stickers read “No Border Wall” and a group of naturalists, Los Caminos del Rio, has been staging ecotourism forays into a long-closed sanctuary to draw attention to endangered habitats.
Customs and Border Protection officials say that the path of the fence is far from settled and that they are discussing it with local officials.
But maps like the one shown in Brownsville on June 4 by Chief David Aguilar of the Border Patrol put the route along a levee built inland to hold back flooding on the Rio Grande. That location, some here say, would in effect cede to Mexico the land on the other side of the fence up to the official international border, the middle of the Rio Grande.
In Brownsville, Dr. Zavaleta said, that path would cut off not only the International Technology, Education and Commerce campus of the University of Texas and Texas Southmost College, which is in a former shopping center about a mile from the main campus, but also its golf course and a national historic site, Fort Brown, where an upright cannon marks an opening skirmish of the Mexican War.
Even the heavily trafficked bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico, would be on the Mexican side of the fence, Dr. Zavaleta said.
He said Chief Aguilar had seemed taken aback by the observations and agreed to review the route.
“Nothing has been finalized yet,” said Xavier Rios, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. “To say something will be cut off is way premature.”
Mr. Rios added that the fence would have many access points to allow monitored passage.
But in Laredo, where Mayor Raul G. Salinas, a former officer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has complained of being bypassed, a city spokeswoman, Xochitl Mora Garcia, said that after promising to consult with local officials, federal authorities recently invited contract proposals for construction of the fence.
“What they’re saying and doing are two different things,” Ms. Garcia said.
In Brownsville, the district clerk, Aurora De La Garza, and a county commissioner, Sofia Benavides — who emerged from a hurricane-planning visit to the Mexican consulate at the university campus that would be isolated — derided officials in Washington as not understanding family ties across the border.
“This is a relationship that cannot be broken by a fence,” Ms. Benavides said.
Representative Henry Cuellar, the South Texas Democrat who has been organizing local forums to air grievances, said the Homeland Security Department had become more responsive.
“They may have started off on the wrong foot,” Mr. Cuellar said, “but they’re trying to work with the locals now.”
On Friday, the House passed a bill, now before the Senate, appropriating $37 billion for the Homeland Security Department with a provision, insisted on by Mr. Cuellar and others, requiring federal officials to consult with local communities about the fence, which could cost $2 billion to $49 billion.
Supporters say a fence is crucial to shoring up the nation’s southern border. Critics say that a 10-foot-high wall in San Diego is already being scaled by illegal immigrants using ladders, and that technology alone — a virtual fence — could provide much of the same security.
Furthermore, congested areas like Laredo, where development extends to the Rio Grande amid tightly intertwined commercial and social ties to its sister city across the border, Nuevo Laredo, do not lend themselves to a fence.
In an unusual step in the booming border crossroads city of McAllen, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service has taken a role in the debate, providing a rare permit to Los Caminos del Rio (Ways of the River), to run scheduled biking and kayaking outings into the long-restricted Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. Members have to announce their visits ahead of time to tip off the Border Patrol and assure protection from the human smugglers who infest the refuge — like, for example, the three jumpy fellows who had just crossed the river from Mexico the other evening to stash a bag of dry clothes for nightfall.
“Don’t mess with us or we’ll both get messed up,” warned one (or words to that effect).
Eric Ellman, executive director of the 17-year-old Los Caminos group, said the strategy was akin to that devised in New York City at the height of the 1970s crime wave.
“Legal activity will displace illegal activity,” Mr. Ellman said, maintaining that the presence of ecotourists would make the refuge less appealing to illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.
Bryan R. Wynton, the refuge manager, said he was concerned that a fence could prove ruinous to wildlife relying on the river. “It pretty much destroys 20 years of efforts,” he said.
But Mr. Wynton added, “I’m smart enough to know national security is going to trump fish and wildlife management any day, but that doesn’t mean I need to throw in the towel.”
A morning spent biking and kayaking the refuge with about a dozen members of Los Caminos showcased the diversity of the wildlife. As Lori Humphreys, executive secretary of the group, led the group with an S.U.V. full of gear, and Mel Piñeda, a consultant, followed in a pickup loaded with kayaks, a herd of javelinas bolted into the mesquite. A turkey buzzard circled overhead along with menacing-looking tarantula wasps that lay their eggs inside tarantulas also in evidence from a dried carcass at the side of the road.
Sue Thompson, a local farmer and a member of the North American Butterfly Association, with its own reserve nearby, said she had seen smugglers in the refuge driving up to unload boxes of drugs ferried across the Rio Grande.
Just the evening before, on a run-through of the next morning’s nature tour, Mr. Piñeda stumbled across the three men huddling on the shore of the river waiting for dark with their bag of dry clothes.
On the Mexican side, families frolicked in the water, and Mr. Piñeda shouted across, asking what they thought of the wall. “It’s an insult,” one man shouted back, adding, “We’ll make tunnels.”
As nightfall came, Napoleon Garza, an armed local caretaker who was patrolling the reserve against feral hogs, warned the visitors to leave.
“There’s a lot of dope being run across here,” he said.
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Poisonous and Treasonous
By Quin Hillyer
Published 6/20/2007 12:08:40 AM
For those of us out here who really do have a moderate position on
immigration, who really do seek a reasoned approach that in the long
run allows for some form of "guest workers," the immigration bill
being considered by the Senate is more and more of an affront the
more and more its details become clear. It is an affront because it
appears to have been written in bad faith, by illegitimate
procedures, with all sorts of smoke screens meant to snooker us into
believing the bill is moderate and balanced.
In fact, the bill is a radical and dangerous attempt to open the
floodgates.
It must be stopped.
That's the only conclusion one can reach after re-reading, closely,
the report called "20 Loopholes in the Senate Immigration Bill,"
released on June 4 by Alabama's Sen. Jeff Sessions. (Of the 20, only
one minor "loophole" has since been improved by amendment.)
For "Loophole 1," Sessions has identified the provision which, all
along, has been the single biggest stumbling block to people of good
will who wish to take this bill seriously. It is the now-infamous
allowance for "probationary benefits," which effectively makes every
other law-and-order provision in the bill utterly worthless. Allow me
to quote Sessions' entire paragraph:
Amnesty benefits do not wait for the "enforcement trigger." After
filing an application and waiting 24 hours, illegal aliens will
receive full "probationary benefits," complete with the ability to
legally live and work in the U.S., travel outside of the U.S. and
return, and their own social security card. Astonishingly, if the
trigger is never met and amnesty applications are therefore never
"approved," the probationary benefits granted to the illegal alien
population never expire, and the new social security cards issued to
the illegal alien population are not revoked. [See pp. 1, 290-291, &
315.]
Even worse is the combination of that loophole with "Loophole 5 --
Completion of Background Checks Not Required For Probationary Legal
Status." Again, I quote:
Legal status must be granted to illegal aliens 24 hours after they
file an application, even if the aliens have not yet "passed all
appropriate background checks." (Last year's bill gave DHS 90 days to
check an alien's background before any status was granted.)... [See
pp. 290.].
As Sessions then comments, on the contrary, "No legal status should
[my emphasis] be given to any illegal alien until all appropriate
background checks are complete."
As long as the probationary visa provisions remain in the bill, all
reasonable people ought to consider this bill poisonous. No matter
how one slices it, this is complete amnesty, pure and simple, with no
enforcement, no respect for the law, no guarantee of safety, no
requirement to learn English, no reliable insistence that businesses
hire only legal visitors, no protection against Social Security and
welfare fraud that could cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions
of dollars over the next several decades.
It is hard to see this as anything other than a deliberate attempt by
the bill's drafters to provide an end-run around everything else in
the bill, in effect to make everything else into window dressing.
What other reason could there be for cutting the background check
time period from 90 days to a single day? (!!!!!!!)
Collectively, all the other loopholes identified by Sessions are at
least equally scary. For instance, the trigger does not require full
implementation of the U.S. VISIT system, which is the biometric
border check-in/check-out program that already is two years overdue.
The trigger's requirements for detention capabilities for scofflaws
is off by about 50 percent, or more than 30 thousand beds, from what
a later part of the bill acknowledges is the desirable amount.
Also, "Aliens who broke into the country illegally a mere 5 months
ago are treated better than foreign nationals who legally applied to
come to the U.S. more than two years ago."
There are loopholes that fail to protect against certain child
molesters, fail to protect against certain people with terrorist
connections, fail against known gang members (who must merely
"renounce" their gang membership on their application), and fail
against absconders (people who already have been given deportation
orders but ignored them and remain in our country).
On and on goes Sessions' list, with the senator also identifying a
number of provisions that would make the bill financially costly to
American taxpayers. One of these provisions is so bad that it, too,
merits quoting Sessions' description in full:
Free legal counsel and the fees and expense of arbitrators will be
provided to aliens that have been working illegally in agriculture.
The U.S. taxpayer will fund the attorneys that help these individuals
fill out their amnesty applications. Additionally, if these
individuals have a dispute with their employer over whether they were
fired for "just cause," DHS will "pay the fee and expenses of the
arbitrator." [See p. 339:37-41, & p. 332: 37-38.]
In all, if passed in its current form, this might be one of the
single worst bills in the history of the United States, ranking right
up there with the Smoot-Hawley tariff that helped usher in the Great
Depression. It makes a mockery of law and order and public safety,
and it makes a mockery of the entire notion of American citizenship.
It is outrageously irresponsible.
Not only that, but by concocting it via the alchemy of back-room deal-
making, without benefit of a single committee hearing, its drafters
contemptuously insult the American people by refusing to trust the
people with the ability to analyze and comment on the legislation the
drafters would impose upon them. Such shenanigans are utterly
destructive to all efforts to maintain within our populace what the
poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson called "some sense of duty, something of a
faith, some reverence for the laws ourselves have made."
There is no way, none whatsoever, that this bill can inculcate a
reverence for this nation's laws. Instead, it breeds only further
contempt: the contempt for our laws it will instill in the minds of
illegal immigrants, and the contempt for our system with which a
clear majority of Americans will greet such legislation if passed
into law.
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator. He can be
reached at qhillyer@gmail.com.
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This from today's NY Times discusses the H1B Visa issue. I am sympathetic to the companies desire for more H1Bs, but the devil is in the details , , ,
==================
WASHINGTON, June 24 — Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft have led a parade of high-tech executives to Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to provide more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants who can fill critical jobs.
Google has reminded senators that one of its founders, Sergey Brin, came from the Soviet Union as a young boy. To stay competitive in a “knowledge-based economy,” company officials have said, Google needs to hire many more immigrants as software engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists.
The top executives of these and other high-tech companies have been making a huge effort to reshape the Senate immigration bill to meet their demand for more foreign workers. But they have had only limited success, as is often the case when strong-willed corporate leaders confront powerful members of Congress.
The Senate plans to resume work on the bill this week. Much of the debate will focus on proposals for granting legal status to illegal immigrants. But the sections of the bill affecting high-tech industries could prove to be very important as well.
High-tech companies want to be able to hire larger numbers of well-educated, foreign-born professionals who, they say, can help them succeed in the global economy. For these scientists and engineers, they seek permanent-residence visas, known as green cards, and H-1B visas. The H-1B program provides temporary work visas for people who have university degrees or the equivalent to fill jobs in specialty occupations including health care and technology. The Senate bill would expand the number of work visas for skilled professionals, but high-tech companies say the proposed increase is not nearly enough. Several provisions of the Senate bill are meant to enhance protections for American workers and to prevent visa fraud and abuse.
High-tech companies were surprised and upset by the bill that emerged last month from secret Senate negotiations. E. John Krumholtz, director of federal affairs at Microsoft, said the bill was “worse than the status quo, and the status quo is a disaster.”
In the last two weeks, these businesses have quietly negotiated for changes to meet some of their needs. But the bill still falls far short of what they want, an outcome suggesting that their political clout does not match their economic strength.
Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a co-author of a treatise on immigration law, said: “High-tech companies are very organized. They have numerous lobby groups. When Bill Gates advocates more H-1B visas and green cards for tech workers, everyone listens.
“But that supposed influence has not translated into legislative results,” Mr. Yale-Loehr, who teaches at Cornell Law School, continued. “High-tech companies have been lobbying unsuccessfully since 2003 for more H-1B visas. It’s hard to get anything through Congress these days. In addition, anti-immigrant groups are well organized. U.S. computer programmers are constantly arguing that H-1B workers undercut their wages.”
The Republican architects of the Senate bill, like Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, thought they were doing a favor for high-tech companies when they proposed a “point system” to evaluate immigrants seeking green cards. The point system would reward people who have advanced degrees and job skills needed in the United States.
But the high-tech companies were upset because the bill would have stripped them of the ability to sponsor specific immigrants for particular jobs.
The companies flooded Senate offices with letters, telephone calls and e-mail messages seeking changes to the bill. Mr. Ballmer, the blunt-spoken chief executive of Microsoft, Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel, and other executives pressed their concerns in person.
These advocates have made some gains, which are embodied in an amendment to be proposed by Mr. Kyl and Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington.
Edward J. Sweeney, senior vice president of National Semiconductor, based in Santa Clara, Calif., said, “I’ve spent many hours in Washington talking with senators to get their support on this amendment.”
Likewise, William D. Watkins, the chief executive of Seagate Technology, the world’s largest maker of computer disk drives, said he met with five or six senators two weeks ago.
Under the Kyl-Cantwell proposal, 20,000 green cards would be set aside each year for immigrants of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers and certain managers and executives of multinational corporations. The original bill would have eliminated the existing preference for such workers.
In addition, the amendment would give employers five years to adjust their hiring practices to the new “merit-based” point system for obtaining green cards.
“For the first five years, employers would still have a say,” Ms. Cantwell said in an interview. “They could recruit the best and the brightest.”
----------------------
The number of green cards for employer-sponsored immigrants would gradually decline, to 44,000 in the fifth year from 115,000 in each of the first two years. No green cards would be set aside for employer-sponsored immigrants after that.
Many high-tech companies bring in foreign professionals on temporary H-1B visas. The government is swamped with petitions. On the first two days of the application period in April, it received more than 123,000 petitions for 65,000 slots.
The Senate bill would raise the cap to 115,000 in 2008, with a possible increase to 180,000 in later years, based on labor market needs.
Many high-tech businesses want to hire foreign students who obtain advanced degrees from American universities, and many of the students want to work here, but cannot get visas.
Under current law, up to 20,000 foreigners who earn a master’s degree or higher from an American university are generally exempt from the annual limit on new H-1B visas. The Kyl-Cantwell proposal would double the number.
The amendment would also establish a new exemption, providing 20,000 additional H-1B visas for people who have earned advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from a university outside the United States.
The technology companies face a serious challenge from a different direction, as lawmakers of both parties worry about possible abuses in the H-1B program.
Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, have a proposal that would overhaul the H-1 B program and give priority to American workers. Their proposal would also define, in great detail, the wages that must be paid to workers who have H-1B visas.
Mr. Durbin contended that some companies have used foreign workers to undercut the wages of American workers. And in some cases, he said, foreign workers come to this country for a few years of training, then return home “to populate businesses competing with the United States.”
“The H-1B visa program is being abused by foreign companies to deprive qualified Americans of good jobs,” Mr. Durbin said. “Some companies are so brazen, they say ‘no Americans need apply’ in their job advertisements.”
High-tech companies said that the wage standards in the Durbin-Grassley proposal would, in effect, require them to pay some H-1B employees more than some equally qualified American workers who are performing the same duties.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that thousands of H-1B workers have been paid less than the prevailing wage.
One company, Patni Computer Systems, agreed this month to pay more than $2.4 million to 607 workers with visas after Labor Department investigators found that they had not been paid the wages required by federal law. The company’s global headquarters are in Mumbai, India, and its American operations are based in Cambridge, Mass.
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Security First
How to protect the borders while welcoming the immigrants America needs.
BY PETE DU PONT
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The immigration bill may be back on the Senate floor this week, and the policies that are adopted will have a significant impact on the sovereignty, security, economic growth and opportunity of America in the coming decades.
America's modern immigration trend began in 1986 when President Reagan's bill granted amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants yet failed to improve border security. That amnesty sent a message to people across the border: If you slip into America you will be able to work and live here, and nothing negative will happen to you. Almost 20 years went by before any serious effort was undertaken to secure our borders, so that three million 1986 illegal immigrants have turned into 12 million today. About eight million people have entered the U.S. during the current Bush administration, half or more illegally, and according to the Washington Post, undocumented workers now make up "about 5 percent of all employees nationally."
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized 750 miles of fence to be built along our border with Mexico, where almost all of our illegal immigrants enter--over 80% of them come from Mexico and Latin American countries--but only about 150 miles of that border fence will have been built by the end of this year.
With this growing influx of illegal entrants into America, there are five essential actions the Senate should take next week:
First, secure the Mexican border so that America is closed to illegal immigration. Controlling our borders is essential to our national security. The additional 600 miles of border fencing authorized by the 2006 law must immediately be built; and we must add surveillance technology and more border security agents to our entire southern border. President Bush has agreed to add an upfront $4.4 billion to the bill to strengthen border security, enforce our immigration law, and prosecute employers who hire illegal workers--a good first step to solve our illegal immigration problems.
Second, make sure the bill contains the provisions of the Isakson Rule (proposed by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R., Ga.) that no other immigration reform programs can be implemented until the border is secure.
Third, once the border has been secured, require tamper-proof ID cards of all immigrants. Today there are no such cards, and verifiable identification is essential to both immigration policy and national security. We must know who is entering our country and what their background is.
Fourth, identify the skills required for the jobs immigrants need to fill, so that immigration policy will reflect America's economic needs. The Senate bill contains a merit-based system for evaluating immigration applicants. It encourages higher education, those skilled in specialist occupations (including scientists, engineers and technicians) and people who have previously worked in America and speak English. Working skills should be the focus of our immigration policy, so we must move from the current "chain migration" policy which gives preference to extended families of current immigrants--like sisters, cousins, uncles, and grandparents, to one that admits the skilled working people we need. Sen. Barack Obama tried to sunset this merit program after five years, and fortunately his attempt was defeated.
Fifth, get rid of the existing "visa lottery" that randomly selects 50,000 immigrants from the application list each year. An effective immigration policy isn't based on gambling.
These are the essential elements of any immigration policy, and all must must be enacted to have both a secure America and enough guest workers for a prosperous society. Passage of them would greatly improve our immigration system, our economy, and the quality of our workforce.
Then comes the difficult question of what to do about the aforementioned 12 million undocumented aliens who are in the country already. Sen. Ted Kennedy proposes allowing them to stay indefinitely and pursue citizenship. They would have to apply for a Z visa (temporary legal status) by admitting they have broken the law, pay an initial $1,000 fine, and submit to a background check. They would still not then eligible for welfare benefits or food stamps, and if they wanted a green card and permanent legal status, they would have to pay an additional $4,000 fine, learn English, and then return to their home countries to file for it. The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that some 15% to 20% of the 12 million illegal immigrants in America have criminal records and would be ineligible for Z visas or green cards.
Granting blanket amnesty to the 12 million illegal immigrants would be abandoning the rule of law, and deporting them would be difficult and chaotic. So a serious, enforceable visa plan makes sense.
America's illegal immigrant admission has accelerated over time. Congress and President Reagan granted amnesty to three million illegal aliens in 1986; and the current President Bush wants to legalize another 12 million now, which sends an arithmetic signal to other immigrants who want to slip into America that 20 years from now whoever is president will perhaps grant amnesty to 48 million illegal immigrants.
We do need to secure our borders, issue legal ID cards to immigrants, and admit people skilled in the jobs we need to fill. But experience shows that our government lacks the political will to enforce such an immigration policy. Georgia state employee Reagan W. Dean was recently quoted in the New York Times: "Maybe it is possible to secure the border. Maybe it is possible to establish an employee identification system. But I don't have any confidence it will be done."
Many Americans agree with him, so a serious and substantive bill that would restore the people's confidence is the Senate's task this week.
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.
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DuPont has some sound ideas but the devil is in the details. A couple of points/questions for others on this forum:
1) "First, secure the Mexican border so that America is closed to illegal immigration" Can we also discuss the entrance of illegal workers from the North, East, and West? There are plenty of illegal workers that aren't from Mexico getting jobs . We tend to focus (rightly so) on Mexico but forget that there are a ton of ways to get here and get a job without papers. How about comprehensive border security?
2) "...no other immigration reform programs can be implemented until the border is secure." How do we gauge the security level of a border? Are we now satisfied with border security re: Canada?
3) "...require tamper-proof ID cards of all immigrants". I for one don't believe that we will ever invent a tamper proof ID card. When I worked as a bouncer the new CA IDs came out and no one thought they could be faked...until the fakes showed up a couple of month later.
4) "Working skills should be the focus of our immigration policy" Excellent idea, but how do we implement it? Applications? Testing? Where, when, and by who?
5) "They would have to apply for a Z visa...pay a $1,000 fine, submit to a background check...If they wanted a green card and permanent legal status, they would pay an additional $4,000 fine, learn English, and then return to their home countries to file for it...So a serious, enforceable visa plan makes sense"
This is only point which I find to be absolutely ludicrous. How the h*ll are we going to enforce this? What illegal is actually going to admit they are here illegally? Where are they going to get $1,000 not to mention $4000?!?!? Why not just get a fake green card?
The State Dept. just had a major passport renewal fiasco, how do we expect them or the INS to deal with 12 million illegals?!?!?
Sorry, I guess that I am just frustrated by the broad strokes with which we attempt to handle issues like immigration, while completely ignoring the detailed reality of solving the problem. It seems that many these proposals will only add to the already too-thick layers of government bureaucracy. I fear that in the long run, any immigration bill that is passed will actually accomplish nothing. :x
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There is no need for new laws, just active enforcement of the law already in existance. The borders must be secured. Canada is a staging ground for all sorts of terror cells. Militarize the borders, take the BP agents and turn them over to ICE for internal enforcement. Start seizing assets of employers and the millions of illegals will self-deport.
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Hiding the Cost of Amnesty
By Robert Rector
Heritage Foundation | June 27, 2007
Last week, the White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report entitled "Immigration's Economic Impact" which defended the President's promotion of the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration legislation (S.1348).[1] On June 25, the White House issued a follow-up editorial elaborating on the points made in the CEA report.[2] These publications criticized Heritage Foundation research on the fiscal costs of low skill immigration and amnesty.
The Heritage research criticized by the White House made the following basic points about immigration and its costs:
Individuals without a high school degree impose significant net costs (the extent to which benefits and services received exceed taxes paid) on taxpayers.
The net fiscal cost of families of immigrants who lack a high school degree is not markedly different from the net fiscal cost of families of non-immigrants who lack a high school degree.
Immigrants are disproportionately low skilled; one-third of all immigrants and 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree.
Unlike low and moderate skill immigrants, immigrants with a college education will pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits; therefore. immigration policy should increase the number of high skill immigrants entering the country and sharply decrease the number of low skill, fiscally dependent immigrants.[3]
Heritage research has shown that low skill immigrants (those without a high school degree) receive, on average, three dollars in government benefits and services for each dollar of taxes they pay. This imbalance imposes a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. Over a lifetime, the typical low skill immigrant household will cost taxpayers $1.2 million.[4]
Future taxpayer costs will be increased by policies which increase (1) the number of low skill immigrants entering the U.S., (2) the length of low skill immigrants' stays in the U.S., or (3) low skill immigrants' access to government benefits and services. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Senate immigration bill does:
The bill would triple the flow of low skill chain immigration into the U.S.
By granting amnesty to at least 12 million illegal immigrants, the bill would greatly lengthen their stay in the U.S., particularly during retirement years.
The bill would grant illegal immigrants access to Social Security and Medicare benefits and, over time, to more than 60 different federal welfare programs.
Although the bill does not currently permit Z visa holders to bring spouses and children in from abroad, this would likely be amended at some future point on humanitarian grounds, resulting in another 5 million predominantly low-skill immigrants entering the country.
Heritage research has concluded that the cost of amnesty alone will be $2.6 trillion once the amnesty recipients reach retirement age.
In an effort to defend the Senate bill, the White has contested these conclusions. As described below, many of the assertions made by the White House are inaccurate or misleading.
The White House claims that, under the Senate immigration bill, amnesty recipients would receive little or no welfare.
CEA Chairman Edward Lazear charged that the Heritage claims concerning the cost of the Senate immigration bill were flawed because, under the bill, amnesty recipients would be barred from receiving "the vast majority of welfare benefits."[5] Like previous statements by White House spokesmen,[6] this assertion mischaracterizes the Senate bill and also shows a lack of understanding of the Heritage estimates of the bill's costs.
While provisions of the Senate bill would delay illegal immigrants' access to welfare for several years, over time, nearly all amnesty recipients would be offered legal permanent residence and access to more than 60 federal means-tested welfare programs. Specifically, Z visa holders would immediately be given Social Security numbers and would begin earning entitlement to Social Security and Medicare (which are not means-tested welfare programs). Some ten to thirteen years after enactment, amnesty recipients would begin to gain access to a wide variety of means-tested welfare programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public housing, and Food Stamps.[7] Children born to illegal and legal immigrants in the U.S. have immediate, lifetime access to all welfare programs.
The initial limitation on the receipt of means-tested welfare will have only a small effect on governmental costs. Adult welfare comprises only a small part of the benefits received by immigrant families. Moreover, the average adult amnesty recipient can be expected to live more than 50 years after receiving his Z visa. While his eligibility for means-tested welfare would be constrained for the first 10 to 15 years, each amnesty recipient would be fully eligible for welfare during the last 30 to 40 years of his life. Use of welfare during these years will be heavy.
The White House claims that, to the extent that amnesty recipients receive welfare benefits, they would receive the same low levels of benefits as other poorly educated immigrants, who (in the White House's view) receive little welfare.
The White House reassures taxpayers that amnesty recipients and millions of future low skill immigrants will not generate welfare costs because they must "qualify for…government [welfare] transfers only the old fashioned way."[8] The implication is that those who must struggle to earn access to welfare "the old fashioned way" will, in the end, get very little welfare. Contrary to this claim, the average low skill immigrant family actually receives $10,500 per year in means-tested welfare, or about a half million dollars over the course of a lifetime. Amnesty recipients would indeed gain access to welfare "the old fashioned way," and the old fashioned way is extraordinarily expensive.
The brief delay in adult access to welfare under S. 1348 and current law would have only a tiny effect on the long-term welfare costs of low skill immigrants. Further, the White House's touting the delays on immigrants receiving welfare under existing law is hypocritical: The actual policy pursued by the White House up to this time has been to dismantle the barriers in current law and increase immigrant families' access to welfare.
The White House strongly suggests that, under the Senate immigration bill, amnesty recipients would be net tax contributors.
Some 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants who would receive amnesty under S. 1348 lack a high school degree. Another 25 percent have only a high school degree. Based on the example of current immigrants with similar levels of education, these individuals would be a net burden on the taxpayer over the entire course of their lives.
The White House claims that amnesty recipients would increase the net government revenue available to support Americans in retirement.
The White House trumpets that "immigrants improve the solvency of our retirement system."[9] One must assume that they believe that the same will be true of amnesty recipients, because otherwise the assertion would be irrelevant in the current debate. The White House does correctly point out that amnesty recipients would pay Social Security taxes during their working years. Amnesty recipients' low skill levels, however, mean that the Social Security tax payments they make would, on average, be quite modest.
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More important is the fact that, in future years, Social Security benefits will be funded by both Social Security taxes and general revenue. What matters is not the small amount of Social Security taxes that would be paid by amnesty recipients but their overall fiscal balance—that is, the total federal state and local benefits received, minus all taxes paid. Because the total benefits taken by amnesty recipients and their families would exceed the Social Security and other taxes that they would pay, amnesty recipients would undermine, rather than strengthen, financial support for U.S. retirees, even before the amnesty recipients reach retirement age themselves.
The White House suggests that the retirement costs of amnesty recipients would not impose a significant tax burden on U.S. taxpayers.
The Senate bill would give amnesty recipients access not only to means-tested welfare, but also to government retirement benefits. The Heritage Foundation has estimated that the net fiscal costs of amnesty recipients during retirement would be $2.6 trillion. These particular costs would begin to impact the taxpayer about 30 years after enactment of the Senate legislation. The White House has made no specific refutation of this estimate.
The bulk of the net expenditure would be in the Social Security and Medicare programs; substantial costs would also occur in the means-tested Medicaid program (amnesty recipients would be fully eligible for Medicaid benefits long before they reach retirement). Contrary to any suggestions made by the White House, temporary restrictions on access to means-tested welfare by amnesty recipients is irrelevant to the estimated $2.6 trillion cost of amnesty.
The White House does point out that amnesty recipients will have paid Social Security taxes prior to retirement and thereby might be seen as having "earned" all the government benefits they would receive.[10] But, as noted above, the Social Security taxes paid by amnesty recipients would be modest. Even during working years, most amnesty recipients would be a drain on the taxpayer, and during retirement their fiscal cost would be dramatic.
The White House claims that the Senate immigration bill would benefit U.S. taxpayers by increasing the future flow of high skill immigrants (who would be strong net tax contributors) and decreasing the flow of low skill immigrants who are more likely to be a fiscal burden.
The White House claims that the Senate immigration bill would "sharply improve" the fiscal contributions of immigrants by increasing the share of future immigrants who are high skilled.[11] It asserts, "[T]he bill will end chain migration which allows legal immigrants to bring extended family members to the U.S" and replace it with a "new merit-based system to select future immigrants based on [their]…skills and attributes."[12]
In reality, the bill would triple the annual rate of family chain migration, raising the annual allotment for these immigrants from the current level of 147,000 to 440,000 and bringing up to 5.9 million such immigrants into the U.S. over the next decade. Family chain immigrants are predominately low skilled: 60 percent have only a high school degree or less and 38 percent lack a high school degree.[13]
What about the new merit-based system, ostensibly intended to bring in highly educated high tech workers? The core of this proposal is a point system to select future green card holders, but this point system is far from merit-based. For example, green card applicants would receive a high number of points if they are currently employed in "high demand" occupations, which include janitor, waitress, sales clerk, fast food worker, freight handler, laborer, grounds keeping worker, food preparation worker, maid, and house cleaner. Under the proposed point system, a high school dropout working in a fast food restaurant who has the recommendation of her employer would outscore an applicant with a Ph.D. trying to enter the country from abroad. The merit system is actually designed to confer citizenship on low skill "temporary guest workers" rather than bring in professionals from abroad.[14]
The bill would eliminate the current green card allocation for workers of "exceptional ability" but allocate 90,000 green cards per year for the next eight years to reduce the existing employment visa backlog of primarily low skill workers. Contrary to White House claims, it seems unlikely that S. 1348 would increase the number of green cards for high-skill workers, at least through the first eight years of operation.
The White House claims high school dropouts are a "very small part" of the immigrant population.
The Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers dismissed Heritage research on the negative fiscal impact of poorly educated immigrants as "relevant only to a very small part of the population" and therefore of little importance in assessing the Senate immigration bill.[15] In reality, a large and disproportionate share of current immigrants in the U.S. is poorly educated. One-third of all current immigrants lack a high school degree, compared to nine percent of native-born Americans. The families of immigrants without a high school degree now comprise 5 percent of the U.S. population. As noted, among the ten million adult illegal immigrants who would receive amnesty and citizenship under the Senate's immigration bill, some 50 to 60 percent lack a high school degree and many have only a high school degree.
The White House asserts that low skill immigrant families impose a substantially lesser burden on taxpayers than do low skill non-immigrant families.
The White House asserts, "[L]ow-skill immigrants are actually comparatively self-sufficient compared to low skill native households."[16] This assertion is false. Low skill immigrants and non-immigrants impose similar burdens on the taxpayer. Wages, tax payments, and receipt of welfare are quite similar for the two groups. Low skill non-immigrants differ from immigrants primarily because they are more likely to be elderly and therefore less likely to be employed.
The White House asserts that the children of low skill immigrants quickly become fiscal contributors (taxes paid exceed benefits and services received) and thereby compensate taxpayers for nearly all the fiscal losses generated by their parents.
The White House has suggested that while low skill immigrants may impose some initial taxpayer costs, these costs are "recovered quickly" by the net taxes paid by the immigrants' children.[17] This is not true. Low skill immigrants impose very heavy costs on U.S. taxpayers. As noted, on average, each low skill immigrant household receives three dollars in benefits for each one dollar of taxes paid; over a lifetime, each household costs the taxpayer more than $1 million.
The children of low skill immigrants do better than their parents. With higher levels of education, they will receive fewer welfare benefits and pay more taxes. Nonetheless, despite this upward progress, the children of immigrant dropouts are likely to remain a net drain on the taxpayers.[18]
The White House asserts that the "children of immigrant parents are 12 percent more likely to obtain a college degree than other natives."[19] It neglects to note that the relevant group, the children of low skill immigrant parents, have below-average educational attainment. For example, the children of Hispanic dropout parents are three times more likely to drop out of high school and 75 percent less likely to have a college degree than the general population.
With prevailing trends in upward mobility, the descendents of immigrant dropouts will not become net tax contributors until the third generation. This means that the net fiscal impact of low skill immigrants will remains negative for 50 to 60 years after the immigrants' arrival in the U.S.
The White House obscures the cost of low skill immigrants.
The White House report asserted that Heritage Foundation research on low skill immigrants is flawed because it lacks a "forward looking projection."[20] The Council of Economic Advisers stated that, from the 'long-run point of view," low skill immigrants are remarkably inexpensive: Each immigrant without a high school degree costs the taxpayer a mere $13,000 overall.[21] The CEA failed to note that its "long-run point of view" includes the estimated taxes paid by the low skill immigrants' descendents for the next 300 years.[22] In other words, the White House is asserting that taxpayers should not be concerned about the $89 billion annual cost generated by low skill immigrants because that cost would be largely offset by the taxes paid by the immigrants' descendents in the year 2407. In addition, the 300-year estimate cited by White House assumes very large tax increases and benefits reductions in the near future.
Conclusion
In its defense of the Senate immigration bill, the White House employs statistics about the fiscal contributions of college-educated immigrants, but the taxes paid by college-educated immigrants are almost completely irrelevant to a fiscal analysis of S. 1348. The main fiscal impact of S. 1348 will occur through two mechanisms: (1) the grant of amnesty, with accompanying access to Social Security, Medicare and welfare benefits, to 12 million illegal immigrants who are overwhelmingly low skilled; and (2) a dramatic increase in chain immigration, which will also be predominantly low skilled.
In this context, talking about the taxes paid by college-educated immigrants is a red herring and merely serves to obscure the obvious fiscal consequences of the legislation.
The bottom line is that high school dropouts are extremely expensive to U.S. taxpayers. It does not matter whether the dropout comes from Ohio, Tennessee, or Mexico. It does matter that the Senate immigration bill would increase the future flow of poorly educated immigrants into the U.S. and grant amnesty and access to government benefits to millions of poorly educated illegal aliens already here. Such legislation would inevitably impose huge costs on U.S. taxpayers.
ENDNOTES:
[1] The President's Council of Economic Advisers, "Immigration's Economic Impact," June 20, 2007.
[2] Karl Zinsmeister and Edward Lazear, "Lead Weight or Gold Mine: What are the True Costs of Immigration?" RealClearPolitics, June 25, 2007.
[3] Robert Rector and Christine Kim, "The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer," Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 14, May 21, 2007.
[4] Robert Rector, "Amnesty will Cost the U.S. Taxpayers at least $2.6 Trillion," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1490, June 6, 2007, at www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1490.cfm.
[5] Lori Montgomery, "Immigration Lifts Wages, Report Says," Washington Post, June 21, 2007, p. D3.
[6] "Response to False Claims That Illegal Immigrants Will Not Receive Welfare Under Senate Bill," Robert E. Rector, Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1509, June 18, 2007.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Zinsmeister and Lazear.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] The White House, "Fact Sheet: Ending Chain Migration," May 29, 2007, at www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/immigration/.
[13] Robert Rector, "Merit-based Immigration under S. 1348: Bringing in the High Tech Waitresses," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1492, June 7, 2007.
[14] Tamar Jacoby, "'Temporary is Temporary' Won't Work for All Immigrants," Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2007, at www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-jacoby10may10,0,923297.story.
[15] Interview with Edward Lazear, "Washington Journal," C-SPAN, June 21, 2007.
[16] Zinsmeister and Lazear.
[17] Montgomery, "Immigration Lifts Wages, Report Says."
[18] This conclusion is based on forthcoming research by The Heritage Foundation that employs the fiscal methodology of Rector and Kim, "The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer."
[19] Zinsmeister and Lazear.
[20] The President's Council of Economic Advisers, "Immigration's Economic Impact," p. 5
[21] Ibid.
[22] National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997), pp. 334, 342.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2007/06/27/mexican-ambassador-us-reform-wont-stop-illegal-immigration/
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Start seizing assets of employers and the millions of illegals will self-deport
Man, I would be so curious to see how many businesses got busted.
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As a partial aside, I heard on the radio (yesterday or today) that the Mexican govn't has basically taken a "hand-off" approach to tackling illegal immigration. Hmmm, could it be because it bolsters the Mexican economy?
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Mexico has draconian laws against illegal immigration that they enforce. Remittances from Mexicans in Estados Unidos are a major part of Mexico's economy. Not only are they "hands off", the Mexican gov't has published comic book guides on how to illegally enter the US. What poverty problem, just outsource your poor to America....
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http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html
The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave
Heather Mac Donald
Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law.
The LAPD’s ban on immigration enforcement mirrors bans in immigrant-saturated cities around the country, from New York and Chicago to San Diego, Austin, and Houston. These “sanctuary policies” generally prohibit city employees, including the cops, from reporting immigration violations to federal authorities.
Such laws testify to the sheer political power of immigrant lobbies, a power so irresistible that police officials shrink from even mentioning the illegal-alien crime wave. “We can’t even talk about it,” says a frustrated LAPD captain. “People are afraid of a backlash from Hispanics.” Another LAPD commander in a predominantly Hispanic, gang-infested district sighs: “I would get a firestorm of criticism if I talked about [enforcing the immigration law against illegals].” Neither captain would speak for attribution.
But however pernicious in themselves, sanctuary rules are a symptom of a much broader disease: the nation’s near-total loss of control over immigration policy. Fifty years ago, immigration policy might have driven immigration numbers, but today the numbers drive policy. The nonstop increase of immigration is reshaping the language and the law to dissolve any distinction between legal and illegal aliens and, ultimately, the very idea of national borders.
It is a measure of how topsy-turvy the immigration environment has become that to ask police officials about the illegal-alien crime problem feels like a gross faux pas, not done in polite company. And a police official asked to violate this powerful taboo will give a strangled response—or, as in the case of a New York deputy commissioner, break off communication altogether. Meanwhile, millions of illegal aliens work, shop, travel, and commit crimes in plain view, utterly secure in their de facto immunity from the immigration law.
I asked the Miami Police Department’s spokesman, Detective Delrish Moss, about his employer’s policy on lawbreaking illegals. In September, the force arrested a Honduran visa violator for seven vicious rapes. The previous year, Miami cops had had the suspect in custody for lewd and lascivious molestation, without checking his immigration status. Had they done so, they would have discovered his visa overstay, a deportable offense, and so could have forestalled the rapes. “We have shied away from unnecessary involvement dealing with immigration issues,” explains Moss, choosing his words carefully, “because of our large immigrant population.”
Police commanders may not want to discuss, much less respond to, the illegal-alien crisis, but its magnitude for law enforcement is startling. Some examples:
• In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
• A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in 1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, and commits an assault or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters, most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.
• The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around L.A.’s MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in 2002, says former assistant U.S. attorney Luis Li. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for felonious reentry following deportation.
Good luck finding any reference to such facts in official crime analysis. The LAPD and the L.A. city attorney recently requested an injunction against drug trafficking in Hollywood, targeting the 18th Street Gang and the “non–gang members” who sell drugs in Hollywood for the gang. Those non–gang members are virtually all illegal Mexicans, smuggled into the country by a ring organized by 18th Street bigs. The Mexicans pay off their transportation debts to the gang by selling drugs; many soon realize how lucrative that line of work is and stay in the business.
Cops and prosecutors universally know the immigration status of these non-gang “Hollywood dealers,” as the city attorney calls them, but the gang injunction is assiduously silent on the matter. And if a Hollywood officer were to arrest an illegal dealer (known on the street as a “border brother”) for his immigration status, or even notify the Immigration and Naturalization Service (since early 2003, absorbed into the new Department of Homeland Security), he would face severe discipline for violating Special Order 40, the city’s sanctuary policy.
The ordinarily tough-as-nails former LAPD chief Daryl Gates enacted Special Order 40 in 1979—showing that even the most unapologetic law-and-order cop is no match for immigration advocates. The order prohibits officers from “initiating police action where the objective is to discover the alien status of a person”—in other words, the police may not even ask someone they have arrested about his immigration status until after they have filed criminal charges, nor may they arrest someone for immigration violations. They may not notify immigration authorities about an illegal alien picked up for minor violations. Only if they have already booked an illegal alien for a felony or for multiple misdemeanors may they inquire into his status or report him. The bottom line: a cordon sanitaire between local law enforcement and immigration authorities that creates a safe haven for illegal criminals.
L.A.’s sanctuary law and all others like it contradict a key 1990s policing discovery: the Great Chain of Being in criminal behavior. Pick up a law-violator for a “minor” crime, and you might well prevent a major crime: enforcing graffiti and turnstile-jumping laws nabs you murderers and robbers. Enforcing known immigration violations, such as reentry following deportation, against known felons, would be even more productive. LAPD officers recognize illegal deported gang members all the time—flashing gang signs at court hearings for rival gangbangers, hanging out on the corner, or casing a target. These illegal returnees are, simply by being in the country after deportation, committing a felony (in contrast to garden-variety illegals on their first trip to the U.S., say, who are only committing a misdemeanor). “But if I see a deportee from the Mara Salvatrucha [Salvadoran prison] gang crossing the street, I know I can’t touch him,” laments a Los Angeles gang officer. Only if the deported felon has given the officer some other reason to stop him, such as an observed narcotics sale, can the cop accost him—but not for the immigration felony.
Though such a policy puts the community at risk, the department’s top brass brush off such concerns. No big deal if you see deported gangbangers back on the streets, they say. Just put them under surveillance for “real” crimes and arrest them for those. But surveillance is very manpower-intensive. Where there is an immediate ground for getting a violent felon off the street and for questioning him further, it is absurd to demand that the woefully understaffed LAPD ignore it.
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The stated reasons for sanctuary policies are that they encourage illegal-alien crime victims and witnesses to cooperate with cops without fear of deportation, and that they encourage illegals to take advantage of city services like health care and education (to whose maintenance few illegals have contributed a single tax dollar, of course). There has never been any empirical verification that sanctuary laws actually accomplish these goals—and no one has ever suggested not enforcing drug laws, say, for fear of intimidating drug-using crime victims. But in any case, this official rationale could be honored by limiting police use of immigration laws to some subset of immigration violators: deported felons, say, or repeat criminal offenders whose immigration status police already know.
The real reason cities prohibit their cops and other employees from immigration reporting and enforcement is, like nearly everything else in immigration policy, the numbers. The immigrant population has grown so large that public officials are terrified of alienating it, even at the expense of ignoring the law and tolerating violence. In 1996, a breathtaking Los Angeles Times exposé on the 18th Street Gang, which included descriptions of innocent bystanders being murdered by laughing cholos (gang members), revealed the rate of illegal-alien membership in the gang. In response to the public outcry, the Los Angeles City Council ordered the police to reexamine Special Order 40. You would have thought it had suggested reconsidering Roe v. Wade. A police commander warned the council: “This is going to open a significant, heated debate.” City Councilwoman Laura Chick put on a brave front: “We mustn’t be afraid,” she declared firmly.
But of course immigrant pandering trumped public safety. Law-abiding residents of gang-infested neighborhoods may live in terror of the tattooed gangbangers dealing drugs, spraying graffiti, and shooting up rivals outside their homes, but such anxiety can never equal a politician’s fear of offending Hispanics. At the start of the reexamination process, LAPD deputy chief John White had argued that allowing the department to work closely with the INS would give cops another tool for getting gang members off the streets. Trying to build a homicide case, say, against an illegal gang member is often futile, he explained, since witnesses fear deadly retaliation if they cooperate with the police. Enforcing an immigration violation would allow the cops to lock up the murderer right now, without putting a witness’s life at risk.
But six months later, Deputy Chief White had changed his tune: “Any broadening of the policy gets us into the immigration business,” he asserted. “It’s a federal law-enforcement issue, not a local law-enforcement issue.” Interim police chief Bayan Lewis told the L.A. Police Commission: “It is not the time. It is not the day to look at Special Order 40.”
Nor will it ever be, as long as immigration numbers continue to grow. After their brief moment of truth in 1996, Los Angeles politicians have only grown more adamant in defense of Special Order 40. After learning that cops in the scandal-plagued Rampart Division had cooperated with the INS to try to uproot murderous gang members from the community, local politicians threw a fit, criticizing district commanders for even allowing INS agents into their station houses. In turn, the LAPD strictly disciplined the offending officers. By now, big-city police chiefs are unfortunately just as determined to defend sanctuary policies as the politicians who appoint them; not so the rank and file, however, who see daily the benefit that an immigration tool would bring.
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
New York conveniently forgot the 1996 federal ban on sanctuary laws until a gang of five Mexicans—four of them illegal—abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses. The department had never notified the INS.
Citizen outrage forced Mayor Michael Bloomberg to revisit the city’s sanctuary decree yet again. In May 2003, Bloomberg tweaked the policy minimally to allow city staffers to inquire into immigration status only if it is relevant to the awarding of a government benefit. Though Bloomberg’s new rule said nothing about reporting immigration violations to federal officials, advocates immediately claimed that it did allow such reporting, and the ethnic lobbies went ballistic. “What we’re seeing is the erosion of people’s rights,” thundered Angelo Falcon of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. After three months of intense agitation by immigrant groups, Bloomberg replaced this innocuous “don’t ask” policy with a “don’t tell” rule even broader than Gotham’s original sanctuary policy. The new rule prohibits city employees from giving other government officials information not just about immigration status but about tax payments, sexual orientation, welfare status, and other matters.
But even were immigrant-saturated cities to discard their sanctuary policies and start enforcing immigration violations where public safety demands it, the resource-starved immigration authorities couldn’t handle the overwhelming additional workload.
The chronic shortage of manpower to oversee, and detention space to house, aliens as they await their deportation hearings (or, following an order of removal from a federal judge, their actual deportation) has forced immigration officials to practice a constant triage. Long ago, the feds stopped trying to find and deport aliens who had “merely” entered the country illegally through stealth or fraudulent documents. Currently, the only types of illegal aliens who run any risk of catching federal attention are those who have been convicted of an “aggravated felony” (a particularly egregious crime) or who have been deported following conviction for an aggravated felony and who have reentered (an offense punishable with 20 years in jail).
That triage has been going on for a long time, as former INS investigator Mike Cutler, who worked with the NYPD catching Brooklyn drug dealers in the 1970s, explains. “If you arrested someone you wanted to detain, you’d go to your boss and start a bidding war,” Cutler recalls. “You’d say: 'My guy ran three blocks, threw a couple of punches, and had six pieces of ID.' The boss would turn to another agent: 'Next! Whaddid your guy do?' 'He ran 18 blocks, pushed over an old lady, and had a gun.' ” But such one-upmanship was usually fruitless. “Without the jail space,” explains Cutler, “it was like the Fish and Wildlife Service; you’d tag their ear and let them go.”
But even when immigration officials actually arrest someone, and even if a judge issues a final deportation order (usually after years of litigation and appeals), they rarely have the manpower to put the alien on a bus or plane and take him across the border. Second alternative: detain him pending removal. Again, inadequate space and staff. In the early 1990s, for example, 15 INS officers were in charge of the deportation of approximately 85,000 aliens (not all of them criminals) in New York City. The agency’s actual response to final orders of removal was what is known as a “run letter”—a notice asking the deportable alien kindly to show up in a month or two to be deported, when the agency might be able to process him. Results: in 2001, 87 percent of deportable aliens who received run letters disappeared, a number that was even higher—94 percent—if they were from terror-sponsoring countries.
To other law-enforcement agencies, the feds’ triage often looks like complete indifference to immigration violations. Testifying to Congress about the Queens rape by illegal Mexicans, New York’s criminal justice coordinator defended the city’s failure to notify the INS after the rapists’ previous arrests on the ground that the agency wouldn’t have responded anyway. “We have time and time again been unable to reach INS on the phone,” John Feinblatt said last February. “When we reach them on the phone, they require that we write a letter. When we write a letter, they require that it be by a superior.”
Criminal aliens also interpret the triage as indifference. John Mullaly a former NYPD homicide detective, estimates that 70 percent of the drug dealers and other criminals in Manhattan’s Washington Heights were illegal. Were Mullaly to threaten an illegal-alien thug in custody that his next stop would be El Salvador unless he cooperated, the criminal would just laugh, knowing that the INS would never show up. The message could not be clearer: this is a culture that can’t enforce its most basic law of entry. If policing’s broken-windows theory is correct, the failure to enforce one set of rules breeds overall contempt for the law.
The sheer number of criminal aliens overwhelmed an innovative program that would allow immigration officials to complete deportation hearings while a criminal was still in state or federal prison, so that upon his release he could be immediately ejected without taking up precious INS detention space. But the process, begun in 1988, immediately bogged down due to the numbers—in 2000, for example, nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners were foreign-born. The agency couldn’t find enough pro bono attorneys to represent such an army of criminal aliens (who have extensive due-process rights in contesting deportation) and so would have to request delay after delay. Or enough immigration judges would not be available. In 1997, the INS simply had no record of a whopping 36 percent of foreign-born inmates who had been released from federal and four state prisons without any review of their deportability. They included 1,198 aggravated felons, 80 of whom were soon re-arrested for new crimes.
Resource starvation is not the only reason for federal inaction. The INS was a creature of immigration politics, and INS district directors came under great pressure from local politicians to divert scarce resources into distribution of such “benefits” as permanent residency, citizenship, and work permits, and away from criminal or other investigations. In the late 1980s, for example, the INS refused to join an FBI task force against Haitian drug trafficking in Miami, fearing criticism for “Haitian-bashing.” In 1997, after Hispanic activists protested a much-publicized raid that netted nearly two dozen illegals, the Border Patrol said that it would no longer join Simi Valley, California, probation officers on home searches of illegal-alien-dominated gangs.
The disastrous Citizenship USA project of 1996 was a luminous case of politics driving the INS to sacrifice enforcement to “benefits.” When, in the early 1990s, the prospect of welfare reform drove immigrants to apply for citizenship in record numbers to preserve their welfare eligibility, the Clinton administration, seeing a political bonanza in hundreds of thousands of new welfare-dependent citizens, ordered the naturalization process radically expedited. Thanks to relentless administration pressure, processing errors in 1996 were 99 percent in New York and 90 percent in Los Angeles, and tens of thousands of aliens with criminal records, including for murder and armed robbery, were naturalized.
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Another powerful political force, the immigration bar association, has won from Congress an elaborate set of due-process rights for criminal aliens that can keep them in the country indefinitely. Federal probation officers in Brooklyn are supervising two illegals—a Jordanian and an Egyptian with Saudi citizenship—who look “ready to blow up the Statue of Liberty,” according to a probation official, but the officers can’t get rid of them. The Jordanian had been caught fencing stolen Social Security and tax-refund checks; now he sells phone cards, which he uses himself to make untraceable calls. The Saudi’s offense: using a fraudulent Social Security number to get employment—a puzzlingly unnecessary scam, since he receives large sums from the Middle East, including from millionaire relatives. But intelligence links him to terrorism, so presumably he worked in order not to draw attention to himself. Currently, he changes his cell phone every month. Ordinarily such a minor offense would not be prosecuted, but the government, fearing that he had terrorist intentions, used whatever it had to put him in prison.
Now, probation officers desperately want to see the duo out of the country, but the two ex-cons have hired lawyers, who are relentlessly fighting their deportation. “Due process allows you to stay for years without an adjudication,” says a probation officer in frustration. “A regular immigration attorney can keep you in the country for three years, a high-priced one for ten.” In the meantime, Brooklyn probation officials are watching the bridges.
Even where immigration officials successfully nab and deport criminal aliens, the reality, says a former federal gang prosecutor, is that “they all come back. They can’t make it in Mexico.” The tens of thousands of illegal farmworkers and dishwashers who overpower U.S. border controls every year carry in their wake thousands of brutal assailants and terrorists who use the same smuggling industry and who benefit from the same irresistible odds: there are so many more of them than the Border Patrol.
For, of course, the government’s inability to keep out criminal aliens is part and parcel of its inability to patrol the border, period. For decades, the INS had as much effect on the migration of millions of illegals as a can tied to the tail of a tiger. And the immigrants themselves, despite the press cliché of hapless aliens living fearfully in the shadows, seemed to regard immigration authorities with all the concern of an elephant for a flea.
Certainly fear of immigration officers is not in evidence among the hundreds of illegal day laborers who hang out on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, New York, in front of money wire services, travel agencies, immigration-attorney offices, and phone arcades, all catering to the local Hispanic population (as well as to drug dealers and terrorists). “There is no chance of getting caught,” cheerfully explains Rafael, an Ecuadoran. Like the dozen Ecuadorans and Mexicans on his particular corner, Rafael is hoping that an SUV seeking carpenters for $100 a day will show up soon. “We don’t worry, because we’re not doing anything wrong. I know it’s illegal; I need the papers, but here, nobody asks you for papers.”
Even the newly fortified Mexican border, the one spot where the government really tries to prevent illegal immigration, looms as only a minor inconvenience to the day laborers. The odds, they realize, are overwhelmingly in their favor. Miguel, a reserved young carpenter, crossed the border at Tijuana three years ago with 15 others. Border Patrol spotted them, but with six officers to 16 illegals, only five got caught. In illegal border crossings, you get what you pay for, Miguel says. If you try to shave on the fee, the coyotes will abandon you at the first problem. Miguel’s wife was flying into New York from Los Angeles that very day; it had cost him $2,200 to get her across the border. “Because I pay, I don’t worry,” he says complacently.
The only way to dampen illegal immigration and its attendant train of criminals and terrorists—short of an economic revolution in the sending countries or an impregnably militarized border—is to remove the jobs magnet. As long as migrants know they can easily get work, they will find ways to evade border controls. But enforcing laws against illegal labor is among government’s lowest priorities. In 2001, only 124 agents nationwide were trying to find and prosecute the hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of illegal aliens who violate the employment laws, the Associated Press reports.
Even were immigration officials to devote adequate resources to worksite investigations, not much would change, because their legal weapons are so weak. That’s no accident: though it is a crime to hire illegal aliens, a coalition of libertarians, business lobbies, and left-wing advocates has consistently blocked the fraud-proof form of work authorization necessary to enforce that ban. Libertarians have erupted in hysteria at such proposals as a toll-free number to the Social Security Administration for employers to confirm Social Security numbers. Hispanics warn just as stridently that helping employers verify work eligibility would result in discrimination against Hispanics—implicitly conceding that vast numbers of Hispanics work illegally.
The result: hiring practices in illegal-immigrant-saturated industries are a charade. Millions of illegal workers pretend to present valid documents, and thousands of employers pretend to believe them. The law doesn’t require the employer to verify that a worker is actually qualified to work, and as long as the proffered documents are not patently phony—scrawled with red crayon on a matchbook, say—the employer will nearly always be exempt from liability merely by having eyeballed them. To find an employer guilty of violating the ban on hiring illegal aliens, immigration authorities must prove that he knew he was getting fake papers—an almost insurmountable burden. Meanwhile, the market for counterfeit documents has exploded: in one month alone in 1998, immigration authorities seized nearly 2 million of them in Los Angeles, destined for immigrant workers, welfare seekers, criminals, and terrorists.
For illegal workers and employers, there is no downside to the employment charade. If immigration officials ever do try to conduct an industry-wide investigation—which will at least net the illegal employees, if not the employers—local congressmen will almost certainly head it off. An INS inquiry into the Vidalia-onion industry in Georgia was not only aborted by Georgia’s congressional delegation; it actually resulted in a local amnesty for the growers’ illegal workforce. The downside to complying with the spirit of the employment law, on the other hand, is considerable. Ethnic advocacy groups are ready to picket employers who dismiss illegal workers, and employers understandably fear being undercut by less scrupulous competitors.
Of the incalculable changes in American politics, demographics, and culture that the continuing surge of migrants is causing, one of the most profound is the breakdown of the distinction between legal and illegal entry. Everywhere, illegal aliens receive free public education and free medical care at taxpayer expense; 13 states offer them driver’s licenses. States everywhere have been pushed to grant illegal aliens college scholarships and reduced in-state tuition. One hundred banks, over 800 law-enforcement agencies, and dozens of cities accept an identification card created by Mexico to credentialize illegal Mexican aliens in the U.S. The Bush administration has given its blessing to this matricula consular card, over the strong protest of the FBI, which warns that the gaping security loopholes that the card creates make it a boon to money launderers, immigrant smugglers, and terrorists. Border authorities have already caught an Iranian man sneaking across the border this year, Mexican matricula card in hand.
Hispanic advocates have helped blur the distinction between a legal and an illegal resident by asserting that differentiating the two is an act of irrational bigotry. Arrests of illegal aliens inside the border now inevitably spark protests, often led by the Mexican government, that feature signs calling for “no más racismo.” Immigrant advocates use the language of “human rights” to appeal to an authority higher than such trivia as citizenship laws. They attack the term “amnesty” for implicitly acknowledging the validity of borders. Indeed, grouses Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez, “There’s an implication that somehow you did something wrong and you need to be forgiven.”
Illegal aliens and their advocates speak loudly about what they think the U.S. owes them, not vice versa. “I believe they have a right . . . to work, to drive their kids to school,” said California assemblywoman Sarah Reyes. An immigration agent says that people he stops “get in your face about their rights, because our failure to enforce the law emboldens them.” Taking this idea to its extreme, Joaquín Avila, a UCLA Chicano studies professor and law lecturer, argues that to deny non-citizens the vote, especially in the many California cities where they constitute the majority, is a form of apartheid.
Yet no poll has ever shown that Americans want more open borders. Quite the reverse. By a huge majority—at least 60 percent—they want to rein in immigration, and they endorse an observation that Senator Alan Simpson made 20 years ago: Americans “are fed up with efforts to make them feel that [they] do not have that fundamental right of any people—to decide who will join them and help form the future country in which they and their posterity will live.” But if the elites’ and the advocates’ idea of giving voting rights to non-citizen majorities catches on—and don’t be surprised if it does—Americans could be faced with the ultimate absurdity of people outside the social compact making rules for those inside it.
However the nation ultimately decides to rationalize its chaotic and incoherent immigration system, surely all can agree that, at a minimum, authorities should expel illegal-alien criminals swiftly. Even on the grounds of protecting non-criminal illegal immigrants, we should start by junking sanctuary policies. By stripping cops of what may be their only immediate tool to remove felons from the community, these policies leave law-abiding immigrants prey to crime.
But the non-enforcement of immigration laws in general has an even more destructive effect. In many immigrant communities, assimilation into gangs seems to be outstripping assimilation into civic culture. Toddlers are learning to flash gang signals and hate the police, reports the Los Angeles Times. In New York City, “every high school has its Mexican gang,” and most 12- to 14-year-olds have already joined, claims Ernesto Vega, an illegal 18-year-old Mexican. Such pathologies only worsen when the first lesson that immigrants learn about U.S. law is that Americans don’t bother to enforce it. “Institutionalizing illegal immigration creates a mindset in people that anything goes in the U.S.,” observes Patrick Ortega, the news and public-affairs director of Radio Nueva Vida in southern California. “It creates a new subculture, with a sequela of social ills.” It is broken windows writ large.
For the sake of immigrants and native-born Americans alike, it’s time to decide what our immigration policy is—and enforce it.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2007/06/28/fred-this-has-been-a-good-day-for-america/
Fred discusses the Amnestias' loss today.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=sUPxEXIw488
Buchanan and Gheen. Gheen makes some good points including about the Prez's Constitutional duty to enforce the laws.
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NY Times
Expressing frustration with the lack of a federal immigration law overhaul, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona signed a bill yesterday providing what are thought to be the toughest state sanctions in the country against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Ms. Napolitano, a Democrat, called the bill flawed and suggested that the Arizona Legislature reconvene to repair problems with it, but she nevertheless moved forward “because Congress has failed miserably,” she wrote in a statement.
The bill requires employers to verify the legal status of their employees. If they fail to do so, they risk having their business licenses suspended. A second offense could result in the “business death penalty,” a permanent revocation of the state business license, effectively preventing a business from operating in the state.
Ms. Napolitano said she was concerned, among other problems, that under the law hospitals and nursing homes could end up shuttered because of hiring one illegal immigrant. She also said the bill did not provide enough money for the state attorney general to investigate complaints.
Although federal law already makes it a crime to hire illegal workers, supporters of the Arizona bill have said enforcement is lax.
Ms. Napolitano sent a letter to Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Arizona and the majority leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, saying Congressional inaction on immigration was forcing states to act.
Ms. Napolitano’s decision had been anxiously awaited in Arizona, the state where more people cross illegally into the United States than any other.
Last year, Ms. Napolitano vetoed an employer-sanctions bill, saying that its language was flawed and that it would not achieve its goals.
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Has anyone heard the MM discuss any estimates of how many people are coming into this country every year who are not Latino. From my vantage point I am seeing ever increasing Middle and Far Easterners, Africans, Europeans (like Irish, Polish , Russian) flodding into the US every year. The ever endless focus on the Mexican border and Spanish makes it look like we are singling out Latinos. This is not a Latino - nonLatino thing. This is about the absolute flood of immigrants from everywhere. It is clearly out of control.
There are far more Asians where I live then Latinos. Yet everyone looks the other way rather than anyone evaluating this trend and what it means. In some places i go I feel like I'm in Indonesia.
I don't get it. I really don't. Bush without a doubt should have State of the Union Addresses and give us real facts and explain why we should continue to turn our heads over this issue. Dobbs is about the only one in the media with any balls on this issue. Yet even he only seems interested in the Mexican Spanish issue. And that is why he comes of as prejudiced. Why is it obvious to me that entire regions, towns, are obviously being overtaken by Asians and not a single blirb about this. What about illegals Europeans - Russians, Poles, Irish. I am also seeing more and more Africans. How many of these peoples are here legitimately? How is it that whole families can come here and have health insurance, Medicare, and attend schools as though they have been here for years? What is going on? How is it that there are thousands of illegals working for government agencies? What is going on? I couldn't agree with Dobbs more. I just think he is not recognizing the question of what is going on with these other non Latino immigrants.
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This is a good question I think.
Actually there are two issues here:
a) Illegal immigration and defending our borders
b) What should the overall level of immigration be? (and what should the criteria for admission be?)
IMHO Until we deal with a) our opinions on b) are irrelevant.
On the whole IMHO immigration has been a source of strength for America.
I think the emphasis by many on the massive immigration of Mexicans is because, unlike those immigrating from other parts of the world, they do not have to commit 100% to America because of the nature of our border with Mexico.
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NY Times editorial:
Editorial
Immigration Malpractice
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Published: July 7, 2007
The prickliness and glacial ineptitude of the immigration system is old news to millions of would-be Americans. Immigrants who play by the rules know that the rules are stringent, arbitrary, expensive and very time-consuming. But even the most seasoned citizens-in-waiting were stunned by the nasty bait-and-switch the federal bureaucracy pulled on them this month. After encouraging thousands of highly skilled workers to apply for green cards, the government snatched the opportunity away.
The tease came in a bulletin issued by the State Department in June announcing that green cards for a wide range of skilled workers would be available to those who filed by July 2. That prompted untold numbers of doctors, medical technicians and other professionals, many of whom have lived here with their families for years, to assemble little mountains of paper. They got certified records and sponsorship documents, paid for medical exams and lawyers and sent their applications in. Many canceled vacations to be in the United States when their applications arrived, as the law requires.
Then they learned that the hope was effectively a hoax. The State Department had issued the bulletin to prod Citizenship and Immigration Services, the bureaucracy that handles immigration applications, to get cracking on processing them. The agency is notorious for fainting over paperwork — 182,694 green cards have been squandered since 2000 because it did not process them in time. That bureaucratic travesty is a tragedy, since the annual supply of green cards is capped by law, and the demand chronically outstrips supply. The State Department said it put out the bulletin to ensure that every available green card would be used this time.
After working through the weekend, the citizenship agency processed tens of thousands of applications. On Monday, the State Department announced that all 140,000 employment-based green cards had been used and no applications would be accepted.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, the definition of a hangdog bureaucracy, says the law forbids it to accept the applications. The American Immigration Lawyers Association says this interpretation is rubbish. It is preparing a class-action lawsuit to compel the bureaucracy to accept the application wave that it provoked.
The good news is that immigrants’ hope is pretty much unquenchable. Think of the hundreds of people standing in the rain in ponchos at Walt Disney World on Independence Day, joining the flood of new citizens now cresting across the country. They celebrated on July Fourth, but for many of them the magic date is July 30, when a new fee schedule for immigrants takes effect, drastically jacking up the cost of the American dream.
The collapse of immigration reform in the Senate showed the world what America thinks of illegal immigrants — it wants them all to go away. But the federal government, through bureaucratic malpractice, is sending the same message to millions of legal immigrants, too.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2227446920070723?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=true
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (Reuters) - As many U.S. cities and states arrest illegal immigrants in raids and toughen laws against them, a Connecticut city is offering to validate them under a controversial, first-in-the-nation ID card program.
Starting Tuesday, New Haven will offer illegal immigrants municipal identification cards that allow access to city services such as libraries and a chance to open bank accounts.
Supporters say the cards will improve public safety and give undocumented workers protections now afforded legal residents. Critics contend it will unleash a flood of illegal immigration, straining services and wasting taxpayer money.
New Haven officials overwhelmingly approved the program last month in a 25 to 1 vote.
Backers and detractors alike say the program appears to fill a vacuum after Congress failed to act on immigration reform, leaving many towns and cities to struggle with how to deal with a growing undocumented population.
Kica Matos, who administers the program for New Haven, said undocumented workers are often targeted by thieves and robbed because they carry cash, a result of not being able to open a bank account.
"Part of the reason they can't open bank accounts is because they don't have forms of identification that were valid," she said.
(No duh!!!)
She said two banks had already agreed to accept the new city card, which will be offered to all New Haven residents, as legitimate identification sufficient for opening an account.
Local Latino advocacy group Junta for Progressive Action estimates 3,000 to 5,000 illegal immigrants live in the city of 124,000 people, many from Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala.
Yale University Law School, based in New Haven, helped research the city's idea and volunteered legal services. Several immigrants' rights groups also helped build up local support for the identification cards.
PROTESTS
Opponents hope to rally the public against it. Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform says the ID cards will change "the entire country as we know it" and is organizing a protest on Tuesday at city hall.
"There are millions of illegal aliens right around us that when these ID cards are available to them, they will rush to them and get some identification that will allow them to go to other cities," said Ted Pechinski, who leads the group.
North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration PAC has circulated a flier in 40 states urging illegal workers to move to New Haven, said its president William Gheen.
"Maybe New Haven needs to learn, if they want the illegals, then they'll get the illegals," he said.
His flier, in English and Spanish, says: "Come to New Haven CT for sanctuary. Bring your friends and family members quickly."
Officials in several cities including New York and San Francisco have expressed interest in possibly starting similar programs, said Matos.
The new ID, she added, does not easily identify a person as an illegal immigrant. "That is the last thing that we want to have happen," she said. The card was created with several features to appeal to all residents, including a debit component and access to city services such as parks.
Fatima, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said she is eager to apply for the card. "The ID will help me because it's a way to be in this country and get people to know who you are, especially for people who crossed the border and lost their papers," she said. "I feel safe here in New Haven."
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Ever wonder how Wall Street sees this issue?
===========================
WSJ
Immigration Paralysis
By GEORGE MELLOAN
July 27, 2007; Page A13
On a hot Arizona day along Interstate 19 just north of the Mexican border, we see a sight all too familiar in these parts. Border Patrol officers in an olive-colored SUV have detained a group of young Mexicans who were motoring north. The Mexicans are squatting on the grassy highway embankment, waiting for the officers to ascertain whether they have entered the U.S. legally or illegally.
A few days later, when our journey has taken us to Twin Falls, Idaho, we read in a local newspaper that potato farmers are being forced to obtain convict labor because there's a shortage of the migrants they have traditionally used to work their fields. In fact, the farm worker dearth is national, particularly for growers of labor-intensive fresh produce. Crops are rotting in the fields and prices going up.
Observations recorded during a month-long motoring sweep around the Western U.S. by my wife Jody and me reveal a disconnect between law and reality. A legislative paralysis on immigration reform perhaps helps explain why a new AP-Ipsos opinion poll shows that the performance rating for Congress has slumped 11 percentage points since May, with only 24% of respondents voicing satisfaction with that body's work. After years of quarreling over reform of the dysfunctional 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which made it a crime to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, lawmakers are still batting a big, fat zero. Hence, willing workers are being turned back at the border at a time when growers are desperate for hired help.
The federally mandated severance of labor supply from demand is inopportune. Our Western tour, and an earlier swing through the South, dramatized to us that over the last quarter-century the U.S. has become an incredibly wealthy country. Millions of late-model cars zoom the freeways. Lake and harbor marinas are choked with pleasure boats. Fitness centers and pet grooming parlors are now commonplace as an affluent middle class spends freely on non-essential services. In Seattle, which gets rain 154 days a year, people buy bottled water from France. As a street entertainer puts it, "Evian spelled backwards is naïve."
A fascinating Web site called "strange maps" compares the Gross Domestic Product of each U.S. state with a foreign country. Texas produces more than Canada, California matches France, Illinois is on a par with Mexico and little New Jersey equals the output of huge Russia. Economist John Rutledge estimates the worth of all privately owned assets in the U.S. at $165 trillion.
Still, the $13 trillion American economy demands labor. Mexico has had a high birth rate (although it is rapidly slowing) and can supply the needed workers, with benefits on both sides of the border. But the U.S. political class can only talk of new barriers. Why is this such a hard equation for politicians? The longer this problem festers, the more likely it will push the Mexican polity to turn away from being an uneasy friend of the U.S. to becoming a troublesome enemy.
The fundamental mistake, one that American politicians have made over and over again, is the belief that the government's police powers can overwhelm powerful market forces. Richard Nixon and the Congress attempted this feat in 1971 with wage and price controls, stalling American growth for a decade. Simpson-Mazzoli was a similar effort to strong-arm a key market -- for labor -- by threatening something that proved to be unenforceable, jail sentences for employers of illegal aliens. Luckily, that didn't shut off the labor supply from Mexico, it just drove it underground. Estimates are that there at least 12 million illegals in the U.S. and that may be far lower than the actual number.
Hotels and restaurants in places like Chicago, Miami and just about every other city would have to shut down without waiters, maids and others with dubious credentials. The well-manicured lawns in my home town would soon become weed gardens in the absence of the Mexicans who man landscape services. Americans genuinely worry about maintaining the rule of law, but the biggest threat to that is the disrespect for law created when legislative grandstanders pass draconian measures that the authorities are incapable of enforcing.
Arizona's legislature, which apparently has learned nothing from the federal law's failure, has just compounded the crime by passing a measure that is even more draconian than Simpson-Mazzoli. It has caused an uprising among Arizona businessmen and farmers, who shout that a law making them felons for trying to keep their enterprises afloat is just bonkers.
Washington efforts to reform Simpson-Mazzoli are plagued by the death struggle the two parties are conducting over control of the government. Republicans, who perhaps have noticed that they are losing that struggle, are frozen in the headlights of the anti-immigrant campaigns being conducted by nativists and vigilantes in their home states. Hate and emotion do not produce good laws.
My friend Robert Halbrook, a retired lawyer living in Tucson, Ariz., is aware that politics are not always logical or even rational, but offers a logical solution nonetheless: Legislators must do away with all the threats and penalties that drive labor and its employers underground. It must be made possible for illegal workers to achieve legal status without fear. That way Mexicans can come to the U.S. to fill jobs and go home safe in the knowledge that when their work is demanded they will be able to come back again. Many will go back with skills learned in the U.S., enabling them to earn a living at home. Most, he believes, do not crave U.S. citizenship. Why should they want to cope with a new language and culture, if they can return home without penalty? They just want to feed their families and try to move up the economic ladder.
Is it too much to ask of Congress that it employ some of this clear logic? Apparently so, judging from the paralysis in Washington.
Mr. Melloan is a former deputy editor of the Journal's editorial page.
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Bush orders new crackdown on U.S. border
By: Mike Allen
Aug 9, 2007 08:53 PM EST
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The Bush administration announced plans Friday to enlist state and local law enforcement in cracking down on illegal immigrants, which previously was largely a federal function.
The administration unveiled a series of tough border control and employer enforcement measures designed to make up for security provisions that failed when Congress rejected a broad rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws in June.
The plans were announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.
The package revealed Friday has 26 elements, and the administration announcement said they "represent steps the Administration can take within the boundaries of existing law to secure our borders more effectively, improve interior and worksite enforcement, streamline existing guest worker programs, improve the current immigration system, and help new immigrants assimilate into American culture.
After the announcement, President Bush released a statement in Kennebunkport, Maine, saying that despite the failure of Congress to pass a new law, his administration "will continue to take every possible step to build upon the progress already made in strengthening our borders, enforcing our worksite laws, keeping our economy well-supplied with vital workers, and helping new Americans learn English."
As part of the new measures, the secretary of Homeland Security will deliver regular “State of the Border” reports beginning this fall.
In one of the most interesting revelations, the plans call for the administration to “train growing numbers of state and local law enforcement officers to identify and detain immigration offenders whom they encounter in the course of daily law enforcement.”
“By this fall, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have quintupled the number of enforcement teams devoted to removing fugitive aliens (from 15 to 75 in less than three years),” a summary of the plan states.
The announcement is aimed at restoring Bush’s credibility with conservatives who were dismayed that he pushed so hard for broad immigration reform, including a guest worker program for people now here illegally, before the border was more secure.
“The biggest message that emerged from this failed immigration bill is that if immigration reform is to happen in the future, they must first restore the American people's confidence that the federal government is serious about securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws,” said a Senate Republican leadership official. “Frankly, this should have been addressed several years ago.”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney jumped on the announcement with a supportive statement ahead of Saturday's straw poll in Iowa, calling the new package "a weclome development" and declaring that the nation "must get serious if we are to secure our nation's borders."
As part of the package, Bush is planning to increase muscle at the Mexican border, as conservatives have long pleaded.
“The administration will add more border personnel and infrastructure, going beyond previously announced targets,” according to the summary. “The Departments of State and Homeland Security will expand the list of international gangs whose members are automatically denied admission to the U.S.”
Employers will face tough new scrutiny and requirements. “There are now 29 categories of documents that employers must accept to establish identity and work eligibility among their workers,” the summary says. “The Department of Homeland Security will reduce that number and weed out the most insecure.”
“The Department of Homeland Security will raise the civil fines imposed on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants by approximately 25 percent,” the summary continues. “The administration will continue its aggressive expansion of criminal investigations against employers who knowingly hire large numbers of illegal aliens.”
The administration is promising to reduce processing times for immigration background checks by adding agents and converting paper documentation to electronic forms.
And the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration say they will study and report on the technical and recordkeeping changes necessary to deny credit in our Social Security system for illegal work.
Under the tougher menu, the administration vows to fund additional beds for people caught breaching the border, ensuring that illegal entrants are returned to Mexico rather than being let go because there’s no space for them, as often occurred in the past.
“The administration will implement an exit requirement at airports and seaports by the end of 2008, and will launch a pilot land-border exit system for guest workers,” the summary says. “By the end of 2008, the administration will require most arrivals at our ports-of-entry to use passports or similarly secure documents.”
Other elements of the package:
—The Department of Labor will reform the H-2A agriculture worker program so farmers can readily hire legal temporary workers, while protecting their rights.
—The Department of Labor will issue regulations streamlining the H-2B program for non-agricultural seasonal workers.
—The Department of Homeland Security will extend, from one year to three, the length of the NAFTA-created TN visa for professional workers from Canada and Mexico, removing the administrative hassle of annual renewals for these talented workers.
—The Office of Citizenship will unveil in September a revised naturalization test that emphasizes fundamentals of American democracy, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
—The Office of Citizenship will introduce a Web-based electronic training program and convene eight regional training conferences for volunteers and adult educators who lead immigrants through the naturalization process.
—The Department of Education will develop a free, Web-based model to help immigrants learn English.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5323.html
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Mark Steyn: Speaking of sanctuary, where's ours?
MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist
At the funeral of Iofemi Hightower, her classmate Mecca Ali wore a T-shirt with the slogan: "Tell Me Why They Had To Die."
"They" are Miss Hightower, Dashon Harvey and Terrance Aeriel, three young citizens of Newark, New Jersey, lined up against a schoolyard wall, forced to kneel and then shot in the head.
Miss Ali poses an interesting question. No one can say why they "had" to die, but it ought to be possible to advance theories as to what factors make violent death in Newark a more-likely proposition than it should be. That's usually what happens when lurid cases make national headlines: When Matthew Shepard was beaten and hung on a fence in Wyoming, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that it was merely the latest stage in a "war" against homosexuals loosed by the forces of intolerance. Mr. Shepard's murder was dramatized in plays and movies and innumerable songs by Melissa Etheridge, Elton John, Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. The fact that this vile crucifixion was a grisly one-off and that American gays have never been less at risk from getting bashed did not deter pundits and politicians and lobby groups galore from arguing that this freak case demonstrated the need for special legislation.
By contrast, there's been a succession of prominent stories with one common feature that the very same pundits, politicians and lobby groups have a curious reluctance to go anywhere near. In a New York Times report headlined "Sorrow And Anger As Newark Buries Slain Youth," the limpidly tasteful Times prose prioritized "sorrow" over "anger," and offered only the following reference to the perpetrators: "The authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive. Three suspects – two 15-year-olds and a 28-year-old construction worker from Peru – have been arrested."
So, this Peruvian guy was here on a green card? Or did he apply for a temporary construction-work visa from the U.S. Embassy in Lima?
Not exactly. Jose Carranza is an "undocumented" immigrant. His criminal career did not begin with the triple murder he's alleged to have committed, nor with the barroom assault from earlier this year, nor with the 31 counts of aggravated sexual assault relating to the rape of a 5-year-old child, for which Mr. Carranza had been released on bail. (His $50,000 bail on the assault charge and $150,000 bail on the child-rape charges have now been revoked.) No, Mr. Carranza's criminal career in the United States began when he decided to live in this country unlawfully.
Jose Carranza isn't exactly a member of an exclusive club. Violent crime committed by fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community is now a routine feature of American life. But who cares? In 2002, as the "Washington Sniper" piled up his body count, "experts" lined up to tell the media that he was most likely an "angry white male," a "macho hunter" or an "icy loner." When the icy loner turned out to be a black Muslim named Muhammad accompanied by an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, the only angry white males around were the lads in America's newsrooms who were noticeably reluctant to abandon their thesis: Early editions of the New York Times speculated that Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were being sought for "possible ties to 'skinhead militia' groups," which seemed a somewhat improbable alliance given the size of Mr. Muhammad's hair in the only available mug shot. As for his illegal sidekick, Malvo was detained and released by the INS in breach of their own procedures.
America has a high murder rate: Murdering people is definitely one of the jobs Americans can do. But that's what ties young Malvo to Jose Carranza: He's just another killer let loose in this country to kill Americans by the bureaucracy's boundless sensitivity toward the "undocumented." Will the Newark murders change anything? Will there be an Ioefemi Hightower Act of Congress like the Matthew Shepard Act passed by the House of Representatives? No. Three thousand people died Sept. 11, 2001, in an act of murder facilitated by the illegal-immigration support structures in this country, and, if that didn't rouse Americans to action, another trio of victims seems unlikely to tip the scales. As Michelle Malkin documented in her book "Invasion," four of the killers boarded the plane with photo ID obtained through the "undocumented worker" network at the 7-Eleven in Falls Church, Va. That's to say, officialdom's tolerance of the illegal immigration shadow-state enabled 9/11. And what did we do? Not only did we not shut it down, we enshrined the shadow-state's charade as part of the new tough post-slaughter security procedures.
Go take a flight from Newark Airport. The TSA guy will ask for your driver's license, glance at the name and picture, and hand it back to you. Feel safer? The terrorists could pass that test, and the morning of 9/11 they did: 19 foreign "visitors" had, between them, 63 valid U.S. driver's licenses. Did government agencies then make it harder to obtain lawful photo ID? No. Since 9/11, the likes of Maryland and New Mexico have joined those states that issue legal driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
Newark is the logical end point of these policies. It is a failed city: 60 percent of its children are being raised in households without fathers. Into that vacuum pour all kinds of alternative authority structures: Mr. Carranza is alleged to have committed his crime with various teenage members of MS-13, a gang with origins in El Salvador's civil war of the 1980s that now operates in some 30 U.S. states. In its toughest redoubts, immigrants don't assimilate with America, America assimilates to the immigrants, and a Fairfax, Va., teenager finds himself getting hacked at by machete wielders.
One could, I suppose, regard this as one of those unforeseen incremental consequences that happens in the darkest shadows of society. But that doesn't extend to Newark's official status as an illegal-immigrant "sanctuary city." Like Los Angeles, New York and untold others, Newark has formally erased the distinction between U.S. citizens and the armies of the undocumented. This is the active collusion by multiple cities and states in the subversion of U.S. sovereignty. In Newark, N.J., it means an illegal-immigrant child rapist is free to murder on a Saturday night. In Somerville, Mass., it means two deaf girls are raped by MS-13 members. And in Falls Church, Va., it means Saudi Wahhabists figuring out that, if the "sanctuary nation" (in Michelle Malkin's phrases) offers such rich pickings to imported killers and imported gangs, why not to jihadists?
"Tell Me Why They Had To Die"? Hard to answer. But tell me why, no matter how many Jose Carranzas it spawns, the nationwide undocumented-immigration protection program erected by this country's political class remains untouchable and ever-expanding.
©MARK STEYN
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US faces reverse brain drain, says study
23 Aug 2007, 0236 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN
SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
WASHINGTON: The United States is facing a brain drain, the loss of intellectual resources that till recently deprived countries such as India and China of its best and brightest, according to a new study.
The cause: "misplaced" US immigration policies that that block high skilled immigrants from becoming permanent American residents. The beneficiaries of the reverse brain drain: previous losers such as India and China, whose booming economies are starting to win back those who left for better prospects.
Researchers from Harvard, Duke and New York University on Wednesday released an analysis of international patent filings that also tracked what is being called "reverse brain drain."
The study shows that while foreign nationals, mostly Indians and Chinese, contributed to 25.6% of all US international patent applications in 2006, thousands of them are heading home because of hurdles in their bid to become permanent US residents.
"So far, the US has the benefit of attracting the worlds best and brightest. Now, because of our flawed immigration policies, we have set the stage for the departure of hundreds of thousands of highly skilled professionals - who we have trained in our technology, techniques and markets and made even more valuable," says Vivek Wadhwa, a Delhi-born engineering and business lecturer at Duke and Harvard, who is the lead researcher of the study.
"This is lose-lose for the US. Our corporations lose key talent that is contributing to innovation and competitiveness, and we end up creating potential competitors," he said in notes attached to the study.
Wadhwa reckons that India may have provided more intellectual capital to the United States over the last decade than all the financial aid Washington has given to India over the past 60 years. But this trend is reversing as Indians head back to home, frustrated by US immigration policies that keep them in limbo.
The study does not offer precise numbers of people returning to India or China but says "approximately one in five new legal immigrants and one on three employment principals either plan to leave the US or are uncertain about remaining."
It estimates that around a million high-skilled foreign workers are caught in an "immigration limbo," far more than the 300,000 previously estimated. Some reports put the number of high-skilled Indian immigrants who have returned from the US at between 35,000 and 60,000. Wadhwa says he is not for expanding the number of temporary H-1B visas - which he says is part of the problem - but favours more Green Cards.
"For the first time in its history, the US faces the prospect of a reverse brain-drain," he says. "If the US needs skilled immigrants, we should bring them here to stay – not as temporary workers."
The new study shows that in 2006, 16.8 per cent of international patent applications from the United States had an inventor or co-inventor with a Chinese heritage name while the contribution of inventors with Indian-heritage names was 13.7 per cent.
Both Indian and Chinese inventors tended to file most patents in the field of medical/sanitation preparations, pharmaceuticals, semi-conductors and electronics. An earlier report by the same group found that one in four engineering and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant founder. These companies employed 450,000 people and generated $52 billion in revenues in 2006.
Indian immigrants founded more companies than the next four groups (from UK, China, Taiwan, and Japan).
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI...13&template=printart
Article published Aug 27, 2007
California travesty
August 27, 2007
By Mark Cromer - Dr. Gene Rogers had a pretty good idea of what was coming when he saw his supervisor and a county security officer arrive at his office door. His supervisor was holding paperwork; the security guard was holding an empty box.
Dr. Gene Rogers knew what they had come to do, and why they were doing it. As the medical director for Sacramento County's Indigent Services program for the better part of the past decade, Dr. Rogers has waged a long fight against the central California county's practice of providing non-emergency medical care to illegal immigrants — a policy he says violates federal law and results in the poorest American citizens being denied the care they deserve.
That fight cost Dr. Rogers his job. In a two-sentence memo to Dr. Rogers, the county's Health and Human Services director, Lynn Frank, informed him that he was fired, but thanked him for his services. No reason for his termination was offered, but then he didn't really expect one. "Sacramento County knowingly violated state and federal laws, misappropriated taxpayer revenues and diverted funds designated for indigent citizens to pay for services delivered to illegal aliens," Dr. Rogers said. "And they did so even as they cut the budget."
Fired earlier this month, Dr. Rogers is the latest casualty on a frontline in the struggle over illegal immigration that's often overshadowed: the battle that has simmered throughout government agencies. Many government employees remain silent in the face of what's happening — fearful for their jobs and perhaps doubtful that they would make a difference. But Dr. Rogers, a Vietnam veteran, felt compelled to become a conscientious objector to the status quo.
The local cost of the medical treatment provided to illegal immigrants is small when contrasted to the billions of dollars the state and federal governments spend every year on the "undocumented," but the numbers have grown dramatically. According to county health officials, the hundreds of illegal immigrants who were being treated through the indigent program in the mid-1990s have now grown to thousands of people, with the annual cost to taxpayers swelling into the millions of dollars.
Ironically, when Dr. Rogers, 67, took the position of medical director for the indigent services program back in 1999, he arrived in the Central Valley with hardly a clue (let alone an opinion) about illegal immigration and its impact on social services. He had one goal: to provide the best care possible for those who need it most.
As the years went by, however, that egalitarian perspective began to be tinged with cynicism as he watched poor citizens get squeezed out of the system even as illegal immigrants gleefully manipulated it, all while bureaucrats facilitated the rampant violations of the very laws they were entrusted to enforce.
"I've seen cases and case histories of patients who essentially have come up from Mexico for the express purpose of being treated here, and then leaving to return home," Dr. Rogers said. "I've watched illegal immigrants brazenly demand free, non-emergency health care that was meant for our poorest citizens. I've heard them and their families complain. They feel entitled to it." Dr. Rogers filed a lawsuit in 2003 after county officials "stonewalled" him when he questioned why they were cutting budgets while still providing non-emergency medical treatment to people who have no legal right to be in the country.
The lawsuit is currently under appeal in federal court, but its impact was felt in the state capital, causing a nervous Latino Legislative Caucus in California last year to push through a bill by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz that explicitly allows counties to "opt" to provide non-emergency medical care to illegal immigrants. Sacramento County also responded, Dr. Rogers said, by seeking to alienate him from his prior relationships with county medical staff and by methodically preparing to fire him — with a little humiliation thrown in along the way. On one occasion, Dr. Rogers said, he was forced to sit through a staff meeting in which his supervisors asked case-management nurses one by one if they had any issues or problems with him. None said they did, but it was a humiliating experience.
"I am concerned that you continue to focus on patients' immigration status," Program Manager Nancy Gilberti said in a negative work review, "which is outside your and [the] program's purview." Mrs. Gilberti's remarks reflect a prevailing culture that has emerged in government: a culture that will not tolerate anyone who dares to draw a distinction between American citizens and illegal immigrants. It is a culture that now pervades police departments, public schools and universities, social services and health care.
But when someone like Dr. Rogers speaks up to question the impact on citizens of such allocation of funds for health services like those in Sacramento, the response is clear: Sit down and shut up — or else.
But considering that a young Dr. Rogers started his medical career trying to save the lives of horrifically wounded American soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam, Sacramento County's apparatchiks picked the wrong target this time. For Gene Rogers himself, his crusade is deeply rooted in those grim battlefields he found himself on more than 30 years ago. He watched young men fight and die, men who sacrificed all for the very distinction that citizenship brings to Americans.
It's a distinction that Sacramento County and so many others may choose to ignore, but for Dr. Rogers, that loyalty is a sacred trust he is determined to keep.
Mark Cromer is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization.
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In the opinion of Cal Thomas:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas082807.php3
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http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/222841.html
Arrest renews debate over handling of criminal aliens
By DAVE MONTGOMERY
Star-Telegram Austin Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Sheriff Jim Pendergraph first noticed the changes in his jail population early in the decade, as illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries poured into Charlotte and elsewhere in Mecklenburg County, N.C., to find jobs in the robust North Carolina economy.
In Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones became so frustrated with the swelling population of illegal immigrant suspects in his jail a couple of years ago that he symbolically billed the federal government for his incarceration costs and posted a big yellow sign near the jail reading: "Illegal aliens here."
Pendergraph and Jones are part of a growing national debate over how to handle illegal immigrant criminals, a debate that's flared anew with the arrest of an illegal immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three college students in New Jersey.
Criminal aliens, as the federal government classifies them, constitute more than a fourth of the inmates in federal prisons. Those still at large often fall between the cracks of an overburdened and uneven enforcement system, escaping detection and deportation.
More than 300,000 criminal aliens are expected to be placed in state and local jails this year, according to a forecast last year by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. Most might remain in this country after serving their sentences because the federal government lacks the resources to identify, detain and deport them, the audit said.
The suspect in the Newark, N.J., killings, Jose Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bond on assault and child-rape charges. Authorities said they were unaware that Carranza was in the country illegally, largely because local policy prohibits officers from questioning suspects about their immigration status.
'Sanctuary' policies
Newark is one of dozens of cities with "sanctuary" policies designed to keep officers from racially profiling suspects and intimidating immigrant communities, thus making them reluctant to report crimes and cooperate with authorities.
The Newark case erupted barely two months after Congress abandoned efforts to overhaul immigration laws, bringing new calls from law-and-order conservatives to further safeguard the border and root out lawbreakers among the nation's 12 million or more illegal immigrants.
Pro-immigrant groups and a number of big-city police officials defend sanctuary policies and argue that police departments should concentrate on enforcing state and local laws rather than federal immigration policy.
In a study this year, the Immigration Policy Center contended that the perception of "immigrant criminality" is greatly exaggerated, noting that illegal immigrants commit proportionately much fewer crimes than native-born white males.
But others, including Pendergraph and Jones, say the accused immigrant in Newark is just one example of what they describe as a deeply flawed approach to dealing with criminal aliens.
"Most of them fall between the cracks," Pendergraph said. "How many in this country are arrested daily for serious crimes and have been convicted of serious crimes before, and nobody has bothered to check on their immigration status? It's obscene."
Different priorities
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Homeland Security Department, is charged with finding and removing criminal aliens. But ICE officials say they're stretched thin and often hampered by state and local sanctuary policies that limit cooperation.
"What we hope for is to improve our relationship with these local law enforcement agencies," said Deborah Achim, the ICE assistant director for detention and removal operations.
The police departments of eight major cities -- including Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Miami-Dade -- said in a joint statement last year that local police can't "even begin to consider dedicating limited local resources to immigration enforcement" until the federal government seals the border.
News researchers Stacy Garcia, Cathy Belcher and Marcia Melton contributed to this report.
Online: Immigration Policy Center, www.ailf.org/ipc/ipc_index.asp
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, www.ice.gov
Washington correspondent Dave Montgomery, 202-383-6016
dmontgomery@mcclatchydc.com
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http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/09/video-dobbs-unloads-on-race-baiting-amnesty-shill-over-new-arizona-immigration-law/
Open borders shill gets his clock cleaned by Lou Dobbs.
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Diagnosis: Critical
September 12, 2007; Page A18
It's been reported in these columns and elsewhere that the dysfunctional U.S. immigration system contributes to labor shortages in agriculture. Less well-known is that low green card quotas have also left the U.S. with an undersupply of nurses that threatens patient care.
"The ageing U.S. population and low domestic production of nurses in the U.S. has created a nursing shortage that carries deadly consequences," says a new study by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy. "[A] shortage of nurses at U.S. hospitals is leading to increased death and illness for Americans."
Estimates of the looming shortage vary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Health and Human Services project that more than a million new and replacement nurses will be needed over the next decade. Health analysts David Auerbach, Peter Buerhaus and Douglas Staiger cite a lower but still substantial 340,000, though even that "is three times larger than the size of the current shortage when it was at its peak in 2001." All agree that the coming retirement of 77 million baby boomers means something will have to give.
Wage increases in recent years have attracted more people to nursing. In California, annual average salaries for full-time registered nurses grew to $69,000 in 2006 from $52,000 in 2000, a 32% gain. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nationwide mean salary for registered nurses today is nearly $60,000. Better pay alone, however, won't solve the problem, or at least not anytime soon.
Despite more interest in the profession, faculty shortages and inadequate facilities have prevented nursing programs from expanding enrollment. More than 70% of schools responding to a 2006 American Association of College Nursing survey listed faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting all qualified applicants. In 2005 nursing schools rejected 147,000 qualified applicants, citing lack of classroom space and clinical placement sites for students.
When growers can't find field hands, food rots and businesses lose money. But when hospitals can't find nurses, patient care suffers. "The effectiveness of nurse surveillance is influenced by the number of registered nurses available to assess patients on an ongoing basis," concluded a 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association study. The study -- which looked at general, orthopedic and vascular surgery patients at hospitals -- found a 31% increase in patient mortality when a nurse's workload rose to eight from four patients.
"Given that even optimistic projections of raising wages and increasing domestic nurse production assumes a continued shortage of a decade or more," writes Mr. Anderson, "policymakers concerned about the impact of the nursing shortage on patient deaths and illnesses must consider relaxing current immigration quotas."
The long-term solution here is to increase nursing faculty and teaching facilities. But in the short run, Congress could help enormously by easing the limit on foreign nurses allowed entry to the U.S. That's what lawmakers did in 2005 when they allocated 50,000 extra green cards with a priority for foreign nurses. They were used up in 18 months. About 4% of U.S. registered nurses are foreign-trained, which means many hospitals couldn't function without them.
More such green cards are needed now, before hospital understaffing contributes to more preventable illness and death.
WSJ
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http://www.heritage.org:80/Research/Immigration/bg2069.cfm
September 13, 2007
A Sleeper Amnesty: Time to Wake Up from the DREAM Act
by Kris W. Kobach, D.Phil., J.D.
Backgrounder #2069
Just three months after the Senate immigration bill met its well-deserved end, amnesty advocates in the U.S. Congress resumed their efforts. Recently, Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) announced on the Senate floor his intention to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.
The DREAM Act (S. 774) is a nightmare. It is a massive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16. The illegal alien who applies for this amnesty is immediately rewarded with "conditional" lawful permanent resident (green card) status, which can be converted to a non-conditional green card in short order. The alien can then use his newly acquired status to seek green cards for the parents who brought him in illegally in the first place. In this way, it is also a backdoor amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who brought their children with them to the United States.
What is less well known about the DREAM Act is that it also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students. It repeals a 1996 federal law that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.
On its own, the DREAM Act never stood a chance of passing. Every scientific opinion poll on the subject has shown over 70 percent opposition to giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.
Not surprisingly, the DREAM Act languished in committee for five years after it was first introduced in 2001—until the opportunity arose to hitch it to the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration bills of 2006 and 2007.
To understand just what an insult to the rule of law the DREAM Act is, it is important to look at the history behind it.
A Brief History of the In-State Tuition Debate
In September 1996, Congress passed the landmark Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Led by Lamar Smith (R– TX) in the House of Representatives and Alan Simpson (R–WY) in the Senate, Congress significantly toughened the nation's immigration laws. To his credit, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.
Open-borders advocates in some states—most notably California—had already raised the possibility of offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens who attend public universities. To prevent such a development, the IIRIRA's sponsors inserted a clearly worded provision that prohibited any state from doing so unless it provided the same discounted tuition to all U.S. citizens:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.
Members of Congress reasoned that no state would be interested in giving up the extra revenue from out-of-state students, so this provision would ensure that illegal aliens would not be rewarded with a taxpayer-subsidized college education. The IIRIRA's proponents never imagined that some states might simply disobey federal law.
States Subsidizing the College Education of Illegal Aliens
However, that is precisely what happened. In 1999, radical liberals in the California legislature pushed ahead with their plan to have taxpayers subsidize the college education of illegal aliens.
Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D) sponsored a bill that would have made illegal aliens who had resided in California for three years during high school eligible for in-state tuition rates at California community colleges and universities. In August 2000, the California legislature passed his bill. However, Democrat Governor Gray Davis vetoed the bill in September 2000, stating clearly in his veto message that the bill would violate federal law:
ndocumented aliens are ineligible to receive postsecondary education benefits based on state residence…. IIRIRA would require that all out-of-state legal residents be eligible for this same benefit. Based on Fall 1998 enrollment figures…this legislation could result in a revenue loss of over $63.7 million to the state.
Undeterred, Firebaugh introduced his bill again, and the California legislature passed it again. In 2002, facing flagging poll numbers and desperate to rally Hispanic voters to his cause, Governor Davis signed the bill.
Meanwhile, similar interests in Texas had succeeded in enacting their own version of the bill. Since then, interest groups lobbying for illegal aliens have introduced similar legislation in most of the other states. The majority of state legislatures had the good sense to reject the idea, but eight states followed the examples of California and Texas, including some states in the heart of "red" America. Today, the 10 states that offer in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens are: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington. (The legislatures of Maryland and Connecticut passed similar bills in 2007, but the governors of those states rightly vetoed the bills.)
In most of these 10 states, the law was passed under cover of darkness because public opinion was strongly against subsidizing the college education of illegal aliens at taxpayer expense. The governors even declined to hold press conferences or signing ceremonies heralding the new laws.
Not surprisingly, when voters themselves decide the question, a very different result occurs. In November 2006, Arizona voters passed Proposition 300, which expressly barred Arizona universities from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens— 71.4 percent voted in favor.
The American people realize the injustice of giving illegal aliens a taxpayer-subsidized education when out-of-state U.S. citizens and law-abiding foreign students have to pay the full cost of their education.
This strong public sentiment against giving illegal aliens access to in-state tuition rates is powerful enough to swing the results of an election. In Nebraska, the last of the 10 states to pass the law, that is exactly what happened. During the 2006 session, Nebraska's unicameral legislature passed an in-state tuition bill for illegal aliens. Governor Dave Heineman vetoed the bill because it violated federal law and was bad policy. In mid-April the legislature, which included an unusually large number of lame-duck Senators, overrode his veto by a vote of 30 to 19.
The veto would become an issue in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary. Heineman's opponent was the legendary University of Nebraska football coach and sitting U.S. Representative Tom Osborne, a political demigod in the Cornhusker State. Osborne had never received less than 82 percent of the vote in any election. Heineman, on the other hand, had not yet won a gubernatorial election. He became governor in 2005 when Governor Mike Johanns resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
Few believed that Heineman had a chance of winning the primary. He was behind in all of the polls. But then Coach Osborne fumbled. During a debate, he stated that he favored the idea of giving subsidized tuition to illegal aliens. Heineman seized the opportunity, and highlighted this difference of opinion between the candidates in his political ads. The voters reacted negatively to Osborn's position, and Heineman surged ahead in the final weeks of the race. He beat Osborn by 50 percent to 44 percent in the primary election on May 9, 2006. After the vote, both candidates said that the in-state tuition issue had been decisive.
State-Subsidized Lawbreaking
In all 10 states, the in-state tuition laws make for shockingly bad policy.
First, providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens amounts to giving them a taxpayer-financed education. In contrast, out-of-state students pay the full cost of their education. This gift to illegal aliens costs taxpayers a great deal of money at a time when tuition rates are rising across the country. For example, in California, a lawsuit on the matter has revealed the staggering cost to the taxpayer: The state pays more than $100 million annually to subsidize the college education of thousands of illegal aliens.
Second, these states are encouraging aliens to violate federal immigration law. Indeed, in some of the states, breaking federal law is an express prerequisite to receive the benefit of in-state tuition rates. Those states expressly deny in-state tuition to legal aliens who have valid student visas. And in all 10 states, an alien is eligible for in-state tuition rates only if he remains in the state in violation of federal law and evades federal law enforcement. In this way states are directly rewarding this illegal behavior.
This situation is comparable to a state passing a law that rewards residents with state tax credits for cheating on their federal income taxes. These states are providing direct financial subsidies to those who violate federal law.
Third, not only are such laws unfair to aliens who follow the law, but they are slaps in the faces of law-abiding American citizens. For example, a student from Missouri who attends Kansas University and has always played by the rules and obeyed the law is charged three times the tuition charged to an alien whose very presence in the country is a violation of federal criminal law.
This gift to illegal aliens comes at a time when millions of U.S. citizens have had to mortgage their future to attend college. During 2002–2007, college costs rose 35 percent after adjusting for inflation. Two-thirds of college students now graduate with debt, and the amount of debt averages $19,200. In a world of scarce education resources, U.S. citizens should be first in line to receive a break on college costs—not aliens who break federal law.
Even if a good argument could be made for giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens, the bottom line is that the policy violates federal law. These 10 states have brazenly cast aside the constraints imposed by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.
Pending Lawsuits
In July 2004, a group of U.S. citizen students from out of state filed suit in federal district court in Kansas to enjoin the state from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens.They pointed out that Kansas is clearly violating federal law, as well as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against them in favor of illegal aliens.
The district judge did not render any decision on the central questions of the case. Instead, he avoided the issues entirely by ruling that the plaintiffs lacked a private right of action to bring their statutory challenge and lacked standing to bring their Equal Protection challenge. The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Meanwhile, in December 2005, another group of U.S. citizen students filed a class-action suit in a California state court.They too maintain that the state is violating federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Pursuant to a California civil rights statute, they are also seeking damages to compensate them for the extra tuition that they have paid above that charged to illegal aliens.
The DREAM Act Amnesty
Now, just when it looks as if U.S. citizens might vindicate their rights under federal law and the wayward states might be held accountable, Senator Durbin and his pro-amnesty allies are seeking to offer the offending states a pardon.
The DREAM Act grants an unusual reprieve to the 10 states that have ignored federal law. The Act retroactively repeals the 1996 federal law that the 10 states violated, making it as though the provisions in the 1996 law never existed.
On top of this insult to the rule of law, the DREAM Act includes a massive amnesty, as noted above. This amnesty opens a wide path to citizenship for any alien who entered the country before the age of 16 and has been in the country for at least five years. The guiding notion seems to be "The longer you have violated federal law, the better."
Beyond that, all the alien needs is a high school diploma or a GED earned in the United States. If he can persuade an institution of higher education in the United States—any community college, technical school, or college—to admit him, that will suffice. Any illegal alien who meets these conditions (or who can produce fraudulent papers indicating that he meets the conditions) gets immediate legal status in the form of a "conditional" green card good for six years, according to Section 4(a)(1).
It is important to recognize just how sweeping this amnesty is.
There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Customs and Immigration Services office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act's Section 4(a) merely requires him to "demonstrate" that he is eligible—which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.
The alien then has six years to adjust his status from a conditional green card holder to a non-conditional one. To do so, he need only complete two years of study at an institution of higher education. If the alien has already completed two years of study, he can convert to non-conditional status immediately (and use his green card as a platform to bring in family members). As an alternative to two years of study, he can enlist in the U.S. military and spend two years there. This provision allows Senator Durbin to claim that the DREAM Act is somehow germane to a defense authorization bill.
An illegal alien who applies for the DREAM Act amnesty gets to count his years under "conditional" green card status toward the five years needed for citizenship. (Section 5(e)) On top of that, the illegal alien could claim "retroactive benefits" and start the clock running the day that the DREAM Act is enacted. (Section 6) In combination, these two provisions put illegal aliens on a high-speed track to U.S. citizenship—moving from illegal alien to U.S. citizen in as little as five years. Lawfully present aliens, meanwhile, must follow a slower path to citizenship.
It would be absurdly easy for just about any illegal alien—even one who does not qualify for the amnesty—to evade the law. According to Section 4(f) of the DREAM Act, once an alien files an application—any application, no matter how ridiculous—the federal government is prohibited from deporting him. Moreover, with few exceptions, federal officers are prohibited from either using information from the application to deport the alien or sharing that information with another federal agency, under threat of up to $10,000 fine. Thus, an alien's admission that he has violated federal immigration law cannot be used against him—even if he never had any chance of qualifying for the DREAM Act amnesty in the first place.
The DREAM Act also makes the illegal aliens eligible for federal student loans and federal work-study programs—another benefit that law-abiding foreign students cannot receive—all at taxpayer expense. A consistent theme emerges: Illegal aliens are treated much more favorably than aliens who follow the law. There is no penalty for illegal behavior.
Conclusion
In addition to being a dream for those who have broken the law, the DREAM Act raises an even larger issue regarding the relationship between states and the federal government. The 10 states have created a 21st century version of the nullification movement—defying federal law simply because they do not like it. In so doing, they have challenged the basic structure of the republic. The DREAM Act would pardon this offense and, in so doing, encourage states to defy other federal law in the future.
One thing that we have learned in the struggle to enforce our nation's immigration laws is that states cannot be allowed to undermine the efforts of the federal government to enforce the law. Only if all levels of government are working in concert to uphold the rule of law can it be fully restored.
Kris W. Kobach is Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He served as counsel and chief adviser on immigration law to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001 to 2003. He is representing the U.S. citizen plaintiffs in the Kansas and California lawsuits described in this paper, and has published a longer article explaining this issue, as well as the legal arguments involved, in the New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, vol. 10, no. 3 (2006-07).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] 8 U.S.C. § 1623.
[2] Gray Davis, veto message to California Assembly on AB 1197, September 29, 2000, at info.sen.ca.gov/pub/99-00/bill/asm/ab_1151-
1200/ab_1197_vt_20000929.html (August 10, 2006).
[3] See Day v. Sebelius, 376 F. Supp. 2d 1022 (2005).
[4] See Stuart Silverstein, "Out-of-State Students Sue over Tuition: Plaintiffs Are Challenging California Practices That Require Them to Pay Higher College Costs Than Some Illegal Immigrants," Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2005, p. B3.
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I find controlling our border and putting an end to illegal immigration to be vital national interests. Still there is more to the story than that:
Hispanics and the GOP
How to lose elections in one Lou Dobbs lesson.
Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Between 1996 and 2004, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote doubled to more than 40%, only to fall in last year's midterm election to less than 30%. The most recent polls show Hispanics breaking for Democrats over Republicans by 51% to 21%. What gives?
To understand this remarkable erosion of Latino support for Republicans, look no further than the most recent Presidential debates. While GOP candidates debated the urgency of erecting a fence from California to Texas along the Mexican border, Democrats debated in Spanish on Univision.
To reverse current trends, the GOP need not resort to ethnic pandering, which is the left's métier. But Republicans would help their cause tremendously if the party at the very least adopted a welcoming stance toward Latino newcomers. People aren't going to listen to your message unless they believe you care about them. Ronald Reagan didn't regularly receive a third of the Hispanic vote by sounding like Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson on immigration.
Tone matters in politics, and getting people to vote for you is easier when you're not likening them to Islamic terrorists, or implying that Latino men are hard-wired for gang-banging. Unlike blacks, who have hewed to Democrats in large majorities for decades, Latinos are proven swing voters, and Republican energies would be better employed trying to win them over instead of trying to capitalize on ethnic polarization to win GOP primaries.
There's precedent here. In the mid-1990s after California Governor Pete Wilson embraced Proposition 187, which denied education and health-care benefits to the children of illegal aliens, Latino support for Republicans fell to 25% from 53%, and GOP support among Asians and women declined as well.
Some conservatives insist that it's only the illegal aliens who have earned their wrath, but when the target of scorn is the mother or brother or cousin of someone here lawfully, that becomes a difference without much of a distinction politically. Moreover, Tom Tancredo, the pied piper of restrictionists in Congress, wants a "time out" on all legal immigration, and Hispanic voters are wise to the fact that it's not because he thinks there are too many Italians in the U.S. Republican pols may decide to follow Mr. Tancredo, Lou Dobbs, Fox News populists and obsessive bloggers down this path, but it's likely to lead to political defeat.
Hispanics are now about 8% of the electorate, but they're projected to become 20% by 2020 and one-quarter of the total U.S. population by 2050. The political reality is that going forward Hispanics will have to play a bigger and bigger role in keeping the GOP competitive nationally. It's hard to see how Republicans have any hope of building a permanent majority if Hispanics start voting for Democrats in the percentages that blacks already do.
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona all boast heavy Latino populations and are states that a GOP Presidential candidate probably has to carry unless he can pick up states on the West coast or in the Northeast that Republicans haven't won since the 1980s. President Bush won Nevada, Colorado and Arizona twice. Al Gore won New Mexico in 2000, but it switched to Mr. Bush in 2004 in part because the President did well among the state's large Hispanic population.
Which brings us to a final, somewhat ironic, point about these political and demographic trends. Republican strategists, led by Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and Matthew Dowd, took note of what was happening long before their Democratic counterparts. As recently as 2004, Democrats still viewed Latinos as voters they could take for granted. The assumption was that, as with blacks, perfunctory appeals to past discrimination would suffice to win them over. John Kerry ran no significant campaign in Hispanic communities and rarely traveled to the Southwest.
But it turns out that 50% of Hispanic voters are foreign-born and grew up speaking Spanish, not nursing racial grievances. That's an increase from 20% in 1988, and most of Mr. Bush's gains among Hispanics in 2004 came from this cohort. The point is that Republican principles--economic or cultural--are not lost on Hispanics, who are hardly wedded to one party, even if some conservatives insist this vote is lost to them. And it's no coincidence the 2008 Democratic convention will be in Colorado, where Hispanics are 19% of the population.
President Bush proved that the GOP could make significant inroads with Latinos, and smart Governors like Rick Perry in Texas and Jeb Bush in Florida have also shown the political wisdom of avoiding anti-immigration appeals. It's unfortunate that other Republicans, including most of Mr. Bush's would-be successors, seem so eager to help the Democrats make up lost ground.
WSJ
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**Ah, what suicidal act won't we do in the name of "diversity"?**
U.S. admits nearly 10,000 from "terrorism" states
Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:13pm EDT
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 10,000 people from countries designated as sponsors of terrorism have entered the United States under an immigration diversity program with relatively few restrictions, a report released on Friday said.
The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the State Department's inspector general warned in 2003 that the Diversity Visa Program posed a significant risk to national security and recommended it be closed to people from countries on the U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors.
But four years later, the program remains open to people from those nations and little is known about what becomes of them once they enter the United States, the GAO said.
From 2000 to 2006, the program allowed 3,703 people from Sudan, 3,164 from Iran, 2,763 from Cuba and 162 from Syria to enter the United States and apply for permanent legal resident status, the report said. That totals 9,792 new immigrants.
"We found no documented evidence of ... immigrants from state sponsors of terrorism committing any terrorist acts," said the GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.
"However ... the Department of Homeland Security, terrorism experts and federal law enforcement officials familiar with immigration fraud believe that some individuals including terrorists and criminals could use fraudulent means to enter or remain in the United States."
The report quoted a U.S. security officer in Turkey as saying it would be possible for Iranian intelligence officers to pose as applicants and not be detected if their identities were not already known to U.S. intelligence.
The GAO said the State Department expressed disappointment with the report's findings and rejected recommendations that the department compile more comprehensive data on fraud activity and formulate a new strategy for combating
it.
The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the report, the GAO said.
The Diversity Visa Program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990 and provides up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to people from countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the United States. People from 179 countries are eligible to participate this year.
The program has enabled more than half a million immigrants -- mainly from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia -- to gain permanent legal status in the United States.
But unlike most U.S. visa programs, the diversity program does not require applicants to have family members or employers in the United States to petition on their behalf.
Applicants from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism normally are granted non-immigrant visas under limited circumstances. But the GAO report said no parallel restrictions exist for diversity visas.
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http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/monographs/Leiken_Bearers_of_Global_Jihad.pdf
Good read on immigration policy and the global jihad.
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**The high cost of cheap labor.**
After deportation, shooter was caught, freed again
Judi Villa, Michael Kiefer, Carol Sowers and Michael Clancy
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 20, 2007 12:00 AM
Erik Jovani Martinez should have been in prison and not jaywalking the day he gunned down Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle.
But despite a lengthy criminal history and a deportation, Martinez remained free, even after he was arrested again in the Valley just two months after he had been forced to leave the country in 2006.
Scottsdale police say they didn't know Martinez, 22, was an illegal immigrant or that he had been deported when they arrested him in May 2006 for grabbing his girlfriend's arm twice during a quarrel.
Martinez was deported in March 2006 after a felony conviction for theft.
Had Scottsdale police known, Martinez should have been jailed and should have faced federal charges for returning to the country illegally. A conviction would have earned him up to 20 years in prison.
Instead, he posted $300 bail and was released.
On Wednesday, one day after Martinez gunned down Erfle on a central Phoenix street, the officer's death reignited the ongoing immigration debate.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called on Washington officials to "secure the border and secure it now" before another officer pays the ultimate price.
"This individual that took our officer's life is a perfect example, a poster child, of our failed Washington policy for securing our borders," Gordon said.
But others say Martinez shouldn't necessarily be a flashpoint in the acrimonious debate over where immigration policy and law enforcement should intersect.
Martinez was brought to the United States as an infant and lived his whole life here. Clearly, he also was a career criminal, racking up a dozen arrests before he turned 18 and continuing to have brushes with the law afterward.
Even law-enforcement officials said they were hesitant to say Erfle's murder could be blamed on immigration issues.
"It's a big, complex issue," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been in the national forefront when it comes to pursuing undocumented immigrants.
Still, Arpaio admitted, "You can't catch 'em all. We have a lot of violence out there, whether you're legal or illegal."
A troubled youth
Martinez has an extensive juvenile record that includes assaults and auto thefts. He was a documented gang member who admitted in court papers that he drank and smoked marijuana and crack cocaine. His first arrest, in July 1999, came after his parents reported him as incorrigible.
Martinez spent most of his teens on probation. Arrests for truancy led to more serious things: underage drinking, several threats and assault and stealing a vehicle. Martinez was serving time in juvenile detention for auto theft when he turned 18 and had to be released, according to court records.
Just months later, he was in trouble again, arrested for auto theft. He served time in a Maricopa County jail, then violated his probation and eventually wound up in prison in January 2006. Two months later, Martinez was deported. Typically, illegal immigrants convicted of a felony must serve all or part of their sentence before being deported.
Sneaking back
Martinez apparently sneaked back across the border almost immediately. Scottsdale police arrested him on May 15, 2006, after an officer saw him quarreling with his girlfriend. Scottsdale police spokeswoman Shawn Sanders couldn't say whether officers had contacted immigration officials after the arrest. She would say only that information about Martinez's deportation was "not available to us at that time."
A spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he didn't believe Scottsdale police had contacted the agency, but he couldn't say that unequivocally.
A judge ordered Martinez into a domestic-violence counseling program, but he "didn't comply" and an arrest warrant was issued, Sanders said.
By the time Erfle was killed, Phoenix police were trying to find Martinez for hitting his girlfriend and threatening her with a shotgun in June 2006. Phoenix police obtained a warrant for his arrest in January and were trying to locate him.
The link between undocumented immigrants and crime is difficult to quantify. On Wednesday, about 18 percent of the 10,108 inmates in Maricopa County jails had immigration holds, sheriff's Capt. Paul Chagolla said. An estimated 10 percent of Arizona's population is Mexican nationals.
It's difficult to say whether that's a reflection of illegal immigrants committing a disproportionate amount of crimes or if it reflects Arpaio's crackdown on those who enter the United States illegally. The percentage of the jail population with immigration holds has doubled since Arpaio began his crackdown.
Still, crime certainly has morphed into a hot-button issue in the immigration debate.
Phoenix police were reluctant to address the issue before Erfle is laid to rest, but officials acknowledged that they could not draw a link between immigration policy and the officer's murder. "It's random," Lt. Benny Piña said. "I don't think there's a correlation there."
Before Erfle, the last Phoenix police officer killed by an undocumented immigrant was Marc Atkinson, who was ambushed and shot to death in 1999. Since then, five Phoenix police officers, including Erfle, have been shot to death in the line of duty.
"I think the officers are committed to doing their job regardless of whether the person's in the country illegally or not," Police Chief Jack Harris said.
Police Sgt. Andy Hill recalled that when Phoenix police Officer George Cortez Jr. was shot to death in July while answering a call about a bad check, the questions revolved around whether officers should travel alone or in pairs. Cortez did not have a partner.
"It's the job," Hill said. "It's you putting human beings in circumstances, and that human being is subject to all the dangers that are out there.
"We arrest people like that every single day who don't say they're going to kill a police officer."
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NY Slimes:
By KEN BELSON and JILL P. CAPUZZO
Published: September 26, 2007
RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.
Angelina Guedes has owned a hair and nail salon in Riverside, N.J., for two years. It was nearly empty on a recent afternoon.
Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.
The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.
With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.
Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.
So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.
“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”
In the past two years, more than 30 towns nationwide have enacted laws intended to address problems attributed to illegal immigration, from overcrowded housing and schools to overextended police forces. Most of those laws, like Riverside’s, called for fines and even jail sentences for people who knowingly rented apartments to illegal immigrants or who gave them jobs.
In some places, business owners have objected to crackdowns that have driven away immigrant customers. And in many, ordinances have come under legal assault by immigration groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In June, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against a housing ordinance in Farmers Branch, Tex., that would have imposed fines against landlords who rented to illegal immigrants. In July, the city of Valley Park, Mo., repealed a similar ordinance, after an earlier version was struck down by a state judge and a revision brought new challenges. A week later, a federal judge struck down ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., the first town to enact laws barring illegal immigrants from working or renting homes there.
Muzaffar A. Chishti, director of the New York office of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit group, said Riverside’s decision to repeal its law — which was never enforced — was clearly influenced by the Hazleton ruling, and he predicted that other towns would follow suit.
“People in many towns are now weighing the social, economic and legal costs of pursuing these ordinances,” he said.
Indeed, Riverside, a town of 8,000 nestled across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has already spent $82,000 defending its ordinance, and it risked having to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees if it lost in court. The legal battle forced the town to delay road paving projects, the purchase of a dump truck and repairs to town hall, officials said. But while Riverside’s about-face may repair its budget, it may take years to mend the emotional scars that formed when the ordinance “put us on the national map in a bad way,” Mr. Conard said.
Rival advocacy groups in the immigration debate turned this otherwise sleepy town into a litmus test for their causes. As the television cameras rolled, Riverside was branded, in turns, a racist enclave and a town fighting for American values.
Some residents who backed the ban last year were reluctant to discuss their stance now, though they uniformly blamed outsiders for misrepresenting their motives. By and large, they said the ordinance was a success because it drove out illegal immigrants, even if it hurt the town’s economy.
“It changed the face of Riverside a little bit,” said Charles Hilton, the former mayor who pushed for the ordinance. (He was voted out of office last fall but said it was not because he had supported the law.)
“The business district is fairly vacant now, but it’s not the legitimate businesses that are gone,” he said. “It’s all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens.”
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Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants
Published: September 26, 2007
(Page 2 of 2)
Many businesses that remain are having a hard time. Angelina Guedes, a Brazilian-born beautician, opened A Touch From Brazil, a hair and nail salon, on Scott Street two years ago to cater to the immigrant population. At one point, she had 10 workers.
Business quickly dried up after the law against illegal immigrants. Last week, on what would usually be a busy Thursday afternoon, Ms. Guedes ate a salad and gave a friend a manicure, while the five black stylist chairs sat empty.
“Now I only have myself,” said Ms. Guedes, 41, speaking a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. “They all left. I also want to leave but it’s not possible because no one wants to buy my business.”
Numerous storefronts on Scott Street are boarded up or are empty, with For Sale by Owner signs in the windows. Business is down by half at Luis Ordonez’s River Dance Music Store, which sells Western Union wire transfers, cellphones and perfume. Next door, his restaurant, the Scott Street Family Cafe, which has a multiethnic menu in English, Spanish and Portuguese, was empty at lunchtime.
“I came here looking for an opportunity to open a business and I found it, and the people also needed the service,” said Mr. Ordonez, who is from Ecuador. “It was crowded and everybody was trying to do their best to support their families.”
Some have adapted better than others. Bruce Behmke opened the R & B Laundromat in 2003 after he saw immigrants hauling trash bags full of clothing to a laundry a mile away. Sales took off at his small shop, where want ads in Portuguese are pinned to a corkboard and copies of the Brazilian Voice sit near the door.
When sales plummeted last year, Mr. Behmke started a wash-and-fold delivery service for young professionals.
“It became a ghost town here,” he said.
Immigration is not new to Riverside. Once a summer resort for Philadelphians, the town became a magnet a century ago for European immigrants drawn to its factories, including the Philadelphia Watch Case Company, whose empty hulk still looms over town. Until the 1930s, the minutes of the school board meetings were recorded in German and English.
“There’s always got to be some scapegoats,” said Regina Collinsgru, who runs The Positive Press, a local newspaper, and whose husband was among a wave of Portuguese immigrants who came here in the 1960s. “The Germans were first, there were problems when the Italians came, then the Polish came. That’s the nature of a lot of small towns.”
Immigrants from Latin America began arriving around 2000. The majority were Brazilians attracted not only by construction jobs in the booming housing market but also by the presence of Portuguese-speaking businesses in town. Between 2000 and 2006, local business owners and officials estimate, more than 3,000 immigrants arrived. There are no authoritative figures about the number of immigrants who were — or were not — in the country legally.
Like those waves of earlier immigrants, the Brazilians and Latinos triggered conflicting reactions. Some shopkeepers loved the extra dollars spent on Scott and Pavilion Streets, the modest thoroughfares that anchor downtown. Yet some residents steered clear of stores where Portuguese and Spanish were plainly the language of choice. A few contractors benefited from the new pool of cheap labor. Others begrudged being undercut by rivals who hired undocumented workers.
On the town’s leafy side streets, some residents admired the pluck of newcomers who often worked six days a week, and a few even took up Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. Yet many neighbors loathed the white vans with out-of-state plates and ladders on top parked in spots they had long considered their own. The Brazilian flags that flew at several houses rankled more than a few longtime residents.
It is unclear whether the Brazilian and Latino immigrants who left will now return to Riverside. With the housing market slowing, there may be little reason to come back. But if they do, some residents say they may spark new tensions.
Mr. Hilton, the former mayor, said some of the illegal immigrants have already begun filtering back into town. “It’s not the Wild West like it was,” he said, “but it may return to that.”
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Dream Act Puts Illegal Alien Kids Ahead of American Kids
This outrage is an opportunity to get tens of millions of parents and grandparents to get active in the fight against amnesty for illegal aliens. Until now, many of them thought it was not an issue that affected them.
But thanks to Sen. Durbin, it has now become a major issue for all families who had hoped that their children would go to college. Under the Dream Act, illegal aliens, not American students, will be getting preferential service. Illegal alien children will be given low, low in-state tuition rates while American families, many of whom are losing jobs or earning lower wages because employers are hiring illegals, will have to pay TEN TIMES MORE for their children's education.
So if you have relatives or friends who have high school aged children getting ready to apply to colleges, forward this email to them and urge them to join the fight against amnesty for illegal aliens.
Rampant Hypocrisy
In July, Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, voted to keep Senator Lindsay Graham's border security amendment off of the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, claiming immigration reform amendments were not germane to Homeland Security and violated Senate rules.
The Senate voted 52 to 44 that the amendment was not germane.
Will the Senate Democrats show the same interest in keeping things "germane" by keeping Dick Durbin's "Dream Act," that grants amnesty and low tuition rates for illegal aliens, off of the Concurrent Resolution bill to keep the government running?
Let's hold their feet to the fire. Let's remind Reid what he did in July to keep an important and very germane amendment off of the Homeland Security Bill and demand that he use the same rigid standards to keep the Dream Act off the Budget bill.
The Dream Act is a Continuing Amnesty
(the gift that keeps on giving!)
Unlike the Amnesty bills from the Senate for the past 2 years, the DREAM Act is a
continuing program, not just a one-time amnesty.
The amnesty that was defeated a few months back was an amnesty for all those illegal aliens currently living here, but the Dream Act will continue year after year, as long as illegal aliens continue to bring their children across the border with them.
Of course neither Dick Durbin nor Ted Kennedy thought to mention this to their colleagues, hoping it would be lost in the shuffle. Consequently, most people and most Senators remain totally unaware of this dangerous aspect of the amendment. Hopefully, if you ask your Seantors the following questions, it make give them a much-needed wake up call to oppose this disastrous amendment.
"Does the Senator realize that DREAM is a permanent, cycling amnesty with no end, not just "one-time" amnesty?
"Please ask the Senator for me exactly how many times do the American people have to demand NO MORE AMNESTY before our elected officials honor our request?"
Please click here to go to our Senate listing that contains all of their telephone numbers in D.C. and their state offices. And start calling right now!
I think this is winnable, but only if we get a full effort from all Americans who are outraged by the continuous efforts of our Congress to sneak through a back-door amnesty, knowing that 80% of their constituents are dead set against it!
So please start calling and call your friends as well and get them calling too. We stopped them before and we can do it again, if we all work together.
Thanks again for all your help and continuing support.
Sincerely,
Edward I. Nelson
P.S. Here are some other things you can do:
1. Consider forwarding this email to your own email list of friends, relatives, business associates. It will multiply our lobbying efforts tremendously. Our strength is in our numbers and the more people we can activate, the louder our collective voice in Washington, on Capitol Hill and in state assemblies across the country.
2. Go to our Legislative Action Center where you can send instant FREE email letters to Congress and the White House!
3. Consider making a donation to U.S. Border Control. It's the best investment you can make.
Don't be fooled by flashy emails or fancy websites. U.S. Border Control is the most respected voice for immigration reform on Capitol Hill. We have been fighting this battle since 1988. We know the issues and we know how to get things done.
Our annual report documents that Border Control donors get the most for their money. Your dollars don't go to plush carpets, fancy offices and big salaries -- they go right into the fight. And year after year, Border Control has the lowest percentages spent on overhead and the highest percentages spent lobbying Congress to secure our borders against drugs, disease, terrorism and illegal migration. We thought you
would like to know.
Thank you for your continued support!
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The following letters, articles and websites demonstrate a growing concern among America's Black and Latino communities, that should put to rest the idea that opposing illegal immigration is a racist concept.
If you wish to contribute to this page or if you know of a website that conveys this concept, please send it to ednelson@usbc.org
Thank you.
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I'm a racist?
By Billie Louden
I am a black woman who grew up in rural Oklahoma, where train tracks separated cultures, and I was one of only two blacks in my senior class. I have been a soldier in the anti-American Middle East, and I have felt the isolation of being a conservative Republican instead of the liberal Democrat I am expected to be. Currently, I sport a badge of authority.
Because of these life experiences, I thought I had been called every name in the book except the one my parents gave me. But when a co-worker called me a racist, I was absolutely unprepared.
The accusation was made largely because of a sticker on the back of my truck. The simple statement "Stop illegal immigration" has earned me angry looks and obscene gestures in traffic. I have watched as cars rush to pull up beside the "redneck." Their scowls often turn to bewilderment when they spot me behind the wheel.
My Hispanic co-worker played the ace-in-the-hole race card by insisting only Latinos are being targeted for immigration reform. When I pointed out my sticker mentioned no race in particular, he stated, "It doesn't matter because everyone knows who you are referring to."
At that moment, I realized just how much irrational emotional feelings and personal agendas have alarmingly snuffed out common sense in this country. From top lawmakers in Washington to so-called sanctuary cities, everyone has succumbed to massive pressure from illegal factions.
Let us define common sense. It is the natural instinct that compels us to the logical thing when faced with an issue shrouded in smoke screens.
Let us ignore tear-jerker tales of individual tragedies that are designed to pull our heartstrings, and realize they are smoke and mirrors hiding the truth, while instilling guilt about feelings of unease with the sieve our borders have become.
Illegal immigrants in this country, like any other criminal, have an excuse for why they committed a crime. But if the tale is sad enough, should we forgive them for their original criminal act because they decide to behave? Should we allow them to take jobs away from law-abiding Americans and call them noble for doing so? How about we offer to pay their medical bills and send their children to college? If, in the course of providing these things, we find ourselves going broke, and we say to them, "Enough is enough, we cannot ignore your crimes any longer because it only encourages more criminals," should we be surprised when these violators take to the streets demanding they be allowed to continue the way of life they have become accustomed to?
When illegals squawk about how we can't survive without their presence, do we dare remind them there are plenty legal folks - and others who are waiting in line to be legal - who are eager to help us out?
When anyone points out these observations, they are lambasted, shouted down, and slapped with the feared moniker "racist," a word that has ruined lives, ended careers and been the gas-filled card thrown on blazing fires of conflicts between majority and minority.
Racism today can never measure up to the raw beginnings and bloody history of the word as it pertains to our country. It began with slavery, evolved into lynchings, oppression and separate but never equal laws. It culminated with marches and dissent demanding the equality all citizens were promised in the Constitution. But the key word here is "citizen."
The righteous marches led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the bloody turmoil of the civil rights era, should never be compared to the audacious, foreign-flag-waving parades of illegals and their sympathizers being carried out in American streets. Politicians pandering for future votes, and much of the media, overwhelmingly sympathize with the flaunting of our laws, and assure the "undocumented" protesters their demands are reasonable. I am a fighter and I refuse to be bullied. I have earned, the hard way, the right to display my opinion. If my "Stop illegal immigration" sticker offends you, maybe you should focus on the one next to it that states, "My son is a United States Marine." Then hopefully you will understand that sacrifice and fighting for country runs deep in my family. Billie Louden (loudenview@aol.com) is a deputy sheriff and an Army veteran.
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You Don't Speak for Me!
An Hispanic website formed by a a group of concerned Americans of Hispanic/Latino heritage, some first or second generation, others recent legal immigrants, who believe illegal immigration harms America and a guest worker amnesty will do the same.
For media seeking interviews please contact Ira Mehlman at 310 821 4283 or Susan Wysoki at 804 221 7084.
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African-Americans Join The Minutemen
LOS ANGELES
At least 400 opponents of illegal immigration staged a protest outside the presidential retreat in Crawford, Texas. The rally was part of a coast-to-coast campaign that set off earlier this week from a place many may find surprising -- an all-black Los Angeles neighborhood,
The anti-immigration group the Minutemen reached out to the African American community to join them.
Sean Jourdan is one of the people at the kick-off who believe that illegal immigration is having a devastating impact on the black community.
He says he doesn't buy the argument that illegal immigrants only take jobs no one else will do.
"When they say these are jobs we don't want. I don't know what jobs they're talking about but the jobs I was in ? construction trades, telecommunication ? it has definitely been affected," says Jourdan.
Jourdan claims he's making $2,000 less a month now, and blames the availability of cheaper labor.
"That border being as porous as it is, is like a loaded gun to any American worker's head ... We can get rid of you tomorrow for anyone who's willing to work for half the price."
According to a recent poll, blacks are more likely than whites to feel immigrants take away their jobs, but they were less likely than whites to be in favor of immigration restrictions.
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Hard Working, Patriotic, African-Americans Being Pushed Aside
I am sick of seeing hard working, patriotic, African-Americans being pushed aside in this country in favor of people who do not care about our Flag. And for them [illegal aliens] to demand citizenship from my government just makes my blood boil.
As an African-American, I am highly offended that some Senators would compare the Civil Rights movement to current immigration problems. Since the time we arrived here, African-Americans have endured years of slavery, a century of oppression, hatred and injustice, and we continue to face discrimination to this day.
Immigration should stop entirely until the U.S. Government can regain control of our borders and develop sensible immigration laws.
No sympathy should be given to any illegal aliens unless and until until they are willing to declare themselves obedient to our our country and our Flag. We must forbit citizenship to citizens from any country that grants dual citizenship as this guarantees divided loyalty.
America has always welcomed the suffering, oppressed people from all over the world. But it is a dangerous game to allow undesirable foreign elements to poison our civilization and threaten the safety of the country that our forefathers have established for American citizens.
I love my country. My father spent 30 years of his life defending it so I would not have too, but it seems I am doing just that. These marchers are not marching for immigrants rights they are marching for illegal immigrant rights. And that is just plain wrong.
The U.S. Government has created cultural and social imbalances which may lead to dangerous racial tensions or even a civil war. The time to fix these problems is now.
Ms. A. Frazier
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Guests or Gate Crashers
Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric.
We can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is "undocumented workers."
Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.
The Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.
If truth-in-packaging laws applied to politics, the Bush guest worker program would have to be called a "gate-crasher worker" program. The President's proposal would solve the problem of illegal immigration by legalizing it after the fact.
We could solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration? Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime?
Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.
How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.
Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.
If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.
Another variation on the same theme is that we "need" the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores prices.
If jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even "need" one.
There is no fixed amount of "need," independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.
None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.
What millions of other Americans want has been brushed aside, as if they don't count, and they have been soothed with pious words. But now the voters are getting fed up, which is why there are immigration bills in Congress.
The old inevitability ploy is often trotted out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already here.
If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?
Since existing immigration laws are not being enforced, how can anyone say that it would not do any good to try? People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the United States pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.
What if bank robbers who were caught were simply told to give the money back and not do it again? What if murderers who were caught were turned loose and warned not to kill again? Would that be proof that it is futile to take action, when no action was taken?
Let's hope the immigration bills before Congress can at least get an honest debate, instead of the word games we have been hearing for too long.
Thomas Sowell
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L.A. Workers Join Fierce Debate Over Immigration.
Jobs are a key issue in an area with a large Latino population and high black unemployment.
Drexell Johnson and his Young Black Contractors of South Central Inc. are hungry for work ó and when polite requests for an opportunity are rebuffed, they're not afraid to raise a ruckus. After Johnson was cut out of a contract when Staples Center was being built, he drove to the construction site, spinning 360-degree rolls and kicking up doughnuts of dust until, he said, a bulldozer nearly ran him down.
In Torrance, his group staged a mock hanging in front of an automaker's office. And earlier this month, they hauled a makeshift "slave ship" to an Inglewood mall development to symbolize economic injustice.
The tactics may seem outrageous, but they underscore the rage and frustration that Johnson and his cohorts feel about losing out to other workers in the region's construction boom. Their anger is fueled by a 14% unemployment rate among African Americans in Los Angeles, twice as high as among whites.
So the news that President Bush and some members of Congress are pushing to bring more blue-collar guest workers into the country ó perhaps 400,000 annually ó leaves the contractors indignant. "Hell, no, don't bring no one in from nowhere," said Johnson, a 47-year-old Mississippi native who founded his consortium of 35 minority contractors a decade ago. "Train the people here. Give the people here the same opportunity you're willing to give someone out of this country."
The guest-worker proposals have reignited fierce debate ó and sharply divided the Republican Party ó over some of the most controversial aspects of national immigration policy. Do immigrants take jobs from Americans? Or are they needed to fill jobs Americans won't do? Do they lower the wages of America's least-educated workers? Or do they benefit most Americans by providing cheap labor for a wide range of jobs, from nannies to construction workers?
Such questions are particularly critical in California, where immigrants make up one-third of the state's labor force, the highest percentage in the nation. Unlike legislation recently passed in the House, the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill, scheduled for debate next month, is expected to contain bipartisan provisions for guest workers and a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.
The proposal to allow hundreds of thousands of guest workers into the country each year to fill jobs if qualified Americans can't be found for them is sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass). It is considered the most likely of several proposals to be included in the Senate's bill; Bush also advocates a temporary-worker program but has provided few details about how it would work.
Backers of the McCain-Kennedy approach include a rare alliance of business and labor leaders who say there is a need for more immigrants to fill jobs in such blue-collar fields as landscaping, construction, healthcare and food service. As baby boomers retire, advocates say, the need for new immigrant labor will grow. Supporters also argue that so many migrants come here illegally ó 700,000 annually, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center ó that the most realistic option is to provide legal ways for some of them to work. "It is a common-sense solution to bring an underground economy above ground, with strong labor protections to improve working conditions for all," Kennedy said in a statement.
But the proposal has proved highly divisive, splintering alliances and creating new ones. Republicans are split between those who support business demands for more workers and those who want to restrict immigration. Democrats also are torn, some by issues stemming from ethnicity and class. "The Democratic Party cannot afford to ignore the tension and anger among blue-collar African Americans and whites here, because they feel [immigrants] are taking their jobs," said Kerman Maddox, a Los Angeles public relations executive who has worked on several Democratic campaigns.
"Everyone wants the emerging Latino vote, but at what expense?" Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) opposes a large-scale guest-worker program outside agriculture, fearing it will increase illegal immigration. Sen. Barbara Boxer, also a California Democrat, has voiced similar fears, opposing Bush's proposal. But their constituents are strongly divided, as was demonstrated last week when activists held dueling rallies at Feinstein's Los Angeles office.
A coalition of churches, labor unions and immigrant advocacy groups staged a noisy rally, featuring Korean drums and a Mexican trumpeter, urging legalization for undocumented immigrants and more visas for workers and relatives of Americans. Later that evening, immigration-control advocates held a vigil urging Feinstein to oppose any new guest-worker program.
Latinos themselves are split on the issue. A Pew Hispanic Center poll last August found that 34% of American-born Latinos surveyed believed that illegal immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages, compared with 55% who viewed them as an economic benefit by providing cheap labor. The survey found that 32% opposed a temporary-worker program, while 59% favored one. Major unions back the proposal as a way to bring exploited workers out of the shadows to press for labor rights ó and union membership. Some union members, however, fret that business owners are using immigrants to drive down wages. Richard Salinas, for instance, is a Los Angeles roofer with Local 36 of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers. A second-generation Mexican American, Salinas says many contractors are hiring nonunion laborers ó many of them undocumented immigrants ó for less than half the $30-an-hour union rate, no benefits and no scheduled wage increases.
The idea of more guest workers worries him, he says. "If they're just trying to get foreign cheap labor, I'm against that," Salinas says. "These [immigrants] are very hard-working people, but my concern is the wages and contractors turning to them instead of union shops." Salinas' concerns are borne out by some research. Harvard University professor George J. Borjas, the nation's leading labor economist on immigration, has found that the immigrant influx between 1980 and 2000 lowered wages of American high school dropouts by 7.4%, for an annual loss of $1,800 on an income of $25,000. The effect was worse for native-born Latinos and blacks, he said.
Overall, he found that all U.S. workers suffered a 3.7% wage decline. "You can't have a huge increase in the labor supply without having an impact on the wage structure," said Cuban-born Borjas, adding that the data had turned around his original, more positive view of immigration. "If one cares about the well-being of the less advantaged, having a guest-worker program to import hundreds of thousands of workers is a huge mistake," he said. Giovanni Peri, an economist with UC Davis, says he believes that immigration doesn't help less-educated American workers ó he found their wages dropped by 2% ó but that it does benefit most of Americans by making goods and services cheaper.
Some unions argue that the solution to falling wages isn't to keep out immigrants but to organize them. One oft-cited example is the janitorial field. The Service Employees International Union, which represents 1.8 million service workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, has been highly successful in reorganizing janitors around the nation. In Los Angeles, for instance, most janitors were unionized African Americans making middle-class wages until the mid-1980s, according to Mike Garcia, president of the SEIU's Local 1877, which covers California.
But building owners and labor contractors broke the unions, replaced black janitors with largely undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America and drove wages down to the bare minimum with no benefits, he said. In 1987, the union launched a "Justice for Janitors" campaign to reorganize the workers. After nearly two decades of aggressive tactics, the union represents 85% of Los Angeles janitors, compared with 20% when the campaign began, Garcia says. Union jobs pay $11 an hour with fully paid benefits, compared with $8 an hour before the union's strike in 2000, he says. "Once you reorganize, wages rise for everybody: the documented and undocumented, native-born and immigrant," said Eliseo Medina, SEIU executive vice president.
Garcia said now that the union has negotiated higher wages, its largely Latino members are planning to seek contractual language guaranteeing African Americans at least 12% of janitorial jobs, reflecting their presence in the population, Garcia said. The hotel workers union last year negotiated similar guarantees for black workers. Still, Garcia remains uneasy about the guest-worker program. "Employers are pushing for guest workers because they want to legalize low wages and no benefits," he said. "If employers pay decent wages, and if the country allows free and open unionization Ö it will eliminate the need for immigrant labor."
Business groups, however, don't see it that way. Three dozen trade associations have formed the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, based in Washington, D.C., to press for more guest workers.
In testimony before Congress, industry leaders say good-paying jobs, including those in welding, roofing, nursing and construction, are going wanting. A legal guest-worker program would "level the playing field," said Laura Reiff, coalition co-chairwoman. "It's hard now for our members to compete against the bad actors." On a recent morning at the state Employment Development Department on Crenshaw Boulevard, the mostly African American job seekers anxiously surfed the Internet, made phone calls and collected fliers touting job-training opportunities.
Damon Metters, 42, lost his full-time hours cleaning a bowling alley and quit a security firm after, he said, it failed to pay him. Anthony Brooks, 22, hasn't been able to find work since his seasonal job at Old Navy ended in December. Both men have high school educations and want full-time jobs that pay at least $10 an hour, perhaps as janitors, warehouse workers, supermarket staff. Many employers are offering only part-time hours without benefits, and that, they said, doesn't cover monthly bills.
Metters said he doesn't know how to search for jobs and apply for them online. Metters is surviving on a monthly $132 welfare check, food stamps and the good graces of his father, who has offered him lodging. Brooks is living in a homeless shelter. News of the guest-worker plan brings strong reactions from both men. "No!" Brooks said. "Why don't they let us have the jobs?"
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Immigration front: U.S. v. Illinois
The Bush administration may—finally—be getting embarrassed over the flouting of immigration laws. They are suing Illinois over a new state law barring employers from voluntarily accessing a national database to verify that workers are legally present within the U.S. Ever notice how most of those favoring unfettered illegal entry across our nation’s borders will resort to any “heads we win, tails you lose” rationale? These defenders of the border-breaking “culture of lawlessness” contend that immigration is a matter for the federal government and that states and localities may not enforce any immigration laws at all, but then they turn around and claim that states and localities may legitimately enact laws protecting illegal aliens against enforcement of immigration laws.
as quoted in Patriot Post
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DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV
Published: October 1, 2007
Washington
Skip to next paragraph
Anna Bhushan
ACCORDING to a recent report from the Census Bureau, poverty fell from about 12.6 percent in 2005 to about 12.3 percent last year. That’s about 500,000 fewer people living in poverty, the first statistically significant decline since 2000. (In 2006, the poverty line was $20,614 for a family of four.)
As usual, there was much commentary in the news media about poverty’s intractability: today’s poverty rate is hardly lower than it was in 1968, when it was about 12.8 percent.
But a closer look at the experience of one group, Hispanics, tells a very different story. As a group, Hispanics are enjoying substantial economic progress. Their poverty rate has dropped by a third from its high 12 years ago, falling from 30.7 percent in 1994 to 20.6 percent in 2006.
These numbers come from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, widely used by pro- and anti-immigration groups alike as a reasonably reliable source of information about illegal as well as legal immigrants. They show that although Hispanics still have a long way to go to achieve the full promise of the American Dream, as a group they are clearly on the economic up escalator.
In the past 30 years, the United States has experienced a tremendous amount of immigration, predominantly Hispanic. In 1975, a little more than 11 million Hispanics made up just over 5 percent of the population. Today’s nearly 45 million Hispanics are now about 15 percent of the country.
This influx of Hispanics has resulted in a higher poverty rate in the United States, mainly because many immigrants are low-skilled workers and women with young children. If the proportion of Hispanics in the population in 2006 had been the same as it was in 1975, then the overall American poverty rate in 2006 would have been 7 percent lower (11.4 percent rather than 12.3 percent). That would be 2.4 million fewer people, all Hispanics, in poverty.
This rough calculation leaves out the indirect impact that Hispanics have had on the job prospects and earnings of other low-skilled workers, especially African-Americans, probably keeping more of them in poverty. Economists argue about the size of this effect, but we see evidence of it all around us.
Consider the Hispanic success in obtaining skilled, blue-collar jobs, as measured by the census category for precision production, craft and repair occupations. From 1994 to 2006, as the total number of these jobs grew, the percentage held by whites fell from 79 percent to 65 percent. The percentage held by blacks remained constant at about 8 percent, and the percentage held by Hispanics more than doubled, rising to 25 percent from 11 percent. As whites left these relatively well-paid jobs, Hispanics rather than blacks moved into them.
Between 1994, the high point for Hispanic poverty, and 2006, the last year with comprehensive data, median Hispanic household income rose 20 percent, from about $31,500 a year in 2006 dollars to about $37,800 a year. The median income of Hispanic individuals rose 32 percent, to about $20,500 from about $15,500.
These incomes do not make Hispanics wealthy, of course, but they did allow about 70 percent of them to send remittances home last year. According to the best estimate, the total sent was $45 billion — $4 billion more than the entire amount distributed to Americans by the Earned Income Tax Credit.
One explanation for this economic progress is increased education. From 1994 to 2005, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics who graduated from high school or obtained a general equivalency diploma rose to about 66 percent from about 56 percent. About 25 percent are now enrolled in college, up from about 19 percent in 1994. Hispanics are moving rapidly into many management, professional and other white-collar occupations.
Because of the large and continuing influx of usually low-skilled Hispanic immigrants, economists have expected the poverty rate among Hispanics to rise or at least to remain flat. Instead, it is falling. However one feels about immigration, the falling Hispanic poverty rate testifies to the ability of Hispanic immigrants to take advantage of the opportunities that they have found in this country.
Douglas J. Besharov is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
NY Times
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There is quite a bit I disagree with in this piece, but it makes points which must be considered.
WSJ
Immigration Losers
A new study shows the heavy price the GOP paid for "get-tough" border politics.
BY RICHARD NADLER
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Many conservatives believe that "enforcement first" of existing immigration law must precede any form of guest-worker or earned-legalization legislation to normalize the status of some 12 million undocumented workers. Iterations of this opinion fill the airwaves of talk radio, the speeches of Republican presidential contenders and the opinion pages of conservative publications.
The formula alleviates, or at least postpones, the antagonism between those who want to deport illegal workers, and those who want them to stay. The language of comprehensive immigration reform--a combination of strict border enforcement and a path to legalization--has been abandoned even by many who hope eventually to revive it.
This rhetorical consensus is unserious. Deportation advocates understand full well that existing civil penalties will not overcome the economic incentives that drive these immigrants and their employers. That is why Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the primary sponsor of the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, added criminal penalties to the common frauds perpetrated by illegal workers and those who employ them.
The illegals themselves--the group most directly affected--understand "enforcement first" for what it really is: a step toward mass deportation. That is why thousands of undocumented Brazilians exited Riverside, N.J., when the town council sanctioned their landlords and employers.
To these two groups that reject "enforcement first" as a rhetorical euphemism, we may now add a third: Hispanic citizens who vote.
Undocumented Latinos constitute 3.8% of the American work force. But these 5.6 million workers are a mere fraction of the 17.3 million Latino citizens 18 years or older. Of these, 4.4 million are themselves foreign born.
How does "enforcement first" or "enforcement only" play among these voters? Polling has offered rationales for conflicting projections. Some contend that Hispanics' strong support for border security signals a negligible partisan impact; others, citing Latino endorsement of guest-worker and earned-legalization programs, predict electoral disaster for the party that abandons a comprehensive framework.
In my recent study for the Americas Majority Foundation entitled "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino Vote," I document not what Hispanics opined, but how they actually voted, given a clear choice between advocates of "enforcement first" and comprehensive immigration reform. The results, based on returns from 145 heavily Hispanic precincts and over 100,000 tabulated votes, indicate this: Immigration policies that induce mass fear among illegal residents will induce mass anger among the legal residents who share their heritage.
The congressional election of 2006 provided a unique opportunity to gauge Hispanic voter behavior. In three congressional districts of the Southwest, two of them on the border, Republican candidates ran on an "enforcement-only" platform. In each case, this constituted a departure from previous congressional representation. And in each case, Hispanic support for the Republican candidate collapsed from 2004 levels.
Former Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona was an architect of comprehensive immigration reform. His retirement in 2006 precipitated a five-way primary in which Randy Graff prevailed with 42% of the vote. Mr. Graff, supported by the deportationist Minutemen Civil Defense Corps PAC, lost to Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, 42%-54%. Ms. Giffords aligned herself with the comprehensive reform positions of Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain. Among the heavily Hispanic precincts of Cochise County, Rep. Kolbe carried 43% of the vote in 2004. Mr. Graff's share of the vote in those precincts shrank to 18%.
In Texas, former Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla, chairman of the powerful House Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee, was the paradigm of Republican Hispanic success--until he voted for Rep. Sensenbrenner's "enforcement-only" bill. In the heavily Hispanic counties of Dimmit, Presidio, Val Verde, Maverick and Zavala, Mr. Bonilla's support dropped to 30% in 2006 from 59% in 2004. He lost the district to Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, 46%-54%.
In 2004, Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth, the flamboyant incumbent of Arizona's Fifth District, defeated his Democratic rival 59%-38%. His 2006 book "By Any Means" described his conversion from advocacy of comprehensive immigration reform to a deportationist viewpoint. Campaigning on enforcement-only, Mr. Hayworth was defeated by his Democratic challenger, Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell, 46%-50%. Mr. Hayworth's majority-white district provided a test of whether a deportationist platform would attract a strong backlash vote among non-Hispanic whites. It did not. In the Hispanic influenced, majority-white precincts of Maricopa County, Mr. Hayworth's vote share declined to 36% in 2006 from 48% in 2004.
In these three races, Republicans' vote share in heavily Latino precincts dropped 22 percentage points.
What does this mean nationwide? Republicans' presidential Hispanic vote share increased to 40% in 2004 from 21% in 1996. In 2004, Latinos comprised 6% of the electorate, but 8.1% of the voter-qualified citizenry. With the partisan margin shrinking, the incentive for major Hispanic registration efforts by either party was scant.
That changed in 2006, when the GOP's Hispanic vote share declined by 10%. And, as we have seen, the drop was twice as precipitous where Republicans disavowed comprehensive immigration reform. With the huge wedge in vote share that "enforcement-only" opened, the cost-effectiveness of voter-registration efforts improved dramatically--for Democrats.
In recent years, Democratic Party operatives have conducted registration drives in urban communities that boosted African-American turnout to 65% from 23%. Republicans, should their national ticket adopt "enforcement-only," can expect Democrats to wage similar Hispanic campaigns in the most hotly contested political real estate of 2008. Such standard political operations will more than erase Republican majorities in New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, and may endanger the GOP electoral hold on Arizona as well.
That is the short-term fallout Republicans may suffer from "enforcement-only." But the election of 2008 marks the beginning of the political attrition, not its end.
One-half of U.S. population growth this decade occurred among Latinos. Were the border hermetically sealed today, the children of Latino citizens will yet vote. Moreover, there are currently 3.1 million American-born minors with one or both parents who are illegal aliens. These young Americans share the same citizenship status as those seeking their parents' removal. It is folly to believe they will not remember who sought to deport their parents when they eventually go to the polls.
The pending catastrophe is not inevitable. Republicans have campaigned effectively among Hispanics on the basis of entrepreneurship, school choice, tax cuts and right-to-life. And, as the 2006 re-election of Republicans Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce of New Mexico and Jeff Flake of Arizona demonstrated, the GOP agenda can include national security as well. In 2006, Latinos helped re-elect candidates who advocated the border fence, electronic surveillance, expedited deportation of violent criminals, and biometric worker identification.
The next proposal for comprehensive immigration reform can contain all of this. To retain their Hispanic gains, Republicans need to repudiate only the immoral, uneconomical goal of mass deportation.
Mr. Nadler is the president of Americas Majority Foundation, a Midwest public-policy think tank.
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Angry Vet cut's down Mexican Flag...
My friend who lives in the area said this guy knew what he was doing he was
1) giving Americans the finger
2) Pandering to illegals
Whatever the reason....You live in America...You should be for the American Community not the Hispanic..This is what drives a line though our country...I have family who live here who are from Germany and the never raise a german flag...Alway's American...Why cause they are American..GAH!
I don't know if this topic goes here but I thought it might.
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/strange/news-article.aspx?storyid=92701
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1,300 immigrants arrested by feds
Agents raided sites in 5 Southland counties in 2 weeks
BY RACHEL URANGA, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 10/04/2007 09:00:56 AM PDT
In what federal authorities are calling the largest sweep of criminal and fugitive immigrants, federal agents over the past two weeks have arrested more than 1,300 Southland immigrants in their homes, in jails and at work, officials announced Wednesday.
As part of a stepped-up national crackdown on illegal immigrants, five teams of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents raided homes in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties from Sept. 19 through Tuesday.
Some arrests were easy, while others involved agents peering into clothes dryers or squeezing deep into crawl spaces to find hidden suspects. Most of those arrested were from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.
"Too often in the past, (deportation) orders were ignored and aliens thought that after getting an order of removal they could slip back into society," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE. "Those days are no longer."
Immigrant-rights groups decried the raids for stirring fear in the community, noting that more than 100 of those arrested had no criminal or court record.
But amid heated public debate and increased political pressure to enforce the country's immigration laws, the agency has waged a high-profile campaign across the country to clamp down on illegal immigrants, last month arresting dozens at McDonald's restaurants in an identity-theft operation.
In the most recent effort, agents combed through law enforcement
and online databases and worked with local officials to identify hundreds of criminals here illegally and fugitives who have ignored deportation orders.
Fanning out across the region in daylong raids, agents arrested 530 illegal’s - 269 of whom were identified as criminals and 115 of whom had been ordered deported. The rest were undocumented immigrants who had no criminal records.
Officials said 797 inmates were taken from local jails, including 240 from those overseen by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Ventura County turned over 125 inmates, and the state prison in Lancaster had 41.
Some of the inmates were sexual predators or gang members. About 600 of those arrested have already been deported, most to Tijuana. Immigration officials said they have alerted Mexican officials of the deportations.
The crackdown is part of a national effort dubbed the Fugitive Operation Program targeting 597,000 immigrants who have been ordered by a judge to leave the country but still remain.
Already, agents said, that since October, they have reduced the number of immigrants evading deportation by 35,000, marking the first-ever decline in the immigrant backlog.
"This is a war against immigrants," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities. "In this war, there is collateral damage. The U.S. seems to be blind to the suffering of family members and anyone else who happens to be in their way. Those that are not criminal are getting arrested."
Cabrera noted one call he received last week from a University of California, Los Angeles, student whose father was deported as part of the raid. He said the family has since moved, and he suspects others are being driven further underground.
Since the program began in 2003, 61,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested. Slightly less than a third had criminal records.
Over the past year, immigration officials have added 23 teams of about 10 agents each to the national program, including a new one created this summer in Orange County.
"It's the kind of deterrent methods that we need to be sending instead of the message of encouragement that we have been sending for two decades," said Rick Oltman, a spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, a group advocating tighter borders and fewer immigrants - legal or illegal. "It lets the worst of the worst know that there is no sanctuary anymore. This is the kind of thing that local law enforcement should be anxious to participate in."
The U.S. Attorney's Office is prosecuting about a dozen of those arrested in the two-week operation for re-entering the U.S. after being deported. Most of those suspects are facing three to five years in federal prison.
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'This Makes Voter Fraud Easier'
By JOHN FUND
November 2, 2007; Page A12
Sen. Hillary Clinton was asked during a debate this week if she supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. At first she seemed to endorse the idea, then claimed, "I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it."
The next day she took a firmer stand (sort of) by offering general support for Gov. Spitzer's approach, but adding that she hadn't studied his specific plan. She should, and so should the rest of us. It stops just short of being an engraved invitation for people to commit voter fraud.
The background here is the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as "Motor Voter," that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It required all states to offer voter registration to anyone getting a driver's license. One simply fills out a form and checks a box stating he is a citizen; he is then registered and in most states does not have to show any ID to vote.
But no one checks if the person registering to vote is indeed a citizen. That greatly concerns New York election officials, who processed 245,000 voter registrations at DMV offices last year. "It would be [tough to catch] if someone wanted to . . . get a number of people registered who aren't citizens and went ahead and got them drivers' licenses," says Lee Daghlian, spokesman for New York's Board of Elections. Assemblywoman Ginny Fields, a Long Island Democrat, warns that the state's "Board of Elections has no voter police" and that the state probably has upwards of 500,000 illegal immigrants old enough to drive.
The potential for fraud is not trivial, as federal privacy laws prevent cross-checking voter registration rolls with immigration records. Nevertheless, a 1997 Congressional investigation found that "4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in [a] disputed House election" in California. After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote.
Under pressure from liberal groups, some states have even abandoned the requirement that people check a citizenship box to be put on the voter rolls. Iowa has told local registrars they should register people even if they leave the citizenship box blank. Maryland officials wave illegal immigrants through the registration process, prompting a Justice Department letter warning they may be helping people violate federal law.
Gov. Spitzer is treading perilously close to that. Despite a tactical retreat this week -- he says he will only give illegal immigrants a license that isn't valid for airplane travel and entering federal buildings -- Mr. Spitzer has taken active steps to obliterate any distinctions between licenses given to citizens and non-citizens.
In a memo last Sept. 24, he ordered county clerks to remove the visa expiration date and "temporary visitor" stamp on licenses issued to non-citizens who are legally in the country. A Spitzer spokeswoman explained the change was made because the "temporary" label was "pejorative," given that some visitors might eventually stay in the U.S. Under fire, Mr. Spitzer backed down this week, delaying the cancellation of the "temporary visitor" stamps through the end of next year.
But he has not retreated from another new bizarre policy. It used to be that county clerks who process driver's licenses were banned from giving out voter registration forms to anyone without a Social Security number. No longer. Lou Dobbs of CNN reported that an Oct. 19 memo from the state DMV informed the clerks they don't "have any statutory discretion to withhold a motor voter form." What's more, the computer block preventing a DMV clerk from transmitting a motor voter registration without a Social Security number was removed.
Gov. Spitzer's office told me the courts have upheld their position on Social Security numbers. Sandy DePerno, the Democratic clerk of Oneida County, says that makes no sense. "This makes voter fraud easier," she told me.
While states such as New York are increasing the risk of such fraud, a half-dozen states have recently adopted laws requiring voters to offer proof of identity or citizenship before casting a ballot. A federal commission, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, gave such laws a big boost in 2005 when it called for a nationwide policy requiring a photo ID before voting.
Mr. Carter has personal knowledge of why such laws are needed. He recounts in his book "Turning Point" how his 1962 race for Georgia State Senate involved a local sheriff who had cast votes for the dead. It took a recount and court challenge before Mr. Carter was declared the winner.
Measures that curb voter fraud on the one hand and encourage it on the other will be central to the 2008 election. The Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of Indiana's photo ID law next spring, while lawsuits challenging Gov. Spitzer's moves will be in New York state courts.
Despite her muddled comments this week, there's no doubt where Mrs. Clinton stands on ballot integrity. She opposes photo ID laws, even though they enjoy over 80% support in the polls. She has also introduced a bill to force every state to offer no-excuse absentee voting as well as Election Day registration -- easy avenues for election chicanery. The bill requires that every state restore voting rights to all criminals who have completed their prison terms, parole or probation.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen notes that Mrs. Clinton is such a polarizing figure that she attracts between 46% and 49% support no matter which Republican candidate she's pitted against -- even libertarian Ron Paul. She knows she may have trouble winning next year. Maybe that's why she's thrown herself in with those who will look the other way as a new electoral majority is formed -- even if that includes non-citizens, felons and those who suddenly cross a state line on Election Day and decide they want to vote someplace new.
Mr. Fund, a columnist for OpinionJournal.com, is author of a forthcoming revised edition of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy." (Encounter).
WSJ
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WSJ
Got $500,000? The U.S. Awaits
Government's EB-5 Program
Offers Foreign Investors
Green Cards for Job Creation
By MIRIAM JORDAN
November 2, 2007; Page B1
An obscure immigration program is pumping millions of dollars from foreign investors into dilapidated inner cities and employment-starved rural areas across the U.S. These investors aren't focused on financial returns, however: They're in it to get green cards.
In recent years, a growing list of enterprises -- in agriculture, tourism, renewable energy, education and transportation -- have benefited from a little-known federal program known as EB-5, or the immigrant-investor visa. It offers a tantalizing trade-off for foreigners who want to establish residency in the U.S.: For a $500,000 investment in a distressed area, a foreigner and his immediate family become eligible for conditional green cards. They become permanent a few years later upon evidence that the investment has created at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers.
Korean investors tour a Kansas ethanol plant they helped fund in an EB-5 program.
The program, administered by U.S. Immigration & Citizenship Services, essentially encourages wealthy foreigners to buy their way into the U.S. Put in place in the early 1990s, it is widely regarded as a response to efforts by Canada and Australia in the late 1980s to attract investors keen to immigrate. But the U.S. program is considered the most stringent because it requires proof that the investment has produced new jobs before permanent residency is granted.
The U.S. program lately has become popular among investors from South Korea, China, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia desperate to bypass the uncertainty and years-long wait to gain residency through traditional means. Helping fuel the new interest are immigration attorneys and others aggressively marketing the program abroad.
"The opportunity is truly beautiful to individuals who want to live and contribute their energy in the United States," says Morrie Berez, chief of the EB-5 program at the immigration agency. "And it creates economic growth and especially jobs for Americans." The job-creation aspect of the program appears to have neutralized criticism from anti-immigration activists.
Under the program, developers sometimes working with local officials apply to the Immigration agency for "regional center" status, typically in a distressed area. Once approved, a regional center markets its program overseas to investors who become equity partners.
The projects promise only modest returns. But that isn't the main concern for investors such as Sungtae Kim, a Korean software entrepreneur who wanted to come to the U.S. to give his daughters better opportunities. After failing to qualify for a U.S. alien-worker program, he heard about EB-5 from a friend in Los Angeles. Soon, he was in touch with the Seoul branch of a U.S. law firm that specializes in the program.
After attending a seminar in Seoul to learn about the regional centers, Mr. Kim decided to put $500,000 that he had saved over 20 years from a software business into a dairy farm in Veblen, S.D. "I wanted to give my two daughters a better life and good education," he says. Two weeks ago, Mr. Kim and his family moved to a Los Angeles suburb known for its strong public schools. Mr. Kim, who has never visited a dairy farm, hopes to once he is settled.
Yong Nan Park invested in a South Dakota dairy farm, enabling her to immigrate to California with her family.
South Dakota, one of the first states to tap into the program in 2004, credits the immigrant-investor scheme with reviving its dairy industry and starting a new meat-packing sector. The state had been trying to attract foreign investment in its dairy industry before it discovered the EB-5 program. It got regional-center qualification for a swath of 45 contiguous counties in the eastern part of the state. In two years, the program has helped fund new dairy farms worth $90 million and beef-processing plants valued at $52 million, state officials say.
"Suddenly we have extra capital to accelerate development and help South Dakota farmers who want to go large-scale but lack capital," says Joop Bollen, who oversees the state's program, which has attracted European and Asian investors.
In the financial year that ended Sept. 30, the immigration agency awarded 803 conditional EB-5 green cards to investors and their families, up from 247 in 2004. Mr. Berez hopes by 2011 to be issuing all 10,000 of the green cards available each year under the program -- a potential of nearly $2 billion in annual investments, he estimates.
Around the U.S., 17 regional centers under the EB-5 program have attracted about $500 million in foreign funds. Projects include dairy farms in Iowa, nut farms in California, schools and health-care facilities in Alabama, ethanol plants in Texas, and a film and TV production studio in Pennsylvania. Mr. Berez's team is considering several more areas.
Tom Willis, chief executive of Conestoga Energy Partners LLC in Liberal, Kan., recently guided Korean investors around a new ethanol plant in which they are minority partners. "Their dollars allow us to create jobs, a greater tax base and grow our schools," Mr. Willis says. "You hear about people leaving rural America...This helps us control our destiny."
The program isn't a slam-dunk for applicants. The U.S. government temporarily suspended it in 1998 to tighten up procedures that enabled some investors to disburse less money than agreed. Mr. Berez, a former official at the Government Accountability Office, was charged with overhauling the program in 2002. Now, investors must put up the entire $500,000 before they can file their green-card petition.
To get his family to the U.S., French law professor Eric Canal-Forgues, a consultant to the World Trade Organization, put his life savings into a Philadelphia regional center that involved partially financing Comcast Corp.'s new international headquarters.
"I have gotten from Europe everything I want," says the 45-year-old Paris native. "The United States is a place where you can do many things." He wants to further his career and raise his two young children as fluent English speakers.
It took Mr. Canal-Forgues almost a year to amass the paperwork required, which included showing the origins of the $500,000 he was committing, his tax returns, pay stubs and employment contracts. In May, he received his conditional approval from Immigration, pending an interview at the U.S. embassy in Paris. He hopes to move to the U.S. with his family by mid-2008.
"The EB-5 program is one of the most complex and heavily scrutinized immigration programs," says Stephen Yale-Loehr, Mr. Canal-Forgues's attorney and an expert on EB-5 visas. "Investors must show every cent was earned legally."
The Immigration agency also needs to ensure terrorists aren't buying their way into the U.S. And, given U.S. sanctions, an Iranian EB-5 applicant under consideration must prove that he didn't make money from doing business with that country's government.
In Seattle, critics have complained that revitalization of an area south of downtown has raised rents for industrial tenants. But the program hasn't drawn notable criticism from immigration-restrictionist groups. "If jobs are being created in exchange for visas through a process you can verify, I don't think we can object to it," says Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls for a clampdown on both legal and illegal immigration. But he suggests that the program should "remain small in scope."
Competition for EB-5 dollars is intensifying as more areas win regional-center designations. Venture capitalists William Hungerford and Tim Milbrath have been traveling to the Middle East seeking investors for a fund that will invest in extended-stay hotels, private clinics and other infrastructure in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. South Dakota's Mr. Bollen recently put in calls to Argentina and Brazil, hoping to tap into a new pool of foreigners eager to live in the U.S. "We want to continue to pick as much fruit from the EB-5 tree as we can," he says.
Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com
Saudi Arabia? Elsewhere in the Middle East?!? :-P :x
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Haven't had a chance to look at it closely, but this site tracks illegal acts of , , , illegals:
http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
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Here's a point of view to consider:
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Food for Thought
By TOM NASSIF
November 20, 2007;
WSJ
Page A19
In the midst of the combustive debate over immigration reform, we in agriculture have been forthright about the elephant in America's living room: Much of our workforce is in the country illegally -- as much as 70%.
Faced with the option of economic ruin, as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our livelihood rots in the fields, or the embrace of a fatally flawed immigration system, our industry and farm families opt to survive. Who wouldn't? For those who have a 10-20 day harvest window to make or break their entire business year, government promises to fix the system don't work. We can't wait for rules to change. We need reform and we need it now.
Western Growers -- representing half of all the fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. -- has repeatedly called for a fix. We want and expect government to enforce immigration laws; we want a secure border, fraud-proof IDs and valid Social Security cards. Despite a broken and unworkable system, however, Congress has chosen not to act. Meanwhile, the Bush administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- under intense political pressure -- did begin to move.
Last month, a federal judge ordered an indefinite delay to the DHS's "no-match" program that would have forced employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers did not match their names. The judge said it would cause "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers." This preliminary injunction has prevented the DHS from proceeding with the shortsighted no-match program.
The DHS openly concedes our industry's reliance on falsely documented workers. But like a physician who diagnoses an open wound but uses salt in place of sutures, DHS avoided the cure in favor of additional pain.
The pain was in the form of the no-match rules. The DHS guidelines would have established purported "safe harbor" procedures for employers who received a Social Security Administration (SSA) no-match letter. The letter notifies an employer that he has submitted employee W-2s with names and Social Security numbers that do not match. Employers would have had to fire employees who could not produce new documentation within 90 days of receiving the letter, or face the risk that DHS may find that the employer had knowledge that the employee was unauthorized.
The regulations would have put farmers in an untenable situation: Either terminate the majority of their existing workforce and let the crops die in the fields, or disregard the rules and risk having to pay huge fines and penalties for "knowingly" employing undocumented workers. This attempt by DHS to expose illegal immigrants would have done nothing to address the underlying issues or correct the problem.
Fortunately, the courts have stepped in and the Bush administration now has an opportunity to fix our broken system. The plaintiffs in the case argued that DHS's plans would place a costly burden on employers and result in the needless firing of employees. That, in turn, would open employers up to lawsuits and charges of discrimination. Civil liberties organizations pointed out the no-match rules would likely lead to the violation of the rights of many legal workers who might have made a mistake they couldn't correct before deadline.
These valid concerns must be addressed. Agriculture yearns for a legal, stable, economical workforce; we have been saying so for years. And though we are relieved by the court's decision, it doesn't change the fact that this industry still needs a workable solution. Our current guest-worker program, known as H2-A, is costly and cumbersome, and sets labor standards that are not competitive in the global marketplace.
At the Bush administration's request, we have suggested changes to the H-2A program, such as expediting the application process and faxing guest-worker approval notices, instead of relying on "snail mail" while highly perishable crops await timely harvesters. These fixes are not difficult and can, in most cases, be administratively applied -- what is the delay?
If the DHS's no-match program had gone forward, America's domestic food supply would have been irreparably damaged. Small farm owners would have gone out of business and large operators could have taken their operations abroad -- taking hundreds of thousands of jobs with them.
Our industry, as well as farm-worker advocates -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- support legislation known as AgJOBS. This bill, which was a part of the Senate's "grand bargain," includes a temporary guest-worker program that logically matches willing farmers with willing foreign laborers.
AgJOBS provides the perfect opportunity for Congress to make progress on this critically important issue. Americans don't raise their children to work in the fields, and so we are reliant on a foreign workforce. We desperately want that workforce to be legal, and AgJOBS affords us that opportunity.
The Bush administration does support comprehensive immigration reform, and reportedly set in place the DHS's draconian no-match rules to force the issue. Still, it was playing a risky game of chance with U.S. agriculture to the detriment of our industry, our economy and American consumers.
We must stop playing games with our domestic food supply. Agriculture needs workers, Americans won't do the work and Congress lacks the courage to pass a comprehensive immigration package. It is time for Congress to find its courage, rise above the anger of the activists, and come together to solve this problem.
Mr. Nassif is president & CEO of Western Growers.
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Woof,
American farmers have had twenty years to lobby the government to issue more Green cards and work visas for legal migrant workers but the fact is they have preferred illegal aliens over legal because they didn't need to pay in any social security, workers comp. or take out taxes on them. They could exploit and under pay them as they wished, make them work and live under the worse possible conditions and not worry about them complaining. It's not like they just woke up yesterday and found out all their employees were illegal. Now they have the nerve to cry about being punished for the mess they have helped to create? Well, boo hoo. What goes around comes around.
P.C.
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We keep hearing how 40 plus million Americans have no insurance. What we don't keep hearing is that most of those were not born here and probably at least half did not come here illegally. We cannot have effective immigartion reform until we get rid of 200 year laws that make anyone born here automatically a citizen. It is absolutely amazing that when I go onto the elevator at the hospital most of the time people getting off at labor and delivery are non English speaking Mexicans, or Central Americans.
What about today's reports that 30 - 65% of the immigrants in several states are illegal? What about the likelihood this is an underestimate? What about on O'Reilly last night an illegal immigrant defender was claiming they pay 6 billion in taxes? Well when one does the math - assuming there is only 10 million illegals in the US (there has got to be more than this) that comes out to a lousy $600 a head. I wish I could send my kids to school, to the ER for $600 a year.
Is any one looking into how many of these people have illegal voting cards? I would be willing to bet many do.
Lou Dobbs is the only one saying anything about this issue.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/29/america/immig.php?WT.mc_id=rssfrontpage
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American Brain Drain
November 30, 2007; Page A16
One myth dogging the immigration debate is that employers are fibbing (or grossly exaggerating) when they claim that hiring foreign professionals is unavoidable because U.S.-born Ph.D.s are hard to come by. But a new report on doctorates from U.S. universities shows they're telling the truth, and then some.
Foreign-born students holding temporary visas received 33% of all research doctorates awarded by U.S. universities in 2006, according to an annual survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. That number has climbed from 25% in 2001. But more to the point of business competitiveness, foreign students comprised 44% of science and engineering doctorates last year.
"China was the country of origin for the largest number of non-U.S. doctorates in 2006," says the report, followed by India, Korea, Taiwan and Canada. "The percentage of doctorates earned by U.S. citizens ranged from lows of 32% in engineering and 47% in physical sciences, to highs of 87% in education and 78% in humanities." Given this reality, is it any wonder that 40% of Ph.D.s working in U.S. science and engineering occupations are foreign-born?
Immigration opponents still claim that the likes of Intel and Oracle merely want to hire Chinese engineers on the cheap. In fact, U.S. law already prohibits companies from paying these foreign nationals less than natives. And all other things being equal, the American job applicant has an advantage because employers are required to pay an additional $4,000-$6,000 in taxes and fees on every H-1B visa holder they hire.
A mere 65,000 H-1B visas for foreign professionals are allocated each year. And this year, as in the previous four, the quota was exhausted almost as soon as the applications became available in April. This effectively means that more than half of all foreign nationals who earned advanced degrees in math and science in 2007 have been shut out of the U.S. job market.
Economic protectionists oppose lifting the visa cap to meet demand. But it makes little sense for our universities to be educating these talented foreign students, only to send them packing after graduation. Current policies have MIT and Stanford educating the next generation of innovators -- and then deporting them to create wealth elsewhere.
Closing the door to foreign professionals puts U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage and pushes jobs out of the country. Worse, it does so at a time when other nations are rolling out the welcome mat. Earlier this year Microsoft, which is the third-largest sponsor of H-1B visas, announced plans to open a new software development center near Vancouver. The decision to locate the facility in Canada was based in part on the fact that it doesn't have access to enough foreign workers state-side.
"We currently do 85% of our development work in the U.S., and we'd like to continue doing that," says Jack Krumholtz, the company's director of government affairs. "But if we can't hire the developers we need, . . . we're going to have to look to other options to get the work done." Meanwhile, the European Union recently introduced its own new temporary work visa that's designed to reduce red tape and waiting periods for foreign professionals.
If the U.S. spurns this human capital, it will find a home somewhere else. And that will be America's loss.
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Keeping Book on Immigration
December 31, 2007; Page A12
The Census Bureau informs us that when the clock strikes midnight, the U.S. population will exceed 303.1 million. That represents a one-year increase of 0.9% and a 22% increase since 1990, when our population stood at a mere 248.7 million souls. A lot of this growth is driven by immigration, a topic that has dominated the news for much of 2007.
Talk radio hosts, cable newscasters and Presidential hopefuls insist that foreign nationals drive crime rates, swell welfare rolls and steal jobs. But the data tell a very different story.
Between 1994 and 2005, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. is estimated to have doubled to around 12 million. Yet according the Department of Justice, over that same period the violent crime rate in the U.S. declined by 34.2% and the property crime rate fell by 26.4%, reaching their lowest levels since 1973. Crime has fallen in cities with the largest immigrant populations -- such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami -- as well as border cities like San Diego and El Paso, Texas.
A recent paper by the Immigration Policy Center, an advocacy group, notes that "Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native born." Today, immigrants on balance are five times less likely to be in prison than someone born here.
It's not because law-abiding foreign professionals from India and China are compensating for criminally inclined low-skill Latinos. Immigrants from countries that comprise the bulk of our illegal alien population -- including Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans -- have lower incarceration rates than the native-born.
Another popular belief is that immigrants come here to go on the dole. The data show that welfare caseloads have fallen as illegal immigration has risen. As Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin report in the December issue of Commentary magazine, "Since the high-water mark in 1994, the national welfare caseload has declined by 60%. Virtually every state in the union has reduced its caseload by at least a third, and some have achieved reductions of over 90%."
Apparently immigrants don't drive welfare caseloads anymore than they drive the U.S. crime rate. The authors go on to note that, "Not only have the numbers of people on welfare plunged, but, in the wake of the 1996 welfare-reform bill, overall poverty, child poverty, black child poverty and child hunger have all decreased, while employment figures for single mothers have risen."
For all the talk about the "invasion" of million upon million of job-consuming immigrants, the unemployment rate stands at 4.7%, and job growth continues apace. Immigrants aren't stealing jobs but filling them. The economic activity they create as consumers and entrepreneurs contributes to the overall economic growth.
None of this is to argue that illegal immigration doesn't have costs, especially in border communities and states with large public benefits. In the post-9/11 environment, knowing who's in the country is more important than ever. That's an argument for better regulating cross-border labor flows, not ending them.
The best way to reduce pressure on the border is by providing legal ways for people to come and work. With the Bracero guest-worker program of the 1950s, illegal entries from Mexico declined to a trickle. A similar program today could have much the same effect, while serving our homeland security and economic interests. On balance, the evidence shows that immigrants are still an asset to the U.S.
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http://www.dailytexanonline.com/home...c-9a3d066ad186
Terrorism arrests made on Texas border
Insurgents connected to Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida detained
By: Jeff Carlton (The Associated Press)
Posted: 9/13/07
DALLAS - Texas' top homeland security official said Wednesday that terrorists with ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaida have been arrested crossing the Texas border with Mexico in recent years.
"Has there ever been anyone linked to terrorism arrested?" Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw said in a speech to the North Texas Crime Commission. "Yes, there was."
His remarks appear to be among the most specific on the topic of terrorism arrests along the Texas-Mexico border. Local and elected officials have alluded to this happening but have been short on details.
Leticia Zamarripa, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, said Wednesday she was unaware of any border arrests of people with terrorist ties. An ICE spokeswoman in San Antonio did not return phone messages left by The Associated Press. U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd M. Easterling was unable to comment.
However, McCraw's remarks are similar to those made recently by National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who last month told the El Paso Times that a small number of people with known links to terrorist organizations have been caught crossing the border.
McCraw identified the most notable figure captured as Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, who was arrested in July 2004 at the McAllen airport. She carried $7,300 in various currencies and a South African passport with pages missing. Federal officials later learned she waded across the Rio Grande.
After her arrest, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a release saying she was wanted for questioning about the bombing of a U.S. Consulate office, jibing with similar statements from a U.S. congressman.
But the department quickly retracted the terrorism connection, calling it "inaccurate on several levels." Michael Shelby, then the U.S. attorney in Houston, said in January 2005 that any suggestion Ahmed was involved in terrorism "is in error."
According to federal court records, Ahmed pleaded guilty to improper entry by an alien, making a false statement and false use of a passport. She was sentenced to time served and deported to South Africa. Other details of the case were sealed.
But on Wednesday, McCraw described Ahmed as having ties to an insurgent group in Pakistan and whose specialty was smuggling Afghanis and other foreign nationals across the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Friel could not confirm details about Ahmed on Wednesday.
McCraw also said that since March 2006, 347 people from what he called "terrorism-related countries" have been arrested crossing the border in Texas. The number of Iraqis captured at the border has tripled since last year, he said.
"A porous border without question is a national security threat," he said.
Terrorism isn't the only concern for homeland security officials in Texas, McCraw said. The state's size, population and geography make it susceptible to all sorts of disasters, both natural and man-made. Emergency responders must also be prepared for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires, he said.
The state has made significant strides in emergency planning since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Hurricane Rita, McCraw said. Plans include cooperating with large private companies, including grocery stores, Wal-Mart and the oil industry, to help the state respond during disasters.
"This is not a shot at FEMA, but we can't depend on FEMA to protect Texas," McCraw said. "The governor's mandate has made it clear: If those buses don't come, we better have our own buses. If that food doesn't come,we better have our own food. If that water doesn't come, we better have our own water to take care of Texas." © Copyright 2008 The Daily Texan
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U.S. Curbs Big Plans
For Border Tech Fence
By EVAN PEREZ and AUGUST COLE
February 23, 2008; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- The government yesterday officially unveiled its $20 million "virtual fence," touted for months as one of the most effective ways to secure America's leaky U.S.-Mexico border.
But the problems that have plagued the high-tech barrier mean that the fence's first 28 miles will also likely be its last. The Department of Homeland Security now says it doesn't plan to replicate the Boeing Co. initiative anywhere else. A spokeswoman says there are no plans to expand the project beyond its first phase, although Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says "some elements" of the project may be used in other locations.
Nine tall towers punctuate the fence.
The effective mothballing of the concept is a setback for the government's border-protection efforts, an embarrassment for politicians backing the idea of an electronic fence and a blow to Boeing, the project's designer. It will also do little to settle the fractious politics of immigration, which continue to reverberate around the campaign trail.
The virtual fence, called Project 28, came up during Thursday's debate in Austin, Texas, when both Democratic presidential candidates expressed their support for a high-tech alternative to the federal government's construction of a 12-foot-tall physical fence. That project, begun last year, has elicited outcry from Texas property owners and local officials.
"Let's deploy more technology and personnel, instead of the physical barrier," said New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama of Illinois agreed: "There may be areas where it makes sense to have some fencing. But for the most part, having [the] border patrolled, surveillance, deploying effective technology, that's going to be the better approach." Both senators had earlier voted for legislation mandating 700 miles of physical fence in sections of California, Arizona and Texas.
It's unlikely that any administration will be able to embark on an immigration revamp until it can persuade skeptical Republicans it can effectively police the border. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and likely presidential nominee, sponsored a comprehensive immigration bill last year that collapsed due to strong opposition from his own party. He has since said he supports securing the border before tackling more controversial immigration proposals, such as providing a way for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status in the U.S.
Project 28 was based on off-the-shelf technology tied together by Boeing. Cameras and radar mounted atop 98-foot towers would pick out smugglers and illegal immigrants from miles away, allowing fewer agents to patrol a given stretch of border. Command centers and mobile communications systems were also part of the contract.
But getting all these elements to work together harmoniously has proven problematic. Project 28's technology problems included software integration issues and difficulty getting the towers' cameras to synch with the radar systems. The radar had trouble identifying objects amid desert scrub and trees. Rain posed problems to the surveillance systems, and concerns persist that the towers are tempting targets for increasingly well-armed drug gangs looking to shut down the system.
At his news conference yesterday, Mr. Chertoff played down the technological problems, which he likened to finding problems during a house inspection that aren't significant enough to nullify a purchase contract. "I have personally witnessed the value of this system, and I have spoken directly to the border-patrol agents who are involved in operating that system over the last few months and who have seen it produce actual results in terms of identifying and allowing the apprehension of people who are illegally smuggling across the border," he said.
A Boeing spokeswoman says Project 28 "is a proof of concept. The concept works." The company is nonetheless changing how it produces the technology. There will be more hardware and software testing at special centers, instead of relying on fixes made at the border, the spokeswoman says.
Government officials had great ambitions for the project. Although it's unlikely that the entire border would be policed electronically, there are potentially 6,000 miles of the U.S. border with Canada and Mexico that could have been covered by advanced systems. That work would be worth billions of dollars. Success in the U.S. could also have led to overseas customers who want to use technology to track cross-border traffic and smuggling.
Last month during a tour, customs and border-patrol officials showed Attorney General Michael Mukasey the rugged terrain that Project 28 oversees. A Homeland Security Blackhawk helicopter soared above a vast expanse of breathtaking jagged desert peaks, amid which Project 28 towers stood their sentinel watch over the border. "Admittedly, we gave Boeing some of the roughest parts of the border to work with," a border-patrol official told the attorney general, explaining what he said were many problems the system had encountered.
In August, Boeing replaced the manager of Project 28. For months, Boeing and Homeland Security wouldn't say when the work was going to be complete. In early December, the government said it was closing in on taking delivery. But that same month, the government gave Boeing another $64 million contract to fix the "common operating picture," which lets agents in vehicles see imagery from the towers' surveillance systems. Yesterday's announcement marked the final end of the testing period.
Homeland Security officials took possession of the system over the objections of Congress, which has been critical of the department and of Boeing for the problems that have bedeviled the program. "We are no safer and out millions of dollars," said Democratic Pennsylvania Congressman Christopher Carney, oversight chairman in the House Homeland Security committee. "We were led to believe that this was going to be a Beta test for a virtual fence for the border. Certainly this is not the force multiplier it was supposed to be."
Laura Keehner, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said, "Those who choose to criticize without seeing the technology firsthand are merely bystanders of the product and have no idea how hard our border patrol is working to keep America safe. We would not have accepted it if it didn't work."
In the meantime, construction of the physical barrier continues. On Friday, Mr. Chertoff said the government has already built about 300 miles of fence and is on pace to build about 670 miles by the end of the year.
WSJ
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25262
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Comments
Patrick J. Buchanan
Katrina Nation
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted: 02/29/2008
When Woodrow Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war in 1917, the U.S. Army was ranked 17th in the world, behind Portugal.
On Armistice Day, 19 months later, there were 2 million doughboys in France, where they had helped to break the back of Gen. Ludendorff's theretofore invincible army in its final offensive, and 2 million more in the United States ready to march on Berlin.
No other nation could have done that.
Continued
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, FDR demanded that a disarmed America "build 50,000 planes" -- a seemingly impossible number, but one America met and exceeded.
Starting from scratch in 1941, the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos designed, built, tested and detonated three atomic bombs by August 1945 to end the war.
After Sputnik humiliated America, Wernher Von Braun and the boys at Redstone Arsenal had a satellite up in three months. In 1961, JFK declared we were going to the moon and would be there before the decade was out. Cynics scoffed. This writer was at Canaveral to watch Apollo 11 lift off in the summer of 1969.
Whatever became of that can-do nation?
In August 2005, Katrina swept through New Orleans and left 30,000 people stranded at the Superdome and Convention Center. Though the floodwater was shallow and stagnant and New Orleans is a port city with boats all over the place, it took six days and the 82nd Airborne to rescue the stranded.
Compare our performance in Katrina with that of the Brits in 1941, who sent hundreds of boats across the Channel to pull 350,000 British and French troops off the continent in one week in the Miracle of Dunkirk. The Brits weren't going to let Goering's fighters deter them from going across and bringing their boys home.
What occasions these reflections is this morning's lead story in The Washington Post: "'Virtual Fence' Along Border to Be Delayed: U.S. Retooling High-Tech Barrier After 28-Mile Project Fails."
The opening paragraphs:
"The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a 'virtual fence' along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear. ...
"Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans. ..."
Thus, building the first 100 miles of "virtual fence" will take Bush longer than it took FDR to win World War II. The admission of failure comes two years after Bush announced plans for "the most technologically advanced border initiative in American history."
"The virtual fence," writes the Post, "was to complement a physical fence that the administration now says will include 370 miles of pedestrian fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers to be completed by the end of this year. The GAO says this portion of the project may also be delayed and that its total cost cannot be determined. The president's 2009 budget does not propose funds to add fencing beyond the 700 or so miles meant to be completed by this year."
In short, these characters cannot build a virtual fence and won't complete a physical fence.
If the nation is fed up with Republicans, who can blame them?
Securing a border is not that difficult. In 1954, President Eisenhower sent an Army general to Texas to do it. He began repatriating thousands of Mexicans and had the situation in hand within a year. Along the San Diego corridor, a crude fence of corrugated steel matting from U.S. airfields in Vietnam has stopped illegal trucks from crossing, cut back 90 percent on the illegal alien traffic, and virtually eliminated murders and assaults in the border area.
Measures taken lately at the state and federal level, though grudgingly by the administration, have begun to bear fruit.
After Arizonans voted to cut off all social benefits to residents who could not prove they were in the country legally came reports of people pulling their kids out of public schools and leaving the state.
From the border come reports that added Border Patrol agents have reduced the number of illegal aliens apprehended, suggesting word has gone out south of the border that it is no longer so easy to walk in. And deportations of criminal aliens, long demanded, is actually going up.
Let it be said: Our border can be secured; the illegal aliens can be sent home; the magnets that draw them here can be turned off. This crisis can be resolved if the courage and will are there. Unfortunately, we have a government that does not seem to care and probable nominees neither of whom is committed in his heart to doing it.
Given the manifest will of the people that this invasion from the south be halted and rolled back, the 2008 election is shaping up as yet further confirmation that American democracy is a fraud.
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "The Death of the West," "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."
Here are a few of the comments submitted by our readers.Click to view all
Report Abusive PostGreat article Pat, always on the money. Problem is, no one cares or those that do and make policy have directly opposite views and wish to have no borders with Mexico. Sadly, we're on this ride and can't get off.
Joe, Kansas City, Missouri
Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:45 AM
Report Abusive PostIt's not that we can't secure the border... it's simply that we WON'T secure the border, and that's an entirely different matter. A physical fence would be better than a virtual fence because even if the technology catches border crossers, we would still need the willpower to turn them back. A virtual fence enables the politicians to give lip service to border security without having to enforce the laws on the books. It takes actual willpower to build a fence and enforce the law.
It would be very easy to do; hire ten contractors, each with its own section of fence/wall to build. Whoever finishes his section first gets a multimillion-dollar bonus. You can bet the fence would be built in record time, and under budget.
JKM, South Carolina
Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:49 AM
Report Abusive PostOur political leaders defiantly lie to us with great hubris.
Clearly, we need a third or fourth political party to defiantly say "goodbye" to these arrogant elitists.
Gary, Eastern Shore
Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:51 AM
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Copyright © 2008 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
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Written with a NY Times agenda, but still worth the reading.
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After a Fight to Survive, One to Succeed
By NINA BERNSTEIN
They came to New York as “displaced persons” in the early 1950s, Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust. Today, in film and story, such survivors are treated with a kind of awe, and their arrival in America is considered a happy ending. But a very different picture, with an oddly contemporary twist, emerges from the yellowing pages of social service records now being rescued from oblivion at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.
The files, from a major Jewish resettlement agency that handled tens of thousands of cases, show that many of these refugees walked a gantlet of resistance and distrust: disapproval of their lack of English and need for health care, threats of deportation, and agency rules shaped by a suspicion of freeloading.
An unschooled 19-year-old hoping for an education was scolded for dreaming and sent to work in a factory. A newlywed couple who arrived with four pieces of baggage, “mostly books,” were soon forced to choose whether the husband would keep his job or keep the Jewish Sabbath. An ailing, jobless father of three, facing immigration laws that called for deportation of those who sought public aid, told his caseworker, as her notes put it, that “he was more concerned and more disturbed now than he had ever been in the Warsaw Ghetto.”
Between the lines of these and other case files, chosen at random from the first boxes to arrive at the center for archival preservation, the stubborn resilience of many refugees shines through. Today we know that as a group, over time, they did exceptionally well in America. But in the files, the uncertainty of each case resonates across six decades, and poses a haunting question: What became of these people?
Tracking down the answer can provide more than a bittersweet coda to dusty documents. It can suddenly allow the past to speak to the present.
Take that 19-year-old, whose name was Hersch Wanderer, later Americanized to Harry. He was sent to work in a buckle factory and had to drop out of night school. But reached recently at his winter home in Boca Raton, Fla., Mr. Wanderer, 77, said he had done well enough in business to start two scholarships in New York, “for young people to have the chance that no one gave me.”
It will take two to three years for center archivists to process the hundreds of thousands of records being retrieved from scattered warehouses of the resettlement agency, the New York Association for New Americans, including documentation that spans later refugee migrations. Carl J. Rheins, executive director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a partner of the center, called the trove one of the most significant additions to the archives in 30 years, and said he was eager to make it available to researchers, students and family members.
“This is an important chapter in American immigration history,” he said. “It’s got to figure in the dialogue about immigration, about keeping the doors of this country open.”
The doors were virtually shut in the 1920s, with highly restrictive quotas that held firm through World War II despite appeals for people fleeing fascism. At the war’s end, polls showed that as many as 72 percent of Americans disapproved of President Harry S. Truman’s proposal to allow more European refugees to come to the United States, largely based on fears of unemployment.
Patchwork legislation eventually allowed for admission of almost half a million displaced persons, as they were called, by 1951. But a cold-war climate also led to increasingly severe measures to exclude, deport and even revoke the citizenship of those who fell short of desired self-sufficiency, morality or political orthodoxy, according to Aristide R. Zolberg, a leading historian of immigration policy.
The files reflect that mood. In one, caseworkers worried that an unmarried young woman whose family had perished in the death camps could be excluded for “moral turpitude.” She was arriving with a 3-year-old child, the son of an American serviceman who had abandoned her when she was six months pregnant.
In another case, a young family was cut off from agency assistance two months after their arrival, for failing to disclose a “secret bank account” containing $138 in loans from friends. The wife, a survivor of three years in a German concentration camp and four years of exile in Russia, had found it hard to live within the agency’s $47 monthly allowance, the file said, because she “never accepts the fact that she just can’t buy as much food as she wants to give to her child.”
Many of the files reflect the families’ fear of deportation if they had to seek public aid or health care. The father of three who had survived day to day in the Warsaw Ghetto, for example, was distraught when the agency cut off aid and told him to apply for welfare in May 1952, a year after the family arrived. Even the agency was uncertain how welfare might affect their future under a pending immigration bill.
“In leaving me today he was quite disturbed and fearful,” the caseworker wrote of the father, a 46-year-old former printer with a dislocated arm, who had been studying English, taking a course in making picture frames, and hunting for night work.
His wife, 10 years younger, worked as a dressmaker at first, but had to stop because of an unplanned pregnancy and complications. The couple had even considered placing the baby for adoption, but could not bear to do it, the caseworker reported.
“He felt that the family needed money immediately,” but that in applying for welfare “he would be besmirching his children’s names,” the file said. “As he talked about this, he moved quickly to a feeling of desperation and wondered whether he would ever be able to be successful.”
An effort to trace that family for this article failed, and under the rules of access to the records, their names cannot be published without their permission. But a file about the family of Lajosh and Alice Pauker, who entered the United States in 1960, led to their two children. Mr. Pauker sought the agency’s help in November 1961, when his wife, an Auschwitz survivor from Hungary, broke down at her factory job in Brooklyn and was taken to a hospital psychiatric ward.
“He had been told to take his wife out of Kings County Hospital immediately, as otherwise she would be deported,” wrote the agency caseworker, unable to deny or confirm what Mr. Pauker had heard from friends. “He firmly believes that her ‘nervous condition’ is the result of her concentration camp experience.”
Instead of asking about that experience, however, the caseworker focused on documenting every penny of the family’s finances. The only help the agency provided was paying for the mother’s psychotherapy and tranquilizers. The father, an itinerant repairman of soda-water chargers, was later chided for not reporting the few dollars that his young son earned fixing bicycles after school. And when his daughter graduated from high school with honors, she had to give up on college to help support the family.
“I’m grateful for what they did, but basically, they were not looking at the overall picture,” said the son, Peter Pauker, now 59, an advertising consultant in Manhattan.
Atina Grossman, a historian at Cooper Union who has written about the displaced-persons camps of postwar Germany, said attitudes reflected in the case files were widespread at the time, shaped in part by pre-Depression ideas about pauperism, and by a mix of pity and contempt for the “D.P.’s,” as they were widely known.
“Nobody is thinking, ‘Oh, amazing, survivors,’ ” Professor Grossman said. “At worst they are human debris, quote-unquote; at best they are unfortunate victims who have to be resocialized. There’s this big concern on the part of the social workers that they are creating a dependent class.”
Walter Ruby, a spokesman for the resettlement agency, said the social workers showed the refugees compassion within the limits of the system. “ ‘America doesn’t take care of you’ — that was what they were telling these people,” he said.
The paradox, Professor Grossman said, was that as a group, displaced persons were very self-reliant.
The newlywed couple offer a striking example. In January 1954, a caseworker suggested they “readjust their thinking” about observing Sabbath at sundown on Fridays if the husband, an engineer, wanted to stay in his profession. The husband wanted to respect the strong religious feeling of his young bride, the file noted, but his boss would not permit a change in work schedule.
The couple, now 80 and 77 and living in Manhattan, have not forgotten the choice they confronted in a new marriage and a new land. But considering what they had overcome, they said it hardly fazed them.
The husband, Mark Kanal, started work at age 11, and was the only one in his family to survive Auschwitz. When he tried to return to his hometown after the liberation, he said, he narrowly escaped lynching by Polish anti-Semites.
So, like many others, he crossed borders illegally to get to American-occupied Germany. Determined to go to college, he used his cigarette allotment from a United Nations refugee organization to pay for tutoring from unemployed professors, and made it into the polytechnic institute in Munich. There he met his wife, Rachel, who had spent the war in Siberia.
“To come to a democratic country like America and not be able to practice your religion there the way you feel you should didn’t feel right to me,” Mrs. Kanal said. Her husband agreed. So he gave up his first American engineering job — and went on to a career as an aerospace engineer, eventually working on NASA’s moon and space shuttle programs.
“This is the real America,” he said recently, recalling how Sputnik ended the gentlemen’s agreements that in his experience had kept Jews out of high technology. “You want to do it, you know you can do it — go, see what you can do.”
Today’s immigration debate often contrasts the achievements of such legal immigrants with the burdens imposed by illegal border-crossers. But that distinction does not seem so clear to people like Harry Wanderer and his older sister, Helen.
In 1951, a caseworker dismissed Harry’s interest in a yeshiva education as “unreal,” and told him “he was expecting the agency to operate as an affluent parent on whom he could lean for support.” She did not know that he was a young child when the Nazis invaded his hometown in Poland, that he had dug potatoes in Siberia to help his family survive, cleaned toilets in a Czech prisoner of war camp for two cigarettes a day that he could trade for bread, and smuggled himself across several borders to reach a D.P. camp — the portal to emigration.
“We were all smuggled across borders,” said his sister, who was 26 when they arrived in New York, and is now a retired Hebrew teacher of 83. “We had to go someplace. America seemed good. And they let us in!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/nyregion/09jews.html?th&emc=th
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More Visas, More Jobs
March 19, 2008; Page A16
Bill Gates appeared before Congress again last week to make a simple point to simpler pols: The ridiculously low annual cap on H-1B visas for foreign professionals is undermining the ability of U.S. companies to compete in a global marketplace.
"Congress's failure to pass high-skill immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," said the Microsoft chairman. "The current base cap of 65,000 H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy's demand for skilled workers."
The Labor Department projects that by 2014 there will be more than two million job openings in science, technology, engineering and math fields. But the number of Americans graduating with degrees in those disciplines is falling. Meanwhile, visa quotas make it increasingly difficult for U.S. companies to hire foreign-born graduates of our own universities. Last year, as in prior years, the supply of H-1B visas was exhausted on the first day petitions could be filed.
"Today, knowledge and expertise are the essential raw materials that companies and countries need in order to be competitive," said Mr. Gates. "We live in an economy that depends on the ability of innovative companies to attract and retain the very best talent, regardless of nationality or citizenship."
Lest you think Microsoft and other companies are making this stuff up, we direct you to two recent studies published by the National Foundation for American Policy. The first, entitled "Talent Search," found that major U.S. technology companies average more than 470 job openings for skilled positions, while defense companies average more than 1,200 such openings. In all, more than 140,000 skilled job openings are available today in the S&P 500 companies.
The second study, "H-1B Visas and Job Creation," reports the results of a regression analysis of H-1B filings and employment at U.S. tech companies. The objective was to determine if hiring foreign nationals harms the job prospects of Americans -- a common claim of protectionists. In fact, the study found a positive association between H-1B visa requests and the percentage change in total employment.
Among S&P 500 firms, "the data show that for every H-1B position requested, U.S. technology companies increased employment by 5 workers," according to the study. And "for technology firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B position requested in labor condition applications was associated with an increase of employment of 7.5 workers." Far from stealing jobs from Americans, skilled immigrants expand the economic pie.
Mr. Gates said his software company exemplifies this phenomenon. "Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on average four additional employees to support them in various capacities," he told lawmakers. "If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to U.S. companies, employment of U.S. nationals would likely grow as well."
The preponderance of evidence continues to show that businesses are having difficulty filling skilled positions in the U.S. By blocking their access to foreign talent, Congress isn't protecting U.S. jobs but is providing incentives to outsource. If lawmakers can't bring themselves to eliminate the H-1B visa cap, they might at least raise it to a level that doesn't handicap U.S. companies.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.
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The present desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy? … [A]re there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of VA. 123-5
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For those who say illegals are paying their fair share let me say this.
A hospital I work at is going to go bankrupt and close down. Roughly 25% of the patients at the money losing division of the hospital (there are two) are illegal. 25% of the obstetrics is for illegal aliens.
The state won't make up the difference in losses and the insured patients cannot and there are many legal but indigent patients who are going to lose their hsopital.
Well, I say get these people out of our country. I say go after those here who employ them.
Immigrants who came here years ago didn't get or didn't expect freebies. Now they do. The OB wards are merry go rounds for illegals. How dare them? And how stupid is this country?
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CCP I agree; go after the ILLEGAL immigrants AND go after the employers who employ them. Attack supply and demand
equally. We are a nation of immigrants, LEGAL immigrants. The word "illegal" is there for a reason. And anyone
who harbors or provides them a job should also be severely punished.
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I've had very little sleep in the last 48 hours, so i'm not sure if what I just read is some sort of hallucination.....
Where is the real JDN? What have you done with him????? :evil:
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Nope, not a hallucination..... :-o It's the real me. Actually, if you read between the lines, I am a very "fair" person; don't let the employers off either. And I do believe in respecting (or change it) the law. So get some sleep... Maybe there is hope for me? :-)
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Gotta go back to work. If i'm lucky, I get to sleep tomorrow. :|
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This is good. Now how about illegals from other countries and continents flooding the US, including from Europe?
Does anyone else notice how when the politically correct MSM speak of anti-semites, racists, etc they now include "anti-immigrant" in there too as though there is equivalence?
If one is anti-immigrant one is a racist, a bigot, a hater, a war monger etc.
****Some Mexicans leaving US, planning never to return
Associated Press Writer Ivan Moreno, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 15, 5:16 am ET AP – Vicenta Rodriguez Lopez, 40, holds 10-month-old grandson Duvan Rodriguez, at her home in Severance, Colo., … DENVER – After going months without a full-time job, Daniel Ramirez has decided it's time to return to family in Mexico.
Vicenta Rodriguez Lopez says she can't afford to live in Colorado any more because her husband was deported.
Roberto Espinoza is going back, too. After 18 years as a mechanic for a General Motors dealership in Denver, his work permit wasn't renewed and he didn't want to remain in the country illegally.
All are leaving Colorado in time for Christmas — joining a traditional holiday migration that will number almost 1 million people, says Mexico's interior ministry. But they have no intention of returning to Colorado, a place that promised prosperity.
Layoffs, dwindling job opportunities, anti-immigrant sentiment and the crackdown on illegal immigrants are forcing hard choices on many Mexican nationals in Colorado. Though not an exodus, some are returning to a nation they haven't seen in years.
"You despair. You think, 'I used to earn $600 a week and now I'm getting half of that a week?'" said Ramirez, 38, who lost his Denver construction job in August. He left last week, driving to San Luis Potosi in central Mexico.
Mexico's consul general in Denver, Eduardo Arnal, said more people like Ramirez are going home for good.
He cites a rise in applications for import tax exemptions by Mexican nationals bringing home their belongings. The consulate hasn't compiled statistics for 2008 but says it receives about three applications a day, compared to one per week in 2007.
"We've seen an increase in this service, which implies that there's a tendency among a larger number of Mexicans who are returning home definitively," Arnal said in an interview in Spanish.
Nationally, 1,809 Mexican immigrants filed for the exemption between January and August, compared to 1,447 the same period last year — a 25 percent increase, according to Mexico's foreign affairs ministry.
That's hardly an indicator of reverse migration, noted Carlos Rico, Mexico's undersecretary for North American affairs. Rico said what is known is that Mexicans are moving to other U.S. states — often places that historically have not seen a large population of Mexicans. They include North Carolina, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska, Rico said.
Whether for economic or anti-immigrant reasons, Rico said, "People are looking for alternatives within the United States."
An estimated 243,253 Mexicans lived in Colorado in 2007, down from 254,844 in 2006, according to the U.S. Census. The state's construction industry, a traditional source of employment for Mexicans, is contracting, and University of Colorado economists expect the state to lose 11,200 construction jobs next year.
Nationally, remittances to Mexico are down, as is Mexican emigration to the U.S.
August remittances totaled $1.9 billion, down 12 percent from August 2007, Mexico's Central Bank says. It's the first drop since the bank began tracking remittances in 1996.
Mexico's National Statistics and Geography Institute estimates that 814,000 Mexicans emigrated to the U.S. in 2006, compared to 1.2 million in 2007.
Arnal noted that Mexico's economy is growing, albeit modestly. Mexico's Treasury Department reported a 1.7 percent growth rate for the third quarter and forecasts 2 percent growth for the year.
But hard times, not tepid growth back home, are prompting some Colorado Mexicans to leave.
Espinoza said the recession's onset took him by surprise. He'll be seeing his country for the first time in nearly two decades.
"I miss my country," said Espinoza, 34, who is returning to Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Vicenta Rodriguez Lopez lives in Severance, about 60 miles north of Denver. She's leaving for the Mexican state of Sinaloa after 15 years because her husband, who worked at a ranch dairy, was deported for being here illegally.
"He told me to pack up everything," Rodriguez, 40, said in Spanish. "We're not young anymore."
Her 21-year-old son, also in the country illegally, plans on staying.
Jesus Luna, 30, is returning to Puebla with his wife and two children after nearly four years in Colorado Springs. His reasons aren't entirely economic. His parents are ailing. Packing things he said have been so easily accumulated here — bikes, toys, a washer and other appliances — he will be driving nearly 40 hours to arrive in time for Christmas parties.
"You know how it is — eating and more eating," he said, smiling.
Still others return on their own terms, having accrued the wealth to let them live their dreams in Mexico.
"I can't complain. I have a job and I am able to come back if I want," said Gustavo Camacho, 43, who works for a firm digging trenches for electrical cables in Denver.
Camacho, who is from Jalisco, has been here twice, from 1999-2003 and again since 2005. The first time, he saved enough money for a house in Jalisco. This time, he has enough to start a business — either a car repair shop or selling food on the street.
He wants his six children to grow up in Mexico, where he thinks family values are stronger.
"I'll miss it," Camacho said about his time in Colorado. "But you always miss something, whether you're here or in Mexico.
"I might even miss the weather."****
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America's New Foreign Legions
The U.S. should grant citizenship to foreigners who serve in the military.
by Stuart Koehl
12/17/2008 12:00:00 AM
Max Boot was very happy to report that the Department of Defense is at long last going to allow the military to recruit foreigners to fill "critical need" positions such as translators and cultural affairs specialists. He notes that
Under a pilot program the armed forces will be authorized over the next 12 months to recruit 1,000 individuals who do not currently have American citizenship or permanent resident status.
Boot is gung-ho for the proposal, because
I believe that there are?lots of high-quality recruits around the world who would gladly serve in?return for expedited citizenship. They would bring with them the kind of?linguistic and cultural know-how which is lacking in our forces today but?is a vital prerequisite for success on battlefields such as Afghanistan and?Iraq. Even those who do not necessarily speak a "strategic" language could?be a valuable asset, as so many immigrant soldiers were in our past wars.
If anything, Boot believes that the program is too small, too limited--too timid:
It is limited to a tiny number of foreigners who speak one of?three dozen "critical" languages (ranging from Albanian to Yoruba) and have lived in the U.S. legally for two years or more on certain types of visas.?One third of the total must be medical professionals because of a current?shortfall of doctors and nurses. That's all fine and good, but it slights?the needs of the U.S. Special Operations Command, which is eager to recruit more foreigners as was previously done under the Lodge Act in the 1950's. And it slights needs of the regular army which could use more high-quality recruits, even if enlistments are increasing in these trying economic times.
He observes that
The program was kept deliberately small so as to avoid a nativist backlash.?Assuming that there is no groundswell of opposition--and who would be?churlish enough to protest people volunteering to put their lives on the?line to defend America?--let us hope that this initiative will expand in the?future.
I entirely agree. We should go well beyond this very limited program, and offer full citizenship to any foreigner willing to enlist in our armed forces for a period of no less than six years, who successfully completes such service, and earns an honorable discharge. We could begin by extending that invitation to the foreigners who already reside within our borders illegally.
Boot may, however, have underestimated the extent of opposition to such an idea. Already several distinct arguments have been put forward against it in response to Boot's original article. The most common is a variation on this theme:
If memory serves me right, the Romans tried this when native Italians no longer wanted to fight Rome's wars, and they recruited troops from among the Teutonic barbarians, and we all know how well that turned out. A bad idea.
Well, if there is one thing everybody "knows" about the fall of the Roman Empire, it's that the use of barbarian mercenaries undermined the army and left Rome ripe for conquest. But, as is frequently the case with such matters, "everybody" is wrong.
Going back to the days of the Republic, the Roman army consisted of the Legions and "Auxiliary" cohorts". The Legions were heavy infantry formations composed entirely of Roman citizens. But the Auxiliaries were non-citizens, either provincials or specialists recruited from places outside the Empire. Mostly they were light infantry and cavalry, often recruited by tribal chieftains or client kings in lieu of taxes. They had a twenty-five year term of service, at the end of which the Auxiliaries would receive Roman citizenship, which also extended to their children. Because the social, legal and economic benefits of citizenship were so substantial (not unlike the benefits of American citizenship today), the Auxiliaries had every incentive to serve honorably and complete their service. And the vast majority did so.
Caesar Augustus maintained a standing army of twenty-eight legions (before the disaster of the Teutoburgerwald in AD 9 in which three were wiped out). At a nominal 6000 men per legion, this amounted to 168,000 men. But at the same time, Rome had at least that number of Auxiliaries on its rolls. Without the Auxiliaries, the Roman army would have been seriously unbalanced. Where would it have been without its Balaeric slingers, or Germanic and Mauritanean cavalry or Celitberian light infantry? Those who say that the Roman Empire fell because its army recruited "barbarians" are not thinking of the classic auxiliary system, but rather the late Empire of the fifth and sixth centuries, when, strapped for manpower, the Roman army abandoned its longstanding force structure of Legions and Auxiliaries, and began recruiting foreigners under contract as "foederati". These men were mercenaries, pure and simple, serving under their native officers, to whom they owed their allegiance, while Rome merely provided the gold that kept them under the colors. When Rome could not pay--or when someone else could pay more--then of course their loyalty proved dubious.
Yet even then, there were foederati who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Palatini and other Roman regulars in battles against the barbarians. And let us not forget that such foederati were very much a part of the army of the Eastern Roman Empire, which, morphing into the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century, endured for 1000 years after the last Emperor in Rome was deposed. If, through the recruitment of foreigners to fight in the ranks of our military, the United States lasts half as long, it would be a very good deal indeed.
Those opposed to enlisting foreigners in the U.S. military are also rather ignorant of their own history. During the Civil War, the Union sent recruiting agents to Ireland, offering (sometimes under fraudulent terms) passage to the United States and citizenship in return for service in the Union Army. There were literally tens of thousands of such Irish immigrants in the Northern ranks, and their role became ever more important in the last year of the war, when casualties made recruiting native-born soldiers very difficult indeed.
The second largest group of immigrants in the Union Army were the Germans, who formed the backbone of many regiments from "Germania"--that swath of territory that included New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois. So important were the German immigrants--especially in the first two years of the war--that Lincoln had to extend general officer commissions to the political leaders of the German community, such as Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel. They fought pretty well, considering that many could barely speak English and that they were cordially loathed and despised by the "real" Americans. Between the Irish and the Germans, it's not a stretch to say that immigrants won the Civil War for the Union.
Let us also not forget that the despised Regular Army that policed the frontiers after the Civil War was manned very largely by immigrants. Since the general attitude of the time was that soldiering was an occupation suitable only for criminals and misfits, where else was the Army going to get its recruits but from those men just off the boat with few if any prospects?
Finally, if we look back to the American Revolution, it is rather hard to see how we could have gained our independence without the assistance of foreign born volunteers such as Frederich Steuben, Thaddeus Kosciusko, Johan Kalb and Kasimir Pulaski, as well as the much better known Marquis de Lafayette.
Rather than looking down on foreigners who would freely serve in our military, we should welcome and honor such men and women. Unlike many native-born Americans, they will have demonstrated their dedication to and love for this country by putting their lives on the line to defend it. We should have no doubts as to where their loyalty lies, and reward such devotion with the inestimable honor of United States citizenship. This is an idea whose time is long past due. This pilot program can be the foundation of something much greater. Let us hope it is not too little and too late.
Stuart Koehl is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
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It is one thing to use non citizen interpretors but the idea of filling our military ranks with people who are not citizens is a bad idea.
The Revolutionary War situation makes no sense to today. And the immigrant situation during the draft of the Civil War when people could pay their way out of the draft does not apply today either.
Bad idea.
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Funny, I was at a Citizenship Swearing-in Ceremony yesterday.
The individuals who seemed to be the most excited about their new citizenship were in the Armed Forces.
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http://www.danzfamily.com/archives/2005/02/sgt_rafael_pera.php
"be proud of me, bro...and be proud of being an American."
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Wonder why there's no talk of putting the Trillion Dollar Stimulus to work here? :x :x :x
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LAREDO, Tex. — Inside a courthouse just north of the Rio Grande, federal judges mete out prison sentences to throngs of 40 to 60 illegal immigrants at a time. The accused, mostly from Central America, Brazil and Mexico, wear rough travel clothes that speak of arduous journeys: flannel shirts, sweat suits, jeans and running shoes or work boots.
Barbara LaWall, a county prosecutor in Arizona, said she did know how much longer she would be able to take on federal cases.
The prosecutors make quick work of the immigrants. Under a Justice Department program that relies on plea deals, most are charged with misdemeanors like improper entry.
Federal prosecutions of immigration crimes nearly doubled in the last fiscal year, reaching more than 70,000 immigration cases in the 2008 fiscal year, according to federal data compiled by a Syracuse University research group. The emphasis, many federal judges and prosecutors say, has siphoned resources from other crimes, eroded morale among federal lawyers and overloaded the federal court system. Many of those other crimes, including gun trafficking, organized crime and the increasingly violent drug trade, are now routinely referred to state and county officials, who say they often lack the finances or authority to prosecute them effectively.
Bush administration officials say the government’s focus on immigration crimes is an outgrowth of its counterterrorism strategy and vigorous pursuit of immigrants with criminal records.
Immigration prosecutions have steeply risen over the last five years, while white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent, according to the Syracuse group’s statistics. Drug prosecutions — the enforcement priority of the Reagan, first Bush and Clinton administrations — have declined by 20 percent since 2003.
“I have seen a national abdication by the Justice Department,” said Attorney General Terry Goddard of Arizona.
United States attorneys on the Southwest border, who handle the bulk of immigration prosecutions, usually decline to prosecute drug suspects with 500 pounds of marijuana or less — about $500,000 to $800,000 worth. As a result of Washington’s decision to forgo many of those cases, Mr. Goddard said, local agencies are handling many of them and becoming overwhelmed.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said that felony prosecutions of immigration crimes had increased 40 percent from 2000 through 2007 but that most other prosecutions had remained steady. But Justice Department statistics Mr. Carr provided to The New York Times did not include tens of thousands of misdemeanor charges and prosecutions conducted before magistrate judges. Data from the Syracuse group, known as the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, included those cases, which are driving the sharp growth in immigration cases.
Prosecutorial priorities are expected to change after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, said Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and policy institute that is closely associated with the transition team. “There will be a reassessment of whether aggressive targeting of criminal aliens through the use of federal criminal statues is an effective use of scarce law enforcement resources,” Mr. Agrast said.
The Bush administration bolstered its enforcement of immigration crimes by increasing the number of Border Patrol agents from 9,500 in 2004 to 15,000 in 2008 and adding several hundred federal prosecutors assigned to immigration crimes.
On heavy days, single courtrooms along the border process illegal immigrants on an industrial scale, sometimes more than 200 in a day. Misdemeanors usually carry a sentence of a few weeks to six months.
At the federal courthouse in Laredo, George P. Kazen, the senior judge, estimated that under Operation Streamline, the Justice Department program relying on plea deals for efficiency, he had sentenced more people to prison than any other active federal judge. But Judge Kazen said he was concerned about recent reports of the smuggling of firearms from Texas into Mexico by violent drug cartels.
“The U.S. attorney isn’t bringing me those cases,” he said. “They’re just catching foot soldiers coming across the border. They bust some stooge truck driver carrying a load of drugs, and you know there’s more behind it. But they will tell you that they don’t have the resources to drive it and develop a conspiracy case.”
“Every time the government puts a lot of resources on one thing, they’re going to take away from another,” he added.
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Mr. Carr of the Justice Department disagreed, saying that other prosecutions had remained steady, and he defended the emphasis on immigration. “The Department has answered the call of Congress and the states along the Southwest border to pursue immigration enforcement aggressively.”
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic The debate over Justice Department priorities is loudest in this region, as local authorities facing dwindling resources are picking up cases federal prosecutors decline, especially the marijuana cases.
“We do reach a saturation point, so we set thresholds as to what type of cases we will work,” said Tim Johnson, acting United States attorney for the Southern District of Texas. “To the extent that we don’t have resources, we will refer them to local agencies.”
Drug traffickers now routinely break up their loads into smaller quantities to avoid stiffer federal penalties, law enforcement authorities say.
Thomas O’Sullivan, the chief criminal deputy county attorney in Santa Cruz County, Ariz., said that county prosecutors had begun to decline federal agents’ case referrals out of necessity.
In neighboring Pima County, which includes Tucson, Barbara LaWall, the county attorney, said she continued to take on federal cases but did know how much longer she would be able to do so.
“We’re prosecuting Border Patrol cases, national park cases, customs cases, D.E.A. cases — any cases in which they have 499 pounds of marijuana or less, because I don’t want the drug dealers to have no consequences whatsoever,” Ms. LaWall said. “But the rock and the hard place is that my jurisdiction, as most others are, is experiencing some real financial downturns.”
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who is a frequent critic of Justice Department priorities, said that federal agents also complained often to her about delays in wiretap requests, a hallmark of the kind of complex investigations that used to be a mainstay of federal cases.
“They’ve pulled so many U.S. attorneys off drug crimes and organized crime caseloads that federal agents are trying to get help from local district attorneys because they can’t wait six weeks for a wiretap order,” Ms. Lofgren said. “By then it’s too late to catch the bad guys.”
Federal agents requested 457 wiretaps in 2007, a 14-year low. Meanwhile, state and local prosecutors requested 1,751 wiretaps, more than triple the number in 1993.
Some local prosecutors say they are glad to take on the kinds of challenging cases that federal prosecutors used to handle. Ms. LaWall boasted about a racketeering conspiracy she recently prosecuted involving millions of dollars in illegal methamphetamine sales in Arizona. But Damon Mosler, the San Diego district attorney’s narcotic division chief, said financial constraints often limited his office’s ability to do things, like assisting federal agents monitoring drug trafficking organizations.
“That sometimes means I can’t keep supporting those other jurisdictions,” Mr. Mosler said.
Mr. Goddard, the Arizona attorney general, said the impact of the Justice Department’s focus on immigration crime extended beyond the drug war.
“Where they used to be big players in environmental law, antitrust law, and consumer fraud — now the states are the ones taking on these kinds of cases,” Mr. Goddard said. “These used to be uniquely federal in nature because they are going after multistate institutions conducting cross-border schemes.”
Carol C. Lam, a former United States attorney for the Southern California District and now a deputy general counsel for Qualcomm, was ousted in 2007 after Justice Department officials said she did not prosecute enough illegal immigrants. Ms. Lam, who was involved in the corruption case of Randy Cunningham, a former California Republican congressman now serving federal prison time, said her philosophy led her to choose high-impact cases instead of cases that simply “drove the statistics.”
“If two-thirds of a U.S. attorney’s office is handling low-level narcotics and immigration crimes,” she said, “young prosecutors may not have the opportunity to learn how to do a wiretap case, or learn how to deal with the grand jury, or how to use money laundering statutes or flip witnesses or deal with informants and undercover investigations.”
“That’s not good law enforcement,” she said.
A senior federal prosecutor who has worked on a wide variety of cases along the border said that the focus on relatively simple immigration prosecutions was eroding morale at United States attorney offices.
“A lot of the guys I work with did nothing but the most complex cases — taking down multigenerational crime families, international crime, drug trafficking syndicates — you know, big fish,” said the prosecutor, who did not want to be identified as criticizing the department he works for. “Now these folks are dealing with these improper entry and illegal reentry cases.” He added, “It’s demoralizing for them, and us.”
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This article is interesting. Some of my Indian doctor friends and colleagues will be the first to tell you that the situation is now reversed. Many Indians came to the US to practice medicine because it was better here for doctors than India.
The situation is now reversed. They say doctors in India are better off, get more respect and have more autonomy.
Not that anyone is going to care about doctors one way or the other but this article falls along this topic:
With BO's war on success in this country why would anyone want to come here like they used to.... except low wage, uneducated, low skilled immigrants coming in for the benefits.
****Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.
Vivek Wadhwa
Tuesday March 3, 2009, 8:08 am EST
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.
Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue. We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like India and China where the economies were booming.
Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google (NasdaqGS:GOOG - News), Intel (NasdaqGS:INTC - News), eBay (NasdaqGS:EBAY - News), and Yahoo! (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News).
Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated
We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation.
Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups -- precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.
Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.
What They Miss: Family and Friends
They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.
Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home countries.
More Options Back Home
Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.
It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of life.
We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing American jobs -- even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce for the future of America.****
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I agree with this article.
Unfortunately the Democrats (and RINOs like McCain) are determined to import tens of millions of Mexicans (the 10-15 million already here, plus their families and relatives because they will vote Democratic.
How can we separate these two issues when Congress goes to work on this?
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Bank of America, citing a provision of the stimulus package that became law last month, is rescinding job offers to foreign-born students graduating from U.S. business schools this summer. Protectionists will applaud, no doubt. But denying companies access to talented workers born outside the U.S. will neither jump-start the economy nor serve the nation's long-term interests.
The stated purpose of the amendment, which was sponsored by Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, is "to prohibit any recipient of TARP funding from hiring H-1B visa holders." Press reports have suggested that these visa holders are displacing U.S. workers.
Mr. Sanders cited an especially misleading Associated Press story, which said that the major banks requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years. "Even as the economy collapsed last year and many financial workers found themselves unemployed," said AP, "the dozen U.S. banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages requested visas for tens of thousand of foreign workers to fill high-paying jobs."
What the story left out is that companies file multiple applications for each available slot to comply with Department of Labor wage rules for H-1B hires. By focusing on how many applications were filed rather than how many foreign workers were hired, the story exaggerates actual visa use. In fact, H-1B visa holders have been a negligible percentage of financial industry hires in recent years. In 2007, for instance, Citigroup hired 185 H-1B workers, which represented .04% of its 387,000 employees. Bank of America hired 66 H-1B workers, which represented .03% of its 210,000 employees.
The reality is that cumbersome labor regulations and fees make foreign professionals more expensive to hire than Americans, which undercuts the argument that the banks were looking for cheap labor and explains why H-1B applications tend to fall during economic downturns. But far from displacing U.S. workers, H-1B hires have been associated with an increase in total employment.
A 2008 study of the tech industry by the National Foundation for American Policy found that for every H-1B position requested, U.S. technology companies in the S&P 500 increase their employment by five workers. America must compete in a global economy, and if U.S. companies can't hire these skilled workers -- many of whom graduate from U.S. universities, by the way -- you can bet foreign competitors will.
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Petition to Congress
http://www.numbersusa.com/petition?ID=3&jid=122120&lid=31&rid=698&tid=934126
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While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.
Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.
Some White House officials said that immigration would not take precedence over the health care and energy proposals that Mr. Obama has identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year’s campaign.
He said then that comprehensive immigration legislation, including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, would be a priority in his first year in office. Latino voters turned out strongly for Mr. Obama in the election.
“He intends to start the debate this year,” Ms. Muñoz said.
But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.
Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.
Democratic legislative aides said that opening a full-fledged debate this year on immigration, particularly with health care as a looming priority, could weigh down the president’s domestic agenda.
Debate is still under way among administration officials about the precise timing and strategy. For example, it is unclear who will take up the Obama initiative in Congress.
No serious legislative talks on the issue are expected until after some of Mr. Obama’s other priorities have been debated, Congressional aides said.
Just last month, Mr. Obama openly recognized that immigration is a potential minefield.
"I know this is an emotional issue; I know it’s a controversial issue,” he told an audience at a town meeting on March 18 in Costa Mesa, Calif. “I know that the people get real riled up politically about this."
But, he said, immigrants who are long-time residents but lack legal status “have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows.”
The White House is calculating that public support for fixing the immigration system, which is widely acknowledged to be broken, will outweigh opposition from voters who argue that immigrants take jobs from Americans. A groundswell among voters opposed to legal status for illegal immigrants led to the defeat in 2007 of a bipartisan immigration bill that was strongly supported by President George W. Bush.
Administration officials said that Mr. Obama’s plan would not add new workers to the American work force, but that it would recognize millions of illegal immigrants who have already been working here. Despite the deep recession, there is no evidence of any wholesale exodus of illegal immigrant workers, independent studies of census data show.
Opponents of legalization legislation were incredulous at the idea that Mr. Obama would take on immigration when economic pain for Americans is so widespread.
“It just doesn’t seem rational that any political leader would say, let’s give millions of foreign workers permanent access to U.S. jobs when we have millions of Americans looking for jobs,” said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, a group that favors reduced immigration. Mr. Beck predicted that Mr. Obama would face “an explosion” if he proceeded this year.
“It’s going to be, ‘You’re letting them keep that job, when I could have that job,’ ” he said.
In broad outlines, officials said, the Obama administration favors legislation that would bring illegal immigrants into the legal system by recognizing that they violated the law, and imposing fines and other penalties to fit the offense. The legislation would seek to prevent future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new workers.
But administration officials emphasized that many details remained to be debated.
Opponents of a legalization effort said that if the Obama administration maintained the enforcement pressure initiated by Mr. Bush, the recession would force many illegal immigrants to return home. Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said it would be “politically disastrous” for Mr. Obama to begin an immigration initiative at this time.
Anticipating opposition, Mr. Obama has sought to shift some of the political burden to advocates for immigrants, by encouraging them to build support among voters for when his proposal goes to Congress.
That is why Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Mr. Obama’s hometown, Chicago, has been on the road most weekends since last December, traveling far outside his district to meetings in Hispanic churches, hoping to generate something like a civil rights movement in favor of broad immigration legislation.
Mr. Gutierrez was in Philadelphia on Saturday at the Iglesia Internacional, a big Hispanic evangelical church in a former warehouse, the 17th meeting in a tour that has included cities as far flung as Providence, R.I.; Atlanta; Miami; and San Francisco. Greeted with cheers and amens by a full house of about 350 people, Mr. Gutierrez, shifting fluidly between Spanish and English, called for immigration policies to preserve family unity, the strategic theme of his campaign.
At each meeting, speakers from the community, mainly citizens, tell stories of loved ones who were deported or of delays and setbacks in the immigration system. Illegal immigrants have not been invited to speak.
Mr. Gutierrez’s meetings have all been held in churches, both evangelical and Roman Catholic, with clergy members from various denominations, including in several places Muslim imams. At one meeting in Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, officiated.
One speaker on Saturday, Jill Flores, said that her husband, Felix, an immigrant from Mexico who crossed the border illegally, had applied for legal status five years ago but had not been able to gain it even though she is an American citizen, as are their two children. Now, Ms. Flores said, she fears that her husband will have to leave for Mexico and will not be permitted to return for many years.
In an interview, Mr. Gutierrez rejected the idea that the timing is bad for an immigration debate. “There is never a wrong time for us,” he said. “Families are being divided and destroyed, and they need help now.”
Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Where’s Sanjay?
Sanjay Mavinkurve of Google lives in Canada because his wife can't get an American work visa. More Photos >
The question comes from one of dozens of engineers around a crowded conference table at Google. They have gathered to discuss how to build easy-to-use maps that could turn hundreds of millions of mobile phones into digital Sherpas — guiding travelers to businesses, restaurants and landmarks.
“His plane gets in at 9:30,” the group’s manager responds.
Google is based here in Silicon Valley. But Sanjay G. Mavinkurve, one of the key engineers on this project, is not.
Mr. Mavinkurve, a 28-year-old Indian immigrant who helped lay the foundation for Facebook while a student at Harvard, instead works out of a Google sales office in Toronto, a lone engineer among marketers.
He has a visa to work in the United States, but his wife, Samvita Padukone, also born in India, does not. So he moved to Canada.
“Every American I’ve talked to says: ‘Dude, it’s ridiculous that we’re not doing everything we can to keep you in the country. We need people like you!’ ” he said.
“The people of America get it,” he added. “And in a matter of time, I think current lawmakers are going to realize how dumb they’re being.”
Immigrants like Mr. Mavinkurve are the lifeblood of Google and Silicon Valley, where half the engineers were born overseas, up from 10 percent in 1970. Google and other big companies say the Chinese, Indian, Russian and other immigrant technologists have transformed the industry, creating wealth and jobs.
Just over half the companies founded in Silicon Valley from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s had founders born abroad, according to Vivek Wadhwa, an immigration scholar working at Duke and Harvard.
The foreign-born elite dating back even further includes Andrew S. Grove, the Hungarian-born co-founder of Intel; Jerry Yang, the Chinese-born co-founder of Yahoo; Vinod Khosla of India and Andreas von Bechtolsheim of Germany, the co-founders of Sun Microsystems; and Google’s Russian-born co-founder, Sergey Brin.
But technology executives say that byzantine and increasingly restrictive visa and immigration rules have imperiled their ability to hire more of the world’s best engineers.
While it could be said that Mr. Mavinkurve’s case is one of a self-entitled immigrant refusing to live in the United States because his wife would not be able to work, he exemplifies how immigration policies can chase away a potential entrepreneur who aspires to create wealth and jobs here.
His case highlights the technology industry’s argument that the United States will struggle to compete if it cannot more easily hire foreign-born engineers.
“We are watching the decline and fall of the United States as an economic power — not hypothetically, but as we speak,” said Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel.
Mr. Barrett blames a slouching education system that cannot be easily fixed, but he says a stopgap measure would be to let companies hire more foreign engineers.
“With a snap of the fingers, you can say, ‘I’m going to make it such that those smart kids — and as many of them as want to — can stay in the United States.’ They’re here today, they’re graduating today — and they’re going home today.”
He is opposed by staunch foes of liberalized immigration and by advocates for American-born engineers.
“There are probably two billion people in the world who would like to live in California and work, but not everyone in the world can live here,” said Kim Berry, an engineer who operates a nonprofit advocacy group for American-born technologists. “There are plenty of Americans to do these jobs.”
The debate has only sharpened as the country’s economic downturn has deepened. Advocates for American-born workers are criticizing companies that lay off employees even as they retain engineers living here on visas. But the technology industry counters that innovations from highly skilled workers are central to American long-term growth.
It is a debate well known to Google, and it is a deeply personal one to Mr. Mavinkurve.
An Eye on America
Sanjay Mavinkurve (pronounced MAY-vin-kur-VAY) was born in Bombay to working-class parents who soon moved to Saudi Arabia.
He thought everything important in life was American — from Baskin-Robbins and Nike Airs to the Hardees’s and Domino’s in the food court at the shopping mall. When in the car, he and his older brother played a game, naming all the things they could see that came from the United States.
“I know this sounds romantic, but it’s true: I always wanted to come to America,” said Mr. Mavinkurve, lanky, with bushy hair and an easy smile. “I admired everything in the way America portrayed itself — the opportunity, U.S. Constitution, its history, enterprising middle class.”
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When he was 14, he and his brother were accepted at Western Reserve Academy, a private school in Cleveland, and received scholarships. During his senior year, Mr. Mavinkurve finished near the top of his class, ran cross-country and track, and scored 1560 out of 1600 on the SAT.
Readers are invited to join a conversation with experts about the impact of immigration policy on skilled workers and the industries that rely on them.
Next stop: Harvard. His freshman year, he won the prize for best essay written in French, a comparison of books by Annie Ernaux. His friends described him as social but with a quiet, determined work ethic. He took the toughest classes, and to make money he took a job cleaning toilets in the dorm.
He remained patriotic; on his dorm wall, he hung an American flag his brother had purchased at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written.
But he knew he could lose his immigration status after he graduated and his student visa expired. So he decided to major in computer science, which he understood to be in demand, and entered a four-year program for a master’s degree.
In 2003, his final year, he and three friends decided to build a Web site where college students could connect. Mr. Mavinkurve wrote the computer code. Eventually, the team disbanded, although some of its work evolved into Facebook. He had helped create the foundation for a product that has become a national sensation.
He started at Google in August 2003, as a product manager on the teams that developed Google News and the Google toolbar, then worked on the look and feel of the video search, and on the early versions of Google Maps for cellphones. He developed a reputation for helping design the way the products look, and making them simple to use.
Still, he had ample reason to worry about his visa status, given the limits on how many visas are issued for skilled immigrant labor.
It is a category whose significance has been growing since the 1920s, when politicians and business executives started recognizing the value of skilled immigrants. After World War II, companies began actively recruiting scientists, among them Nobel Prize winners, from around the world.
The emphasis on skilled labor was codified in the Hart-Celler Immigrant Act of 1965, which said that for 20 percent of immigration spots, candidates with certain skills would get preference to stay indefinitely, though that 20 percent also included the family members of those skilled immigrants.
(At the time, 74 percent of visas were given to people to be reunited with family members here, and 6 percent for political refugees from the Eastern Hemisphere.)
Reflecting the growing importance of technology — and responding to industry lobbying — in 1990 Congress set aside 65,000 temporary work visas, known as H-1B visas, for skilled workers. The visas, which are sponsored by companies on behalf of employees, permit three years of work, with an automatic three-year extension.
The limit was raised twice as the technology sector boomed, to 115,000 in 1999 and to 195,000 in 2001. But those temporary increases were not renewed for 2004, and the number of H-1B visas reverted to 65,000. (There are an additional 20,000 H1-B’s for people with graduate degrees from American universities.)
Since 2004, there has been a growing gap between the number of H-1B visas sought and those granted, through a lottery. In 2008, companies made 163,000 applications for the 65,000 slots. Google applied for 300 of them; 90 were denied.
In 2004, Mr. Mavinkurve was one of the lucky ones. “You can be very proud,” said the congratulatory e-mail message he received from an immigration lawyer at Google.
Good fortune followed at Google. In honor of the country that made it possible, on June 14, 2004, Flag Day, Mr. Mavinkurve made a laser print of an American flag and taped it to a white board in a Google hallway. The flag remains.
When Google went public that August, Mr. Mavinkurve was on his way to becoming a multimillionaire.
“I remember quantifying: for each dollar the stock goes up, I make more than my mother and father make together in a whole month at work,” he said.
Indeed, recent immigrants like those at Google have been successful.
“The thing distinctive about this generation, and I think unprecedented, is that they are coming with the highest level of skills in the leading industries,” said AnnaLee Saxenian of the school of information at the University of California, Berkeley.
She added that this was acute in Silicon Valley because of its entrepreneurial culture.
“You don’t see immigrant success at any other place in the U.S. at anywhere near the same scale,” she said.
The Guy With the Answer
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The role Mr. Mavinkurve played in Google’s success was on stark display in early 2007, when the company’s map-making team faced a problem that even the best and brightest could not solve. The team met in Winnipeg, one of many conference rooms at Google headquarters named for foreign cities, like Algiers, Tunis and Haifa.
International tributes take other forms; over cubicles in one building hang flags from dozens of countries. The cafeteria, where much of the fare is ethnic, includes Indian and Chinese food stations.
These touches are appropriate. Of Google’s 20,000 workers, 2,000 were born abroad and work on temporary visas, while numerous others (the company would not disclose how many) have become American citizens or been granted permanent residency, the so-called green card status.
The work force is international, and so is the company’s market. With the mobile phone, Google believes it can expand in places where reaching the Internet over computers is difficult, and create advertising-supported versions of maps and other services so consumers can effectively use the services free, exchanging not money, but attention.
But back in late 2006, maps produced by the service were taking too long to download and appear on phones. As customers waited for the maps to form, they racked up huge bills from cellphone providers, which at the time were charging for every minute or every byte of data transferred.
Enter Mr. Mavinkurve, who floated an alternative: cut the number of colors in each map section to 20 or 40 from around 256. The user would not see the difference, but the load times would be reduced 20 percent.
Mr. Mavinkurve used a rare combination of creativity, analysis, engineering and an understanding of graphics to find a solution that had eluded the rest of the team, said Mark Crady, a manager in the maps group.
“He’s one of the best U.I. guys I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Crady said, referring to user interfaces. “Google Maps for mobile reflects Sanjay.”
Many innovators in Silicon Valley come from overseas; 42 percent of engineers with master’s degrees and 60 percent of those with engineering Ph.D.’s in the United States are foreign-born.
Foreigners also spur innovation by broadening understanding of consumers abroad. For instance, on the advice of Chinese-born workers, Google dotted its mobile maps for China with fast-food restaurants, which locals use as navigational landmarks.
When Google cannot get visas for people it wants to hire, it seeks to accommodate them in overseas offices, like the bureaus in Britain and Brazil from which map-team members attend meetings via video conference.
That work-around presents a number of drawbacks, one of which is especially apparent when one worker is in California and a colleague is in India.
“It’s 11 hours to Hyderabad,” Peter Norvig, director of research for Google, says of the time difference. “We do video conferences where we’re up late and they’re up early. Maybe a video conference is as good as a formal meeting, but there are no informal meetings. As a result, we lose the pace of work, and we lose trust.”
The larger risk is employees growing unhappy working at a distance, or foreign companies recruiting them.
For his part, Mr. Mavinkurve, in Toronto, typically talks with colleagues via video conference, e-mail or instant message. But he does fly twice a month to headquarters and once a month to Britain, his life a whirlwind of time zones and virtual interaction.
For Google and Mr. Mavinkurve, working here would be better. The trouble is, he fell in love.
Stuck North of the Border
He sits at a rooftop pub in Toronto, drinking Canadian amber beer. His wife, Ms. Padukone, 27, sips sangria. Evident between them is a respect, and slight emotional distance — understandable given their brief history together.
In 2006, while working for Google in Mountain View, Mr. Mavinkurve saw his future wife’s photo on the cover of a newsletter published by his Indian ethnic community, the Konkani. She was attending college in Singapore. He found her pretty, so he e-mailed her.
“For three months, we sent messages back and forth — but regularly,” she said.
“I hate talking on the phone,” he explained.
They arranged to meet while Mr. Mavinkurve was in Singapore during a flight layover on his way to India. They met for two hours, and connected.
They were engaged in January 2007 in India, their second meeting. They married there in 2008.
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Like first-generation immigrants throughout American history, Mr. Mavinkurve has deep ethnic ties but is quickly assimilating. His wife is no different. But visa rules preclude her from working in the United States unless her husband gets a green card.
That process can take two years. So they live in Toronto, where she recently landed a job in finance.
Mr. Mavinkurve and his wife get little sympathy from Mr. Berry of the Programmers Guild, a nonprofit group with a volunteer staff that lobbies Congress on behalf of American-born high-tech workers.
To Mr. Berry, 50 — who lives in Sacramento, where he was born — it is unfathomable that Google, which receives one million résumés a year, cannot find enough qualified Americans. Further, he says immigrants depress wages.
By law, H-1B workers must be paid prevailing wages, but there are conflicting studies on whether some employers actually pay less when they control the fate of the sponsored workers. Even some of the supporters of allowing in more skilled immigrants say the H-1B system is flawed because it gives employers so much power over employees.
As the recession deepens, many people, including members of Congress, have criticized companies like Microsoft and Intel for laying off Americans while retaining visa holders. Google says it will cut 350 workers this year.
Mr. Berry says his skills and education — a bachelor’s degree in computer science from California State University, Sacramento — are denigrated by an industry that asserts that the best talent comes from overseas, via Ivy League schools. He worries about the employability of his children, who are studying engineering at top colleges, the University of Southern California and California Polytechnic State University.
Mr. Berry, for his part, works at a major technology company he declines to name because his employment agreement precludes him from talking about his employer when in his advocacy role.
He does not believe that skilled immigrants are essential to innovation. In fact, he argues the opposite. “In my experience,” he said, “foreign software programmers are less likely to step out of the box and present alternatives to management.”
His arguments have caught the attention of some on Capitol Hill. “Not all our own people are able to get good jobs right now,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and one of the members of Congress who oppose temporary work visas.
Mr. Sessions favors broad immigration reform that puts even greater emphasis on admitting people with skills. He even wants to ask visa applicants to take a scholastic aptitude test.
But he opposes temporary workers, whom he argues have incentive to work for less and return to their countries to share what they have learned. This puts him at odds with tech companies.
“They need to step up and look at what’s in the national interest,” he said.
Google estimates that it spends about $20 million a year on its immigration efforts — including lobbying, administration and fees to a law firm. Microsoft, while it would not disclose expenses, probably spends more. Its in-house immigration team numbers 20 lawyers and staff members.
On the political front, the tech industry lobbies Congress through an organization called Compete America, which includes titans like Intel, Microsoft, Google and Oracle.
“The next generation of Google engineers are being turned down,” says Pablo Chavez, Google’s senior policy counsel. “If a foreign-born engineer doesn’t come to Google, there is a very good chance that individual will return to India to compete against us.”
At the rooftop pub, Mr. Mavinkurve and his wife both express some anger. He thinks America should embrace him, given his contributions and taxpaying potential. After Google went public, he paid more than $200,000 in federal taxes on his income from salary and, mostly, sales of his shares, just in one year.
He misses interaction with colleagues. It hinders efficiency, slows work. He is physically drained from travel. He is frustrated that he cannot put down roots in America, and maybe start his own company, because he cannot leave Google, his visa sponsor.
He says he feels, on one hand, great gratitude that America gave him extraordinary opportunity. But he says he fulfilled his side of the bargain by striving and succeeding. “Dude, I love this country,” he said.
But he doesn’t feel loved back: “My devotion is unrequited.”
To Stay or to Go
On each of Mr. Mavinkurve’s twice-monthly visits to the United States (he keeps a room not far from Google), he meets with two friends at the Red Mango frozen yogurt shop on University Avenue in the heart of Palo Alto. Over scoops of green tea yogurt, they brainstorm for their next venture.
But he is not sure he can start a company — at least in America. Unless he gets his green card and his wife can work, he would be the only breadwinner, risking his savings, and he says they would be unhappy.
“Quitting Google means saying goodbye to my green card,” he said.
If America will not have him, he might have to stay in Canada. The proof is on the wall of the two-bedroom high-rise apartment he shares with his wife — who is pregnant — and his parents, who have moved in with them. On the living room wall is a Canadian flag.
“Quality stitching,” he said, fingering it.
Mr. Mavinkurve, who once hung American flags in his dorm room and then in Google’s hallway, still loves America. But the Internet-era immigrant, who moves so quickly between worlds, cannot decide where to land.
Where is Sanjay? Even he is not sure where he belongs.
“I’m not sure I want to go back,” he said of the possibility of moving back to the United States. “I’m not sure I can.”
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From the WSJ:
By EDWARD ALDEN
Log onto the Web site of the U.S. Consulate in Chennai and you will see a snapshot of what visa processing is doing to the competitiveness of American companies and research institutions. Click on the link to "Case Status Report," and there is a list of hundreds of visa applications from Indians who await processing. The oldest dates back to 2005, and dozens of others have been pending for a year or more while Washington plods through security background checks.
In recent months I have been in contact with many individuals caught in this Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Most are scientists and engineers who have earned advanced degrees from U.S. universities and are (or were) working for American companies in Silicon Valley, Wall Street and other centers of the U.S. economy.
One had been a researcher at Intel on the latest generation of chip designs; he'd won a national prize for his Ph.D. dissertation for outstanding research in electronic and photonic materials. Another had lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and was doing post-doctoral research at Emory University on vaccine immunology. Still another was a quantitative analyst for a U.S. hedge fund.
Yet when they returned to India -- to attend a brother's wedding or visit a dying parent or simply take a vacation -- they were informed that they could not come back until the U.S. government had done a security screening. Many arrived in India with only a suitcase. By the time I heard of their stories they had been forced to abandon apartments, cars and families in the U.S. while they waited to hear from the State Department.
Of all the initiatives undertaken in the name of homeland security after 9/11, the visa screening requirements for foreign scientists and engineers have probably done the most lasting damage to America's economy -- particularly in the cutting-edge technology fields that are vital to our economic leadership and national security.
The U.S. scientific enterprise depends enormously on talented foreigners. Foreign students and researchers, especially from India and China, comprise more than half of the scientific researchers in the U.S. They earn 40% of the Ph.D.s in science and engineering, and 65% of the computer science doctorates. If we drive them away, the companies that depend on such expertise will leave with them, taking thousands of other jobs that would have been filled by Americans.
Last week, in an encouraging sign that Washington has started to recognize the damage, the Obama administration pledged to throw enough resources at the problem to reduce the months-long screening to no more than two weeks in most cases. With the improvements that have been made in terrorist watch lists and other security screening tools, a decision on whether a visa applicant -- especially one already living and working here -- poses a threat should not take months.
Equally encouraging, the administration's top officials appear to have recognized the importance of the problem. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her commencement speech at New York University last month to pledge that she would "streamline the visa process, particularly for science and technology students, so that even more qualified students will come here." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has promised a renewed effort to secure the country's borders "without cutting off legitimate trade and tourism."
A lot of ground has been lost in the past eight years, however. While foreign student applications were up sharply in 2007 and 2008 and have finally surpassed their pre-9/11 levels, the U.S. largely missed out on the biggest boom ever in students studying abroad, especially at the graduate level. Other countries have competed aggressively for those students while the U.S. made it so difficult to come here that many opted not to. Foreign student enrollment is about 25% below what it would have been had pre-9/11 trends continued.
While the pledge to speed up security reviews is encouraging, the administration needs to take a more comprehensive look at the impact of post-9/11 visa and travel restrictions. Do we really need, for instance, to do in-person interviews of everyone who seeks a visa, even if they have already been interviewed for visas in the past, and we already have their fingerprints on U.S. government databases? That only wastes scarce consular resources on low-risk travelers. Is it necessary to pull all male travelers from Muslim countries into the long humiliation of secondary screening at the airport, even those who are frequent visitors well-known to U.S. officials? It is time to reassert some common sense.
When the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003, it set out to build a "smart border," one that would keep out terrorists, criminals and others who would harm the U.S. without driving away the tourists, students, businessmen and skilled employees the country needs. It was the right goal, but too often the government forgot the "smart" part and simply layered on more onerous security measures. The U.S. economy has suffered unnecessary damage. The administration's move last week on visas needs to be the first of many steps to get back on a smarter path.
Mr. Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11" (HarperCollins, 2008).
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By MIRIAM JORDAN
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it was revising a program that authorized local police to enforce federal immigration law -- a controversial aspect of U.S. border policy.
In San Diego, illegal immigrants wait to be deported to Mexico at a gate next to the pedestrian border crossing into Tijuana last month. About 800 people are deported there every day.
Opponents said the program, known as 287g, was intended to identify criminal aliens but instead has led to racial profiling; it allowed local police to identify and arrest illegal immigrants for such minor infractions as a broken tail light. Program supporters said it has been an effective tool for combating illegal immigration.
The new guidelines sharply reduce the ability of local law enforcement to arrest and screen suspected illegal immigrants. They are intended to prevent sheriff and police departments from arresting people "for minor offenses as a guise to initiate removal proceedings," according to Homeland Security. The program will instead focus on more serious criminals.
"In a world of limited resources, our view is that we need to focus first and foremost on people committing crimes in our community who should not be here," said John Morton, Assistant Secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mr. Morton said his agency would sign new contracts with local law enforcement that would bolster federal oversight.
In the past two years, more than 120,000 suspected illegal immigrants were identified through the program, and most ended up in deportation proceedings. By comparison, ICE removed 356,739 illegal immigrants from the U.S. during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2008 -- a 23.5% increase over the 2007 total.
Lookback: Immigration
Journal articles on the debates over immigration in the early 1900s
Alien Immigration: Effect on Women and Consumers (March 18, 1905)Immigration in 1906: Special Attention Given Last Year to Examinations for Admission (Jan. 18, 1907)Views of Secretary Straus: 'We should not fail to recognize the enormous advantages we have drawn from immigration" (May 23, 1907)Immigration: Total for the Year 1,200,000, an Increase of 100,000 Over Last Year (June 29, 1907)To Improve Immigrant Distribution: Attempt Will Be Made to Distribute Immigrants to Meet Labor Demands (July 12, 1907)The most active local enforcer has been Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County. He said Friday he would continue pursuing illegal immigrants, arguing that state laws allow neighborhood crime sweeps and worksite raids.
"If I'm told not to enforce immigration law except if the alien is a violent criminal, my answer to that is we are still going to do the same thing, 287g or not," said Mr. Arpaio. His deputies have identified in jail or picked up on the streets more than 30,000 illegal immigrants in the Phoenix area. "We have been very successful," said the five-term sheriff.
The Department of Justice is investigating whether Mr. Arpaio's deputies have used skin color as a pretense to stop Latinos suspected of being illegal immigrants.
Mr. Obama's policy change is expected to bolster his standing with Latinos and some Democratic legislators. The administration is seeking to set the stage for a sweeping overhaul of immigration legislation that could put millions of illegal workers on the path to U.S. citizenship.
President George W. Bush pursued a similar goal. After the efforts failed in Congress, his administration stepped up enforcement with raids and the expansion of such programs as 287g.
The provision was created by Congress in 1996 and designed to train local police to help federal immigration authorities locate criminal aliens. It took six years for the first state, Florida, to sign on to the program.
The Bush administration promoted the program among sheriffs and police chiefs, turning it into a symbol of his crackdown on illegal immigration.
Since January 2006, more than 1,000 state and local law-enforcement officials have been certified. Many jurisdictions used those officers in jails, where they could sort through many inmates in a single shift.
Southern states account for more than 40 of the 66 existing participants. There are 42 applications pending, most of them in the South. Both Virginia and North Carolina, where the Latino immigrant population has grown, each have nine 287g agreements, more than other states.
"I think the program is working great," said Wake County, N.C., Sheriff Donnie Harrison. "If the highway patrol brings someone to our jail, and they say they are foreign born, then they are flagged for 287g. They have committed a violation of some sort to be brought to our jail...from broken tail lights to murder and rape."
Raleigh, N.C., resident Maria Hernandez was booked into a Wake County jail after failing to show up for her 6-year-old son's truancy hearing, according to her account and that of her attorney, Marty Rosenbluth.
Ms. Hernandez, a cleaning lady who came to the U.S. illegally nine years ago, is now in deportation court. "I don't understand why they come after people like me," she said.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered a comprehensive review of 287g shortly after taking her post earlier this year. Members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office had raised concerns the program was being used "to process individuals for minor crimes, such as speeding, contrary to the objective of the program."
The shift on 287g follows other recent modifications to immigration policy by the Obama administration, reflecting an effort to shift the burden of immigration enforcement to employers, while making it difficult for illegal immigrants to get hired.
In the past two weeks, Ms. Napolitano said federal contractors would be required to check the identity of new hires against a federal database. DHS also will audit hundreds of companies to verify whether their employees are eligible to work.
Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com
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Certainly no surprise.
Automatic millions of new Democrat voters.
The joke is on us.
We are giving it all away.
Now we are going to have millions of low wage uneducated new people that will clearly utilize more in doles than they will ever contribute.
For a country that is bankrupt this is unbelievable.
And not a peep from the MSM.
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"Automatic millions of new Democrat voters."
Actually, that is TENS of millions of new Democrat voters.
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I stand corrected :cry:
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Sounds like glibness but this IS about immigration...
Obama Sept 9 2009: "the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally"
Bill Clinton: "There is no improper relationship."
The difference here is that Clinton's cleverness was literally true - in his own words: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means is and never has been, that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
But if you take Obama literally (and why shouldn't we?): "reforms...would not apply to those who are here illegally [Sept. 9, 2009]", making them 'legal' later would not change the FACT that they ARE here illegally now and the reforms he is proposing would not apply to them. The instant the 'reforms' (free health care) do apply to them, he is the liar and the accusing representative is vindicated IMHO.
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The US's full retreat and appeasement to everyone overseas (except our friends) continues.
Of course Chavez, Ghaddafi and all the rest of our enemies and adversaries are praising Obama.
Obama to the border patrol: let more Democrats come on in. Will just continue our redistribution of wealth to his personal constituents. So despite us having a President who is doing everything possible to weaken the US he is still popular because he can buy off enough voters. Great.
CNSNews.com
Administration Will Cut Border Patrol Deployed on U.S-Mexico Border
Thursday, September 24, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer is seen from Mexico's side of the San Ysidro port of entry guarding vehicles involved in a shooting in Tijuana, Mexico, Sept. 22, 2009. Four people were injured in a gun battle involving an attempt to smuggle illegal immigrants from Mexico at the busiest border crossing in the U.S., authorities said. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)(CNSNews.com) - Even though the Border Patrol now reports that almost 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border is not under effective control, and the Department of Justice says that vast stretches of the border are “easily breached,” and the Government Accountability Office has revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year, the administration is nonetheless now planning to decrease the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol Director of Media Relations Lloyd Easterling confirmed this week--as I first reported in my column yesterday--that his agency is planning for a net decrease of 384 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2010, which begins on October 1.
A Department of Homeland Security annual performance review updated by the Obama administration on May 7 said the Border Patrol “plans to move several hundred Agents from the Southwest Border to the Northern Border to meet the FY 2010 staffing requirements, with only a small increase in new agents for the Southwest Border in the same year.”
Easterling said on Tuesday that in fiscal 2009, 17,399 Border Patrol agents have been deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border. In fiscal year 2010, the Border Patrol plans to decrease that by 384 agents, leaving 17,015 deployed along the Mexican frontier. At the same time, the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Canada border will be increased by 414, from a fiscal 2009 total of 1,798 agents to a fiscal 2010 total of 2,212.
The Border Patrol is responsible for securing a total of 8,607 miles of border, including the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S.-Canada border from Washington state to Maine, and sectors of coastline in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Each year, the Border Patrol sets a goal for “border miles under effective control (including certain coastal sectors).” “Effective control,” as defined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, means that when the Border Patrol detects an illegal border crosser in a particular area of the border the agency can be expected to succeed in apprehending that person.
In the May 7 update of its performance review, DHS said the Border Patrol’s goal for fiscal 2009 was to have 815 of the 8,607 miles of border for which the agency is responsible under “effective control.” The review also said the Border Patrol’s goal for fiscal 2010 was to again have 815 miles of border under “effective control,” meaning DHS was not planning to secure a single additional mile of border in the coming year.
However, Acting Deputy Assistant Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Todd Owen told a House committee in July that the Border Patrol already had 894 miles of border under effective control as of May 31 of this year. These 894 miles, Owen said, included 697 miles on the Mexican border, 32 miles on the Canadian border and 165 miles in the coastal sectors.
Easterling said this week that as of now the Border Patrol still has the same 894 miles of border under effective control that it had under effective control as of May 31. He also said the agency would not relinquish control of any of these miles in the coming year. After the beginning of the new fiscal year, he said, the Border Patrol would reevaluate the situation and set a new goal for border miles under “effective control” for 2010 that would at least equal, and might exceed, the 894 miles currently under effective control.
“The intention is to take back the border incrementally, and make gains that we can keep,” Easterling said. “We do not intend, nor will we give back, miles that we have gained control over.”
Easterling said the Border Patrol would be able to maintain the current number of miles under effective control on the Mexico border with fewer agents deployed there thanks to “force multipliers,” including new fencing, roads and other infrastructure that has been built in recent years. He also cited the assistance the Border Patrol receives from local police and sheriffs departments and community watch groups.
But even if the Border Patrol is able to maintain or marginally improve on the current level of security on the U.S.-Mexico border, most of the border will remain effectively open to smuggling both contraband and persons.
The entire U.S.-Mexico border is 1,954 miles long, according to the International Boundary and Water Commission. While 697 of those miles are now under “effective control,” according to the Border Patrol, 1,257 miles are not under “effective control.”
Reports from other government agencies paint a vivid picture of the massive drug and alien smuggling that takes place in these uncontrolled expanses and the national security problem created by unsecured border lands.
Each year, the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center produces “drug market analyses” for each of 32 regions of the country that the NDIC describes as “high intensity drug trafficking areas.” Five of these areas sit along the U.S.-Mexico border. These include the California border region, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and South Texas. The latest reports, released in March and April of this year, use candid language in portraying the U.S.-Mexican frontier as wide open to drug smuggling and even vulnerable to penetration by potential terrorists.
The California-Mexico border, the NDIC said, was “easily breached” on both foot and in vehicles.
“The vast border area presents innumerable remote crossing points that traffickers exploit to smuggle illicit drugs, primarily marijuana, into the country from Mexico,” said NDIC. “These areas are easily breached by traffickers on foot, in private vehicles, or in all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) as they smuggle drugs between POEs [ports of entry], particularly the mountainous areas in eastern San Diego County and the desert and sand dune areas in Imperial County.”
Arizona’s border was judged to be open not only to drug smugglers but also aliens with “extensive criminal records” and from “special interest countries,” which are defined as “countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism.”
“Some criminal organizations smuggle aliens and gang members into the United States,” said NDIC’s report on Arizona. “These particular individuals typically have extensive criminal records and pose a threat, not only to the Arizona HIDTA [high intensity drug trafficking area] region but also to communities throughout the United States. Alien smuggling organizations reportedly also smuggle aliens from countries other than Mexico, including special-interest countries.”
“Special-interest countries are those designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism,” said the NDIC report.
The NDIC described the Arizona-Mexico border as “largely underprotected” in the areas between official ports of entry.
“Large amounts of illicit drugs are smuggled into the area from Mexico, and bulk cash is transported from the area into Mexico,” said NDIC. “These trafficking activities are facilitated by several factors unique to the region, including the continuing economic and population growth in Arizona’s two primary drug markets (Phoenix and Tucson), the highways that connect major metropolitan areas in Arizona with major illicit drug source areas in Mexico, and a remote, largely underprotected border area between Arizona’s ports of entry (POEs).
“Vast stretches of remote, sparsely populated border areas are located within the HIDTA region; these areas are especially conducive to large-scale drug smuggling,” said NDIC. “By the end of January 2009, 108 miles of the 262-mile shared border between Arizona and Mexico will have some type of fencing. However, few physical barriers exist in border areas between POEs, particularly in the West Desert area of the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) Tucson Sector, to impede drug traffickers, chiefly Mexican DTOs, from smuggling illicit drug shipments into the United States from Mexico.”
Part of the New Mexico border was described as “an ideal smuggling corridor.”
“Southwestern New Mexico—specifically Hidalgo, Luna, and Dona Ana Counties—shares a 180-mile border with Mexico,” said NDIC. “More than half the length of this border is desolate public land that contains innumerable footpaths, roads, and trails. Additionally, many ranches are located along the border. These factors and minimal law enforcement coverage make the area an ideal smuggling corridor for drugs and other illicit goods and services— primarily alien smuggling into the United States and weapons and bulk cash smuggling into Mexico. Mexican DTOs smuggle multihundred-kilogram quantities of illicit drugs through this portion of the HIDTA region annually.”
Like the California border, the South Texas border is also “easily breached,” according to the NDIC.
“The combination of vast stretches of remote, sparsely populated land and extensive crossborder economic activity at designated ports of entry (POEs) creates an environment conducive to large-scale drug smuggling,” said NDIC. “Few physical barriers exist between POEs to impede drug traffickers, particularly Mexican DTOs, from smuggling illicit drug shipments into the United States from Mexico. Along many areas of the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, the Rio Grande River can be easily breached by smugglers on foot or in vehicles, enabling Mexican DTOs to smuggle multikilogram quantities of illicit drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine, into the United States.”
In the West Texas sector, the NDIC again raised the possibility that terrorists could exploit the border to enter the country.
“Moreover, the region’s location along the U.S.-Mexico border poses national security and law enforcement issues for the region, such as alien smuggling, weapons transportation, and terrorist entry into the United States through and between ports of entry,” said NDIC.
While the U.S. government may be failing to exert effective control over most of the border, identical language in the NDIC reports for Arizona and West Texas said that drug trafficking organizations have set up “gatekeeper” operations that control smuggling into the U.S. and levy taxes on the smugglers they let through.
“Gatekeepers regulate the drug flow from Mexico across the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States by controlling drug smugglers’ access to areas along the border,” said the Arizona and West Texas NDIC reports. “Gatekeepers collect ‘taxes’ from smugglers on all illicit shipments that are moved through these areas, including drugs and illegal aliens. The taxes are generally paid to the DTO that controls the area; the DTO then launders the tax proceeds. Gatekeepers sometimes resort to extortion, intimidation, and acts of violence to collect taxes from smugglers. Gatekeepers also reportedly bribe corrupt Mexican police and military personnel in order to ensure that smuggling activities occur without interruption.”
“Gatekeepers generally operate at the behest of a Mexican drug trafficking organization (DTO) and enforce the will of the organization through bribery, intimidation, extortion, beatings, and murder,” said the reports.
A Government Accountability Office report released on August 31 pointed out that the Border Patrol’s top priority is to stop terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the United States and revealed that three person’s “linked to terrorism” and hundreds of aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints in fiscal 2008. These checkpoints, which act as a final line of defense for the U.S. border, are typically set up on highways 25 to 100 miles north of the Mexican border.
“CBP reported that in fiscal year 2008, there were three individuals encountered by the Border Patrol at southwest border checkpoints who were identified as persons linked to terrorism,” said GAO.
“In addition, the Border Patrol reported that in fiscal year 2008 checkpoints encountered 530 aliens from special interest countries, which are countries the Department of State has determined to represent a potential terrorist threat to the United States,” said GAO. “While people from these countries may not have any ties to illegal or terrorist activities, Border Patrol agents detain aliens from special interest countries if they are in the United States illegally and Border Patrol agents report these encounters to the local Sector Intelligence Agent, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Investigations, and the CBP National Targeting Center.”
The GAO also said one illegal alien detained in West Texas had come from Iran.
“For example,” said GAO, “according to a Border Patrol official in the El Paso sector, a checkpoint stopped a vehicle and questioned its three Iranian occupants, determining that one of those occupants was in the United States illegally. The individual was detained and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further questioning.”
There has been much discussion in the past week about whether President Barack Obama will heed the advice of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to increase the U.S. troop deployment there. The administration, however, has already decided to decrease by 384 the Border Patrol agents deployed on our own southern frontier.
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Immigration Hard-Liner Has His Wings Clipped Recommend
RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 6, 2009
PHOENIX — The Maricopa County sheriff, who has drawn scorn and praise for a running crackdown on illegal immigrants in this city’s metropolitan area, said Tuesday that federal officials had taken away his deputies’ authority to make immigration arrests in the field.
Joseph M. ArpaioThe sheriff, Joe Arpaio, whose high-profile sweeps have been cited in the fevered debate over the need for an overhaul of immigration laws, said he had sought a renewed agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to allow both field arrests and immigration checks at his jails. But a high-level department official presented a document a couple of weeks ago allowing only for jail checks, Mr. Arpaio said.
That prompted an angry, rambling outburst from the sheriff Tuesday at a news conference at which he called Homeland Security officials “liars” and vowed to press on with his campaign, using state laws, against illegal immigrants. He said he would drive those caught on the streets to the border if federal officers refused to take them into custody.
Homeland Security officials declined to comment, saying they are still reviewing their agreement with the sheriff’s department and the other 65 agencies that participate in a program that allows local and state officers to make immigration arrests.
Immigrant advocates and some lawmakers have called on the department to end the program, known as 287(g) after the section of the 1996 law that authorized it, saying it has led to racial profiling and other abuses. Several advocates put out statements Tuesday expressing dismay that the department was keeping any relationship with Mr. Arpaio.
Last week, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wrote to President Obama, urging him to “immediately terminate” the program because of the complaints.
A report this year by Congress’ watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, found that the program had not been closely supervised and that it had often led to the arrest of minor offenders instead of the criminals it was intended to pursue.
The Homeland Security Department has sought to mend it the program, not end it.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that runs it, this summer announced an overhaul of the program and sought to reach new agreements with the agencies involved. Two agencies in Massachusetts have since announced their withdrawal from the program.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, with some 160 federally trained deputies, is the largest in the program and the most closely scrutinized by people on all sides of the immigration debate.
Mr. Arpaio conceded that the vast majority of the 33,000 arrests of illegal immigrants his office has made in the past two years under the agreement followed a check on the immigration status of people in jails. About 300 have been arrested in the field during “crime suppression” operations, he said. He called those arrests symbolically important.
“It has to do with public perception,” he said, noting reports that some illegal immigrants are leaving the area in part because of his deputies. “I think the bad guys apparently are leaving because they know they are here illegally. This is a crime deterrent program, too.”
In March, the Justice Department’s civil rights division announced that it was investigating the department, but Mr. Arpaio has conducted sweeps since then and he predicted that he would be exonerated.
The Maricopa agreement was also being watched to see if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a Democrat and the former governor of Arizona, would take the opportunity to rein in Mr. Arpaio, a Republican and one of the state’s most popular figures. Although they did not often clash publicly, their political supporters often lashed out at one another.
By the account of Mr. Arpaio and his aides, he signed a copy of a new agreement on Sept. 21, allowing for both field and jail arrests. But that evening, Alonzo Pena, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, called from Washington and said he would be arriving in Phoenix the next day to discuss it.
After he arrived, Mr. Pena presented Mr. Arpaio another agreement that allowed only for jail checks.
Mr. Arpaio signed it, but it still must be approved by the county’s governing board. The board has been sympathetic to Mr. Arpaio on immigration matters, but he suggested the vote was far from a done deal.
Either way, he and his supporters vowed to press on.
Andrew Thomas, the county attorney, appeared with Mr. Arpaio to voice his support and condemn the “setback in the fight against illegal immigration.” Mr. Thomas said, “The fight goes on.”
He and Mr. Arpaio suggested that deputies could use the state anti-human smuggling law to make stops and refer suspected illegal immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though it was not clear whether the agency would take them.
If not, the sheriff said, “I’ll take a little trip to the border and turn them over to the border.”
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Obama’s shamnesty distraction
By Michelle Malkin • April 9, 2009 12:13 AM I’m not sure why Drudge is hyping the New York Times’ stenography piece on Obama’s plans to carry through on his promise to pitch a shamnesty bill. It’s not news. It’s a White House-planted distraction sourced mainly to La Raza/The Race lobbyist-turned-White House open borders czar Cecilia Munoz.
I pointed a few weeks ago to Obama’s meeting with Latino groups pushing for faster action on paving the pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens. You know that the DREAM Act has been reintroduced in Congress. You know about the Obama Census plan to Leave No Illegal Alien Behind. And you know that Nancy Pelosi has been banging the “stop the unpatriotic raids” drum.
You also know that there is already a de facto shamnesty plan already in place — overseen by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is eroding interior immigration enforcement. A West Coast source tells me that customs and border patrol agents have been ordered not to confiscate Washington state IDs from illegal aliens. ICE agents are feeling pressure to curtail workplace investigations. And illegal alien deportation fugitive Zeituni Onyango, aunt of the president, is going nowhere.
What is more newsworthy is the rising tide of voices standing up against lax immigration enforcement and its costs.
It’s not just conservative immigration enforcement activists.
It’s politicians who have to answer to their law-abiding constituents demanding to know why scarce resources should be allocated to illegal aliens over citizens. Like the five Democrats in Colorado who helped kill the state version of the DREAM Act. And the local health officials in northern California who are finally ending taxpayer subsidies for non-emergency illegal alien care.
It’s citizens who have suffered the loss of loved ones as a result of bloody sanctuary policies. Like Ray Tranchant, who testified on Capitol Hill last week on how failure of local and federal immigration officials to cooperate contributed to the death of his daughter and her best friend at the hands of a revolving door illegal alien drunk driver. Or like Daniella Bologna, who filed suit against the open-borders government of San Francisco on Tuesday:
The family of a father and his two sons who were gunned down last year have filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, claiming its sanctuary policy contributed to their deaths.
Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were gunned down in the Excelsior District on June 16 after possibly being mistaken for rival gang members, according to police.
Edwin Ramos, 22, a suspected member of the MS-13 gang, has been charged with their murders.
The Bologna family lawsuit alleges that the city’s sanctuary policy shielding illegal immigrants – even those charged with a crime – allowed Ramos to stay in this country illegally. Ramos had a history of violence and several prior contacts with San Francisco police as a minor. But city policy prevented officers from turning him over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
“What we’re saying is that the city adopted and enforced a policy that was actually inconsistent with and prohibited by federal law,” Michael Kelly, an attorney for the Bologna family, said Tuesday.
Since the last immigration battle, more and more citizens and local and state officials have begun to recognize the ravages of lax enforcement. When Obama moves forward with his official shamnesty legislation, he better be prepared. We’ve been there. Done that. And the White House should know that we are ready to stop the Open-Borders Express again.
Stick that on your front page, Fishwrap of Record.
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Democarcy- Democrat to someone new in this country it looks like they are supporting the "Ruling Party" by voting democrat. What is actually happening is that the democrats are eager to allow illegal aliens in, interefer with efforts to verify voter ID's and other shenanigans simply because it gives them an influx of voters that can outvote the real citizens. It is a corruption of the law of the land. I would not be surprised if some citizens start doing things on there own initiative shortly. I know some folks who live close to the border, and they are very unhappy. They get their fences cut and livestock get out, Border Patrol is not very effective due to their funding and step child status, it may come down to the old style method of dealing with fence cutters and rustlers..........
I have no problem with someone who comes to the country to get ahead in life and joining the community. I do have a problem with someone coming into the country and demanding the community to fit them. If they are comming here to have a token citizen, expecting to not learn the language, and not become "hyphenated" then I think they should not be getting across the border. That is one function that IS a function of the federal govt. they are scoring a big FAIL in that responsibility while trying to expand stuff that is way outside their authority.
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POTH acts as an advocate for BO's illegal immigration policies:
Immigration Officials Arrest 300 in California
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: December 11, 2009
LOS ANGELES — Nearly 300 illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes were deported or detained this week by federal agents in a demonstration of what immigration officials pledged was a new resolve to zero in on the most egregious lawbreakers.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called the three-day sweep in California their largest operation ever aimed at illegal immigrants with criminal records.
More than 80 percent had convictions for serious or violent crimes and at least 100 have been removed from the country, with the others awaiting deportation proceedings.
John Morton, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security who is in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday that focusing on serious criminals helped improve public safety.
“These are not people who we want walking our streets,” Mr. Morton said at a news conference here, a day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made much the same point at a Congressional hearing.
The Department of Homeland Security has been criticized by immigrant advocates and civil libertarians in recent years for rounding up hundreds of people whose only offense was being in the country without proper documents, sometimes at the cost of breaking up families.
President Obama had campaigned on a promise of a more compassionate approach to immigration enforcement that would focus on ridding the country of felons and cracking down on employers who deliberately hire illegal workers.
Mr. Morton, citing limited resources, said, “We are going to focus on those people who choose to pursue a life of crime in the United States rather than pursue the American dream of education, hard work and success.”
Last year, 136,126 illegal immigrants with criminal records were deported, a record number, officials said. While department officials trumpeted the mass arrests this week, they could not say how many serious criminal offenders who are in the country illegally remain on the streets.
The Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union reacted skeptically to the announcement, noting that despite assurances that serious criminals were the target, previous sweeps have turned out to capture large numbers of people with no such records.
“We would welcome more effective targeting than in the past but it is not yet clear that is the case here,” said Caroline Cincotta, a fellow at the project, who also questioned whether the swift deportations had allowed people to have full due process.
ICE officials said just six of those arrested had no record at all, and they sought to play up the serious nature of the offenses of those who were apprehended.
Those arrested included a Guatemalan man with ties to a Los Angeles gang who had committed first-degree robbery, a Mexican man convicted of lewd acts with a child and a Mexican man with a rape conviction.
Of the 286 people arrested, 63 had previously been deported. At least 17 face prosecution for re-entering the country without proper documents.
The agents and officers tracked down most of those arrested through tips and a review of immigration files, court and public records. Many people arrested this week were never deported after serving prison time for their offenses because they fell through the cracks.
Mr. Morton said the immigration agency was improving cooperation with local and state jailers, and is rolling out a “Secure Communities” program that by 2012 is expected to permit all local jails nationwide to check the immigration status of inmates.
The deportees represented 31 countries, though the majority, 207, were from Mexico.
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Its POTH, so caveat lector:
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Church Works With U.S. to Spare Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: December 12, 2009
HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. — When the young pastor started his ministry here at the century-old Reformed Church in 2001, he gave little thought to the separate congregation of Indonesian Christians who shared the sanctuary. They worshiped quietly in their own language on Sunday afternoons, at the end of a hard week’s work in the factories and warehouses of central New Jersey.
But by May 2006, when they began pleading to sleep at the church, the pastor, the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, had to pay attention. At the apartment complex where many Indonesians lived, armed federal immigration agents in a single night had rounded up 35 men with expired visas and outstanding deportation orders, as their wives and children cried and other families hid.
Suddenly a prosperous suburban congregation was confronted with the labyrinthine world of immigration law and detention. This year, when one of its own leaders, an Indonesian, was detained for months, only the pastor’s passionate, last-ditch efforts saved him from deportation. And the church reached a new level of activism — with extraordinary results.
Under an unusual compact between the pastor and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Newark, four Indonesians have been released from detention in recent weeks, and 41 others living as fugitives from deportation have turned themselves in under church auspices. Instead of being jailed — as hundreds of thousands of immigrants without criminal records have been in recent years — they have been released on orders of supervision, eligible for work permits while their lawyers consider how their cases might be reopened.
Though agency officials say the arrangement is simply an example of the case-by-case discretion they often use, the outcome has astonished advocates and experts in immigration enforcement, and raised hopes that it signals some broader use of humanitarian release as the Obama administration vows to overhaul the immigration system.
Still, for those who turn themselves in, the leap of faith carries big risks. For now, they can check in at a federal office every three months and, if granted a work permit, can secure a driver’s license. But they are also vulnerable to immediate deportation. Just this fall, nine Indonesian Christians in Seattle who had been on supervised release for years were abruptly detained, and some were deported.
The immigration agency issues about 10,000 orders of supervision annually, but they typically involve people who cannot be deported for practical reasons, like a homeland that will not take them back. The agency detains roughly 380,000 people a year.
“I’m totally on uncharted waters,” Mr. Kaper-Dale, 34, a Vermont native who shares the pulpit with his wife, Stephanie, said in October as he began seeking volunteers willing to place themselves in the government’s hands, from about 200 candidates not only at his church, but at several other New Jersey congregations.
The first ones to step up had to overcome fear born of experience.
“Very, very scary,” said Augus Alex Assa, 46, who fought tears as his 5-year-old daughter, Christia Celine, clung to him in the van from the church, in Middlesex County, to an immigration enforcement unit in Newark. “In my heart, I hope I will stay in the United States.”
Like most of the Indonesians, Mr. Assa and his wife, Grace, came on tourist visas that were suddenly easy for poor people to get in the 1990s, when a booming economy welcomed foreign labor with a wink and a nod. Everything changed after 9/11, when a government directive required the “special registration” of men ages 16 to 65 who had entered the country on temporary visas from a list of predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia. If they did not register, it was understood, they would be considered terrorist fugitives.
Most of the Indonesian Christians complied, on the advice of pastors. They hoped that honesty would open a path to legal status rather than deportation to their homeland, where many had faced discrimination and sectarian violence.
Instead, their appeals for asylum were denied in most cases, some through inattention by inept or overburdened lawyers. And those who registered became easy targets when national immigration politics demanded a crackdown.
During the 2006 raid, Mr. Assa hid in a closet when immigration agents came to the door, as his wife covered their daughter’s mouth. For two weeks afterward, they and others slept at the church.
About 50 men were eventually deported, typically after lengthy stays in immigration jails, leaving wives struggling to support American-born children. “We were shocked, but we were kind of paralyzed,” the pastor said.
On Jan. 12, the detention of one of their own spurred the congregation to action. Harry Pangemanan, a popular Bible study leader, was picked up by immigration agents as he left for work as a warehouse supervisor. He and his wife, Mariyana, parents of two American-born daughters, were the only Indonesians among the 300 people in the main congregation.
Church members organized daily visits to the detention center, a 40-minute drive away in Elizabeth, N.J., while the pastor appealed to Congressional and immigration offices. When Mr. Pangemanan reached out with his Bible to fellow detainees, the congregation visited them, too. Appalled to find asylum-seekers behind barbed wire and plexiglass, they began holding vigils outside the center, run for profit by the Corrections Corporation of America.
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Some church members resisted. “As a construction worker who is directly affected by immigration, it’s very hard,” said Rich Lord, 39. “I felt like, they’re taking my jobs away.”
But his union and his faith changed his mind, he said: “There’s pregnant women so desperate in Mexico that they’re willing to cross the desert so their child will be born in the United States. And as a Christian, I have to remember that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to flee their homeland.”
Then, at 5 a.m. on March 31, came bad news: Mr. Pangemanan was being put on a plane to Indonesia. The pastor threw on his clerical collar and ran through Newark Liberty International Airport in a frantic search for the right gate, determined to pray with his friend before he was sent away.
By the time the pastor found the flight, the passengers had already boarded. As he tells the story, he prayed at the gate, so visibly upset that an airline worker let him on the plane.
Mr. Pangemanan was in the last row between two immigration agents — bound not for Jakarta but for a detention center in Tacoma, Wash. — when he saw his pastor coming down the aisle. An astonished agent asked, “How did this guy get in here?”
“And I just put my finger up,” Mr. Pangemanan recalled, pointing heavenward.
The agents let them pray briefly; the pastor said goodbye but vowed to keep trying. Back at the church, he phoned every number on the immigration agency’s Web site.
He still cherishes the recording of the only message that came back, from Dora B. Schriro, who has since left the agency but was then special detention adviser to Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security. Within a week of their conversation, Mr. Pangemanan was back in New Jersey with his family, his case under reconsideration by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
When immigration agents arrested several more Indonesian men in late September, church leaders took their effort to a new level, meeting with Scott Weber, director of the detention and removal field office in New Jersey, and agency envoys from Washington.
David J. Venturella, acting director of the agency’s national detention and removal operations, said he approved the discussions. “We encourage all of our field office directors to exercise prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “This is a perfect example.”
Mr. Weber rejected the ministers’ proposal for a church-run alternative to detention, but offered his own: In groups of 5 or 10, twice a week, the church could bring in the Indonesians they vouched for, and lawyers committed to the lengthy process of seeking their full case files.
Unless something was amiss — a hidden criminal conviction, a false address — the former fugitives could walk out the same day. Even before the details were arranged, Mr. Weber released four recent Indonesian detainees, one a Muslim.
Amy Gottlieb, immigrant rights director for the American Friends Service Committee in New Jersey, who has been dealing with the field office since 1996, called it “an amazing moment.”
“One, you just never believe that ICE is going to work with you on anything, given the history,” she said. “And given the intensive arrest efforts for the last two or three years, it’s hard to believe that people are ready to recognize that every single case has a human angle.”
Rex Chen, the supervising lawyer at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark, remains more pessimistic, likening himself to a financial adviser who warns, “This mutual fund could collapse.”
While the arrangement may buy the Indonesians a year or two, he said, unless grounds are found to reopen their cases, or Congress changes immigration law, they could find “they just moved up from not known, to on the list, to you’re taking the steps up to the airplane.”
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I don't know the name of the guy they have on Fox who is going around the country asking people if they are for the health care bill.
Most, if not all the people it seems who are for it appear to be students (who aren't yet in the real world toiling to pay for all these entitlements) or people who seem to think it will be free for them.
Yes "the govenernment" should provide health care to everyone.
"No one should be without this right".
"Well who else is going to pay for it if not the rich".
This is the mentality of what Republicans are up against.
This gigantic expectation of entitlements. This gigantic sense that someone else should pay for it and these people will sit back and reap the benefits.
I don't know if there is a good answer to this. Until there is the country will forever be divided between those who want all these things and others to pay for it, and those who do pay for it.
I couldn't believe Lou Dobbs was on OReilly saying we should grant some sort of amnesty to the illegals here since they and their children are already here. Pay a fine, learn English, get on some path to citizenship. I guess we are screwed.
The thought of another 12 to 20 million mostly democrats who will continue the viscious cycle of entitlements. And they were both saying we should cap the number of first degree relatives they will bring in with them at perhaps one or two - OMG - now we are talkinga bout 24 to 60 million new people almost all crats!! And we all know the crats are for big gov, big entitlements, and socialism in general.
It may already be too late. I don't know.
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I too caught that and likewise was shocked by Dobbs apparent conversion.
Glenn Beck predicts that amnesty and linking the extended families of the "forgiven" to get in too will be the next big push of the vast left wing conspiracy.
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Lots of info here for the upcoming debate on reform.
www.numbersusa.com/content/issues/us-population.html
P.C.
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I don't know the name of the guy they have on Fox who is going around the country asking people if they are for the health care bill.
Most, if not all the people it seems who are for it appear to be students (who aren't yet in the real world toiling to pay for all these entitlements) or people who seem to think it will be free for them.
Yes "the govenernment" should provide health care to everyone.
"No one should be without this right".
"Well who else is going to pay for it if not the rich".
This is the mentality of what Republicans are up against.
This gigantic expectation of entitlements. This gigantic sense that someone else should pay for it and these people will sit back and reap the benefits.
I don't know if there is a good answer to this. Until there is the country will forever be divided between those who want all these things and others to pay for it, and those who do pay for it.
I couldn't believe Lou Dobbs was on OReilly saying we should grant some sort of amnesty to the illegals here since they and their children are already here. Pay a fine, learn English, get on some path to citizenship. I guess we are screwed.
The thought of another 12 to 20 million mostly democrats who will continue the viscious cycle of entitlements. And they were both saying we should cap the number of first degree relatives they will bring in with them at perhaps one or two - OMG - now we are talkinga bout 24 to 60 million new people almost all crats!! And we all know the crats are for big gov, big entitlements, and socialism in general.
It may already be too late. I don't know.
Jerry Pournelles' "taxpayers" and "Citizens" in his Codominum Novels SciFi genre.
Back On Topic: (fasten you seatbelt I am going wild haired wooly ideas here)
Action 1: Close the border, shoot those who are illegally crossing. We are at war with an organization that specializes in covert operations aren't we?
Action 2: Do a Clean Sweep
Those that are already here, Arrest, investigate to discover if they meet:
Are they already functioning as a ctizen aside from being illegal?
Are they here to stay, and getting "acculturated" (are they joining the American Tribe?)?
Are they Affiliated in ANY way (guilt by association applies here) with a Terrorist group, Socialism, Fascism, or any other currently armed action organization (some green groups will meet criteria)?
Are they Criminals, actual harm others type criminals, in the country they came from?
What is their health status?
There are others I am missing, but these are a few of the top of my head.
If they meet the criteria, let them stay. Give them legitimate systemic status (ID, SS#, Tax, ETC.) and let them naturalize. If they do not meet the criteria, Handle Them Apropriately. If they are criminals with genuine harm others type of credentials, they are part of the infiltration group we are at war with. Given this status, Immediate execution under the Geneva Convention (non-uniformed spys and partisans) is allowed. If they are simply dissidents (ones who just came, not those asking asylum), or hard luck cases- send them home. They accepted a risk with choosing an illegal path, they can now pay the price- Deportation.
Recover the costs of this stuff by charging a tourist surcharge based on the costs of transportation (this will apply to the ambassadors, ministers, big companies etc.). Other cost recovery can be accounted for by simply "absorbing" the multiple payments made on various state and federal payroll deduction taxes (A fine on those who are able to stay for their violation of the law). The Border Patrol/INS can use a percentage to fund their activity. The $ aside from the INS "vig" will remain in the various funds to maintain their stability for the real Citizen/taxpayers.
Last, if I was working, living and planning on joining another Tribe/Country, I would expect to learn the language and culture enough to understand my place in it, and what was going on. Until then my input to the tribe would rightfully be marginal. All government documents should be printed in American Only. If you cannot understand them, then you probably do not understand the culture yet and would do more harm than good by attempting to vote or bring various legal action. That does not mean translators or day to day business has to be in American, it just means that regular public life will be using american. Like all choices the will be limits you will have to accept if you choose "not".
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I'm not sure allowing those who meet criteria is such a good idea.
Reagan gave amnesty to a few million in the early 80s.
Now we have ten times the problem.
We do it again and we may have another ten times the problem in 30 years.
I really don't think it is that hard to stop this.
Simply we make employers have to verify citizen status before hiring.
What is so hard about having some sort of data bank of citizens and asking employers to require an ID before they hire and making it a crime to knowingly hire an illegal by not having some sort of ID verification documentation?
And we need to stop the loophole that anyone born here is automatically a citizen when neither of their parents are.
What is so hard about doing these things?
You won't have to shoot anyone coming over because they won't be coming over - unless it is to bring over drugs.
I feel sorry for the Mexicans who are trying to remain honest and fight the narco terrorists.
We are the assholes buying the stuff while we sit comfortably North of the border while people are dying South of the border.
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I have a clear preference for controlling our borders over having employers become responsible (Your papers please! -- like some WW2 movie).
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But empolyers are responsible. Don't you agree most here who hire illegals know full well they are doing so?
And it is not soley the Mexican/US border. I doubt Obama's mother walked across from Mexico yet she is here illegally.
What about the illegal Haitains. Dominicans, other Carib islands people, Indians, Africans, Chinese, Eastern Europeans, and more who are here illegally.
I think we probably need to do more at the border as well but that is not getting at the root of the problem.
It seems more humane and politically easier to simply cut off their funding to get them to leave rather then round people up, arrest them in INS raids, shoot them at the borders, etc.
People won't be coming here by the millions if not for Americans (mostly) knowingly giving illegals jobs.
And for full time work we ask people for ID anyway to give them 1099s, W2s etc. So what's the big deal.
So my gardner might have to spend a bit more to hire a legal employee. He charges me an arm and leg anyway.
Crafty, don't you think the analogy is a bit extreme?
I don't think it is Nazi Germany to verify people are here legally to give them a job.
The problem also is these people ARE draining our health system, our schools, the Medicaid for their kids, food stamps for their kids who are legal and probably, other ways of playing the system.
I would rather feel comfortable asking someone for papers than have to sit idly by like a fool and worry and wring my hands at risk of being called a bigot because it is obvious when someone in front of me is here illegally.
If we simply made it mandatory for all it would be easy to do. And we are just talking about people who are applying for jobs. Not at food stores, gas stations, being stopped for no reason on the street etc.
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I am not clear what Republicans stand for with regard to illegals. Illegals seems to be equated with Latinos though it doesn't.
Obama's WH comes out with this which is reasonable to me:
"White House spokesman Adam Abrams said the president wanted to sign a bill that strengthened border enforcement and cracked down on employers "who exploit undocumented workers to undercut American workers." He also said the president wanted to resolve the status of 12 million people who were in the U.S. illegally, "that they should have to register, pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as paying taxes, or leave the country."
So if this is NOT satisfactory to Latino groups than what is satisfactory to THEM that makes ANY Republican think THEY are going to win over their votes???? Isn't it obvious that many Latinos want the most mea culpa they can get?
So does this mean Rep will trip over their own feet to conceed more for votes?? I hope not.
Why is it so difficult to ask why the citizens of this country have to be held hostage by illegals?
Why do we have to keep shooting ourselves in the head? Our system is so broken. If we don't get a real leader who cannot rise above this I really believe this country is sunk. Who is going to tell Americans they have to get off their damn lazy asses and work our way out of the mess we are in?
***WASHINGTON — As one of the first Latinos in the nation to endorse Barack Obama , Democratic state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo of Los Angeles campaigned hard for the president, but he's disappointed now.
The reason: Obama has yet to do anything on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws, as he promised to do when he ran for president.
"I think he's in danger of breaking the spirit of solidarity and hope," Cedillo said. "More than a broken promise, it's the danger of breaking people's sense of hope in the Latino community."
While the president carried the Latino vote by large margins 15 months ago, many Republicans are out to capitalize on Latino dissatisfaction with Obama and Washington's Democratic leaders. They think that could help them immensely in the 2010 elections.
Republican candidates will gain ground from Latinos once Latinos realize "that what the Democrats offer is just a bunch of empty promises," said Hector Barajas , a communications consultant for the California State Senate Republican Caucus .
He noted that the president spent only about 10 seconds on immigration at the very end of his State of the Union speech last month. Barajas said the issue had been particularly hot on Spanish talk radio ever since Obama gave that speech.
"It's what didn't happen," Barajas said. "I mean, he spent more time talking about gays in the military than he did about providing some immigration reform plan."
The White House said that it remained committed to passing a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.
White House spokesman Adam Abrams said the president wanted to sign a bill that strengthened border enforcement and cracked down on employers "who exploit undocumented workers to undercut American workers." He also said the president wanted to resolve the status of 12 million people who were in the U.S. illegally, "that they should have to register, pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as paying taxes, or leave the country."
"The president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done," Abrams said.
Jaime Regalado , the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute , a nonprofit public-policy center at California State University, Los Angeles , said that Democrats, particularly the president, faced "a scary situation."
"It's really a colossal hassle for the administration, that there is so much impatience from so many groups — including Latinos — that are hellbent on having an immigration reform package in 2010, an election year," he said. "It's difficult in any season in any year, but this is a very precarious year for Obama."
Regalado said Republicans were exploiting the issue "with good reason," because it was a no-win situation for Democrats: They lose votes from Latinos if they don't come up with a comprehensive solution to immigration, or they lose votes from more conservative members of their base if they do.
"It's fraught with political peril," he said. "There's no question about that."
Cedillo, who campaigned for Obama in California , Texas and Nevada and debated on his behalf on Spanish radio, said the president and Democratic leaders needed to show Latinos that they were committed to them "not only during the campaign, but after the election."
He predicted that Latinos will provide the determining vote in every upcoming presidential election. Obama was hugely popular among Latinos, receiving 75 percent of the more than 10 million votes they cast in the 2008 presidential election.
Latinos are gearing up to be big players this fall. Earlier this month, a report by America's Voice, a group that backs new comprehensive immigration policies, said that immigration could be the deciding factor in as many as 40 congressional races in November.
Noting the electoral strength of Latinos, Cedillo said: "I would be concerned if I was the White House , if I was a member of Congress ."
Immigration has taken a back seat to a host of tough issues for Obama, including two wars, the struggling economy and a yearlong effort to get Congress to pass a health care overhaul. The president's defenders say that it would be politically impossible to add the volatile issue of immigration to the mix right now.
Cedillo doesn't buy that argument. He said the president knew that he'd be dealing with other big issues when he made the promises to the Latino community during the campaign.
"Those were the conditions that he was campaigning under," Cedillo said. "It's not like those were surprises. ... I was so proud of him, at how firm and clear he was in those presidential debates. He really provided leadership."
Barajas said Latinos recognized that it had been a tough year for Obama and an immigration plan might not be fully implemented immediately, but he said there wasn't even a plan for proceeding, let alone introducing legislation.
"I think the Democratic Party needs to wake up and realize that you can only fool the Latino community for so long," Barajas said. "There's a great sense of frustration, there's a great sense of anger and there's a big letdown" that will drive more Latinos to the Republican Party .
Regalado said he didn't believe that Democrats would switch to the Republican Party in big numbers. "What it does threaten is that Latinos stay home" on Election Day , he said.****
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A Birthright? Maybe Not
By George Will March 28, 2010 Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.
To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.
A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, "can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Therefore, "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."
Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." (Emphasis added.) The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. Indeed, today's regulations issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice stipulate:
"A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States, as a matter of international law, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. That person is not a United States citizen under the 14th Amendment."
Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois was, Graglia writes, one of two "principal authors of the citizenship clauses in 1866 act and the 14th Amendment." He said that "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant subject to its "complete" jurisdiction, meaning "not owing allegiance to anybody else." Hence children whose Indian parents had tribal allegiances were excluded from birthright citizenship.
Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent." Graglia says this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States." So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."
Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is "not only without the government's consent but in violation of its law."
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Doug,
THANK YOU!!!!!!
FINALLY!!!!!!
I have been ranting about this ad nauseum and not one peep from anyone whose voice is heard. GW is at least a start. I guess one could say Buchanan has been saying this stuff too.
We have to stop this abuse of all Americans by illegals who come here and abuse our system get free care at our hospitals to have babies who are thus automatic citizens and then do anchor illegals here. Try throwing out illegals whose children go to our public schools for free, apply and get medicaid, food stamps, and I don't know what else.
No politician has the guts to say or do anything about this.
"Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers."
Oh really. I didn't know this. And not ONE PEEP from Congress not one word from MSM.
This must not be turned into an Anglo Latino issue because it is not though obviously most illegals are Latino - not just Mexicans but millions from the Caribbean, Central and South America and I think less from Europe, and Asia.
This is about the rights of legal citizens are being usurped by foreigners who come here and make a mockery of our laws and our system and then have the damn nerve to stick back in our faces that we are abusing and discriminating against them.
I know most Americans agree with me.
The birthright thing and the allowing Americans to knowingly employ illegals are the two ways to put a stop to this.
Democrats will NOT do this. It is up to the Republicans to protect the rest of us from having our coutnry given away byt the radicals.
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I will need to think more about Will's analysis here-- it is intriguing.
Even if it is correct, the political problem remains: demographics. Without Latino birthrates, US population would decline; Latinos are an ever increasing % of US citizenry. They tend to vote strongly Democrat. Groups that tend to vote Republican tend to be aging and in decline, both in absolute numbers and as a % of the population. The Republican party is already fairly irrelevant in the northeast of the US and with demographic trends in place will become a shrinking minority. THIS was Bush-Rove-McCain's impetus in supporting amnesty-- to remain competitive for the Latino vote.
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So what do we do?
Entitlements are bankrupting all but the very wealthy including those that are rightfully/lawfully in the US.
Do Republicans simply try to compete with the Dems for Latin votes?
That doesn't didn't work.
All these people who want the gov to take care of all their needs are destroying the country. It is armeggedon despite what the phoney one says.
Even Buffet the political liberal slipped when he said we will be a "banana republic".
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I will need to think more about Will's analysis here-- it is intriguing.
Even if it is correct, the political problem remains: demographics. Without Latino birthrates, US population would decline; Latinos are an ever increasing % of US citizenry. They tend to vote strongly Democrat. Groups that tend to vote Republican tend to be aging and in decline, both in absolute numbers and as a % of the population. The Republican party is already fairly irrelevant in the northeast of the US and with demographic trends in place will become a shrinking minority. THIS was Bush-Rove-McCain's impetus in supporting amnesty-- to remain competitive for the Latino vote.
Ya hear that conservatives? Start making babies! :evil: :-D Lol.
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I think Jews in Israel are faced with the same demographics issues. Do not the Palestinians have one of the highest if not the highest birth rate in the world?
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Woof,
I'm placing this here because the other networks aren't reporting on this: www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/30/lawmakers-demand-administration-deploy-national-guard-border-patrol-killing/
P.C.
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PC:
Homeland Security thread would also be a good place for it.
Anyway, very interesting that the tracks returned to Mexico. A targeted hit by a coyote operation to clear a corridor?
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SHAME! :x
=======================
POTH Editorial
Too Broken to Fix Recommend
April 8, 2010
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has affirmed what sheriffs, police chiefs, civil-rights lawyers and immigrant advocates have said for years: Outsourcing immigration enforcement to an ill-trained and poorly supervised assortment of state and local law enforcement agencies creates a lot of problems.
The program, commonly known as 287(g), deputizes local authorities as federal immigration agents so they can help Immigration and Customs Enforcement capture illegal immigrants who threaten the community or national security. A new report by the inspector general instead paints a portrait of 287(g) agencies as a motley posse of deputies who don’t know Spanish, who don’t know or care about the dangers of racial profiling and who operate well beyond the control of the federal agency that they are supposed to be working for.
It found the program lacks basic safeguards like data collection and reporting requirements to ensure that deputies don’t violate civil rights. The report also found that fewer than 10 percent of its sample of captured offenders had committed serious “Level 1” crimes, and almost half had no connection at all to violence, drugs or property crimes.
The report reinforces what a leading police association and police chiefs, including William Bratton of Los Angeles, have argued strenuously — that 287(g) undermines public safety. Police officers can’t fight crimes when communities they serve fear and avoid them.
The program was barely used until anti-immigrant fervor became white-hot over the last decade. And while many police departments shun 287(g) as bad news, other jurisdictions signed on to satisfy the urge to get tough on illegal immigration. The inspector general listed 33 ways to improve the program, mainly by patching up oversight deficiencies and bolstering training. Immigration and Customs Enforcement mostly concurred, but rejected one critical recommendation: It doesn’t want to collect data on encounters between 287(g) agencies and the public, to gauge the effect on civil liberties.
We are skeptical that the 287(g) program can ever be fixed. And we are sure that the returns are too low and the costs — in abuses and undermining law enforcement — are too high to make it worth trying. The Homeland Security Department should pull the plug on 287(g).
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A little training should fix that, and an automatic check on anyone they arrest would do it too without any real change in policies, right? Just PC monkey screeching.
I love the term civil rights, if they are not part of this particular civilian society- how do they have any? Human rights, what rights does a human being have when he is invading another tribes territory? Aside from "3 steps toward the border".
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I notice a lot of conservatives playing it safe and extolling how they are for raising the "legal" immigration levels as an excuse to say they are against illegal immigration. I don't know why. I am not for more legal or illegal immigration period. In any case my or the majority of most citizens wishes are going to be ignored as again those who pay taxes have less rights than everyone else.
****Rasmussen Poll Says 70% of Arizona Residents Support Illegal Immigration Bill
Thursday, April 22, 2010, 11:18 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer
A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 70% of likely voters in Arizona support the new illegal immigration bill passed by the State Legislature. Only 23% oppose the bill. If signed into law, the bill would make it a crime to be in the state of Arizona illegally.
A majority of Arizona likely voters (53%), however, did express concern about if the bill will cause racial profiling. Forty-six percent expressed no concern.
The poll also asked likely voters how immigration will impact their decision at the polls, and 83% of Arizona residents said a candidate's position on immigration issues is important. Seventy-three percent of respondents also said that it's more important that Congress secure the border than offer an amnesty for the nation's 12 million illegal aliens.
The majority of Republicans, Independents and Democrats all support the bill. Although, Democrats were more concerned than the other two groups on potential civil rights violations the bill may have.
The bill awaits signature by Gov. Jan Brewer, but reports show signs that the Governor will sign the bill into law.****
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"I notice a lot of conservatives...extolling how they are for raising the "legal" immigration levels as an excuse to say they are against illegal immigration."
CCP, Must admit I am for legal immigration and I don't think it is an excuse. I find the questions of legal immigration, guest workers and legal visitors a completely different issue from dealing with illegals.
We should be able to allow or debate the merits of allowing people to come for good reasons as in the past, to fill needs, to assimilate, to enjoy opportunities and liberties not available elsewhere and we should be VERY selective about who we take now and call Americans.
A timeout on new immigration from time to time might make sense while we catch our breath and find out who is here now, where and why. But then I would like to see limited legal immigration continue. Demographically I think we will be a dying society without some sources of newcomers.
In order to assimilate, new citizens should not all be from the same region or ethnicity to avoid getting permanent, non-assimilating enclaves like the Muslims are doing in Europe. In order to fill a need, we must look at education, skills, age, work ethic and reason for coming.
Dealing with the illegals already here is quite a dilemma. a) Amnesty is a mockery of our laws and unfair to people who immigrated legally with great patience and expense. b) Roundup and deportation of all illegals is not going to happen. c) Round up of cross sections is not exactly equal protection or equal treatment.
I would like to see a comprehensive program starting with securing our borders first. Then offer some equivalent to a negotiated plea agreement to all illegals who choose to come forward within a reasonable time that would involve going home within some notice period to reapply, or to negotiate work papers to stay but preclude citizenship.
Our cowardice really showed itself during the census. Here we have federal workers constitutionally checking each residence to see who lives there for representation purposes. Especially after 9/11 where we had the hijackers living illegally among us and federal departments not communicating, why not have the census workers ask who is a citizen and discover at least partly who else is here. No illegal searches but certainly an obligation to report what is in plain view and suspicions of the undocumented that they encounter.
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"or , , , negotiate work papers to stay but preclude citizenship."
This might form the basis of a feasible compromise.
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"I am for legal immigration and I don't think it is an excuse"
Do we really need to raise the limits on how many immigrants are legal?
Don't we have enough now?
I think everyone is qualifying or tempering their being against illegals by saying "I think we should raise the number of legal immigrants allowed on a yearly basis as though they have to protect against being called a bigot or biased in some way.
Or like saying I am not bigoted and love to have more people from everywhere around the globe move here just do it "legally'.
Well I am not bigoted so now that I did my duty saying that I still think we have enough people coming here legally without having to raise any limits.
We didn't have doles a hundred years ago. People came here and only got what they worked for not also what they qualify for.
Enough already.
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Bright, hard working, educated people who want to become Americans are a big net plus for America.
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"I think everyone is qualifying or tempering their being against illegals by"
I didn't literally mean everyone such as Doug or Crafty. I typed this on the fly this AM but I meant many of the talking pundits on cable.
"Bright, hard working, educated people who want to become Americans are a big net plus for America."
In Liberty and Tyranny I believe by Levin's research illegals use 30% more in services than they provide.
I would be the first to admit it must be difficult to measure this. I am not sure if this applies to legals.
As for the educated immigrants they may be a net plus. But how many is a good thing? I guess the answer is the market could decide. Health care is a special case in point.
I mentioned before how some Indians are saying life is better for doctors in India now than here. One Indian told me "they keep coming here" but more recently updated it with two that he knows who came here to learn medicine and did not like practice here and then went back to India.
I guess one could argue that it is good for say Indians to come and open or maintain old motels (I've heard one third of all motels in the South are Indian operated.)
When the market no longer can sustain more motels I guess they will stop coming. Is that good for America? Maybe. No one is stopping those born here from getting into the motel business.
I don't think most Mexicans who come here are very educated. Yet some work hard. Does that qualify? Just wondering out loud.
Do we require one has an advanced degree? How about High school? How about they are coming here to get an advanced degree?
How do we define the criteria besides just saying not criminals?
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Byron-York/A-carefully-crafted-immigration-law-in-Arizona-92136104.html
A carefully crafted immigration law in Arizona
By: BYRON YORK
April 26, 2010
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill — which will go into effect this summer — at the Arizona Department of Transportation in Phoenix on Friday. (David Wallace, The Arizona Republic/AP)
The chattering class is aghast at Arizona's new immigration law. "Harkens back to apartheid," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker. "Shameful," says the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne. "Terrible…an invitation to abuse," says the New York Times' David Brooks.
For his part, President Obama calls the law "misguided" and says it "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Obama has ordered the Justice Department to "closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation."
Has anyone actually read the law? Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.
The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, if officers have stopped that person for some legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…"
Critics have focused on the term "reasonable suspicion" to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics.
What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."
As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.
For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal. Under the new law, the officer would get in touch with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check on their status.
But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.
Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.
Still, critics worry the law would force some people to carry their papers, just like in an old movie. The fact is, since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens in this country to carry, on their person, the documentation proving they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That hasn't changed.
Kobach, a Republican who is now running for Kansas Secretary of State, was the chief adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft on immigration issues from 2001 to 2003. He has successfully defended Arizona immigration laws in the past. "The bill was drafted in expectation that the open-borders crowd would almost certainly bring a lawsuit," he says. "It's drafted to withstand judicial scrutiny."
The bottom line is, it's a good law, sensibly written and rigorously focused -- no matter what the critics say.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts appears on www.ExaminerPolitics.com
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"I didn't literally mean everyone such as Doug or Crafty."
I understood and didn't take anything personal from that. The issue of legal immigration levels is important and we differ on it which is fine, but the issue of urgency is about the illegals and I would rather keep the focus there.
The doctor example is tricky because the shortage I think is artificial; we keep plenty of good and smart Americans out of the profession with the artificially low number of people we admit to our medical schools (IMO). Our local University with an overall enrollment of over 50,000 takes an incoming class to the Med. School of about 200 students. If that is all the young people that can grasp the subject material then so be it, but then we end up being seen by less trained people like physician assistants and nurse practitioners. Barriers to entry in medicine were designed to maintain the highest quality but also drive up costs based on artificial scarcity. Medical schools have no market incentive or oversight that I know of to catch up to the reality that we have 300 million patients needing attention. That should be fixed here primarily, not just fill the need from elsewhere.
In other areas such as software engineering, wireless, optical communications, energy innovation etc. I think all the talented people of the world have the opportunity to be employed or else go the entrepreneurial route that is virtually unlimited.
"Do we require one has an advanced degree?" - No, but that would be one indicator of not coming for the free perks. Bringing intellectual properties into the country is a good thing for us and bringing people likely to ride on our overloaded system is a bad thing. "How about they are coming here to get an advanced degree? - I think we allow that very openly if it is legit, but that alone does not bring citizenship. "How do we define the criteria besides just saying not criminals?" - I guess I would require each application to be looked at individually and closely. Key is that WE get to decide who comes in and it should be from a wider cross section of the globe if we want or expect assimilation.
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Doug and Crafty,
I hear your points of view and from what I read many do feel the same way. It is one thing if we bring in Werner Von Braun or someone like the ex CEO of Avanex (I can't recall his name). It is another if they are doctors, IT professionals (thousands in NJ), and quite another still if they are uneducated low wage.
Yes, I don't mind bringing geniuses into the US. Otherwise I don't think more is helpful.
In general, I am not for increasing legal immigration numbers. I think it is crazy. Suppose we double the numbers to 2 million. In ten years another 20 million people? We already have over 300 million. Why is expanding out population without endless resources, space, but endless entitlements good. To continue a ponzi scheme wherein we bring in more people to work and pay for those on the dole?
*****APThe Department of Homeland Security has just reported that during 2009, they issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, allowing them to work legally in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of cards issued in one year.
750,000 of the new Green Cards were given to the families of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
The top four recipient nations are as follows:
-Mexico…164,920
-China…receiving 64,238
-Philippines…60,029
-India…57,304*****
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When push comes to shove, a fundamental question is whether one believes on the whole that people are assets or liabilities. Certainly some people are clearly one or the other, but on the whole, are people assets or liabilities?
America has taken the tired, the huddled poor masses (messing up my quote here, sorry! :oops: ) and done wondrous things by applying the inspired principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Now that we veer off course into Liberal and Corporate Fascism, well things aren't working out so well.
Much of Europe's problems originate in its declining population, so too Russia, and a surprising list of many other countries too. Without Latino birth rates, the US would be declining too. Over loaded with entitlements and a shrinking (i.e. aging) population is a losing strategy for sure. LETS PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS AND OFFER OUR THOUGHTS.
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Europe may have a declining population but I don't think this is true about immigration to Europe.
All we hear is that we are turning into Europe with staggering entitlements and debt.
Our Western culture appears to have been turned into a giant Ponzi scheme which will at some point collapse like all Ponzi schemes do.
I just came out of Dunkin Donuts. Every empolyee in there appears to be Mexican, Guatamalen, Honduran or from somewhere south of our border. Of course I don't know if they are legal or not. Dunkin Donuts for sure doesn't know, does not ask, maybe by law can't even ask. The only ones benefiting from this is Dunkin Donuts. How does this help the average citizen? Because I have a person who can hand me a cup of coffee and bagel? Because Americans youth or seniors are too lazy or expect their entitlements they refuse to work in a Dunkin Donuts?
We can't keep having people coming here in droves in numbers akin to the population of New York State every ten years. For goodness sakes there are what 40 million people in California. And look at the state.
I say we stop this mess and leave the levels of legal immigration where they are and stop allowing employers to look the other way, stop the old thing where if you are born here you are automatically a citizen even if both parents are illegal (for Godsake this is crazy),
and start making sure everyone has some form of ID verifying they are here legally. Yes these IDs can be forged and there will be fraudulant obtaining of them but this is a start.
The country is bankrupt and getting worse. Even the phoney one admits it now with his debt commision. "We need to get the debt down now. It can't wait". Well no kidding! And coming from the guy who by himself quadrupled it. The gaul, the nerve the chuztpah of this guy!! And the mainstream media doesn't even call him on it.
The laugh is on the legal hardworking tax paying citizens of this country.
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I like Mexico's laws on illegal aliens:
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/04/28/how_mexico_treats_illegal_aliens?page=full&comments=true
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CCP, I respect your opinion on legal immigration and we all come at this from different parts of the country with different problems. For us it is those pesky Canadians infiltrating our hockey leagues. :-)
I just don't like to see legitimate issues of legal immigration co-mingled with the problem of illegals coming in, like comparing the merits for or against throwing a party at your house versus having a break-in.
There is no good reason to keep turning a blind eye to illegal entry.
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VDH wrote about the issue yesterday. One point he make is that there is not going to be a mass deportation. So pretty much everyone in will be staying whether they get some kind of deal or stay under the law. That reality increases the urgency of border security and enforcement.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/how-could-they-do-that-in-arizona/?singlepage=true
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Doug,
legal and illegal issue are IMHO co-mingled all the time. This isn't just me doing it.
How many times have you heard this or its equivalent, "I am not against immigration, and indeed support higher levels of 'legal' immigration. I am simply not for illegal immigration". Every time a talking head starts to open his mouth about the illegal problem he/she feels they are oblgated to play the political correct card so as to not offend anyone and point this or its equivalent out. We are all so trained to be terrifed of the "bigot label" we can't even discuss the reality of the scope of the problem at hand. (Ironically we have our President saying he wants all the Black, Latino, and women votes and yet no one calls him on this racist comment. I don't know why? Does this not say it all? But that is another story.)
If these are inseparable issues as you and Crafty point out then why everytime the TV personalities discuss the illegal situation they have to bring up the legal immigration issues.
We're protecting our country from an invasion. I think increasing levels of legal immigration is NOT part of the answer. And yes just my opinion. Unless of course there are millions of world class geniuses who want to emigrate here. Or, if we have determined our present legal residents/citizens are so hopeless that we need the help of those from other countries who appear ready and willing to work far harder in order to keep this country afloat.
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**I like every point here.**
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/how-could-they-do-that-in-arizona/?singlepage=true
April 27th, 2010 11:41 am
How Could They Do That in Arizona!The Arizona Hysteria
Racist! Nativist! Profiler! Xenophobe!
Write or say anything about illegal immigration, and one should expect to be called all of that and more—even if a strong supporter of legal immigration. Illegal alien becomes undocumented worker. Anti-immigrant replaces anti-illegal-immigration. “Comprehensive” is a euphemism for amnesty. Triangulation abounds. A fiery op-ed grandstands and deplores the Arizona law, but offers no guidance about illegal immigration — and blames the employer for doing something that the ethnic lobby in fact welcomes.
Nevertheless, here it goes from a supporter of legal immigration: how are we to make sense of the current Arizona debate? One should show concern about some elements of the law, but only in the context of the desperation of the citizens of Arizona. And one should show some skepticism concerning mounting liberal anguish, so often expressed by those whose daily lives are completely unaffected by the revolutionary demographic, cultural, and legal transformations occurring in the American Southwest.
As I understand the opposition to the recent Arizona law, it boils down to something like the following: the federal government’s past decision not to enforce its own law should always trump the state’s right to honor it. That raises interesting questions: Does the state contravene federal authority by exercising it? If the federal government does not protect the borders of a state, does the state have a right to do it itself? The federal government has seemed in the past to be saying that if one circumvented a federal law, and was known to have circumvented federal law with recognized impunity, then there was no longer a law to be enforced.
A Losing Political Issue
The politics of illegal immigration are a losing proposition for liberals (one can see that in the resort to euphemism), even if they don’t quite see it that way. Here are ten considerations why.
Law?—What Law?
First, there is the simplicity of the argument. One either wishes or does not wish existing law to be enforced. If the answer is no, and citizens can pick and chose which laws they would like to obey, in theory why should we have to pay taxes or respect the speed limit? Note that liberal Democrats do not suggest that we overturn immigration law and de jure open the border — only that we continue to do that de facto. Confusion between legal and illegal immigration is essential for the open borders argument, since a proper distinction between the two makes the present policy indefensible—especially since it discriminates against those waiting in line to come to America legally (e.g., somehow our attention is turned to the illegal alien’s plight and not the burdensome paperwork and government obstacles that the dutiful legal immigrant must face).
Why Wave the Flag of the Country I Don’t Wish to Return To?
Second, often the protests against enforcement of immigration law are strangely couched within a general climate of anger at the U.S. government (and/or the American people) for some such illiberal transgression (review the placards, flags, etc. at May Day immigration rallies). Fairly or not, the anger at the U.S. and the nostalgia for Mexico distill into the absurd, something like either “I am furious at the country I insist on staying in, and fond of the country I most certainly do not wish to return to” or “I am angry at you so you better let angry me stay with you!” Such mixed messages confuse the electorate. As in the case with the Palestinians, there is an effort to graft a foreign policy issue (protecting an international border) onto domestic identity politics, to inject an inflammatory race/class element into the debate by creating oppressors, victims, and grievances along racial divides.
Big Brother Mexico?
Third, Mexico is no help. Now it weighs in with all sorts of moral censure for Arizonians — this from a corrupt government whose very policies are predicated on exporting a million indigenous people a year, while it seeks to lure wealthy “gringos” to invest in second-homes in Baja. The absence of millions from Oaxaca or Chiapas ensures billions in remittances, less expenditures for social services, and fewer dissident citizens. But the construct of Mexico as the concerned parent of its own lost children is by now so implausible that even its sympathizers do not take it seriously. Mexico has lost all credibility on these issues, expressing concern for its own citizens only when they seem to have crossed the border — and left Mexico.
It’s Not a Race Issue
Fourth, there really is a new popular groundswell to close the borders. Most against illegal immigration, especially in the case of minorities and Mexican-American citizens, keep rather mum about their feelings. But that silence should not be interpreted as antagonism to enforcing the law. Many minorities realize that the greatest hindrance to a natural rise in wages for entry level jobs has been the option for an employer to hire illegal aliens, who, at least in their 20s and 30s, will work harder for less pay with fewer complaints (when sick, or disabled, or elderly, the worker is directed by the employer to the social services agencies and replaced by someone younger as a new cycle of exploitation begins). In this context, the old race card is less effective. The general population is beginning to see not that Americans (of all races who oppose illegal immigration) are racist, but that the open borders movement has itself a racially chauvinistic theme to it, albeit articulated honestly only on university campuses and in Chicano-Latino departments, as a sort of “payback” for the Mexican War, where redress for “lost” land is finally to be had through demography.
Bad Times
Fifth, we are in a deep recession, in which the jobs that for so long seemed unappealing to American citizens are now not all that unappealing. The interior of California suffers from 20% Depression-style unemployment; many of the jobless are first and second-generation Mexican-Americans, who would have some leverage with employers if there were not an alternative illegal labor poll.
A Fence—How Quaint!
Sixth, the so-called unworkable fence mostly works; it either keeps border crossers out or diverts them to unfenced areas. (There is a reason why Obama has ordered its completion tabled). It used to be sophisticated wisdom to tsk-tsk something as reductive as walls, usually by adducing the theory that if an occasional alien made it over or under a wall, then it was of no utility, without acknowledging the fence’s effectiveness in deterring most would-be crossers. But where the fence has gone up, crossings have gone down; and where it is not yet completed crossings have increased.
One Big Travel Advisory?
Seventh, Mexico is now more violent than Iraq. The unrest is spilling across the borders. The old shrill argument that criminals, drug smugglers, and violence in general are spreading into the American southwest from Mexico is not longer quite so shrill.
11 Million—Then, Now, Forever?
Eighth, the numbers are cumulative. We talked of “eleven million illegal aliens” in 2001, and still talk of “eleven million illegal aliens” in 2010. In fact, most suspect that there is more likely somewhere between 12 and 20 million. (Do the math of annual arrivals and add them to the existing pool, factoring in voluntary and coerced deportations).
Money for Mexico?
Ninth, we are at last turning to the issue of remittances: How can expatriates send back some $20-30 billion in remittances, if they are impoverished and in need of extensive entitlements and subsidies to cushion the harshness of life in America? Do those lost billions hurt the U.S. economy? Are they a indirect subsidy for Mexico City? Were such funds ever taxed completely or off-the-books cash income? Remittances are Mexico’s second largest source of foreign exchange; that it comes so often off the sweat of minimum-wage workers seems especially ironic, given Mexico’s protestations about human rights.
The California Canary
Tenth, California’s meltdown is instructive. If about half the nation’s illegal aliens reside in the state, and its problems are in at least in some part attributable to soaring costs in educating hundreds of thousands of non-English-speaking students, a growing number of aliens in prison and the criminal justice system, real problems of collecting off-the-books income and payroll taxes, expanding entitlements, and unsustainable social services, do we wish to avoid its model?
The Law’s a Mess?
The enforcement of the law, such as it is, has become Byzantine: illegal aliens in California pay a third of the college tuition as non-resident citizens; police routinely inquire about all sorts of possible criminal behavior — except the violation of federal immigration statutes. Past, once-and-for-all, final, absolutely-no-more amnesties encourage more illegal entries on the expectation of more such no-more amnesties.
Bottom line. I can understand the liberal desire for open borders. For some, it is genuine humanitarianism — that the U.S. is wealthy enough to absorb a quarter of the impoverished population of Mexico. For others, it is policy by anecdote: helping a long-employed nanny with a car payment or a loyal gardener with a legal matter by extension translates into support for de facto open borders. I have met over the years literally hundreds of Bay Area residents who have assured me that because they have developed a close relationship with Juan, their lawn mower, by extension everyone in nearby Redwood City — which they do not frequent and keep their children away from — ipso facto is like Juan and thus should be given amnesty.
On the political side, Democrats clearly welcome new voting constituents. Illegal aliens becoming citizens, at least for a generation or so, translates into more entitlements and a larger government to administer. (Note how there is not a liberal outcry that we do not let in enough computer programers from India, small businessmen from France and Germany, or doctors from Korea). Then there is the gerrymandering of the American Southwest to reflect new demographic realities, and the pipe-dream of a salad bowl of unassimilated peoples in need of a paternalistic liberal technocratic governing class — all that apparently is worth the firestorm of trying to ram through something so unpopular as “comprehensive” reform.
Not Quite So Easy
Do conservatives have the winning argument? For now yes — simply close the border , fine employers of illegal aliens, and allow the pool of aliens to become static. Fining employers both stops illegal immigration and is sometimes cheered on by the Left, as if the worker has no culpability for breaking the law (e.g., a liberal can damn unscrupulous employers and thereby oppose illegal immigration without confronting the La Raza bloc). Some will marry citizens. Some will voluntarily return to Mexico. Some will be picked up through the normal government vigilance we all face — traffic infractions, necessary court appearances, interaction with state agencies. And while we argue over the policy concerning the remaining majority of illegal aliens and such contentious issues as green-cards, guest workers, and so-called earned citizenship, the pool at least in theory shrinks.
Yet if I were a Republican policy-maker I would be very wary of mass deportations. A gradualist approach, clearly delineated, is preferable, in which those who have been here five years (to pick an arbitrary number), are gainfully employed, and are free of a criminal record should have some avenue for applying for citizenship (one can fight it out whether they should pay a fine, stay or return to Mexico in the process, and get/not get preference over new applicants.)
Again, one should avoid immediate, mass deportations (it would resemble something catastrophic like the Pakistani-Indian exchanges of the late 1940s), and yet not reward the breaking of federal law. Good luck with that.
Finally, legal immigration should be reformed and reflect new realities. Millions of highly educated and skilled foreigners from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe are dying to enter the U.S. Rather than base immigration criteria on anchor children, accidental birth in the U.S. without concern for legality, and family ties, we need at least in part to start giving preference to those of all races and nationalities who will come with critical skills, and in turn rely less on the social service entitlement industry. They should come from as many diverse places as possible to prevent the sort of focused ethnic tribalism and chauvinism we have seen in the case of Mexico’s cynicism.
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"legal and illegal issue are IMHO co-mingled all the time. This isn't just me doing it."
- Agreed. Prof. Hanson co-mingled those issues in the link I offered and that GM posted. It is true that it offers some cover for those of us who are relatively pro-immigration. It allows you to tell these people there is a process they need to follow.
"We are all so trained to be terrified of the "bigot label" we can't even discuss the reality of the scope of the problem at hand."
- We get to discuss it honestly here, but politicians are terrified of having a label like that stick. I just can't think of other areas of law where we don't enforce a crucial law for fear of offending a major constituency. For example, IRS enforcement is unpopular and unfair to the group of Americans who actually pay in, yet we do it. We authorize, staff and fund the IRS to go after this group every year - with brutal techniques for enforcement. And you don't have to be suspected of a different crime to get questioned or accused. If you are alive and productive, you are a suspect and required to present paperwork.
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Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement easures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.
The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally.
If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?
-- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling?
-- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and
must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.
-- Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years' imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years' imprisonment.
Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due
process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama's illegal alien aunt -- a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim).
-- Law enforcement officials at all levels -- by national mandate -- must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to
make citizens' arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities.
-- Ready to show your papers? Mexico's National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens' identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.
All of these provisions are enshrined in Mexico's Ley General de Población (General Law of the Population) and were spotlighted in a 2006 research paper published by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.
There's been no public clamor for "comprehensive immigration reform" in Mexico, however, because pro-illegal alien speech by outsiders is prohibited.
Consider: Open-borders protesters marched freely at the Capitol building in Arizona, comparing GOP Gov. Jan Brewer to Hitler, waving Mexican flags, advocating that demonstrators "Smash the State," and holding signs that
proclaimed "No human is illegal" and "We have rights."
But under the Mexican constitution, such political speech by foreigners is banned. Noncitizens cannot "in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." In fact, a plethora of Mexican statutes enacted by its congress limit the participation of foreign nationals and companies in everything from investment, education, mining and civil aviation to
electric energy and firearms. Foreigners have severely limited private property and employment rights (if any).
As for abuse, the Mexican government is notorious for its abuse of Central American illegal aliens who attempt to violate Mexico's southern border. The Red Cross has protested rampant Mexican police corruption, intimidation and bribery schemes targeting illegal aliens there for years. Mexico didn't respond by granting mass amnesty to illegal aliens, as it is
demanding that we do. It clamped down on its borders even further. In late 2008, the Mexican government launched an aggressive deportation plan to curtain illegal Cuban immigration and human trafficking through Cancun.
Meanwhile, Mexican consular offices in the United States have coordinated with left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church leadership to demand a moratorium on all deportations and a freeze on all employment raids across America.
Mexico is doing the job Arizona is now doing -- a job the U.S. government has failed miserably to do: putting its people first. Here's the proper rejoinder to all the hysterical demagogues in Mexico (and their sympathizers here on American soil) now calling for boycotts and invoking
Jim Crow laws, apartheid and the Holocaust because Arizona has taken its sovereignty into its own hands:
Hipócritas.
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http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGZjZmY3OThiZWJkYTNiMDI4NzM4MGZiOTNhOTMzMzU=
Arizona and 'Lawful Contact' [Andy McCarthy]
My column this morning is about the Arizona immigration law and attempts to make the point (among other points) that the state law is a measured response to a serious economic, social, and law enforcement problem. As I detail, the powers invoked by the statute are tiny compared to the federal government's border enforcement powers, which are not subject to any of the usual protections of the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause.
Contrary to the hysterical charges of racism being leveled at the statute, it does not permit a no-holds-barred inquisition of Hispanic people. Indeed, the state law demands more of police than federal law. To begin with, there is to be no inquiry about a person's immigration status unless the "contact" between the police officer and the person is "lawful" in the first instance.
There are three relevant gradations of contact between a police officer and a person: non-custodial, brief detention, and arrest. The non-custodial context refers generally to any incidental interaction between a police officer and an individual — including those initiated by the individual. A police officer does not need suspicion in order to ask a person a question, but the person is not required to answer and the officer has no lawful authority to detain a person, even fleetingly, absent "reasonable suspicion."
Brief detentions are known in the law as "Terry stops" — thanks to the famous Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Under Terry, a police officer may only detain a person if the officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity. This standard is not met by a hunch or a generalized suspicion — a cop who says to himself, "Those look like Mexicans, they must be up to no good," does not make the grade. Instead, the officer must be able to articulate specific facts which, together with the logical inference to be drawn from those facts, reasonably suggest that criminal activity has occurred or is imminent. Courts are deferential to the judgment of police officers — the standard is not what any person would think of the facts observed but what an experienced cop acting reasonably and responsibly would think. But there must be specific, describable indicia of criminal activity.
The permissible duration of a Terry stop depends on the circumstances. The Supreme Court has not set in stone some magic moment where a brief detention evolves into an arrest. But arrest happens when the detention has become police custody. At that point, the officer must have probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed.
So the Arizona immigration law does not allow the police officer to have contact with the person unless the contact is lawful. This means if even the briefest detention is involved, the police officer must have reasonable suspicion that some crime has been or is being committed. Absent that, the officer is not permitted to stop the person.
Now, why do I say the Arizona law is more restrictive of police than is federal law? Well, the Supreme Court has held that one common rationale for a permissible Terry stop is to ascertain the identity of the person who is detained. That is, federal law would probably permit an inquiry into citizenship as a part of establishing who the detainee is — again, as long as the officer had a good reason for detaining the person in the first place.
The Arizona law, by contrast, does not give a cop this latitude. Instead, the officer is permitted to attempt to determine the person's immigration status only if, in addition to the initial contact being lawful, there also exists specific "reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States." As I noted above, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence teaches that reasonable suspicion requires specific, articulable facts — not a hunch or generalized suspicion. Thus, the Arizona law requires that there be reasonable suspicion for both the initial stop (e.g., the police officer observed erratic driving and concluded the person might be intoxicated) and for pursuing a line of inquiry about whether the person is an illegal alien.
Two more principles are instructive here. The first involves the complaint that this law may result in a person's being found to be an illegal alien even if the reason the police officer stops him has nothing to do with his immigration status. So what? If the police stop you because you are driving erratically and they find an illegal gun in your car, you may be prosecuted for possession of the gun — the fact that the cops weren't looking for a gun is irrelevant. Ditto if police get a warrant to search your home for stolen appliances and, while lawfully searching, find a bag of cocaine — you can be charged for violating the drug laws even though that is not what the warrant allowed the police to look for. The question is not what the police were expecting to find; it is whether they were lawfully conducting a search in the first place.
Second, all of the above takes place within the context of the the civil rights laws. Under Section 1983 of Title 42, United States Code, state law enforcement officers may be sued if they deprive a person of any rights, privileges or immunities to which the Constitution entitles him. Police officers who enforce the law in bad faith, who harrass people without a reasonable basis to believe a crime has been or is about to be committed, are liable to civil suit. The legal, financial, and professional consequences of violating the civil rights laws can be very damaging.
As I indicated in my column, I agree with Byron: The people who are complaining about this law almost certainly either have not read it or are demagogues who would make the same absurd claims no matter what they law said.
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I wonder if New Mexico and Texas will follow suit?
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GM:
An excellent piece that gives me specific ammo in dealing with hysteria.
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If I make a traffic stop, and I have to say "Tiene liciencia" "Dame sus identificacion" because "No hablo englais", this is what we call "a clue".
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The Foundation
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
Arizona Immigration Brouhaha
Did these guys just come to work?Last week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a tough new law designed to crack down on the flood of illegal immigration in the state and the violence and mayhem that has accompanied it. Political mayhem is the price of the law's enactment.
Stepped-up enforcement of the border in California and Texas has funneled much of the illegal alien traffic and cross-border smuggling through Arizona. A sharp increase in crime has resulted, with Phoenix now being the kidnap capital of the United States. Ranchers near the border live under a state of siege, but demands that the federal government take aggressive remedial action have been unavailing. The recent murder of Rob Krentz, a kind-hearted rancher who often assisted desperate immigrants abused and abandoned by their "coyote" guides, prompted widespread outrage at the federal government's fundamental failure to protect its citizens against a dangerous foreign invasion.
The race-baiting grievance mongers wasted no time in denouncing the law. Vandals smeared refried beans in the shape of a swastika on the Arizona Capitol building (which we find to be an incredibly strange mixed message). Some leftist church leaders denounced the law as "hateful." Race hustler Jesse Jackson called it "terrorism." Calling it "stupid," "an embarrassment" and "racist," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (Tucson) said he would refuse to enforce it.
Latino activist and far-left Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called for a boycott of his own state, saying, "I support some very targeted economic sanctions on the state of Arizona. We will be asking national organizations -- civil, religious, political -- not to have conferences and conventions in the state of Arizona. There has to be an economic consequence to this action and to this legislation." We're sure Arizona's 2.3 million unemployed will thank Grijalva for his principled stand.
Meanwhile, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, the government of Mexico issued a travel advisory and expressed concern about the rights of its citizens in the United States. Of course, Mexico plays by much more stringent rules when dealing with its own immigration issues.
These critics either haven't read the law or, more likely, don't want to be bothered with reality. Among other things, Arizona's new law makes it a state crime for people to be in Arizona if they are in the United States illegally. If the police have an otherwise lawful encounter with someone, and if they have "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the United States illegally, the police are required to ask for documentation of immigration status. An Arizona driver's license is presumptive proof of lawful status.
The law specifically forbids police from basing their actions solely on someone's race or ethnicity. It also compels the police to base their "reasonable suspicion" on criteria that are permissible under the U.S. and Arizona constitutions. Moreover, when she signed the bill, Gov. Brewer issued an executive order directing additional training specifically to avoid racial profiling when the law is enforced.
The new law, which in many places quotes federal law verbatim, was enacted because of the failure at the federal level to enforce those same laws. None of this matters to the Left. With tactics straight out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," they have demonized everyone who dares stand up for responsible enforcement of our laws and for the protection of our citizens.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama declared that the nation may not have the "appetite" for an immigration fight this year, so he removed the issue from his agenda. That's a relief.
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When Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that "it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both."
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Seeing Shakira giving advise to America about Arizona's immigration law is a double insult to me. First she is another one singing and claiming lyrics on a couple of songs that were in my veiw stolen from Katherine. I guess one could say she didn't know they were stolen but she surely knows she didn't write them. Yea right. She comes off the boat, can barely speak English when she gets here and suddenly she wirtes hit lyrics IN ENGLISH!
That said I don't know why they put her on all the talk shows telling us about humanitarism and all. "I don't know anything about the Constitution" she says with the accent but goes on to tell us about how the law hurts children and all the rest. I don't know why the Latin community would necessarily want her as a spokesperson. It would like me wanting Madanno or Streisand going over to other counties telling them what to do on my behalf.
As alluded to in David Hansons piece, one could ask why she doesn't go back to Columbia and give them all the advice they can handle.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100430/D9FDA9JG0.html
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Yeah, but she is seriously HOT :-)o==8 :-D
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I viewed her statement posted on her website: http://www.shakira.com/
A falsehood in the first sentence - people will be detained just for the color of their skin when in fact they won't. Then she goes on to defend illegals to get full citizenship and zero enforcement because people are people. Then equates it to the holocaust, "it started just like this". Very articulate and well-spoken except all of it is BS. Trespassers don't have a right to full ownership. Maybe they do under the Obama doctrine where what is yours is mine.
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Woof,
But what gets me, is why are the people in Arizona so mean to these nice people that are just here to do jobs lazy Americans won't do. They must be evil, right? :evil:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100501/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_deputy_shot
www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50441
www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46959
www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46050
www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_crime.html
www.immigrationshumancost.org/text/crimevictims.html
www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1738432/posts
www.newsmax.com/US/immigration-arizona-crime-kidnappings/2010/04/27/id/357099
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100501/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_enforcement
I mean go figure, these people are just being mean and intolerant for no reason at all. :-P Right! IMHO, every state should follow suit and pass such a law.
P.C.
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Yeah, but she is seriously HOT :-)o==8 :-D
No she is not- it does not look like she has a brain to match the body.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/30/arizona-deputy-shot-with-ak-47-by-suspected-illegal-immigrant/
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_2793904?source=ARK_eletters
Just shooting the cops Americans won't shoot.....
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Humping chairs, the floor, gyrating hips across a stage and claiming one wrote stolen songs certainly qualifies her to discuss immigration issues. Yet she obviously brings in ratings with her looks so FOX and all the rest give her a platform.
Meantime her record sales go up, she pretends she is such a good heart and the rest of us are suckers and stuck being lectured to by the likes of her.
Well for the record, my opinion is shut the hell up and if you don't like our laws you are free to return to beloved Columbia.
Use your free speech and I will use mine.
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http://www.nationalledger.com/ledgerdc/article_272631548.shtml
@ Rarick: Clearly you have not seen her dance :-D
@CCP: Of course her looks do not qualify her, any more than looks qualify a goodly % of the news personalities on FOX or elsewhere.
Question to all: Why do we have no Shakiras on our side, speaking up for defending our borders.
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Woof,
The open borders crowd is putting pressure on Major League Baseball and the Players Association, to join the boycott of Arizona by moving the 2011 All Stars Game away from Phoenix. Please help stem this rising tide of race baiting and let the MLB and the players know that the American people are for the rule of law and that any action by them that supports illegal immigration or acts of violence and crimes against American citizens or interferes with the right of Arizona's citizens to protect their family's, will result in a boycott against Major League Baseball nation wide.
Call MLB at (212) 931-7800 and the Players Association at (212) 826-0808. Be polite but let them know that this law isn't about race or violating anyones rights, this is about being able to continue our way of life in this country in peace and safety. This movement against the citizens of Arizona is anti American and Major League Baseball and their players should be ashamed of themselves for even considering a boycott of this or any other state.
Baseball is suppose to be Americas' game, I guess not anymore but remember that the person you're talking to is just someone paid to answer the phone, so again be nice.
P.C.
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Crafty,
The link you posted shows what enforcing the law could accomplish.
If done on a national level our problems would be partially solved. The other half of the equation is not allowing people in the US to knowingly hire illegals - not just those coming accorss the borders, but those in all states whether it be in NYC or Indianapolis, Indiana. Whether they be Israeli, Irish, Chinese, etc. WE have to put as stop to the argument that this is about Mexicans.
We must ammend the law that people born here are automatic citizens even if both parents are illegal (or if not one of them is a citizen). If one or both are here legally but not citizens I don't know what we should do but if both are illegal why can't we use common sense? Think of the benefit. You could put yourself up for hire to Shakira types and offer your hand in marriage and have their baby for a fee. If they want their baby to be a US citizen they would have to do it with you, not the Chicanos.
Personally I don't want Shakira types speaking for me or my country. We are dumbed down enough.
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PC,
Just made those calls.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/03/torches-smashed-windows-must-have-been-a-tea-party/
Climate of violence, right?
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By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: May 2, 2010
Critics of Arizona’s new immigration law have not been shy about impugning the motives of its supporters. The measure, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they question or detain, has been denounced as a “Nazi” or “near-fascist” law, a “police state” intervention, an imitation of “apartheid,” a “Juan Crow” regime that only a bigot could possibly support.
Faced with this kind of hyperbole, the supposed bigots have understandably returned the favor, dismissing opponents of the Arizona measure as limousine liberals who don’t understand the grim realities of life along an often-lawless border. And so the debate has become a storm of insults rather than an argument.
On the specifics of the law, Arizona’s critics have legitimate concerns. Their hysteria has been egregious: you would never guess, amid all the heavy breathing about desert fascism, that federal law already requires legal immigrants to carry proof of their status at all times. But the measure is problematic nonetheless. The majority of police officers, already overburdened, will probably enforce it only intermittently. For an overzealous minority, it opens obvious opportunities for harassment and abuse.
Just because this is the wrong way to enforce America’s immigration laws, however, doesn’t mean they don’t need to be enforced. Illegal immigrants are far more sympathetic than your average lawbreaker: they’re risk-takers looking for a better life in the United States, something they have in common with nearly every living American’s ancestors. But by denouncing almost any crackdown on them as inherently bigoted and cruel, the “pro-immigrant” side of the debate is ultimately perpetuating a deeply unjust system.
There’s a good argument, on moral and self-interested grounds alike, that the United States should be as welcoming as possible to immigrants. But there’s no compelling reason that we should decide which immigrants to welcome based on their proximity to our border, and their ability to slip across.
It takes nothing away from Mexico or Mexicans to note that millions upon millions of people worldwide would give anything for the chance to migrate to America. Many come from nations that are poorer than our southern neighbor. Many have endured natural disasters, or suffered political or religious persecution. And many have spent years navigating our byzantine immigration bureaucracy, only to watch politicians in both parties dangle the promise of amnesty in front of people who jumped the border and the line.
As of the mid-2000s, roughly 700,000 migrants were entering the United States illegally every year. Fifty-seven percent came from Mexico, and 24 percent from the rest of Latin America. Only 13 percent came from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific Rim.
In a better world, the United States would welcome hundreds of thousands more legal immigrants annually, from a much wider array of countries. A more diverse immigrant population would have fewer opportunities to self-segregate and stronger incentives to assimilate. Fears of a Spanish-speaking reconquista would diminish, and so would the likelihood of backlash. And instead of being heavily skewed toward low-skilled migrants, our system could tilt toward higher-skilled applicants, making America more competitive and less stratified.
Such a system would also be fairer to the would-be immigrants themselves. America has always prided itself on attracting people from every culture, continent and creed. In a globalized world, aspiring Americans in Zimbabwe or Burma should compete on a level playing field with Mexicans and Salvadorans. The American dream should seem no more unattainable in China than in Chihuahua.
But this can only happen if America first regains control of its southern border. There is a widespread pretense that this has been tried and found to be impossible, when really it’s been found difficult and left untried.
Curbing the demand for illegal workers requires stiff workplace enforcement, stringent penalties for hiring undocumented workers, and shared sacrifice from Americans accustomed to benefiting from cheap labor. Reducing the supply requires bigger Border Patrol budgets and enforcement measures that will inevitably be criticized as draconian: some kind of tamper-proof Social Security card, most likely, and then more physical walls along our southern border, as opposed to the “virtual” wall that the Obama administration seems to be wisely abandoning.
You can see why our leaders would rather duck the problem. But when Washington doesn’t act, the people on the front lines end up taking matters into their own hands.
If you don’t like what Arizona just did, the answer isn’t to scream “fascist!” It’s to demand that the federal government do its job, so that we can have the immigration system that both Americans and immigrants deserve.
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PS: I just made those two call too.
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"The other half of the equation is not allowing people in the US to knowingly hire illegals..."
Agree in the case of 'knowingly'. My sister who consults in Human Resources complains of legislation putting more burdens on employers. Immigration law is the responsibility of the US Govt. The employer's burden should be limited to disclosing who they hire and who they intend to hire and to provide whatever information to the Feds that they require. Then the burden goes back to the govt for enforcement.
I'm not in the business of hiring but as a landlord I wonder the same question. Should I checking and stopping illegals from renting? It hasn't been an issue for me yet. I know some towns have tried to crack down on landlords for that. Like the challenge the police will face under the Arizona law, I have to be very very careful to give people from any/all demographic groups equal and fair treatment. If I demand proof of something from someone Hispanic or from elsewhere, then I need to demand it of everyone.
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LUTON, England — When Mohammed Qurban stood outside the Jamia mosque in the heavily Muslim Bury Park district on Tuesday and spoke anxiously about Britain’s record-high levels of immigration, he was reflecting a powerful undercurrent that could help tip victory in dozens of constituencies in Thursday’s general election to the main opposition groups vying with the governing Labour Party for power, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
Nick Griffin, British National Party leader, waited to confront the Conservatives’ David Cameron in Dagenham on Saturday.
“I think this country is coming overpopulated, too many people coming in from everywhere, especially Europe,” Mr. Qurban said, as fellow worshipers nodded in assent. In particular, he said, thousands of Poles in Luton were taking jobs from the children and grandchildren of a previous generation of immigrants like himself, those who arrived from Pakistan in one of Britain’s early waves of migration in the 1960s.
The conversation with Mr. Qurban, and at least a dozen others like it with Muslims in Luton, captured a shift of potentially far-reaching significance. The most strident opponents of large-scale immigration have traditionally been white, native-born Britons, and their favorite target immigrant blacks and Asians, particularly Muslims.
The incongruity was not lost on Mr. Qurban, 56, a rental agent who seemed keen to separate himself from the skinheads and others whose anti-immigrant agitation has sometimes turned violent. “This is my town, this is my bread-and-butter,” he said. “I’m a law-abiding citizen, never crossed the line, that is definitely out of order. The Poles have a problem at home as we do in Pakistan, no jobs, no money. I want to go along with them. But definitely, it’s up to the government to put a cap on it.”
The Poles, of course, are not technically immigrants. As part of the European Union, Britain is subject to its labor laws, which guarantee free movement of workers among member nations. With the financial crisis and the evaporation of millions of jobs, these legal migrants — accounting for 40 percent of the inflow in Britain — have stirred tensions throughout the union. The other 60 percent are foreigners, most of them illegal immigrants.
Voters consistently rank the high level of immigration as one of the most pressing issues, after the recession-hit economy, the state-run health service and crime. But since the 1950s, when Caribbean immigrants gave the country its first experience of large-scale, sustained population inflows, it has been an issue that has carried the potential for electoral disaster. Then and in succeeding decades, when new arrivals began arriving in large numbers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, any politician advocating stricter curbs risked drawing charges of racism, as well as alienating increasingly important voter blocs.
But this election has been different, with all three major parties saying something must be done to reduce migrant flows that have brought a net inflow since Labour came to power in 1997 of about two million foreigners, many of them people who found their way into Britain without prior approval. (a.k.a. illegally :roll:)
That has been enough to have government statisticians predict that the population of Britain, already one of Europe’s most overcrowded nations, could grow by nearly 10 million, to 70 million, within 20 years, according to the Office for National Statistics, a government agency.
Luton, a city 50 miles northwest of London where a fifth of the population of about 100,000 are of Asian origin, has been a microcosm, in many ways, of the challenges immigration has posed. The party winning the constituency of Luton South, where most of the city’s Muslims live, has won every general election in Britain since 1951.
For the last decade, Luton has been a byword for many of Britain’s social and economic afflictions, as well as for tensions over immigrant communities. It has long been a down-at-the-heels neighbor to the more prosperous cities and towns that surround it. A major blow came in the last decade, when General Motors closed a local car plant, with the loss of more than 30,000 jobs.
When four Islamic suicide bombers attacked London’s transit system on July 7, 2005, killing 56 people, including themselves, they set off from Luton. Last year, Muslim extremists caused an outcry when they disrupted a parade for British soldiers returning from Iraq. Soon after, a Luton mosque was firebombed.
But there has been little sign of ethnic tensions in the current campaign, in which Luton South has been singled out as one of about 100 Labour-held “marginal” seats the Conservatives need as part of their strategy for winning the election. Conservative hopes have been raised by the disgracing of the departing Labour member of Parliament, Margaret Moran, who said she was stepping down after drawing headlines in last year’s scandal over parliamentary expenses.
But the immigration issue is the one that could cut most into the Labour vote. Labour, traditionally strong with immigrants, has defended its record by saying that new rules since the last election have brought arrivals down sharply from a high of 330,000 in 2007 to 250,000 in 2008 — though much of the difference was accounted for by Europeans who chose voluntarily to go home. The Conservatives have said they will introduce a cap on the total numbers, reducing the inflow by as much as 50 percent.
Liberal Democrats also favor a reduction, but would grant an amnesty to an estimated one million illegal immigrants who can prove they have been in Britain for 10 years.
Even the far-right British National Party has changed its policy, bowing to court rulings that threatened it with a ban unless it shed its whites-only dogmas. Now it favors an end to all immigration, although it says people from “alien cultures” should be offered $75,000 each to accept “voluntary repatriation.”
“It’s not about race,” Nick Griffin, the party’s leader, said in an interview over the weekend as he led a noisy protest against David Cameron, the Conservative leader, in the London suburb of Romford. “What we’re saying is, ‘Britain is full up. The door is closed.’ ”
An influential immigration-monitoring group, Migration Watch, says it, too, sees the issue as having moved beyond race. “It’s about numbers and space, not about race,” said Sir Andrew Green, a former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who leads the group. “We’re a very small island, and the issue is what it will mean to the country if the population grows to 70 million in 20 years’ time.”
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/06/violent-movie-declares-war-arizona-immigration-law/
Updated May 06, 2010
Violent Movie Declares War on Arizona for Immigration Law
FOXNews.com
YouTube
An image from the trailer for 'Machete,' a revenge flick that centers on an assassination plot against an anti-immigration U.S. senator.
A violent new film from cult director Robert Rodriguez is declaring war on Arizona with a "special Cinco De Mayo message" in the wake of the state's controversial illegal immigration law.
That message is: "They just f---ed with the wrong Mexican."
"Machete," which features a knife-wielding Mexican assassin out for revenge against double-crossing gringos, won't be in theaters until September, but it is already sparking a political melee over Wednesday's stab at the Grand Canyon State.
In the trailer for the film, the title character is hired to assassinate an anti-immigration U.S. senator played by Robert De Niro. Protesters are seen waving nationalist signs as the senator speaks to a charged-up rally: "We are at war," he booms. "Every time an illegal dances across our border, it is an act of aggression against this sovereign state — an overt act of terrorism."
But before the trailer even begins, the battle-scarred title character stares out from the screen as he tells viewers that what's about to unfold — an immigration-laced slasher grindhouse flick — is about the current border battle in Arizona.
Click here to see the video.
The trailer was released Wednesday, just 24 hours after an envelope filled with a still-undetermined white powder was sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, temporarily closing the State Capitol in Phoenix. The powder spilled out when a staffer opened it Tuesday morning, sending Hazmat teams scrambling through the governor's offices. No one was sickened, but state police and the FBI are investigating the incident.
It was just the latest development in a debate that is growing more rancorous by the minute.
Some outspoken critics of illegal immigration took umbrage at the movie trailer and its swipe at Arizona, which is the entry point for one-third of all illegal immigrants in the U.S.
"It's pretty ugly out there," said former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, a staunch advocate of tougher immigration laws. "Half the time that's the way all of us are depicted: corrupt, no good, racist."
Tancredo, who served in the House from 1999-2009, said he received "tons of death threats" while in office and frequently wore a bulletproof vest during public speeches. Though the language of the film is nothing new to him, he said he still finds it offensive.
"The racists who made that trailer, they are as racist as anything I have ever seen" from either side of the immigration debate, Tancredo said.
But, he added, "these guys are 'politically correct' racists, so you cannot heap indignities upon them."
In "Machete," the protagonist, played by Danny Trejo, is a former Mexican Federale now looking for work as a day laborer in Texas. He charges $70 a day for yard work, but an oily businessman makes him an offer he can't refuse: $150,000 to take out a senator bent on deporting illegal immigrants.
"As you know, illegal Americans are being forced out of our country at an alarming rate," says the contractor. "For the good of both our people, the senator must die."
The film, which is set to be released Sept. 3, is produced by 20th Century Fox, a production company owned by Fox News' parent company, News Corp.
20th Century Fox said that Rodriguez speaks for himself on political issues. The studio was comfortable with the release of the movie trailer on Cinco De Mayo, but says it has no political stake in the immigration debate.
Representatives for Rodriguez did not return requests for comment. But the head of the production studio handling the international release of the film said "Machete" is a classic grindhouse picture typical of the man who made "Desperado" and "Sin City."
"'Machete' is a Robert Rodriguez movie through and through, wild and wonderful, exactly the kind of exciting and irreverent genre movie that his fans dream about," Ashok Amritraj, CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, said in an interview with Variety Magazine.
De Niro, playing the senator, fits many familiar tropes about the Southwest: he's a gun-toting, Stetson hat-wearing, flag pin-blazing cowboy from Texas.
He and Trejo are joined by a number of stars: Cheech Marin plays a shotgun-shooting warrior priest, Lindsay Lohan plays the senator's Patty Hearst-like daughter and Don Johnson, as a sheriff, growls that "there's nothing I'd like more than to see more than that Mexican dance the bolero at the end of a rope."
Jessica Alba, a border patrol agent, rallies a group of laborers while crying, "We didn't cross the border — the border crossed us!"
Tancredo, who argued that the film should not be distributed at all, said he wasn't worried the movie would incite any violence, but that its political message was clear.
"I think it is a true reflection of exactly who these people are and what they think about America," he said.
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Yep here we go..........the LA riots redux: (Phoenix?) are gonna happen in what major SW city?
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The Washington Times suggests a solution:
"[W]hile millionaire athletes become walking billboards for a political cause, the state of Arizona might want to review the terms of its relationship with the Suns. If Mr. Sarver wants to use his team to push a political agenda, perhaps citizens can push back. Imagine Phoenix residents channeling the spirits of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. by turning up en masse to Suns games, sneaking in without tickets, demanding special services like free food and access to box seats, overtaxing arena security and ruining the game for the people with tickets. They can call it a celebration of diversity."
We might add that if you give birth at a game, you get lifetime season tickets for the anchor baby. Or maybe the Suns should stick to basketball. Just a thought.
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The protest that will get the owners attention is if he suddenly gets letters from long time supporters saying- "due to your political activism I can no longer support the team. Your politics is going to kill my income, so I am taking preemptive action by shutting you down first". It would be best to have it happen quietly but enmasse..........I wonder when people will start.
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"'Machete,'"
And of course it will be up for some kind of an award. Probably not oscar but some film festival award which are mostly PACs for pushing liberal agendas.
"As you know, illegal Americans are being forced out of our country at an alarming rate," says the contractor. "For the good of both our people, the senator must die."
*Real* Americans should boycott everyone associated with this movie.
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Manhattan-Moment/Arizona-law-is-hated-because-it-could-be-effective-92851479.html
Read it all.
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OK. Lets stop illegal immigration at all our borders including NYC, Canada and everywhere else.
Then we stop hiring illegals.
Then we stop allowing illegals to utilize public services except for emergencies.
WE change the thing where you are born here from illegal parents you are an automatic citizen.
Viola - problem reduced by probably 90%.
Simple.
The real problem is we have cowards for politicans.
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Woof,
And now, in the name of social justice, Eric Holder is looking into stopping the Arizona law at the federal level. He won't act to protect the citizens of Arizona by enforcing the laws we already have but he will act to protect criminals that are here illegally. :-P This is our top Federal law enforcement official?
You can voice your opinion on the subject by calling the Attorney General's comment line at: 202-353-1555 or email the Department of Justice at: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
I told them that I knew I couldn't appeal to their sense of right and wrong and that I knew that political corruption throughout our government system had rendered them guardians of the status quo but I also told them that at least I could show them where all that blood on their hands came from, and sent them the web address's of the victims site in my earlier post. :evil: I'm sure I'll be on some kind of watchlist now but I was probably already on one. :lol:
P.C.
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A progressive site has some concrete info
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/12/arizona-reasonable-suspicion/
along with , , , some progressive stuff.
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and, clicking our way along the cyber brick road, we find:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/05/09/20100509immigration-law-momentum.html
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Woof,
Let's see what the people say.
http://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/1591/public-support-arizona-immigration-law-poll
P.C.
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Woof,
As the city of LA, mis characterizes Arizona's new law and mettles in the affairs of citizens from another state, it does nothing to protect its own citizens from the burdens of illegal immigration.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37116009
However, some city's in CA are seeing the writting on the wall.
www.kcba.com/Global/story.asp?S=12472952
It's against Federal law to aid and abet illegal aliens and it is quite blatant in CA.
P.C.
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I'm boycotting CA. and will deliberately spend money in AZ.
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The tracking course I'm taking will be in AZ and we are planning to take our next family vacation in AZ.
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I wish I had the money to air spanish language ads in AZ pointing out all the wonderful sanctuary cities in CA and subsidize bus tickets to those places. See how Ah-nold likes that.
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That would be VERY funny.
I saw today that our Guv said he would be afraid to travel to AZ without a passport because of his accent. A cheap political joke :-P
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Woof GM,
You may have hit on something there, LA may be worried that if the new law is effective and other states implement it as well, that all the illegals will end up there instead of going back to their home countries. Let's see how long they can keep the welcome mat out if that happens. :-P
P.C.
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For those of us who missed this. What an anus!
===========================
Holder Admits to Not Reading Arizona's Immigration Law Despite Criticizing It
FOXNews.com
Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee May 13 on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo)
Despite repeatedly voicing concerns about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law in recent weeks and threatening to challenge it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has not yet read the law -- which is only 10 pages long.
"I have not had a chance to -- I've glanced at it," Holder said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing when asked had he read the state law cracking down on illegal immigrants.
Holder told reporters last month that he fears the new law is subject to abuse and that the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department are in the midst of conducting a review.
The Arizona law requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally.
The law has sparked protests across the country, including a City Council-approved boycott of Arizona businesses by Los Angeles.But proponents deny that the law encourages racial profilng, with some saying the local controversy is a symptom of a broken federal immigration system.
Holder said last month that a number of options are under consideration, including the possibility of a court challenge. On Thursday, Holder said he plans to read the law before reaching a decision on whether he thinks it's constitutional. When asked by Rep.Ted Poe, R-Texas, how he could have constitutional concerns about a law he has not read, Holder said: "Well, what I've said is that I've not made up my mind. I've only made the comments that I've made on the basis of things that I've been able to glean by reading newspaper accounts, obviously, television, talking to people who are on the review panel...looking at the law."
On Sunday, Holder said he does not think Arizona's law is racially motivated but voiced concern that its enforcement could lead to racial profiling.
Holder said he understands the frustration behind the Arizona law, but he warned during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" that "we could potentially get on a slippery slope where people will be picked on because of how they look as opposed to what they have done."
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Will there ever by outrage from the mainstream media?
I still say Republicans can blunt the racial thing by clearly pointing out that we will not tolerate illegal immigration from any country not just the Mexicans and the southern border.
When Hannity had it pointed out to him from Juan Williams (whom I like) that there are 50,000 illegal Irish in NYC he ignored the comment. Well what does anyone expect then when he is silent over this yet screaming talking points that are clearly geared towards Latinos????
My question is why is there and why do we tolerate 50K illegal Irish in NYC? Why is this not as outrageous as the Latinos coming here illegally? What is the difference? Illegal is illegal. Juan Williams has a point.
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"why do we tolerate 50K illegal Irish in NYC? Why is this not as outrageous as the Latinos coming here illegally? What is the difference?"
Your point on principle is valid, but the issue of the moment is the Arizona law and that would most certainly apply to illegals from Ireland. Most supporters nationwide of the Arizona law would like to see it duplicated elsewhere.
I think we already agreed Hannity is not the brightest light nor a leader in the movement nor running for anything. I assume he was blindsided by that statistic, if true.
My primary justification for border control and document checking comes from learning about the 19 hijackers who lived among us for the wrong reasons so I should not sneeze at 50,000 as a small number. But 50k is not 20 million, when you ask what is the difference. Another difference is that we don't share a border with Ireland so checking the entry is a possible. Like with the hijackers, I imagine they overstay their visas, live and hide among us while law enforcement turns a blind eye even when discovered in a traffic stop for example. NYC (and the rest)should end its own safe haven for illegals status if it wants people to have respect for the law.
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Doug, Agreed by far Latinos make up the largest proportion of illegals.
But my point is not just on principal.
IMO opinion it is quite the contrary. It is political.
IF we keep making this about Mexcans and other Southern Americans coming here and not about ALL illegals those opposed to doing anything about it, primarily Latinos and their liberal buddies will continue to keep making this about "race". It isn't as you know but they can continue to rile up the Hispanics who have the nerve to walk accorss th border illegally and than lecture us about rights, humane treament, dignity and all the rest of the crap while they take advantage of the political correct crowd whose ONLY concern is more Demcocrat voters. Could you imagine the Bama crowd if these people voted for Republicans??
It is all about politics.
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CCP, You are 100% right on the national issue being all about politics. Obama wants and needs the new people legalized based on projected voting and he wants the R's portrayed as opposing it based on ethnicity. It seems to me though that the property owners of AZ are at wits end because of trespassing, kidnapping etc. not ethnicity. I agree that the marketing of that message must be done very carefully and precisely.
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Woof,
There are plenty of people from all kinds of different races that want to come here, why should Hispanics be allowed such out of proportionate numbers? Where is the social justice there? Of course comparing 50,000 Irish in NY to the 450,000 Mexican illegals in Arizona and the tens of millions more across the states is way out of whack. A Mexican, is a Mexican, and there is nothing racial in identifying them as Mexican! And noting that millions of Mexicans are breaking our immigration laws then us setting out to stop them from illegally entering the states and doing our best to deport them back to Mexico, is not racist either. And it wouldn't be such a problem if our politicians stopped acting in their own best interest and did what was in the best interest of the People and enforced our laws. Jeez! This isn't about rights or discrimination, this is about our corrupt government and our laws being ignored by our neighbours. Bad neighbors! And what makes good neighbors? Good fences. And what makes good government? Small government. And we need to stop letting the Left frame the argument and redefine the meanings of words in their politically correct way, it's an argument we can't win regardless of fact and they know the facts aren't on their side so that's why they keep changing the argument into one about race and civil rights; we need to keep on topic, which is illegal immigration, security, sovereignty and the rule of law. Even when they discuss the issue they frame it as immigration, not illegal immigration; when they discuss the individuals coming here illegally they call them immigrants as if no law has been broken. Of course all of this is being driven by the press, who frame it perfectly for the Left. We have got to bring it back to the facts and call a Mexican and Mexican and a Mexican here illegally an illegal alien from Mexico, in violation of Federal law. I mean these aren't five or six Swedish swimsuit models coming across the Canadian border; these are thousands of Mexican nationals flooding illegally into our nation everyday, with millions staying here on a permanent level. We don't know who they are, what they've done, what they are doing here or how many of them there are. We do know they flood our nation with illegal drugs, are over crowding our schools, draining our benefit funds, overwhelming our hospitals and law enforcement agencies and jails, with a total cost of about 68 billion dollars a year and countless American citizens victimized by crimes committed by them. And yes many just want work; well great, go back and come in by the F'in rules!
P.C.
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"Hannity is not the brightest light."
Amen to that-- and IMHO his "emotional IQ" is well below average. Sometimes I wonder if he does our cause as much harm as good.
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Student’s Arrest Tests Immigration Policy
By ROBBIE BROWN
Published: May 14, 2010
ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old college student and illegal Mexican immigrant at the center of a contentious immigration case, surrendered to a Georgia sheriff on Friday but continued to deny wrongdoing.
Ms. Colotl was arrested in March for driving without a license and could face deportation next year. On Wednesday the sheriff filed a felony charge against her for providing a false address to the police.
The case has become a flash point in the national debate over whether federal immigration laws should be enforced by local and state officials. And like Arizona’s tough new immigration law, it has highlighted a rift between the federal government and local politicians over how illegal immigrants should be detected and prosecuted.
“I never thought that I’d be caught up in this messed-up system,” Ms. Colotl said Friday at a news conference after being released on $2,500 bail. “I was treated like a criminal, like a threat to the nation.”
Civil rights groups say Ms. Colotl should be spared deportation because she was brought to the United States without legal documents by her parents at age 11. They also note that she has excelled academically and was discovered to be here illegally only after a routine traffic violation. Supporters of immigration laws and the sheriff’s office in Cobb County say she violated state law, misled the police about her address and should not receive special treatment for her age or education.
Ms. Colotl was pulled over March 29 by a campus officer at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta, where she is two semesters from graduation, for “impeding the flow of traffic.” After she presented the officer an expired Mexican passport instead of a valid driver’s license, she was arrested and taken to a county jail, where she acknowledged being an illegal immigrant. On May 5, she was transferred to the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama to await deportation to Mexico.
But after protests by Latino groups, demonstrations at the Georgia Capitol by her sorority sisters and a letter of support from the university’s president, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency granted a one-year deferral on her deportation so she could finish college. The “deferred action” means she could still be deported, but will be allowed to apply for an extension next year. Her ultimate goal, Ms. Colotl said at the news conference, is that proposed legislation called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — known as the Dream Act — will become law, providing students without legal immigration status a path to become legal.
She and her lawyer declined to discuss the immigration status of her parents.
In Georgia, the case has become intensely political. Ms. Colotl received in-state tuition, substantially reducing her cost of attending Kennesaw State. The university will charge her out-of-state rates in the future, but Republican politicians are calling for new legislation to make attendance more expensive, or impossible, for illegal immigrants.
One Republican candidate for governor, Eric Johnson, has said that if elected he will mandate that all college applicants demonstrate their citizenship. The chancellor of the state university system says that would be prohibitively expensive, costing $1.5 million, for roughly 300,000 students.
Under a program by the Department of Homeland Security, known as 287(g), local sheriffs are permitted to handle federal immigration law enforcement. The Cobb County sheriff’s office was the first in Georgia and one of the first in the United States to apply for the program. Immigration is a hot topic in the largely conservative county, where Hispanics make up 11 percent of the population, census figures show.
Mary Bauer, the legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is assisting in Ms. Colotl’s defense, said Cobb County had a history of using federal laws designed to detect dangerous criminals for arresting illegal immigrants for minor offenses. A review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that from 2007 to 2009, the main crime for which immigration detainees were arrested in the county was traffic offenses.
“This is a civil rights disaster,” said Ms. Bauer, who called the county’s application of the law “mean-spirited and very probably illegal. We call on the Obama administration to end 287(g),” she said.
Supporters of strict immigration legislation say Ms. Colotl’s case was handled legally.
The sheriff, Neil Warren, said Ms. Colotl provided a false address to the police, a felony charge. Her lawyers say that she provided the address of the residence where she used to live and to where her car insurance is registered, and that she also provided her current address.
No exception should be made, however admirable the offender, said Phil Kent, a spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, a national group opposed to illegal immigration.
“Ironically, she says she wants to go on to law school, but she’s undermining the law,” Mr. Kent said. “What’s the point of educating an illegal immigrant in a system where she can’t hold a job legally or get a driver’s license?”
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“I never thought that I’d be caught up in this messed-up system,” Ms. Colotl said Friday at a news conference after being released on $2,500 bail. “I was treated like a criminal, like a threat to the nation.”
“This is a civil rights disaster,” said Ms. Bauer, who called the county’s application of the law “mean-spirited and very probably illegal. We call on the Obama administration to end 287(g),” she said.
What can I say? Simply mind boggling is it not?
If only these people were not mostly Democrats - I guarantee this problem would not exist.
Isn't part of the concept of machismo about repect? Yet we get disrespected daily in our own country.
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/05/026310.php
US State Dept. apologizes to China for Arizona. Seriously.
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Everyone should read the law and be 10 pages ahead of Eric Holder the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, and the President who lies about the law. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf
It is NOT immigration law as I read it. Immigration status is 100% established by the federal government. It merely creates new state penalties and enforcement procedures for what is already unlawful under federal law.
An apology to the Chinese for Arizona?? The departments of immigration and homeland security should be apologizing to Arizona.
This situation has the potential for exploding into something much larger.
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"This situation has the potential for exploding into something much larger."
Radio host Savage was saying how he is happy about all this. It is about time we have this fight and stop suppressing it.
He is ready for the fight and it is about time. I can't say I don't feel the same way. I don't see why citizens and other legal residents (who got in line and did it the legal way) have to keep taking this abuse.
We are being stepped on and I am tired of it.
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GM:
That is fg extraordinary, even for the Oboids.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/17/obama-administration-to-china-sorry-about-that-racist-az-law/
It gets even better.
BTW, After 9/11, China banned all muslims from flying for a period of time. Remember the outrage and boycotts? Me either.
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Woof,
It wouldn't surprise me if Obama handed the governor of Arizona over to the UN world court to answer for crimes against humanity.
And then there is this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100517/ts_afp/healthchinapollution
And this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100517/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_s_aunt
P.C.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/17/palin-hits-huntsman-for-dumping-on-arizonas-immigration-law-in-front-of-china/
Thank god for Sarah!
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MIAMI — Meaghan Patrick, a junior at New College of Florida, a tiny liberal arts college in Sarasota, says discussing immigration with her older relatives is like “hitting your head against a brick wall.”
“I just feel like it’s unfair what the government does to immigrants.” ANDREA BONVECCHIO, 17-year-old U.S.-born daughter of a naturalized citizen.
Cathleen McCarthy, a senior at the University of Arizona, says immigration is the rare, radioactive topic that sparks arguments with her liberal mother and her grandmother.
“Many older Americans feel threatened by the change that immigration presents,” Ms. McCarthy said. “Young people today have simply been exposed to a more accepting worldview.”
Forget sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll; immigration is a new generational fault line.
In the wake of the new Arizona law allowing the police to detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally, young people are largely displaying vehement opposition — leading protests on Monday at Senator John McCain’s offices in Tucson, and at the game here between the Florida Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Meanwhile, baby boomers, despite a youth of “live and let live,” are siding with older Americans and supporting the Arizona law.
This emerging divide has appeared in a handful of surveys taken since the measure was signed into law, including a New York Times/CBS News poll this month that found that Americans 45 and older were more likely than the young to say the Arizona law was “about right” (as opposed to “going too far” or “not far enough”). Boomers were also more likely to say that “no newcomers” should be allowed to enter the country while more young people favored a “welcome all” approach.
The generational conflict could complicate chances of a federal immigration overhaul any time soon. “The hardening of this divide spells further stalemate,” said Roberto Suro, the former head of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.
And the causes are partly linked to experience. Demographically, younger and older Americans grew up in vastly different worlds. Those born after the civil rights era lived in a country of high rates of legal and illegal immigration. In their neighborhoods and schools, the presence of immigrants was as hard to miss as a Starbucks today.
In contrast, baby boomers and older Americans — even those who fought for integration — came of age in one of the most homogenous moments in the country’s history.
Immigration, which census figures show declined sharply from the Depression through the 1960s, reached a historic low point the year after Woodstock. From 1860 through 1920, 13 percent to 15 percent of the country was foreign born — a rate similar to today’s, when immigrants make up about 12.5 percent of the country.
But in 1970, only 4.7 percent of the country was foreign born, and most of those immigrants were older Europeans, often unnoticed by the boomer generation born from 1946 to 1964.
Boomers and their parents also spent their formative years away from the cities, where newer immigrants tended to gather — unlike today’s young people who have become more involved with immigrants, through college, or by moving to urban areas.
“It’s hard for them to share each others’ views on what’s going on,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “These older people grew up in largely white suburbs or largely segregated neighborhoods. Young people have grown up in an interracial culture.”
The generation gap is especially pronounced in formerly fast-growing states like Arizona and Florida, where retirees and new immigrants have flocked — one group for sun, the other for work.
In a new report based on census figures titled “The State of Metropolitan America,” Mr. Frey found that Arizona has the largest “cultural generation gap,” as he calls it, between older Americans who are largely white (83 percent in Arizona’s case) and children under 18 who are increasingly members of minorities (57 percent in Arizona’s case).
Florida ranks sixth on Mr. Frey’s cultural generation gap list, with a 29 percentage point difference between the percentage of white people among its older residents and the percentage that whites make up of its children.
That very different makeup of the young and the old can lead t0 tensions. Demographers say it has the potential to produce public policy that alienates the young because older people are more likely to vote and less likely to be connected to the perspectives of youth — especially the perspectives of young people of different races and national origins.
“Short term, politically, the age divide heightens polarization,” Mr. Suro said “Long term,” he added, “there’s the challenge of whether older citizens will pay for the education of the children of immigrants.”
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(Page 2 of 2)
Some older Americans acknowledge that how they grew up has shaped their opinions. Mike Lombardi, 56, of Litchfield, Ariz. — one of 1,079 respondents in the Times/CBS poll conducted from April 28 to May 2 — said his support for his state’s new law stemmed partly from the shock of seeing gaggles of immigrants outside Home Depot, who he assumed were illegal. Comparing the situation to his youth in Torrance, Calif., in a follow-up interview, he said, “You didn’t see anything like what you see now.”
Maggie Aspillaga, 62, a Cuban immigrant in Miami, had more specific concerns: a risk of crime from illegal immigrants and the costs in health care and other services. “They’re taking resources,” she said.
Some young people agree, of course, just as many baby boomers support more open immigration policies. In the poll, a majority of Americans in all age groups described illegal immigration as a “very serious” problem.
Still, divisions were pronounced by age: for instance, while 41 percent of Americans ages 45 to 64 and 36 percent of older Americans said immigration levels should be decreased, only 24 percent of those younger than 45 said so.
Ms. Patrick, 22, said the gap reflected what each group saw as normal. In her view, current immigration levels — legal and illegal — represent “the natural course of history.”
As children, after all, her generation watched “Sesame Street” with Hispanic characters, many of them sat in classrooms that were a virtual United Nations, and now they marry across ethnic lines in record numbers. Their children are even adopting mixed monikers like “Mexipino,” (Mexican and Filipino) and “Blaxican” (black and Mexican).
That “multiculti” (short for multicultural) United States is not without challenges. Aparna Malladi, 31, a graduate student at Florida International University originally from India, said that when she first entered laboratories in Miami, it took a while for her to learn the customs.
“I didn’t know that when I enter a room, I have to greet everyone and say goodbye when I leave,” Ms. Malladi said. “People thought I was being rude.”
Still, in interviews across the nation, young people emphasized the benefits of immigrants. Andrea Bonvecchio, 17, the daughter of a naturalized citizen from Venezuela, said going to a high school that is “like 98 percent Hispanic” meant she could find friends who enjoyed both Latin music and her favorite movie, “The Parent Trap.”
Nicole Vespia, 18, of Selden, N.Y., said older people who were worried about immigrants stealing jobs were giving up on an American ideal: capitalist meritocracy.
“If someone works better than I do, they deserve to get the job,” Ms. Vespia said. “I work in a stockroom, and my best workers are people who don’t really speak English. It’s cool to get to know them.”
Her parents’ generation, she added, just needs to adapt.
“My stepdad says, ‘Why do I have to press 1 for English?’ I think that’s ridiculous,” Ms. Vespia said, referring to the common instruction on customer-service lines. “It’s not that big of a deal. Quit crying about it. Press the button.”
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"a junior at New College of Florida, a tiny liberal arts college in Sarasota"
And that is the problem. What does a kid like this know about the world beyond the coombaya nature of her classroom and her facebook?
Perhaps her older relatives are paying her bills?
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Woof,
And they continue to simply overlook the difference between immigration and illegal immigration. I'm not against or threaten by immigration to our country but illegal immigration is a threat to our stability and I and every other American, old, young, native born or immigrant should be against that.
P.C.
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Crafty,
Where would you have been on the immigration issue, were you back in your hippy-dippy days?
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Large radio host posed an interesting question yesterday... Is it also a Human Rights Violation that the Obama Administration will secure borders, check documents and refuse entry to the White House for the undocumented during the upcoming State Dinner with the Mexican President? Why would they do that? How is that different than Arizona's concerns?
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Large radio host posed an interesting question yesterday... Is it also a Human Rights Violation that the Obama Administration will secure borders, check documents and refuse entry to the White House for the undocumented during the upcoming State Dinner with the Mexican President? Why would they do that? How is that different than Arizona's concerns?
I thought I would add to the mix. But first, let me be clear, I am against ILLEGAL Immigration; period. You can ship them all home IMHO.
However, that being said, I think the issue, or at least my concern is racial profiling. Let me use your example above. In your example, I presume/expect the White House will "secure borders, check documents, and refuse entry" to ALL regardless of race, color or creed who do not have proper documentation for entry. For example, I'm born in the USA, white, blond (some grey) and blue eyed of German/Norwegian blood. Next to me is Jose, born in the USA, dark haired, dark skinned, of Mexican blood. Who will get stopped and asked for papers at the White House. Both of us I expect. But in Arizona? Probably only Jose. Does that seem right to you? Is it fair that I get a pass yet Jose will get hassled?
As I mentioned, I am against illegal immigration; I don't understand the confusion over the word "illegal". But that applies to any illegal immigrant regardless of where they are from. I don't think it fair to target one group. Today it is Mexicans. Before, it was Asians. Tomorrow?
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The law doesn't target one group or another. It applies to Illegal Aliens from Pakistan, Mexico and Ireland and all other parts of the globe. My wife, who is a Lawful Alien must carry her "Green Card" with her at all times and present it upon demand, per federal law. She likes AZ's law and would be more than happy to provide the green card along with her driver's lic to any LEO who cared to ask.
Most cops are well aware that there are plenty of Americans of hispanic ancestry. Many cops, especially in the southwestern US are hispanic. The idea that the AZ law will fuel some ethnic pogrom is not based in anything but hysteria and the left playing their favorite race card.
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http://www.slate.com/id/2226509/
What do Timothy McVeigh, Ted Bundy, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, and 9/11 ring-leader Mohammed Atta have in common? They're all murderers, yes, but another curious detail uniting them is that they were all also brought to police attention by "routine" traffic violations.
While living in Florida, for example, Mohammed Atta ran afoul of traffic law on numerous occasions. An arrest warrant was even issued after he skipped a court appearance (related to not having had a valid driver's license during a traffic stop), which raises the haunting possibility that his fatal path might have been interrupted had these transgressions been linked to other legal violations, such as overstaying a visa. (In fact, at least two of the other 9/11 hijackers had been pulled over for speeding, too.)
**Wouldn't it have been nice if the 9/11 hijackers had gotten arrested as the result of an AZ type law?**
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JDN: "I am against ILLEGAL Immigration period." - Right and that was the only point of the analogy, THEY have the right to control who enters the event even if I think Sarah Palin or Glen Beck should be free to walk in and liven up the event. Having rules and enforcement is necessary for security and to keep some sort of control. They won't be checking docs for Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton because they look familiar, but if either were to run a red light in AZ they would be asked for their driver's license and proof of insurance, and if something indicates they may be a foreign national then whatever other documents legally required would be needed. Plenty of blond/slightly graying people are non-US citizens. Jose can not lawfully be pulled over for looking Hispanic but Wolfgang or Lars, if caught speeding, may be detained for carrying a false ID or expired visa. True?
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@GM: Well, back in my hippy dippy days in the 60s the numbers were far, far smaller AND I was , , , dippy. Stil,l I did notice that Nixon's anti-pot campaign against Mexico had the effect of jump-starting the cocaine trade which now poisons everything in Mexico. Shrewd, real shrewd :roll: In the 70s, I discovered that my anti-authorian nature was more at home on the right than the left (my micro and macro econ courses at U. Penn played a big role here) and I began seriousl travel and study in Mexico and about Mexico at Penn. My studies at Penn educated me inter alia about the demographics of the Mexican population growth rate and the political-economics of its economy. In the 1980's I regarded Reagan's amnesty as a reasonable compromise that would solve the growing problem. In the 1990s I saw that the Feds did not keep the promise of the Reagan compromise to defend the border in return for amnesty. So, now, in this millenium I apply the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me."
I like Mexico. I like Mexicans. Mexico was my focus country when I majored in International Relations at U. of PA. I speak Spanish, rather well I might add, when I go to Mexico. I only get into Mexico when they let me do so and as required by Mexican law I carry my tourist visa with me when I am there. When I spent the summer after my first year of law school working for the largest law firm in Mexico (I had spent a semester at a Mexican law school between getting my BA at U Penn and entering Columbia law school here in the US) I had to comply with Mexican law in order to do so.
@all:
JDN's post plants the question fairly, and I think GM answers it well. PC nails the disingenuous nature of the POTH piece.
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Crafty,
I was going for a more simplistic point, meaning that the generational divide on illegal immigration is similar to the generational divide on other topics. What makes sense in one's late teens/early 20's often doesn't survive contact with actual adulthood. The bio is interesting though.
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Woof,
To clarify how the law would be implemented; firstly, any consideration of legal status must come after, I repeat, after contact has been made with any subject during the course of a law enforcement officer detaining them for some violation of law and during the course of this detention has cause to suspect that the subject is here illegally, the officer can then investigate the subjects legal status. In other words, if you run a stop sign and the cop pulls you over and you don't have a valid drivers license or any other form of ID on you or if you have a foreign license or something that shows that you are from another nation, and you can't produce a green card or passport then the cop can reasonably suspect that the subject is here illegally. It doesn't matter if they are white, brown or three shades of green with a clowns nose on their face, if there is some evidence that they are here illegally, then they can be detained futher until their status is established. If you are hispanic and are pulled over for running a stop sign, the cop will ask you for your license, he'll look at it, write you a ticket for running the sign or give you a warning, and send you on your way. There is no profiling involved in this law.
P.C.
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**If Colorado had AZ's law in place, could this have been avoided?**
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_10401431
ICE holds driver in crash
Aurora hit-run killed 2 women in pickup, 3-year-old in ice cream shop
By Kirk Mitchell and Ann Schrader
The Denver Post
Posted: 09/07/2008 12:30:00 AM MDT
Updated: 09/07/2008 09:41:17 AM MDT
Aurora— As new questions arose about the man police say is responsible for the tragedy, several hundred friends and relatives gathered Saturday night outside an ice cream shop to mourn three lives suddenly lost.
"It hurts now," said Vito Kudlis, surrounded by friends as he and his wife, Enely, wept for their 3-year-old son, Marten. "It is freaky. It is crazy."
Marten, Patricia Guntharp, 49, of Centennial and Debra Serecky, 51, of Aurora all died when a Thursday night collision caused vehicles to careen into the Baskin-Robbins at the corner of South Havana Street and East Mississippi Avenue.
Saturday night, they were remembered in a candlelight vigil. Small children held glow sticks as others added stuffed animals —
The mother of a boy killed while eating ice cream at a Baskin Robbins Thursday night brings his toy to the scene Friday morning at 1155 S. Havana St. in Aurora, Colorado. She left it at the scene, as well as a photograph of her son. (THE DENVER POST | Brian Brainerd)especially bears — to a memorial.
Francis Hernandez, the man being held for suspicion of vehicular homicide in the deaths, is now being detained by federal immigration officials.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials sent a faxed detainer on Hernandez, 23, at 12:04 a.m. Saturday, indicating his U.S. citizenship is under question, according to Arapahoe County jail officials and federal authorities.
Hernandez has been arrested 16 times in five years in Colorado but apparently has never been deported, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
On Friday, Aurora authorities had indicated they believed he was a U.S. citizen.
Hernandez had been arrested in Denver as recently as July 18 on a traffic stop and charged with numerous crimes, including resisting police, CBI records say. Had he been held on an ICE detainer at that time, he would have been jailed until his case was completed and his sentence served and then deported, a time-consuming process.
Hernandez is now being held on the ICE detainer and for investigation of three counts of vehicular homicide, reckless driving and hit and run in Thursday night's accident, Aurora police spokesman Lt. John Sopranuk said.
His bail was
Marten Kudlis' father, Marat, is consoled as he visits the scene Friday where the 3-year-old was killed Thursday night. (Brian Brainerd, The Denver Post )raised Friday from $10,000 to $100,000, according to Sgt. Lisa Grosskruger of the Arapahoe County jail.
Sopranuk said Hernandez was driving a Chevy Suburban rapidly and erratically south on South Havana shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday. Police said he ran a red light at the intersection of Mississippi and Havana.
The SUV hit a northbound white Mazda pickup carrying Guntharp and Serecky, which was turning into the Good Times burger outlet. The impact sent the truck more than 100 feet into the corner of the Baskin-Robbins in the Market Square shopping center.
The two women were killed by the impact and Marten suffered fatal injuries from flying debris.
Dating back to 2003, Hernandez has been arrested for mostly misdemeanor
A photo of the child and his stuffed toy were left at the scene of the accident Friday morning at 1155 S. Havana St. in Aurora, Colorado. (THE DENVER POST | Brian Brainerd)offenses 16 times by police officers in Denver, Longmont, Aurora, Westminster, Lakewood and Broomfield and sheriff's deputies in Boulder, Gilpin and Arapahoe counties, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records. His charges have included forgery, assault, theft, fraud and driving under restraint.
Sopranuk said Friday that Hernandez was born in California and is a U.S. citizen.
But he added that detectives could find no indication that he had ever held a driver's license in California or Colorado.
Also according to CBI records, Hernandez, who has 11 aliases and two listed birth dates, has four listed birth places, including Mexico.
ICE placed a detainer because of indications he was born outside the country, said
The scene Friday morning at 1155 S. Havana St. in Aurora where three died when a small pickup crashed into a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop Thursday night, Sept. 4, 2008. (THE DENVER POST | Brian Brainerd)ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok. Officers are currently investigating his citizenship, he said.
When ICE did not place a hold on Hernandez following his July 18 arrest, he was released and has since been listed as a fugitive, according to CBI records.
There were multiple warrants for his arrest when the fatal accident happened Thursday, Sopranuk said.
Sopranuk could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Rusnok said it is possible that if Hernandez is in the country illegally that his status was not checked or identified previously despite numerous arrests.
He said in some instances suspects are arrested for minor offenses and they are released on bail or serve short sentences before a citizenship check is done.
ICE places a priority on deporting illegal immigrants who have been arrested for crimes, Rusnok said. Sometimes ICE agents make regular visits to jails checking for suspects illegally in the country, he said.
Back at the ice cream shop on Saturday night, the family announced that Marten's funeral will be 10 a.m. Wednesday at Fairmont Cemetery. Arrangements for Guntharp and Serecky are pending.
A "Memory of Marten Fund" has been established at Bank of the West.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
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Tragic.....
But no, although the AZ law has merit, this could not have been avoided.
From the article, it is my understanding that "Aurora authorities had indicated they believed he was a U.S. citizen".
Further, even ICE seems to acknowledge that he is a citizen, however because it was fraudulently obtained, it is being questioned.
Hopefully, because his citizenship was fraudulently obtained, he will be incarcerated, his citizenship taken away, and later deported. But this
is a complicated issue for qualified trained ICE personnel to handle, not local AZ police to handle. I presume AZ police would of course arrest him,
whether he is a legitimate citizen or immigrant, regardless of whether he is legal or illegal, for three counts of vehicular homicide, reckless driving and hit and run et al.
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Dating back to 2003, Hernandez has been arrested for mostly misdemeanor offenses 16 times by police officers in Denver, Longmont, Aurora, Westminster, Lakewood and Broomfield and sheriff's deputies in Boulder, Gilpin and Arapahoe counties, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records. His charges have included forgery, assault, theft, fraud and driving under restraint.
Sopranuk said Friday that Hernandez was born in California and is a U.S. citizen.
**He claimed to be a US citizen. He, in fact was an illegal alien from Guatamala. I can tell you from first hand experience that lots of illegals have numerous aliases in the system and bogusly claim to be citizens and ICE doesn't have the manpower to vett every arrestee. This is why local/state law enforcement needs to do it as well.**
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**The Hong Kong Police must be racist or something.....** :roll:
Hong Kong's highest court in a1999 decision allowed 8,000 mainland-born Chinese whose parents had permanent resident status to move to Hong Kong. This "right of abode" was overturned by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing at the request of the Hong Kong government, threatening the judicial independence of Hong Kong's highest court. In January 2002, Hong Kong's highest court affirmed the Chinese government's reversal of its earlier ruling, and the Hong Kong government moved to deport the children of some Hong Kong residents.
Chinese-born children with at least one parent who is a permanent Hong Kong resident are permitted to live in the territory, but only if they were born after the parent received legal resident status.
The court gave the 7,300 "unlawful migrants" from the mainland who were in Hong Kong at the time of the ruling until March 31, 2002 to leave. Only 3,000 left; some 4,300 "abode seekers" defied the order to leave and became unauthorized residents. The abode-seekers made a last-ditch legal effort to stay, but their effort to obtain legal aid, the government ruled, does not entitle them to stay while they appeal.
Hong Kong police began searching for the mainlanders who were to leave Hong Kong in a manner that critics called "wufa wutian" (without law, without heaven)". On April 7, 2002, the first migrant was forcibly sent back to the mainland, and police continued to intercept and return the remaining 4,300 in April and May. Some of the migrants camped out at a park in central Hong Kong, hoping that their large numbers and the presence of reporters and photographers would keep the police away. Hong Kong's security secretary, Regina Ip, said "Our position is very clear. [The mainlanders] shouldn't be sneaking around in Hong Kong and wasting time but should return quickly to rebuild their lives."
In one story widely reported in Hong Kong, a Chinese father was allowed to bring only one of his twin daughters to Hong Kong in 1979. The then 12-year old girls played "paper, scissors, stone" to determine who would go to Hong Kong. The daughter in China was granted a tourist visa in 1999, and has lived illegally in Hong Kong since. The now 19-year old twin was told to report to immigration authorities for deportation in April, but at the last minute, she was allowed to stay because of her exceptional circumstances.
Most Hong Kong residents are not sympathetic to the migrants being removed. Many believe that the latest arrivals have fewer skills and impose more of a burden on society than previous migrants. The Hong Kong government has warned that, if it is not tough on mainland migrnats, densely settled Hong Kong will receive several million more migrants. The director of Hong Kong's external investment bureau blamed Chinese migrants for Hong Kong's seven percent unemployment rate.
Hong Kong allows 150 mainland Chinese a day, or 54,750 a year, to immigrate, and allows mainland Chinese to visit Hong Kong relatives for two three-month periods a year. Many of them are poor: 18 percent of new mainland migrants in Hong Kong are on welfare- the 60,127 account for one percent of Hong Kong residents, and 15 percent of Hong Kong welfare recipients. Of the 173,212 immigrants aged 15 and older who settled over the past seven years, 70 percent did not advance beyond Form Three secondary school education. Some 43 percent of new immigrants earned less than $HK6,000 a month, compared to 19 percent of all Hong Kong residents.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/18/az-utility-board-member-responds-to-la-boycott-over-sb1070/
I'd rather he just flip the switch off, but still, this is good.
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GM; you said, "This is why local/state law enforcement needs to do it as well."
Regarding Hernandez immigration issues, what should local law enforcement have done?
I mean according to best information available, local law enforcement, i.e. Lt. Sopranuk, thought Hernandez was born in California and is a U.S. citizen.
Further, it seems Hernandez had an AZ driver's license (or I could not find any information to the contrary).
It truly is a job for ICE; they have the resources, training and expertise. Not local law enforcement...
As a side note, it seems Hernandez was sentenced to 60 years... :-)
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Woof,
Again, to clarify the Arizona law; when someone is suspected of being here illegally they are handed over to ICE, Arizona does not deport anybody.
P.C.
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Often in the booking process, the info entered is supplied by the subject being booked. When I was a state C.O. many years ago, we had several juveniles who were illegals from Guatamala housed in our facility for several days until it was figured out that they were adults. Whoops! Luckily, they didn't assault/sexually assault any other inmates in that time period before they were move to an adult facility.
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Woof,
Two can play this game it seems.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37233039/ns/local_news-los_angeles_ca?GT1=43001
P.C. :-D
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http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/back604.html
State and Local Authority to
Enforce Immigration Law
A Unified Approach for Stopping Terrorists
June 2004
By Mr. Kris W. Kobach
Download the .pdf version
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enforcing our nation�s immigration laws is one of the most daunting challenges faced by the federal government. With an estimated 8-10 million illegal aliens already present in the United States and fewer than 2,000 interior enforcement agents at its disposal, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) has a Herculean task on its hands � one that it simply cannot accomplish alone.
The assistance of state and local law enforcement agencies can mean the difference between success and failure in enforcing immigration laws. The more than 650,000 police officers nationwide represent a massive force multiplier.
This Backgrounder briefly summarizes the legal authority upon which state and local police may act in rendering such assistance and describes the scenarios in which this assistance is most crucial. It does not cover the provisions of Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (that is, Section 133 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996 titled "Acceptance of State Services to Carry Out Immigration Enforcement"), since the scope of such delegated authority is evident on the face of the Act. Rather, this Backgrounder describes the inherent arrest authority that has been possessed and exercised by state and local police since the earliest days of federal immigration law.
It has long been widely recognized that state and local police possess the inherent authority to arrest aliens who have violated criminal provisions of the INA. Once the arrest is made, the police officer must contact federal immigration authorities and transfer the alien into their custody within a reasonable period of time. Bear in mind that the power to arrest � and take temporary custody of � an immigration law violator is a subset of the broader power to "enforce." This is an important distinction between inherent arrest authority and 287(g) authority to enforce � which includes arresting, investigating, preparing a case, and all of the other powers exercised by BICE agents.
Where some confusion has existed in recent years is on the question of whether the same authority extends to arresting aliens who have violated civil provisions of the INA that render an alien deportable. This confusion was, to some extent, fostered by an erroneous 1996 opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice, the relevant part of which has since been withdrawn by OLC. However, the law on this question is quite clear: arresting aliens who have violated either criminal provisions of the INA or civil provisions that render an alien deportable "is within the inherent authority of the states."1 And such inherent arrest authority has never been preempted by Congress.
This conclusion has been confirmed by every court to squarely address the issue. Indeed, it is difficult to make a persuasive case to the contrary. That said, I will proceed to offer my personal opinion as to why this conclusion is correct. I offer this legal analysis purely in my private capacity as a law professor and not on behalf of the Bush Administration.
State Arrest Authority
The preliminary question is whether the states have inherent power (subject to federal preemption) to make arrests for violation of federal law. That is, may state police, exercising state law authority only, make arrests for violations of federal law, or do they have power to make such arrests only insofar as they are exercising delegated federal executive power? The answer to this question is plainly the former.
The source of this authority flows from the states� status as sovereign entities. They are sovereign governments possessing all residual powers not abridged or superceded by the U.S. Constitution. The source of the state governments� power is entirely independent of the U.S. Constitution. See Sturges v. Crowninshield, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 122, 193 (1819). Moreover, the enumerated powers doctrine that constrains the powers of the federal government does not so constrain the powers of the states. Rather, the states possess what are known as "police powers," which need not be specifically enumerated. Police powers are "an exercise of the sovereign right of the government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort, and general welfare of the people�" Manigault v. Springs, 199 U.S. 473, 480 (1905). Essentially, states may take any action (consistent with their own constitutions and laws) unless there exists a prohibition in the U.S. Constitution or such action has been preempted by federal law.2
It is well established that the authority of state police to make arrests for violation of federal law is not limited to those situations in which they are exercising delegated federal power. Rather, such arrest authority inheres in the States� status as sovereign entities. It stems from the basic power of one sovereign to assist another sovereign. This is the same inherent authority that is exercised whenever a state law enforcement officer witnesses a federal crime being committed and makes an arrest. That officer is not acting pursuant to delegated federal power. Rather, he is exercising the inherent power of his state to assist another sovereign.
Abundant Case Law. There is abundant case law on this point. Even though Congress has never authorized state police officers to make arrest for federal offenses without an arrest warrant, such arrests occur routinely; and the Supreme Court has recognized that state law controls the validity of such an arrest. As the Court concluded in United States v. Di Re, "No act of Congress lays down a general federal rule for arrest without warrant for federal offenses. None purports to supersede state law. And none applies to this arrest which, while for a federal offense, was made by a state officer accompanied by federal officers who had no power of arrest. Therefore the New York statute provides the standard by which this arrest must stand or fall." 332 U.S. 581, 591 (1948). The Court�s conclusion presupposes that state officers possess the inherent authority to make warrantless arrests for federal offenses. The same assumption guided the Court in Miller v. United States. 357 U.S. 301, 305 (1958). As the Seventh Circuit has explained, "[state] officers have implicit authority to make federal arrests." U.S. v. Janik, 723 F.2d 537, 548 (7th Cir. 1983). Accordingly, they may initiate an arrest on the basis of probable cause to think that an individual has committed a federal crime. Id.
The Ninth and Tenth Circuits have expressed this understanding in the immigration context specifically. In Gonzales v. City of Peoria, the Ninth Circuit opined in an immigration case that the "general rule is that local police are not precluded from enforcing federal statutes," 722 F.2d 468, 474 (9th Cir. 1983). The Tenth Circuit has reviewed this question on several occasions, concluding squarely that a "state trooper has general investigatory authority to inquire into possible immigration violations," United States v. Salinas-Calderon, 728 F.2d 1298, 1301 n.3 (10th Cir. 1984). As the Tenth Circuit has described it, there is a "preexisting general authority of state or local police officers to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws," United States v. Vasquez-Alvarez, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295 (10th Cir. 1999). And again in 2001, the Tenth Circuit reiterated that "state and local police officers [have] implicit authority within their respective jurisdictions �to investigate and make arrests for violations of federal law, including immigration laws.�" United States v. Santana-Garcia, 264 F.3d 1188, 1194 (citing United States v. Vasquez-Alvarez, 176 F.3d 1294, 1295). None of these Tenth Circuit holdings drew any distinction between criminal violations of the INA and civil provisions that render an alien deportable. Rather, the inherent arrest authority extends generally to both categories of federal immigration law violations.
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If his attitudes towards Jews are any indicator, PB can be a bit of a bigot so read the following interesting piece from 2002 with care:
a Cause of the Clash of Civilizations . . .Or a Solution to it?
Patrick Buchanan vs. Ben Wattenberg
Patrick Buchanan: Shields up!
In 1821, a newly independent Mexico invited Americans to settle in its northern province of Texas?on two conditions: Americans must embrace Roman Catholicism, and they must swear allegiance to Mexico. Thousands took up the offer. But, in 1835, after the tyrannical General Santa Anna seized power, the Texans, fed up with loyalty oaths and fake conversions, and outnumbering Mexicans in Texas ten to one, rebelled and kicked the tiny Mexican garrison back across the Rio Grande.
Santa Anna led an army north to recapture his lost province. At a mission called the Alamo, he massacred the first rebels who resisted. Then he executed the 400 Texans who surrendered at Goliad. But at San Jacinto, Santa Anna blundered straight into an ambush. His army was butchered, he was captured. The Texans demanded his execution for the Alamo massacre, but Texas army commander Sam Houston had another idea. He made the dictator an offer: his life for Texas. Santa Anna signed. And on his last day in office, Andrew Jackson recognized the independence of the Lone Star Republic.
Eight years later, the U.S. annexed the Texas republic. An enraged Mexico disputed the American claim to all land north of the Rio Grande, so President James Polk sent troops to the north bank of the river. When Mexican soldiers crossed and fired on a U.S. patrol, Congress declared war. By 1848, soldiers with names like Grant, Lee, and McClellan were in the city of Montezuma. A humiliated Mexico was forced to cede all of Texas, the Southwest, and California. The U.S. gave Mexico $15 million to ease the anguish of amputation.
Mexicans seethed with hatred and resentment, and in 1910 the troubles began anew. After a revolution that was anti-church and anti-American, U.S. sailors were roughed up and arrested in Tampico. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the occupation of Vera Cruz by U.S. Marines. As Wilson explained to the British ambassador, "I am going to teach the South Americans to elect good men." When the bandit Pancho Villa led a murderous raid into New Mexico in 1916, Wilson sent General Pershing and 10,000 troops to do the tutoring.
Despite FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, President Cardenas nationalized U.S. oil companies in 1938- an event honored in Mexico to this day. Pemex was born, a state cartel that would collude with OPEC in 1999 to hike up oil prices to $35 a barrel. American consumers, whose tax dollars had supported a $50 billion bailout of a bankrupt Mexico in 1994, got gouged.
The point of this history? Mexico has an historic grievance against the United States that is felt deeply by her people. This is one factor producing deep differences in attitudes toward America between today's immigrants from places like Mexico and the old immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe. With fully one-fifth of all people of Mexican ancestry now residing in the United States, and up to 1 million more crossing the border every year, we need to understand these differences.
1. The number of people pouring in from Mexico is larger than any wave from any country ever before. In the 1990s alone, the number of people of Mexican heritage living in the U.S. grew by 50 percent to at least 21 million. The Founding Fathers wanted immigrants to spread out among the population to ensure assimilation, but Mexican Americans are highly concentrated in the Southwest.
2. Mexicans are not only from another culture, but of another race. History has taught that different races are far more difficult to assimilate than different cultures. The 60 million Americans who claim German ancestry are fully assimilated, while millions from Africa and Asia are still not full participants in American society.
3. Millions of Mexicans broke the law to get into the United States, and they break the law every day they remain here. Each year, 1.6 million illegal aliens are apprehended, almost all of them at our bleeding southern border.
4. Unlike the immigrants of old, who bade farewell to their native lands forever, millions of Mexicans have no desire to learn English or become U.S. citizens. America is not their home; they are here to earn money. They remain proud Mexicans. Rather than assimilate, they create their own radio and TV stations, newspapers, films, and magazines. They are becoming a nation within a nation.
5. These waves of Mexican immigrants are also arriving in a different America than did the old immigrants. A belief in racial rights and ethnic entitlements has taken root among America's minorities and liberal elites. Today, ethnic enclaves are encouraged and ethnic chauvinism is rife in the barrios. Anyone quoting Calvin Coolidge's declaration that "America must remain American" today would be charged with a hate crime.
Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, calls migration "the central issue of our time." He has warned in the pages of this magazine:
If 1 million Mexican soldiers crossed the border, Americans would treat it as a major threat to their national security.... The invasion of over 1 million Mexican civilians...would be a comparable threat to American societal security, and Americans should react against it with vigor.
Mexican immigration is a challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity, and potentially to our future as a country. Yet, American leaders are far from reacting "with vigor," even though a Zogby poll found that 72 percent of Americans want less immigration, and a Rasmussen poll in July 2000 found that 89 percent support English as America's official language. The people want action. The elites disagree?and do nothing. Despite our braggadocio about being "the world's only remaining superpower," the U.S. lacks the fortitude to defend its borders and to demand, without apology, that immigrants assimilate to its society.
Perhaps our mutual love of the dollar can bridge the cultural chasm, and we shall all live happily in what Ben Wattenberg calls the First Universal Nation. But Uncle Sam is taking a hellish risk in importing a huge diaspora of tens of millions of people from a nation vastly different from our own. It is not a decision we can ever undo. Our children will live with the consequences. "If assimilation fails," Huntington recognizes, "the United States will become a cleft country with all the potentials for internal strife and disunion that entails." Is that a risk worth taking?
A North American Union of Canada, Mexico, and the United States has been proposed by Mexican President Fox, with a complete opening of borders to the goods and peoples of the three countries. The Wall Street Journal is enraptured. But Mexico's per capita GDP of $5,000 is only a fraction of America's?the largest income gap on earth between two adjoining countries. Half of all Mexicans live in poverty, and 18 million people exist on less than $2 a day, while the U.S. minimum wage is headed for $50 a day. Throw open the border, and millions could flood into the United States within months. Is America nothing more than an economic system?
Our old image is of Mexicans as amiable Catholics with traditional values. There are millions of hard-working, family-oriented Americans of Mexican heritage, who have been quick to answer the call to arms in several of America's wars. And, yes, history has shown that any man or woman, from any country on the planet, can be a good American.
But today's demographic sea change, especially in California, where a fourth of the residents are foreign-born and almost a third are Latino, has spawned a new ethnic chauvinism. When the U.S. soccer team played Mexico in Los Angeles a few years ago, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was jeered, an American flag was torn down, and the U.S. team and its few fans were showered with beer bottles and garbage.
In the New Mexico legislature in 2001, a resolution was introduced to rename the state "Nuevo Mexico," the name it carried before it became a part of the American Union. When the bill was defeated, sponsor Representative Miguel Garcia suggested to reporters that "covert racism" may have been the cause.
A spirit of separatism, nationalism, and irredentism has come alive in the barrio. Charles Truxillo, a professor of Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico, says a new "Aztlan," with Los Angeles as its capital, is inevitable. Jose Angel Gutierrez, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the UTA Mexican-American Study Center, told a university crowd: "We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population. They are shitting in their pants in fear! I love it."
More authoritative voices are sounding the same notes. The Mexican consul general Jos? Pescador Osuna remarked in 1998, "Even though I am saying this part serious, part joking, I think we are practicing La Reconquista in California." California legislator Art Torres called Proposition 187, to cut off welfare to illegal aliens, "the last gasp of white America."
"California is going to be a Mexican State. We are going to control all the institutions. If people don't like it, they should leave," exults Mario Obledo, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, and recipient of the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton. Former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo told Mexican-Americans in Dallas: "You are Mexicans, Mexicans who live north of the border."
Why should nationalistic and patriotic Mexicans not dream of a reconquista? The Latino student organization known by its Spanish acronym MEChA states, "We declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America?we are a nation." MEChA demands U.S. "restitution" for "past economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights."
MEChA, which claims 4,000 campus chapters across the country, is unabashedly racist and anti-American. Its slogan?Por la Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.?translates as "For our race, everything. For those outside our race, nothing." Yet it now exerts real power in many places. The former chair of its UCLA chapter, Antonio Villaraigosa, came within a whisker of being elected mayor of Los Angeles in 2001.
That Villaraigosa could go through an entire campaign for control of America's second-largest city without having to explain his association with a Chicano version of the white-supremacist Aryan Nation proves that America's major media are morally intimidated by any minority that boasts past victimhood credentials, real or imagined.
Meanwhile, the invasion rolls on. America's once-sleepy 2,000-mile border with Mexico is now the scene of daily confrontations. Even the Mexican army shows its contempt for U.S. law. The State Department reported 55 military incursions in the five years before an incident in 2000 when truckloads of Mexican soldiers barreled through a barbed-wire fence, fired shots, and pursued two mounted officers and a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle. U.S. Border Patrol agents believe that some Mexican army units collaborate with their country's drug cartels.
America has become a spillway for an exploding population that Mexico is unable to employ. Mexico's population is growing by 10 million every decade. Mexican senator Adolfo Zinser conceded that Mexico's "economic policy is dependent on unlimited emigration to the United States." The Yanqui-baiting academic and "onetime Communist supporter" Jorge Caste?ada warned in The Atlantic Monthly six years ago that any American effort to cut back immigration "will make social peace in?Mexico untenable.... Some Americans dislike immigration, but there is very little they can do about it." With Se?or Caste?ada now President Fox's foreign minister and Senator Zinser his national security adviser, these opinions carry weight.
The Mexican government openly supports illegal entry of its citizens into the United States. An Office for Mexicans Abroad helps Mexicans evade U.S. border guards in the deserts of Arizona and California by providing them with "survival kits" of water, dry meat, Granola, Tylenol, anti-diarrhea pills, bandages, and condoms. The kits are distributed in Mexico's poorest towns, along with information on where illegal aliens can get free social services in California. Mexico is aiding and abetting an invasion of the United States, and the U.S. responds with intimidated silence and moral paralysis.
With California the preferred destination for this immigration flood, sociologist William Frey has documented an out-migration of African Americans and Anglo Americans from the Golden State in search of cities and towns like the ones in which they grew up. Other Californians are moving into gated communities. A country that cannot control its borders isn't really a country, Ronald Reagan warned some two decades ago.
Concerns about a radical change in America's ethnic composition have been called un-American. But they are as American as Benjamin Franklin, who once asked, "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?" Franklin would never find out if his fears were justified, because German immigration was halted during the Revolutionary War.
Theodore Roosevelt likewise warned that "The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."
Immigration is a subject worthy of national debate, yet it has been deemed taboo by the forces of political correctness. Like the Mississippi, with its endless flow of life-giving water, immigration has enriched America throughout history. But when the Mississippi floods its banks, the devastation can be enormous. What will become of our country if the levees do not hold?
Harvard economist George Borjas has found no net economic benefit from mass migration from the Third World. In his study, the added costs of schooling, health care, welfare, prisons, plus the added pressure on land, water, and power resources, exceeded the taxes that immigrants pay. The National Bureau of Economic Research put the cost of immigration at $80 billion in 1995. What are the benefits, then, that justify the risk of the balkanization of America?
Today there are 28.4 million foreign-born persons living in the United States. Half are from Latin America and the Caribbean, one fourth from Asia. The rest are from Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. One in every five New Yorkers and Floridians is foreign-born, as is one of every four Californians. As the United States allots most of its immigrant visas to relatives of new arrivals, it is difficult for Europeans to be admitted to the U.S., while entire villages from El Salvador have settled here easily.
? A third of the legal immigrants who come to the United States have not finished high school. Some 22 percent do not even have a ninth-grade education, compared to less than 5 percent of our native-born.
? Of the immigrants who have arrived since 1980, 60 percent still do not earn $20,000 a year.
? Immigrant use of food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, and school lunch programs runs from 50 percent to 100 percent higher than use by the native born.
? By 1991, foreign nationals accounted for 24 percent of all arrests in Los Angeles and 36 percent of all arrests in Miami.
? In 1980, federal and state prisons housed 9,000 criminal aliens. By 1995, this number had soared to 59,000, a figure that does not include aliens who became citizens, or the criminals sent over from Cuba by Fidel Castro in the Mariel boat lift.
Mass emigration from poor Third World countries is good for business, especially businesses that employ large numbers of workers at low wages. But what is good for corporate America is not necessarily good for Middle America. When it comes to open borders, the corporate interest and the national interest do not coincide; they collide. Mass immigration raises more critical issues than jobs or wages?immigration is ultimately about America herself. Is the U.S. government, by deporting scarcely 1 percent of illegal aliens a year, failing in its Constitutional duty to protect the rights of American citizens?
Most of the people who leave their homelands to come to America, whether from Mexico or Mauritania, are good, decent people. They seek the same freedom and opportunities our ancestors sought.
But today's record number of immigrants arriving from cultures that have little in common with our own raises a question: What is a nation? Some define a nation as one people of common ancestry, language, literature, history, heritage, heroes, traditions, customs, mores, and faith who have lived together over time in the same land under the same rulers. Among those who pressed this definition were Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who laid down these conditions on immigrants: "They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors." Woodrow Wilson, speaking to newly naturalized Americans in 1915 in Philadelphia, declared: "A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has yet to become an American."
But Americans no longer agree on values, history, or heroes. What one half of America sees as a glorious past, the other views as shameful and wicked. Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Lee?all of them heroes of the old America?are under attack. Equality and freedom, those most American of words, today hold different meanings for different Americans.
Nor is a shared belief in democracy sufficient to hold a people together. Half the nation did not even bother to vote in the Presidential election of 2000. Millions cannot name their congressman, senator, or the justices of the Supreme Court. They do not care. We live in the same country, we are governed by the same leaders. But are we one nation and one people?
It is hard to believe that over one million immigrants every year, from every country on earth, a third of them entering illegally, will reforge the bonds of our disuniting nation. John Stuart Mill cautioned that unified public opinion is "necessary to the working of representative government." We are about to find out if he was right.
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This piece is a point-counter-point with the Buchanan piece of my previous post:
Ben Wattenberg: Immigration Is Good
year: 2002
Many leading thinkers tell us we are now in a culture clash that will determine the course of history, that today's war is for Western civilization itself. There is a demographic dimension to this "clash of civilizations." While certain of today's demographic signals bode well for America, some look very bad. If we are to assess America's future prospects, we must start by asking, "Who are we?" "Who will we be?" and "How will we relate to the rest of the world?" The answers all involve immigration.
As data from the 2000 census trickled out, one item hit the headline jackpot. By the year 2050, we were told, America would be "majority non-white." The census count showed more Hispanics in America than had been expected, making them "America's largest minority." When blacks, Asians, and Native Americans are added to the Hispanic total, the "non-white" population emerges as a large minority, on the way to becoming a small majority around the middle of this century.
The first thing worth noting is that these rigid racial definitions are absurd. The whole concept of race as a biological category is becoming ever-more dubious in America. Consider:
Under the Clinton administration's census rules, any American who checks both the black and white boxes on the form inquiring about "race" is counted as black, even if his heritage is, say, one eighth black and seven eighths white. In effect, this enshrines the infamous segregationist view that one drop of black blood makes a person black.
Although most Americans of Hispanic heritage declare themselves "white," they are often inferentially counted as non-white, as in the erroneous New York Times headline which recently declared: "Census Confirms Whites Now a Minority" in California.
If those of Hispanic descent, hailing originally from about 40 nations, are counted as a minority, why aren't those of Eastern European descent, coming from about 10 nations, also counted as a minority? (In which case the Eastern European "minority" would be larger than the Hispanic minority.)
But within this jumble of numbers there lies a central truth: America is becoming a universal nation, with significant representation of nearly all human hues, creeds, ethnicities, and national ancestries. Continued moderate immigration will make us an even more universal nation as time goes on. And this process may well play a serious role in determining the outcome of the contest of civilizations taking place across the globe.
And current immigration rates are moderate, even though America admitted more legal immigrants from 1991 to 2000 than in any previous decade?between 10 and 11 million. The highest previous decade was 1901-1910, when 8.8 million people arrived. In addition, each decade now, several million illegal immigrants enter the U.S., thanks partly to ease of transportation.
Critics like Pat Buchanan say that absorbing all those immigrants will "swamp" the American culture and bring Third World chaos inside our borders. I disagree. Keep in mind: Those 8.8 million immigrants who arrived in the U.S. between 1901 and 1910 increased the total American population by 1 percent per year. (Our numbers grew from 76 million to 92 million during that decade.) In our most recent decade, on the other hand, the 10 million legal immigrants represented annual growth of only 0.36 percent (as the U.S. went from 249 million to 281 million).
Overall, nearly 15 percent of Americans were foreign-born in 1910. In 1999, our foreign-born were about 10 percent of our total. (In 1970, the foreign-born portion of our population was down to about 5 percent. Most of the rebound resulted from a more liberal immigration law enacted in 1965.) Or look at the "foreign stock" data. These figures combine Americans born in foreign lands and their offspring, even if those children have only one foreign-born parent. Today, America's "foreign stock" amounts to 21 percent of the population and heading up. But in 1910, the comparable figure was 34 percent?one third of the entire country?and the heavens did not collapse.
We can take in more immigrants, if we want to. Should we?
Return to the idea that immigrants could swamp American culture. If that is true, we clearly should not increase our intake. But what if, instead of swamping us, immigration helps us become a stronger nation and a swamper of others in the global competition of civilizations?
Immigration is now what keeps America growing. According to the U.N., the typical American woman today bears an average of 1.93 children over the course of her childbearing years. That is mildly below the 2.1 "replacement" rate required to keep a population stable over time, absent immigration. The "medium variant" of the most recent Census Bureau projections posits that the U.S. population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050 with expected immigration, but only to 328 million should we choose a path of zero immigration. That is a difference of a population growth of 47 million versus 116 million. (The 47 million rise is due mostly to demographic momentum from previous higher birthrates.) If we have zero immigration with today's low birthrates indefinitely, the American population would eventually begin to shrink, albeit slowly.
Is more population good for America? When it comes to potential global power and influence, numbers can matter a great deal. Taxpayers, many of them, pay for a fleet of aircraft carriers. And on the economic side it is better to have a customer boom than a customer bust. (It may well be that Japan's stagnant demography is one cause of its decade-long slump.) The environmental case could be debated all day long, but remember that an immigrant does not add to the global population?he merely moves from one spot on the planet to another.
But will the current crop of immigrants acculturate? Immigrants to America always have. Some critics, like Mr. Buchanan, claim that this time, it's different. Mexicans seem to draw his particular ire, probably because they are currently our largest single source of immigration.
Yet only about a fifth (22 percent) of legal immigrants to America currently come from Mexico. Adding illegal immigrants might boost the figure to 30 percent, but the proportion of Mexican immigrants will almost surely shrink over time. Mexican fertility has diminished from 6.5 children per woman 30 years ago to 2.5 children now, and continues to fall. If high immigration continues under such circumstances, Mexico will run out of Mexicans.
California hosts a wide variety of immigrant groups in addition to Mexicans. And the children and grandchildren of Koreans, Chinese, Khmer, Russian Jews, Iranians, and Thai (to name a few) will speak English, not Spanish. Even among Mexican-Americans, many second- and third-generation offspring speak no Spanish at all, often to the dismay of their elders (a familiar American story).
Michael Barone's book The New Americans theorizes that Mexican immigrants are following roughly the same course of earlier Italian and Irish immigrants. Noel Ignatiev's book How the Irish Became White notes that it took a hundred years until Irish-Americans (who were routinely characterized as drunken "gorillas") reached full income parity with the rest of America.
California recently repealed its bilingual education programs. Nearly half of Latino voters supported the proposition, even though it was demonized by opponents as being anti-Hispanic. Latina mothers reportedly tell their children, with no intent to disparage the Spanish language, that "Spanish is the language of busboys"?stressing that in America you have to speak English to get ahead.
The huge immigration wave at the dawn of the twentieth century undeniably brought tumult to America. Many early social scientists promoted theories of what is now called "scientific racism," which "proved" that persons from Northwest Europe were biologically superior. The new immigrants?Jews, Poles, and Italians?were considered racially apart and far down the totem pole of human character and intelligence. Blacks and Asians were hardly worth measuring. The immigration wave sparked a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, peaking in the early 1920s. At that time, the biggest KKK state was not in the South; it was Indiana, where Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, as well as blacks, were targets.
Francis Walker, superintendent of the U.S. Bureau of the Census in the late 1890s, and later president of MIT, wrote in 1896 that "The entrance of such vast masses of peasantry degraded below our utmost conceptions is a matter which no intelligent patriot can look upon without the gravest apprehension and alarm. They are beaten men from beaten races. They have none of the ideas and aptitudes such as belong to those who were descended from the tribes that met under the oak trees of old Germany to make laws and choose chiefs." (Sorry, Francis, but Germany did not have a good twentieth century.)
Fast-forward to the present. By high margins, Americans now tell pollsters it was a very good thing that Poles, Italians, and Jews emigrated to America. Once again, it's the newcomers who are viewed with suspicion. This time, it's the Mexicans, Filipinos, and people from the Caribbean who make Americans nervous. But such views change over time. The newer immigrant groups are typically more popular now than they were even a decade ago.
Look at the high rates of intermarriage. Most Americans have long since lost their qualms about marriage between people of different European ethnicities. That is spreading across new boundaries. In 1990, 64 percent of Asian Americans married outside their heritage, as did 37 percent of Hispanics. Black-white intermarriage is much lower, but it climbed from 3 percent in 1980 to 9 percent in 1998. (One reason to do away with the race question on the census is that within a few decades we won't be able to know who's what.)
Can the West, led by America, prevail in a world full of sometimes unfriendly neighbors? Substantial numbers of people are necessary (though not sufficient) for a country, or a civilization, to be globally influential. Will America and its Western allies have enough people to keep their ideas and principles alive?
On the surface, it doesn't look good. In 1986, I wrote a book called The Birth Dearth. My thesis was that birth rates in developed parts of the world?Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, nations where liberal Western values are rooted?had sunk so low that there was danger ahead. At that time, women in those modern countries were bearing a lifetime average of 1.83 children, the lowest rate ever absent war, famine, economic depression, or epidemic illness. It was, in fact, 15 percent below the long-term population replacement level.
Those trendlines have now plummeted even further. Today, the fertility rate in the modern countries averages 1.5 children per woman, 28 percent below the replacement level. The European rate, astonishingly, is 1.34 children per woman?radically below replacement level. The Japanese rate is similar. The United States is the exceptional country in the current demographic scene.
As a whole, the nations of the Western world will soon be less populous, and a substantially smaller fraction of the world population. Demographer Samuel Preston estimates that even if European fertility rates jump back to replacement level immediately (which won't happen) the continent would still lose 100 million people by 2060. Should the rate not level off fairly soon, the ramifications are incalculable, or, as the Italian demographer Antonio Golini likes to mutter at demograph-ic meetings, "unsustainable?unsustainable." (Shockingly, the current Italian fertility rate is 1.2 children per woman, and it has been at or below 1.5 for 20 years?a full generation.)
The modern countries of the world, the bearers of Western civilization, made up one third of the global population in 1950, and one fifth in 2000, and are projected to represent one eighth by 2050. If we end up in a world with nine competing civilizations, as
Samuel Huntington maintains, this will make it that much harder for Western values to prevail in the cultural and political arenas.
The good news is that fertility rates have also plunged in the less developed countries?from 6 children in 1970 to 2.9 today. By the middle to end of this century, there should be a rough global convergence of fertility rates and population growth.
Since September 11, immigration has gotten bad press in America. The terrorist villains, indeed, were foreigners. Not only in the U.S. but in many other nations as well, governments are suddenly cracking down on illegal entry. This is understandable for the moment. But an enduring turn away from legal immigration would be foolhardy for America and its allies.
If America doesn't continue to take in immigrants, it won't continue to grow in the long run. If the Europeans and Japanese don't start to accept more immigrants they will evaporate. Who will empty the bedpans in Italy's retirement homes? The only major pool of immigrants available to Western countries hails from the less developed world, i.e. non-white, and non-Western countries.
The West as a whole is in a deep demographic ditch. Accordingly, Western countries should try to make it easier for couples who want to have children. In America, the advent of tax credits for children (which went from zero to $1,000 per child per year over the last decade) is a small step in the direction of fertility reflation. Some European nations are enacting similar pro-natal policies. Bur their fertility rates are so low, and their economies so constrained, that any such actions can only be of limited help.
That leaves immigration. I suggest America should make immigration safer (by more carefully investigating new entrants), but not cut it back. It may even be wise to make a small increase in our current immigration rate. America needs to keep growing, and we can fruitfully use both high- and low-skill immigrants. Pluralism works here, as it does in Canada and Australia.
Can pluralism work in Europe? I don't know, and neither do the Europeans. They hate the idea, but they will depopulate if they don't embrace pluralism, via immigration. Perhaps our example can help Europeans see that pluralism might work in the admittedly more complex European context. Japan is probably a hopeless case; perhaps the Japanese should just change the name of their country to Dwindle.
Our non-pluralist Western allies will likely diminish in population, relative power, and influence during this century. They will become much grayer. Nevertheless, by 2050 there will still be 750 million of them left, so the U.S. needs to keep the Western alliance strong. For all our bickering, let us not forget that the European story in the second half of the twentieth century was a wonderful one; Western Europeans stopped killing each other. Now they are joining hands politically. The next big prize may be Russia. If the Russians choose our path, we will see what Tocqueville saw: that America and Russia are natural allies.
We must enlist other allies as well. America and India, for instance, are logical partners?pluralist, large, English-speaking, and democratic. We must tell our story. And our immigrants, who come to our land by choice, are our best salesmen. We should extend our radio services to the Islamic world, as we have to the unliberated nations of Asia through Radio Free Asia. The people at the microphones will be U.S. immigrants.
We can lose the contest of civilizations if the developing countries don't evolve toward Western values. One of the best forms of "public diplomacy" is immigration. New immigrants send money home, bypassing corrupt governments?the best kind of foreign aid there is. They go back home to visit and tell their families and friends in the motherland that American modernism, while not perfect, ain't half-bad. Some return home permanently, but they bring with them Western expectations of open government, economic efficiency, and personal liberty. They know that Westernism need not be restricted to the West, and they often have an influence on local politics when they return to their home countries.
Still, because of Europe and Japan, the demographic slide of Western civilization will continue. And so, America must be prepared to go it alone. If we keep admitting immigrants at our current levels there will be almost 400 million Americans by 2050. That can keep us strong enough to defend and perhaps extend our views and values. And the civilization we will be advancing may not just be Western, but even more universal: American.
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I tend to agree with the second article, however we can't have political correctness/identity politics undercut "one people out of many". Seemingly, when wearing/displaying the American flag on "Cinco de Imaginary" is seen as offensive, then we are heading to a place where this country falls apart.
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Did I hear the Mexican President correctly? I know there were some problems with translation. The problem is with the laws against trespassing, not with trespassing. Maybe this is a libertarian issue.
"In Mexico, we are and continue to be respectful to the policies of the United States...but we will retain our firm rejection to criminalizing migration so that people that work and provide things to this nation will be treated as criminals, and we oppose firmly the SB1070 Arizona law, given in fair principle that are partial and discriminatory..."
If you can't check citizenship when you already have other cause to make contact and when you have reason to believe there may be a problem, then when can you check it?
A less discriminatory way of checking would have been to use the census process as we are constitutionally required anyway to find out every 10 years who lives here.
Regarding Calderon, when a politician from anywhere is caught up in that bad of a gaffe, his own laws are far stronger, why is he ever taken seriously again, much less wined and dined?
I heard Mark Levin say last night: Take the Mexican Immigration Law, word for translated word, put an HR number on it and vote it up and down in Washington.
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Bottom line the illegal aliens send 17 BILLION plus dollars to the Mexico economy this year, no wonder the Mexican politicians are screaming about Arizona. If this catches on they will take a serious economical hit.
"DOBBS:........
The Mexican citizens cross our border illegally. Some of them find work, and many of them send their earnings back to Mexico. Those earnings have added up to nearly $17 billion in the past year. Remittances, as they're called, are expected to become Mexico's primary source of income this year, surpassing the amount of money that Mexico makes on oil exports for the first time ever.
"
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/21/ldt.01.html
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Woof,
And the much over looked fact from that is that small towns across America that already have small economies based on local business revenue and wage earners, have been strangled for cash because the money earned by illegals isn't being spent locally. On top of that, many employers pay these people under the table so that no local taxes are collected as well as supressing local wages. But of course their kids attend local schools, go to local health departments and receive many other benefits provided by local taxpayers but we are suppose to just shut up and take it and if we do otherwise then we are labled racist or human rights abusers. :-P
P.C.
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I agree with his logic except to his "nutshell" conclusion which suddenly makes less sense. I don't think it that heart-wrenching to send people here illegal packing home.
Why we can't stop being a nation of dupes? I don't know why we must make immigration more streamlined or easier. Why can't we simply enforce our laws, stop hiring illegals and allowing them to come here and have babies at our expense? Why is this so hard?
****Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Immigration and Liberty
by Walter E. Williams
My sentiments on immigration are expressed by the welcoming words of poet Emma Lazarus' that grace the base of our Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Those sentiments are probably shared by most Americans and for sure by my libertarian fellow travelers, but their vision of immigration has some blind spots. This has become painfully obvious in the wake Arizona's law that cracks down on illegal immigration. Let's look at the immigration issue step by step.
There are close to 7 billion people on our planet. I'd like to know how the libertarians answer this question: Does each individual on the planet have a natural or God-given right to live in the U.S.? Unless one wishes to obfuscate, I believe that a yes or no can be given to that question just as a yes or no answer can be given to the question whether Williams has a right to live in the U.S.
I believe most people, even my open-borders libertarian friends, would not say that everyone on the planet had a right to live in the U.S. That being the case suggests there will be conditions that a person must meet to live in the U.S. Then the question emerges: Who gets to set those conditions? Should it be the United Nations, the European Union, the Japanese Diet or the Moscow City Duma? I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe that most Americans would recoil at the suggestion that somebody other than Americans should be allowed to set the conditions for people to live in the U.S.
What those conditions should be is one thing and whether a person has a right to ignore them is another. People become illegal immigrants in one of three ways: entering without authorization or inspection, staying beyond the authorized period after legal entry or by violating the terms of legal entry. Most of those who risk prosecution under Arizona's new law fit the first category -- entering without authorization or inspection.
Probably, the overwhelming majority of Mexican illegal immigrants are hardworking, honest and otherwise law-abiding members of the communities in which they reside. It would surely be a heart-wrenching scenario for such a person to be stopped for a driving infraction, have his illegal immigrant status discovered and face deportation proceedings. Regardless of the hardship suffered, being in the U.S. without authorization is a crime.
When crimes are committed, what should be done? Some people recommend amnesia, which turns out to be the root word for amnesty. But surely they don't propose it as a general response to crime where criminals confess their crime, pay some fine and apply to have their crimes overlooked. Amnesty supporters probably wish amnesty to apply to only illegal immigrants. That being the case, one wonders whether they wish it to apply to illegals past, present and future, regardless of race, ethnicity or country of origin.
Various estimates put the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. between 10 and 20 million. One argument says we can't round up and deport all those people. That argument differs little from one that says since we can't catch every burglar, we should grant burglars amnesty. Catching and imprisoning some burglars sends a message to would-be burglars that there might be a price to pay. Similarly, imprisoning some illegal immigrants and then deporting them after their sentences were served would send a signal to others who are here illegally or who are contemplating illegal entry that there's a price to pay.
Here's Williams' suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country.
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http://patriotupdate.com/exclusives/read/113/More-Immigration-Cartoons-in-Circulation
and Federal clowns
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/21/official-says-feds-process-illegals-referred-arizona/
Updated May 21, 2010
Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona
FOXNews.com
View Slideshow
AP
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.
"I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper.
The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws.
The law, which criminalizes being in the state illegally and requires authorities to check suspects for immigration status, is not "good government," Morton said.
In response to Morton's comments, DHS officials said President Obama has ordered the Department of Justice to examine the civil rights and other implications of the law.
"That review will inform the government's actions going forward," DHS spokesman Matt Chandler told Fox News on Friday.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said ICE is not obligated to process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
"ICE has the legal discretion to accept or not to accept persons delivered to it by non-federal personnel," Napolitano said. "It also has the discretion to deport or not to deport persons delivered to it by any government agents, even its own."
Morton, according to a biography posted on ICE's website, began his federal service in 1994 and has held numerous positions at the Department of Justice, including as a trial attorney and special assistant to the general counsel in the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and as counsel to the deputy attorney general.
Border apprehensions in Arizona, where roughly 500,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to be living, are up 6 percent since October, according to federal statistics. Roughly 6.5 million residents live in Arizona.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, said it appeared the Obama administration is "nullifying existing law" and suggested Morton may not be the right person for his post if he fails to enforce federal immigration law.
"If he feels he cannot enforce the law, he shouldn't have the job," Sessions told Fox News. "That makes him, in my view, not fulfilling the responsibilities of his office."
Sessions said the U.S. government has "systematically failed" to enforce federal immigration law and claimed Morton's statement is an indication that federal officials do not plan on working with Arizona authorities regarding its controversial law.
"They're telegraphing to every ICE agency in America that they really don't intend on cooperating with Arizona," Sessions said. "The federal government should step up and do it. It's their responsibility."
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6qEQ-KnitQ&feature=player_embedded
[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6qEQ-KnitQ&feature=player_embedded [/youtube]
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Woof,
It's very simple; our corrupt government officials are intentionally leaving the border unsecured and our current immigration laws unenforced to artificially create a state of crisis so that they can usher in comprehensive immigration reform to replace current law that does not fit with their open border agenda. The current laws were enacted to protect American sovereignty, and if fully enforced, are adequate to that purpose. They don't want to put troops on the border or deport illegals already here because that would end the :-oCRISIS :-o and without the :-oCRISIS :-o they don't have the grounds to scrap current immigration laws and force their agenda driven comprehensive reform down our throats and that is also why the Arizona law is so terrifying to them; if it works and other states do it as well then that might end the :-oCRISIS :-o and they don't want that. It doesn't matter how many Americans are murdered or raped or kidnapped or what the cost to taxpayers is or how destabilizing it is or much illegal drugs enter the country or if it leaves us vulnerable to terrorist attack. It doesn't matter if they economically try to destroy a state or undermine that state's ability to protect its citizens. It doesn't matter that they fail to uphold their oath of office to enforce the laws of our nation. No, it's all good so long as they can futher their agenda.
P.C.
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Well, that about nails it.
Dear President Obama:
I'm planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me.
We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico , and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.
We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.
I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over?
Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. Please print all Mexican government forms in English.
4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.
5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.
7. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico , but, I don't plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won't make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put U S. flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start.
13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.
14. I want to receive free food stamps.
15. Naturally, I'll expect free rent subsidies.
16. I'll need Income tax credits so although I don't pay Mexican Taxes, I'll receive money from the government.
17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Gov't pays $4,500 to help me buy a new car.
18.. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I'll get a monthly income in retirement.
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico . I am sure that President Calderon won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.
Thank you so much for your kind help.
You da’MAN!!!
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Obama: Nation not Defined by Our Borders
by Roger Hedgecock
This surreal regime just gets weirder and weirder.
Yes, the President of the United States attacked the state of Arizona for passing a state law which mirrors a federal law that, since 1940, requires legal residents of the U.S. to carry proof of legal residency and show it when asked by law enforcement officers.
Following this attack, the President refused to call on reporters from U.S. news organizations apparently fearing the question, "Have you read the Arizona law?"—a question which had already revealed that neither Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, nor State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley had read the Arizona law before denouncing it as "discriminatory" and "unconstitutional"
The President made his remarks as part of a joint appearance with Mexican President Calderon, the only person on the planet more hypocritical than Obama.
Calderon blistered the Arizona law at that joint appearance at the White House and the next day before Congress, earning him a standing ovation from the Democrats while Republicans kept their seats. It appeared that when Democrats hear the words "illegal immigrants", they really hear "undocumented Democrats."
Nowhere in the lapdog media was Calderon called on his hypocrisy. The immigration laws of the Republic of Mexico provide for incarceration and deportation without trial, interpreters, lawyers, due process, etc. for anyone illegally in Mexico. No illegal immigrant in Mexico may receive government assistance of any kind and their children may not attend Mexican schools.
In fact, the laws of Mexico allow the army and all law enforcement agencies to enforce their draconian immigration laws, including the authority to demand "papers" from anyone who looks like a non-Mexican.
Mexico forbids legal non-citizen residents from holding office or voting in Mexican elections. A voter I.D. with picture and thumbprint must be produced before any Mexican citizen can vote. No non-Mexican can become a Mexican citizen.
The President should have pointed that out to Calderon. In fact, the President should have complimented the Mexican president on the way his country has preserved it's sovereignty and proposed the ultimate compliment—"reforming" American immigration law by adopting Mexican immigration law.
An American President did speak about immigration 103 years ago and his words ring true today:
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."—Theodore Roosevelt, 1907
Our current President, at the White House joint appearance with Calderon declared "in the 21st century we are not defined by our borders."
Taking the President's cue, the hate America chorus started agitating for a boycott of all things Arizona. City councils in Democrat dominated (and economically failing) cities passed resolutions forbidding city employees from traveling on city business to Arizona and urged all their citizens to do the same.
Apparently, the boycott of visitors from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego has caused a sharp drop of visiting malcontents and agitators in Arizona. Arizona businesses report an uptick of wholesome, family visitors to their state following a nationwide grass roots-led "buycott" of all things Arizona.
The backlash against San Diego was particularly painful. The San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau reports angry letters from Arizona families who love to vacation in the hot summer months in beautiful San Diego vowing to take their vacations elsewhere.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer started doing TV ads assailing the President's attack on Arizona when it became apparent that Arizonans were not going to be bullied. The most recent poll puts Arizona voters 71% in favor of their state illegal immigration crackdown and Governor Brewer up 25% over her nearest rival in the August primary.
Even "Amnesty" John McCain, running for his political life against challenger border-control advocate J.D. Hayworth, put up his own TV ad vowing to "build the danged fence."
Even the Department of Homeland Security last week had to acknowledge the open border was a national security threat. In an alert issued to law enforcement in Texas, the feds warned of Somali terrorists, some aided by the Cuban Embassy in Kenya, crossing through Mexico into the U.S.
This follows at least two busts of smuggling rings specializing in getting Somali terrorists into the U.S. In one such case, the federal prosecutor indicated that "hundreds" of trained terrorists had made it into the U.S. and could not be located.
Ranchers in the area where rancher Rob Krentz was assassinated by the Mexican drug cartels constantly report finding prayer rugs and Korans left in the desert by illegals crossing their ranches.
If, "in the 21st Century, we are not defined by our borders," we will be defined as a country under attack from within as the war comes home and Americans die at the bloody hands of jihadis who found our weak underbelly—our open border with Mexico.
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Woof,
You won't be hearing much about this on the network news: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2520179/posts
P.C.
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Woof,
Obama blinks or is it a wink, just get his idea of reform passed?
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37340747/ns/us_news-security
P.C.
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Meaningless, token B.S. The intention is to create a headline and only that, nothing more.
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Meaningless, token B.S. The intention is to create a headline and only that, nothing more.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9FV86NG4&show_article=1
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And this is exactly why they are "anchor babies" and why this law has to change. Now it is that much harder to get this guy out of the country because he is going to ask what about my kids who are citizens. *He* should have thought about that beofre he came here illegally. And obviously he did. And obviously he never thought anyone would actually enforce the law and now he is going to use the "how dare you break up families defense". God are we stupid or what?
****" Alfonso Martinez, a 38-year-old Phoenix carpenter and father of three children who are American citizens, said he's been living illegally in the United States for 21 years while trying to get legal status.
"If they stop me and they find my status, who's going to feed my kids? Who's going to keep working hard for them?"****
Immigration law protesters march on Ariz. Capitol
PHOENIX (AP) - Thousands of people from around the country marched to the Arizona state Capitol on Saturday to protest the state's tough new crackdown on illegal immigration.
Opponents of the law suspended their boycott against Arizona and bused in protesters from around the country. Organizers said the demonstration could bring in as many as 50,000 people.
Midtown Phoenix buzzed with protesters carrying signs and American flags. Dozens of police officers were on standby along the route of the five-mile march, and helicopters hovered overhead.
Protesters braved temperatures that were forecast to reach 95 degrees by mid-afternoon. Some used umbrellas or cardboard signs to protect their faces from the sun. Volunteers handed out water bottles from the beds of pickup trucks, and organizers set up three water stations along the route.
Supporters of the law expect to draw thousands to a rally of their own Saturday evening at a baseball stadium in suburban Tempe, encouraging like-minded Americans to "buycott" Arizona by planning vacations in the state.
Critics of the law, set to take effect July 29, say it unfairly targets Hispanics and could lead to racial profiling. Its supporters say Arizona is trying to enforce immigration laws because the federal government has failed to do so.
The law requires that police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they're in the country illegally.
Supporters of the law insist racial profiling will not be tolerated, but civil rights leaders worry that officers will still rely on assumptions that illegal immigrants are Hispanic.
Luis Jimenez, a 33-year-old college professor who lives in South Hadley, Mass., said the law will force police officers to spend much of their time on immigration violations instead of patrolling neighborhoods or dealing with violent crime.
The law also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally or to impede traffic while hiring day laborers, regardless of the worker's immigration status.
"You're saying to the cop: 'Go pick up that day laborer. Don't worry about that guy committing crimes,'" said Jimenez, a naturalized citizen from Mexico who grew up in Phoenix.
Alfonso Martinez, a 38-year-old Phoenix carpenter and father of three children who are American citizens, said he's been living illegally in the United States for 21 years while trying to get legal status.
"If they stop me and they find my status, who's going to feed my kids? Who's going to keep working hard for them?" he said, keeping a careful eye on his 6-year-old daughter as his wife pushed their 4-year-old girl in a stroller. Their 13-year-old son walked ahead of them.
Some opponents of the law have encouraged people to cancel conventions in the state and avoid doing business with Arizona-based companies, hoping the economic pressure forces lawmakers to repeal the law.
But Alfredo Gutierrez, chairman of the boycott committee of Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, said the boycott doesn't apply to people coming to resist the law. Opponents said they secured warehouse space for people to sleep on cots instead of staying in hotels.
"The point was to be here for this march to show support for these folks, then we're out," said Jose Vargas, a union representative for New York City teachers. "We're not spending a dime here."
Supporters of the law sought to counteract the economic damage of boycotts by bringing supporters into the state.
"Arizona, we feel, is America's Alamo in the fight against illegal and dangerous entry into the United States," said Gina Loudon of St. Louis, who is organizing the "buycott."
"Our border guards and all of Arizona law enforcement are the undermanned, under-gunned, taxed-to-the-limit front-line defenders trying to hold back the invasion," she said.
In San Francisco, groups planned to protest at the Arizona Diamondbacks' game against the Giants Saturday night.
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http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/29/obama-admin-trying-to-deport-son-of-hamas-founder-and-christian-convert-who-spied-for-israel-on-grounds-hes-a-security-threat/
There is an alien Obama wants to deport....
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http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/29/obama-admin-trying-to-deport-son-of-hamas-founder-and-christian-convert-who-spied-for-israel-on-grounds-hes-a-security-threat/
There is an alien Obama wants to deport....
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a long time.
IMO, Obama shoud be deported to Kenya at the earliest possible time. A bigger security threat to our country we have never had.
S.
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GM:
Let us be precise now. From the information posted in this blog, all we can say is that some idiot(s) in DHS have initiated this.
That said, this bears watching, please keep us informed.
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Kids say the darnedest things!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100531/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_girl_immigration
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Perhaps this thread should be retitled the cognitive dissonance of immigration debate in the US. Now we are debating that illegals are fighting for their civil rights analogous to Blacks whose ancestors were brought here in chains. I say enough. And don't tell me the story about they guy who is an "aspiring physicist"(see below)! I am not impressed. Get the hell our of here. They/he are/is illegal. What about the word illegal do they not understand. They have no rights as citizens under our laws. Now we are debating this?? :roll:
BOSTON (AP) - They gather on statehouse steps with signs and bullhorns, risking arrest. They attend workshops on civil disobedience and personal storytelling, and they hold sit-ins and walk out of class in protest. They're being warned that they could even lose their lives.
Students fighting laws that target illegal immigrants are taking a page from the civil rights era, adopting tactics and gathering praise and momentum from the demonstrators who marched in the streets and sat at segregated lunch counters as they sought to turn the public tide against racial segregation.
"Their struggle then is ours now," said Deivid Ribeiro, 21, an illegal immigrant from Brazil and an aspiring physicist. "Like it was for them, this is about survival for us. We have no choice."
Undocumented students, many of whom consider themselves "culturally American" because they have lived in the U.S. most of their lives, don't qualify for federal financial aid and can't get in-state tuition rates in some places. They are drawing parallels between themselves and the 1950s segregation of black and Mexican-American students.
"I think it's genius," said Amilcar Shabazz, chairman of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts. "If you want to figure out how to get your story out and change the political mood in America, everybody knows the place to start your studies is the civil rights movement."
For two years, Renata Teodoro lived in fear of being deported to her native Brazil, like her mother, brother and sister. She reserved her social contact for close friends, was extra careful about signing her name anywhere, and fretted whenever anyone asked about her immigration status, because she been living illegally in the United States since she was 6.
Yet on a recent afternoon, Teodoro gathered with other illegal immigrants outside the Massachusetts Statehouse with signs, fliers and a bullhorn - then marched the streets of Boston, putting herself in danger of arrest by going public but hoping her new openness would prompt action on the DREAM Act, a federal bill to allow people like her a pathway to citizenship via college enrollment or military service.
"I don't care. I can't live like this anymore," said Teodoro, 22, a leader of the Student Immigration Movement and a part-time student at UMass-Boston. "I'm not afraid, and I have to take a stand."
The shift has been building, said Tom Shields, a doctoral student at Brandeis University in Waltham who is studying the new student movement.
"In recent months, there has been an interest in connecting the narrative of their struggle to the civil rights effort for education," Shields said.
The movement has gained attention of Congress. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in April, asking her to halt deportations of immigrant students who could earn legal status under DREAM, which stands for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors act, and which they're sponsoring.
Last month, three illegal immigrant students demanding to meet with Arizona Sen. John McCain about DREAM were arrested and later detained for refusing to leave his Tucson office. High school and college students in Chicago and Denver walked out of class this year to protest Arizona's tough new law requiring immigrants to carry registration papers. In December, immigrant students staged a "Trail of Dreams" march from Miami's historic Freedom Tower to Washington, D.C., to raise support for DREAM.
Similar student immigrant groups have sprung up at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Houston.
By attaching themselves to the civil rights movement, Shabazz said, the immigrant students can claim the moral high ground and underdog status of the debate.
"The question now is ... can they convince moderate, middle-of-the-road, independent voters to support them?" he said.
The Rev. William Lawson, an 81-year-old civil rights leader and retired pastor of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, called the student activists' tactics courageous and said he'd like to meet them. But Lawson, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., cautioned student immigrant activists to prepare for peers getting arrested, deported or possibly killed.
"You do have to expect consequences. Many civil rights activists faced injury, sometimes death," said Lawson. "And I'm not sure how many of these (students) understand the fundamental philosophy of nonviolence."
Students have to keep in mind the audience they're trying to win over, said Lonnie King, 73, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the group responsible for sit-ins at segregated restaurants across the South in the 1960s.
"They need to understand that the bulk of folks are in the middle," King said. "They have to coach their message to make it broadly appealing."
In Massachusetts, hundreds of student activists have gone through training by Marshall Ganz, a public policy lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and a former organizer with the late Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers movement. At special camps, students attend workshops on civil disobedience, storytelling and media outreach.
Students who have attended the workshops even continue to use the well-known farm workers' rallying clap at the end of organizing meetings.
"They know that clap," Ganz said, "because I taught them that clap. It's all about the experience."
Teodoro said the training changed her life and showed her the cause was larger than herself.
During the rally last week in Boston, she led a march from the Massachusetts Statehouse to Sen. Scott Brown's office at the John F. Kennedy federal building, which also houses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices. Along with Carlos Savio Oliveira, 22, of Falmouth, Mass., another illegal immigrant, the pair walked into the federal building to hand Brown's staff 1,500 letters of support for the DREAM Act.
Outside supporters wore T-shirts with the words "Brown is beautiful" - a pun referring to the Chicano movement chant and Brown's well-publicized nude photo spread in Cosmopolitan magazine as a college student.
Brown, whose office was previously the site of a sit-in by the same group, has not said whether he supports the bill.
In September, Teodoro and a dozen other students also took a weeklong trip from Boston to the South, with Shields driving.
Along the way, they met with black former students who desegregated Clinton High School in Tennessee and Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. They visited civil rights museums and filmed the journey for a planned documentary. But the highlight was meeting Carlotta Walls LaNier, a member of the Little Rock Nine.
Teodoro cornered LaNier at a book signing of her memoir, "A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School."
"I went up to her at the signing and told her my story and tried not to cry," Teodoro said. "She listened. Then, she hugged me."
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Woof,
Next, I guess he will blame the white suff in bird poo, on the AZ law.
:? :-P www.news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100608/wl_ynews/ynews_wl2456
P.C.
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Woof,
My only question is, why doesn't the headline say, "Mexican Army invades sovereign U.S. territory in effort to frame U.S. Border Patrol agent for murder on Mexican soil"? How much of this crap do we have to take; if you don't want to be shot, don't try to kill Border Patrol agents with rocks, AND STAY THE f AWAY FROM OUR BORDER!
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-border-slaying-20100610,0,1493671.story
P.C.
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Ohhh! this could get ugly. If the agent is deported to Mexico for trial........? Watch what happens to the border then, when blue flu hits the border patrol. Where is the president anyway? I suspect that a lot of citizens living on the border are now pulling shotguns and hunting rifles out of the closets and hanging them over the fireplace now. I would hate to be someone caught cutting a ranchers fence or barging thru a farmers field right now in that area.........
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My family owns land where one of these raids came through, it still resonates. This is the history people don't know.
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PLAN OF SAN DIEGO. With the outbreak of revolution in northern Mexico in 1910, federal authorities and officials of the state of Texas feared that the violence and disorder might spill over into the Rio Grande valley. The Mexican and Mexican-American populations residing in the Valley far outnumbered the Anglo population. Many Valley residents either had relatives living in areas of Mexico affected by revolutionary activity or aided the various revolutionary factions in Mexico. The revolution caused an influx of political refugees and illegal immigrants into the border region, politicizing the Valley population and disturbing the traditional politics of the region. Some radical elements saw the Mexican Revolution as an opportunity to bring about drastic political and economic changes in South Texas. The most extreme example of this was a movement supporting the "Plan of San Diego," a revolutionary manifesto supposedly written and signed at the South Texas town of San Diego on January 6, 1915. The plan, actually drafted in a jail in Monterrey, Nuevo León, provided for the formation of a "Liberating Army of Races and Peoples," to be made up of Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Japanese, to "free" the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado from United States control. The liberated states would be organized into an independent republic, which might later seek annexation to Mexico. There would be a no-quarter race war, with summary execution of all white males over the age of sixteen. The revolution was to begin on February 20, 1915. Federal and state officials found a copy of the plan when local authorities in McAllen, Texas, arrested Basilio Ramos, Jr., one of the leaders of the plot, on January 24, 1915.
The arrival of February 20 produced only another revolutionary manifesto, rather than the promised insurrection. Similar to the original plan, this second Plan of San Diego emphasized the "liberation" of the proletariat and focused on Texas, where a "social republic" would be established to serve as a base for spreading the revolution throughout the southwestern United States. Indians were also to be enlisted in the cause. But with no signs of revolutionary activity, state and federal authorities dismissed the plan as one more example of the revolutionary rhetoric that flourished along the border. This feeling of complacency was shattered in July 1915 with a series of raids in the lower Rio Grande valley connected with the Plan of San Diego. These raids were led by two adherents of Venustiano Carranza, revolutionary general, and Aniceto Pizaña and Luis De la Rosa, residents of South Texas. The bands used the guerilla tactics of disrupting transportation and communication in the border area and killing Anglos. In response, the United States Army moved reinforcements into the area.
A third version of the plan called for the foundation of a "Republic of Texas" to be made up of Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, and parts of Mississippi and Oklahoma. San Antonio, Texas, was to serve as revolutionary headquarters, and the movement's leadership continued to come from South Texas. Raids originated on both sides of the Rio Grande, eventually assuming a pattern of guerilla warfare. Raids from the Mexican side came from territory under the control of Carranza, whose officers were accused of supporting the raiders. When the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico in October 1915, the raids came to an abrupt halt. Relations between the United States and Carranza quickly turned sour, however, amid growing violence along the border. When forces under another revolutionary general, Francisco (Pancho) Villa, attacked Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, the United States responded by sending a large military force under Gen. John J. Pershing into northern Mexico in pursuit of Villa. When the United States rejected Carranza's demands to withdraw Pershing's troops, fear of a military conflict between the United States and Mexico grew. In this volatile context, there was a renewal of raiding under the Plan of San Diego in May 1916. Mexican officials were even considering the possibility of combining the San Diego raiders with regular Mexican forces in an attack on Laredo. In late June, Mexican and United States officials agreed to a peaceful settlement of differences, and raids under the Plan of San Diego came to a halt.
The Plan of San Diego and the raids that accompanied it were originally attributed to the supporters of the ousted Mexican dictator Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who had been overthrown by Carranza in 1914. The evidence indicates, however, that the raids were carried out by followers of Carranza, who manipulated the movement in an effort to influence relations with the United States. Fatalities directly linked to the raids were surprisingly small; between July 1915 and July 1916 some thirty raids into Texas produced only twenty-one American deaths, both civilian and military. More destructive and disruptive was the near race war that ensued in the wake of the plan as relations between the whites and the Mexicans and Mexican Americans deteriorated in 1915–16. Federal reports indicated that more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican Americans were summarily executed in South Texas in the atmosphere generated by the plan. Economic losses ran into the millions of dollars, and virtually all residents of the lower Rio Grande valley suffered some disruption in their lives from the raids. Moreover, the plan's legacy of racial antagonism endured long after the plan itself had been forgotten.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Don M. Coerver and Linda B. Hall, Texas and the Mexican Revolution: A Study in State and National Border Policy, 1910–1920 (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1984). Charles C. Cumberland, "Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley-1915," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 (January 1954). Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler, "The Plan of San Diego and the Mexican-U.S. War Crisis of 1916: A Reexamination," Hispanic American Historical Review 58 (August 1978). Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). James A. Sandos, "The Plan of San Diego: War and Diplomacy on the Texas Border, 1915–1916," Arizona and the West 14 (Spring 1972). James Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).
Don M. Coerver
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?hpt=P1&iref=NS1
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Having viewed the video several times, I don't see what CNN claims.
Here are a few safety tips for illegals wishing to violate our border and laws:
1. For your safety, please refrain from entering the US illegally.
2. Don't bring a rock to a gunfight.
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Having viewed the video several times, I don't see what CNN claims.
Here are a few safety tips for illegals wishing to violate our border and laws:
1. For your safety, please refrain from entering the US illegally.
2. Don't bring a rock to a gunfight.
Dude, direct and to the point as always. :evil:
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Finally a bill introduced in Arizona to challenge this phoney interpretation of the Constitution. Of course it will eventually wind up in the Supreme Court and if Bama can pack it to a majority with liberals it will lose as will the United States but that said I like the legal analysis in the article posted after the Time magazine article that is posted below. I think the second article makes a very good case that children of illegals are not simply subject to the jurisdiction of the US simply by residing here when they are born. If both their parents are here illegally then both parents are subject to and thus citizens of another country. Therefore so are their children. What I didn't realize is that before 1868 there was absolutely nothing in the Constitution that proclaimed anyone born here is an automatic citizen. It was enacted in 1868 in the 14th amendment apparently to protect blacks and their children. Not anyone walking over a border and setting up shop in the US. And since the slave ancestors of Blacks were dragged here in chains, unlike any other group in our history this provision certainly makes sense as it was meant to apply to them.
The Arizona law, if enacted, will need to go to the Supreme Court to clarify. Obviously a liberal Court will strike it down. A conservative Court will uphold it.
1) Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals
"Anchor babies" isn't a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation's toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots - the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. - for their next move.
Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona - and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution - to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists - things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop. (See the battle for Arizona: will a border crackdown work?)
But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB 1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential "anchor baby" bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the "anchor" and leave. (See pictures of the Great Wall of America.)
The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that "all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government's control over citizenship.
But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been "hijacked" by illegal immigrants. "They use it as a wedge," Pearce says. "This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we've created." Pearce says he is aware of the constitutional issues involved with the bill and vows to introduce it nevertheless. "We will write it right." He and other Republicans in the red state Arizona point to popular sympathy: 58% of Americans polled by Rasmussen think illegal immigrants whose children are born here should not receive citizenship; support for that stance is 76% among Republicans.
Those who oppose the bill say it would lead to more discrimination and divide the community. Among them is Phoenix resident Susan Vie, who is leading a citizen group that's behind an opposing ballot initiative. She moved to the U.S. 30 years ago from Argentina, became a naturalized citizen and now works as a client-relations representative for a vaccine company. "I see a lot of hate and racism behind it," Vie says. "Consequently, I believe it will create - and it's creating it now - a separation in our society." She adds, "When people look at me, they will think, 'Is she legal or illegal?' I can already feel it right now." Vie's citizen initiative would prohibit SB 1070 from taking affect, place a three-year moratorium on all related laws - including the anchor baby bill - to buy more time for federal immigration reform. Her group is racing to collect 153,365 signatures by July 1 to qualify for the Nov. 2 general election.
Both sides expect the anchor baby bill to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court before it is enacted. "I think it would be struck down as facially unconstitutional. I can't imagine a federal judge saying this would be OK," says Dan Barr, a longtime Phoenix lawyer and constitutional litigator. Potentially joining the anchor baby bill at the Supreme Court may be SB 1070, which Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed into law in April. It is set to take effect July 29, but at least five courtroom challenges have been filed against it. Pearce says he will win them all.
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2) Secure Our Borders!Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof
What “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof” Really Means
By P.A. Madison
I have been bombarded lately with requests to revisit the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendments “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language. Some desire confirmation whether the language simply implies temporary obedience to laws, while others want to confirm whether it requires something more direct and substantial. I’ll spare the reader a lengthy treatise by making this short and to the point.
Perhaps the first most important thing to understand about national birthright is that there was no national birthright rule until the year 1866. One will look in vain to find any national law on the subject prior to this year, or even any mention of the right to citizenship by birth under the United States Constitution.
One reason for the absence of an early-defined national birthright rule is that States had decided for themselves who were its citizens by virtue of being born within the limits of the State. Prior to the 14th amendment citizens of the United States were strictly defined as citizens of the States.
After the Revolution, States retained only those portions of common law that were applicable to their local circumstances. The practice of England at the time was every person born within the realm of the King was a natural born subject by virtue of birth alone. In the United States, such a rule was not strictly followed as children born to black slaves, transient aliens, or Indians, followed the condition of their father.
Virginia for example, enacted an early birthright law sponsored by Thomas Jefferson in May of 1779 that specifically required the father to be a citizen: “[A]ll infants, whenever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was a citizen at the time of their birth…shall be deemed citizens of this Commonwealth…”
Conceivably, Congress could had from the beginning attempted to include a defined birthright rule under the laws of naturalization – whether due to place of birth or parentage – but would have found, just as the Thirty-Ninth Congress had discovered, to be no simple matter as individual States had differing opinions over who should, or should not, be its citizens.As a rule, the nation considered only those patriotic immigrants who came here for the exclusive purpose to settling amongst us, bringing with them wealth, like habits and customs as those worthy to become part of our society. More importantly, those willing to renounce all prior allegiances to their country of origin and swear fidelity to this one. Paupers, vagabonds and imperialist were universally despised.Imagine for a moment Congress debating during the constitutional convention, or even years following the adoption of the Constitution, a national criterion for establishing citizenship by birth of all persons as practiced under English common law. Firstly, that would have been rejected by a number of States as placing men of color on an equal footing with the Anglo-Saxon race. This in return forcing perhaps an attempt to compromise using the words “free white men,” with that in return being rejected by some northern States as repugnant of the Declaration’s “all men are created equal.”Moreover, there undoubtly would been terrible disputes over the fact the nation was attempting to adopt common law as general law, something more than a few considered derogatory. James Madison succinctly illustrates such dilemma to George Washington:
What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & anti-republican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law.
So what was to be the premise behind America’s first and only constitutional birthright declaration in the year 1866? Simply all children born to parents who owed no foreign allegiance were to be citizens of the United States, that is to say, not only must a child be born within the limits of the United States, but born within the complete allegiance of the United States as a nation – not merely its laws only.
In other words, there is no such thing as American citizenship without allegiance to the nation. Why make citizens of those who owe no allegiance to the country, who might join the forces of another country against you? This goes to the core of American allegiance.
Many make the silly mistake of confusing temporary allegiance to a countries laws under the law of nations with that of allegiance to a nation. In school we pledge allegiance to the flag and the “Republic for which it stands,” not pledge our allegiance to local traffic laws. No one during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries confused owing allegiance to the laws with that of owing allegiance to a nation.
If anyone needs any confirmation of the above conclusion, need only to view Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes the same Congress had adopted as national law in the year 1866: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Sen. Trumbull stated during the drafting of the above national birthright law that it was the goal to “make citizens of everybody born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States.”
Sen. Trumbull felt the words, “That all persons born in the United States and owing allegiance thereto are hereby declared to be citizens” would be more than sufficient to fulfill this goal. However, after investigation it was found the United States had no authority to make citizens of those temporarily residing in the United States who owed only a “temporary allegiance.”
This is why it was later demanded that a complete and immediate allegiance – that is, “not owing allegiance to anyone else” – be established under a constitutional amendment and not merely a temporary allegiance.
Framer of the Fourteenth Amendments first section, John Bingham, said this language meant “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” As applied to aliens, this meant those aliens who first declared their intent to become citizens of the United States, and who had renounced their allegiance to some other sovereignty as required under U.S. naturalization laws.
During the debates of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, both its primary framers, Sen. Jacob Howard and Sen. Lyman Trumbull listened to concerns of including such persons as Chinese, Mongolians, and Gypsies to citizenship. Additionally, Sen. Fessenden raised the question of persons born of parents from abroad temporarily in this country, and of course, the question of Indians. Chinese, if one remembers their history, where a major concern on the part of citizens on the pacific coast and occupied a great deal of the news of the time (mostly all negative).
Sen. Trumbull attempted to assure Senators that Indians were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Sen. Johnson argued that Sen. Trumbull was in error in regards to the Indian’s not being under the jurisdiction of the United States. This must have raised concerns with Howard because he strongly made it known that he had no intention whatsoever to confer citizenship upon the Indians under his amendment, no matter if born within or outside of their tribal lands.
Sen. Trumbull and Sen. Howard then settled upon a construction for “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” with Trumbull declaring:
The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by ‘complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.
Sen. Trumbull further added, “It cannot be said of any Indian who owes allegiance, partial allegiance if you please, to some other Government that he is ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.’” Sen. Jacob Howard agreed:
concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois [Trumbull], in holding that the word “jurisdiction,” as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.
The above statements by Howard and Trumbull give us a good idea of what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as employed under the Fourteenth Amendment means: Absence of owing any allegiance to any other foreign power, which in return allows the United States to exercise full and complete jurisdiction over the person.
To understand how an alien might not owe allegiance to some other sovereignty upon arrival to this country, one need to look no further then the naturalization laws of the United States. Under United States law, an alien was required to make a declaration of his intention to become a citizen, and renounce all allegiance to his former government two years before he could make a final application.
Therefore, it does not require a leap of faith to understand what persons, other than citizens themselves, under the Fourteenth Amendment are citizens of the United States by birth: Those aliens who have come with the intent to become U.S. citizens, who had first compiled with the laws of naturalization in declaring their intent and renounce all prior allegiances.
Sen. Trumbull further restates the the goal of the language: “It is only those persons who come completely within our jurisdiction, who are subject to our laws, that we think of making citizens…” He could only be referring to the laws of naturalization and consent to expatriation by the immigrant in order for him to come completely within the jurisdiction of the United States and its laws, i.e., he cannot be a subject of another nation.
On July 18, 1868 Sen. Howard explained expatriation to mean “the emigration of the foreigner from his native land to some other land non animo revertendi; that is, with the intention of changing his domicile and making his permanent home in the country to which he emigrates.” Sen. Howard explained that expatriation could only be complete through law alone, and not through any act of the immigrant acting on his own outside of the law.
A citizen owes the same quality of allegiance to their nation of origin as does their country’s ambassador and foreign ministers while within the limits of another nation unless they freely decide to renounce their allegiance in accordance to law. In other words, it would be preposterous to consider under the meaning given to “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” that a French subject visiting the United States was not a subject of France, but completely subject to the will of the United States while within the limits of the nation without first consenting to expatriation.
The United States has always, as a matter of law, considered new arrivals subjects of the country from which they owed their allegiance. As a matter of law, new arrivals were recognized as bearing the allegiance of the country of their origin. No more is this evident then with the recording of the certificate of intent to become a citizen of the United States:
James Spratt, a native of Ireland, aged about twenty-six years, bearing allegiance to the king of Great Britain and Ireland, who emigrated from Ireland and arrived in the United States on the 1st of June 1812, and intends to reside within the jurisdiction and under the government of the United States, makes report of himself for naturalization according to the acts of congress in that case made and provided, the 14th of April anno domini 1817, in the clerk’s office of the circuit court of the district of Columbia, for the county of Washington: and on the 14th of May 1817, the said James Spratt personally appeared in open court, and declared on oath, that it is his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, &c.
James Spratt would be considered completely subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with owing no other nation his allegiance under the Fourteenth Amendment. Children born to him would under the Fourteenth Amendment, be citizens of the United States even though he might not yet been awarded citizenship himself. It should be pointed out that woman were not naturalized individually, but only became naturalized by virtue of marriage to a male who became naturalized himself.
Those who were not qualified under naturalization laws of the United States to become citizens of the United States would be unable to renounce their prior allegiances and consent to the full jurisdiction of the United States as needed to become a citizen. This is how children born to Indian’s and Asians were prevented from becoming citizens themselves under the language chosen.
What changed after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment? Not much really. States adopted laws that excluded either “transient aliens” or those not resident of the State. New York had already a 1857 code that read, “All persons born in this state, and resident within it, except the children of transient aliens, and of alien public ministers and consuls…”
After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, California, Montana and South Dakota adopted identical language as New York.
In 1898, some thirty years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States argued a Chinese man born to Chinese parents in San Francisco could not be a citizen of the United States because his parents were not subjects of the United States at the time of his birth, but the subjects of the emperor of China. (U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark)
The Government had it right and the Supreme Court got it all wrong (deliberately) by deciding the language under old English common law, something the adopted national rule departed sharply from. Additionally, Howard made no reference to citizenship as having anything to do with common law, but virtue of “natural law” and “national law.”
Under old English common law, neither expressed allegiance or, the lack of it, was a requirement for birthright. The Thirty-Ninth congress by contrast, made the lack of owing allegiance to some other sovereignty an advance prerequisite, and by doing so, departed from the common law rule.
If there is one inescapable truth to the text and debates, it is this: When Congress decided to require potential citizens to first be subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States they by default excluded all citizens of other nations temporarily residing in the U.S. who had no intention of becoming citizens themselves or, disqualified of doing so under naturalization laws. This was no oversight because it was too simple to declare the common law rule of jus soli if indeed that was truly the desired goal by these very competent lawyers (both Howard and Trumbull were lawyers). Instead, there were classes of persons no one desired to make citizens, while also being classes of persons national law prohibited from becoming citizens.
Aaron Sargent, a Representative from California during the Naturalization Act of 1870 debates said the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause was not a de-facto right for aliens to obtain citizenship. No one came forward to dispute this conclusion.
Perhaps because he was absolutely correct.
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While I am definitely against ILLEGAL immigration, and perhaps selfishly, I am also against anchor babies (I know of rich Asians who "vacation" on a tourist visa in HI and deliver their baby, thereby ensuring citizenship), it seems that the law is quite clear. It is futile to challenge it. Further, the Court has also clearly held that you are entitled to hold duel citizenship if you are a citizen by birth here in the USA.
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents around 1870 (the exact date is uncertain due to discrepancies among the various sources). In 1895, upon his return from a visit to China, he was refused entry by US customs officials, who asserted that despite his having been born in the US, he was a subject of the Chinese emperor and not a US citizen.
The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling on a 6-2 vote that Wong Kim Ark was in fact a US citizen. The court cited the "citizenship clause" of the 14th Amendment, which states that all persons born (or naturalized) in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. Although the original motivation for this language in the 14th Amendment was to secure citizenship for the freed Negro slaves, the court held that the clause clearly applied to "all persons", regardless of their race or national origin.
As for the question of being "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States -- i.e., the relationship between a person and a government whereby one "owes obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for treason or other crimes" -- the Supreme Court observed that English common law (legal tradition inherited from Britain by the US) had long recognized only two jurisdictional exceptions to the principle of ius soli (citizenship by birth on a country's soil): namely, (a) foreign diplomats, and (b) enemy forces in hostile occupation of a portion of the country's territory. Since neither of the above exceptions applied to Wong Kim Ark's parents, the court held that he was unquestionably a US citizen by virtue of his having been born in the US.
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Were Wong Kim Ark's parents present here legally at the time of his birth? A general legal principle is that criminal conduct should not be rewarded. It's one thing if the parents are present in the US legally, another if they are not.
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Were Wong Kim Ark's parents present here legally at the time of his birth? A general legal principle is that criminal conduct should not be rewarded. It's one thing if the parents are present in the US legally, another if they are not.
"Here legally"? Hmmm interesting moral question, but not relevant. In one of our sordid discriminatory periods of our past Congress of the United States enacted a law, known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race from coming into the United States or becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. Chinese immigrants already in the U.S. were allowed to stay, but were ineligible for naturalization; and if they left the U.S., they generally could not return.
However, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) clarified matters and is quite clear, regardless, legal or illegal, if you are born in America you are a citizen. Period.
Another ancillary thought; one could argue that the criminal conduct of someone/anyone here illegally is not rewarded. The parents are not granted citizenship, only the child born in America is given this "reward". One can hardly say the child committed a criminal act merely by being born in America.
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It's not just a moral question but a key legal question as well. Just as a bank robber is not free to pass on his criminal takings onto his children, those who criminally enter the US have no legal standing to pass on US citizenship to their children. If one fraudulently or otherwise criminally obtains US citizenship, the citizenship is revoked, the same should be true for multigenerational acts.
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http://federalistblog.us/2006/12/us_v_wong_kim_ark_can_never_be_considered.html
Was U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark Wrongly Decided?
By P.A. Madison on December 10, 2006 | 22 Comments | More United States v. Wong Kim Ark is a notable court ruling for its dramatic departure over an earlier holding in the meaning “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” found in Elk v. Wilkins. It is also notable for the majorities insistence that the debates in Congress would not be admissible for controlling the meaning of the words.
Reading the majorities opinion in Wong Kim Ark, one can’t help but wonder why so much emphasis is being placed on such obscure and irrelevant historical overviews as colonial and foreign law. With two previous established court decisions that substantially covered the same ground regarding the meaning and application of the words found under the Fourteenth Amendments citizenship clause, leaves one to wonder what is going on here?
Deeper into the decision, justice Horace Gray (writing for the majority) reveals exactly what the majority is up to: They are attempting to avoid discussion over the construction of the clause by the two Senators whom are most responsible for its language found in the Constitution, Jacob M. Howard and Lyman Trumbull. They are also attempting to keep their holding to what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in Elk v. Wilkins out of the discussion, or else Wong Kim Ark can’t be said to be a citizen of the United States.
It is clear the Wong Kim Ark majority recognized the only viable approach to the conclusion they sought was to somehow distant themselves from the recorded history left behind by the citizenship clause framers. Justice Gray made no attempt to hide this fact when he wrote: “Doubtless, the intention of the congress which framed, and of the states which adopted, this amendment of the constitution, must be sought in the words of the amendment, and the debates in congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words.”
Whatever credibility the court may had at the beginning was soon lost when Gray wrote:
The words “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution must be presumed to have been understood and intended by the Congress which proposed the Amendment … as the equivalent of the words “within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States…”
Here the court is assuming what Congress may have intended while also arguing the written debates that could easily disclose this intent is inadmissible as evidence. This has to be one of the most incompetent and feeble rulings ever handed down by the Supreme Court. Justice John Paul Stevens would take issue with this inept attempt by the majority to rewrite the Constitution: “A refusal to consider reliable evidence of original intent in the Constitution is no more excusable than a judge’s refusal to consider legislative intent.”
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This is a fascinating discussion. As a Constitutional matter it better belongs in that thread on the SCH forum, but I get the logic for it being here and since it is here lets leave it here.
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"if you are born in America you are a citizen"
That makes perfect sense - if you ignore the primacy of family. If the child is born and abandoned within our borders, he or she is clearly deserving protection and citizenship. If we are speaking of an intact family with allegiance elsewhere, then no.
If we want to ignore the primacy of family (the founders didn't), then take the baby, grant citizenship, deport the trespassing parents, and see how many more come for that loophole.
Second guessing wrongly decided cases is what we do here on the forum, I hope, and overturning them is what they are supposed to do on the Court.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
A baby born to a foreign family touring the U.S. on vacation does not reside here. You would have to read only part of that sentence above to conclude a baby of a foreign family becomes a citizen.
If the language of the amendment and its intent are not one and the same we should be actively going through the amendment process to clarify and get it right.
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Doug writes,
"If we want to ignore the primacy of family (the founders didn't), then take the baby, grant citizenship, deport the trespassing parents, and see how many more come for that loophole."
And that is it in a nutshell. Those coming illegally know quite well what a spectacle this would make. And that is the meaning of "anchor" baby.
Hillary has said that breaking up families and mass deportion would not, and cannot happen. We all KNOW she would not say this if the groups we are talking were predominantly Republican voters.
While possible I don't think the reverse would (at least in theory) be true; that is that conservatives would sell out America simply for more votes. Perhaps, Republicans would sell us out too, but I really don't think they would do so in such obnoxious, cynical, hypocritical, and deceitful fashion.
It also seems quite clear to me we won't have to round everyone up and handcuff them and send them home on military trains watching MSLSD and CNN showing hoards of crying screaming illegals having their families broken up for the world to see and play the international "emotional/sympathy card".
The reports that 100 K illegals have already left Arizona because they "don't feel welcome" (laughing out loud at that one) absolutely proves that we need cut off the job loophole, the ID loophole, the free benefits and the rest will take care of itself.
If we could stop this ridiculous abuse of the born here automatic citizen here than we have the royal flush and the problem is mostly fixed - albeit ID fraud etc, visa fraud, application fraud etc.
I would think, another way to get around this born here citizen no questions asked loophole is national security and the obligation of the Feds to protect our borders.
Any legal experts here have any thoughts on that? JDN suggests this is to some extent a long recognized exception when speaking of "enemy" combatants.
As for Asians who come here just to give birth so their kids can be citizens (dual); I wonder how much this goes on?
I bet it is common. The Chinese meld into China towns and work in the backs of Chinese restaurants. Those from many countries are doing the same thing. 50K Irish in NYC. Someone is giving them work.
Also getting relatives onto Medicare, social security. It is rampant. And our government does nothing.
IMO we need not sit back and throw up our hands and say as JDN states, "It is futile to challenge it".
We just need polticians with courage. I am convinced now that the majority of Americans would be behind them. Marc Levin recently pointed out a poll that noted the Dem/Rep voting stats for Latinos has, at least so far not changed since the Az law suggesting those Latinos who believe in Republican values have not changed their minds because of it. I am encouraged we must proceed and get this problem addressed.
I am not interested in hurting anyone, Latino or otherwise but I am not interested in being stupid and giving the my country away.
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"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
A baby born to a foreign family touring the U.S. on vacation does not reside here. You would have to read only part of that sentence above to conclude a baby of a foreign family becomes a citizen.
If the language of the amendment and its intent are not one and the same we should be actively going through the amendment process to clarify and get it right.
DougMacG... I am sorry to be "targeting" you, but the above statement isn't true. The 14th amendment was written that way in an effort to directly address the Dred Scott opinion. It was meant to give citizenship rights at both the national and state level, and not to allow the states to strip citizens of their rights. Read the rest of section 1 of the amendment. However, that can also be seen as good news for conservatives (see, for example, the right to bear arms).
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Was the legislative intent to reward those that violate the nations immigration laws/borders?
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Nope, the purpose was to ensure that individual states couldn't restrict citizenship rights. Citizenship rights are given to all those born on our soil.
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If your interpretation of the constitution was correct, which it isn't, then there would not have been a need for the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 .
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Bigdog wrote: "DougMacG... I am sorry to be "targeting" you, but the above statement isn't true."
Big dog, Please have at it. No hurt feelings, at least so far. You should see how the others rip me, lol. I write with the hope that any mistakes or falsehoods will be corrected and my opinions are open to discovery of more info or learning of other views. As Crafty says, 'the adventure continues'.
It seemed to me in casual reading that the same sentenced granting citizenship also refers to the person residing here - in one of the states.
In my state, a mother or couple can drop off an unwanted newborn with no questions asked. If I were interpreting the 14th amendment, I would see that as the situation where the newborn 'foreigner' gains automatic citizenship. In the case Won Kim Ark, the newborn was subject to his intact family who were subject to a foreign emperor, and none of them resided here - in any of the states.
Bigdog: "The 14th amendment was written that way in an effort to directly address the Dred Scott opinion. It was meant to give citizenship rights at both the national and state level, and not to allow the states to strip citizens of their rights. Read the rest of section 1 of the amendment."
(The rest of section 1 of the amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.")
I agree with you on this part. But the former slave and offspring were residing here, the Chinese tourist and his newborn were not.
It is not practical or logical to me for an intact family to have divided national allegiances. I suppose as they watch the Olympic medal ceremonies, different family members would stand, put their hand over their heart and sing with conviction to different national anthems.
If the Court still believes that visitors and trespassers create citizenship rights through anchor babies and this language supports that (I still don't see it), then my other point was that the amendment process could and should be used to end that practice.
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If your interpretation of the constitution was correct, which it isn't, then there would not have been a need for the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 .
Well, golly, there would be no need for any kind of Voting Rights Act either... but it isn't my interpretation that is faulty, it is the ability or willingness of the states to follow the law. I would think that any conservative would like my interpretation. It is the heart of the 2nd Amendment debate going on. If you are right, then states CAN prohibit the right to bare arms!
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DougMacG... thank you! I will try not to wail on you. I think your interpretation is erroneous, and here is why: by your account, the citizenship rights are dependent on residency. However, a citizen doesn't lose his or her citizenship rights if they don't live in the US. If I reside in France, or Indonesia, or... I retain my rights as a US citizen. I doesn't depend on state(side) residence.
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You meant to "bear arms" as in to carry or possess arms and not to wear tank tops I'm assuming.
You interpretation appears to be rooted in the ACLU leftist paradigm, which is essentially "Quote the constitution whenever it can be misused in such a manner as to harm America."
If citizens rights were given to all born on our soil, per U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, then why would a member of an Indian tribe born within the national boundaries after that date need the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924?
Your attempt to include the 2nd amendment is invalid, as to read the writings of the founding fathers made it clear that the possession of weapons by free men was the intent of that amendment. I challenge you to show me where it was the intent of the founders to reward the violation of American law with citizenship for the children of the criminal invaders.
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While I own a few guns and support the right to "bear arms" I admit I prefer beautiful women with "bare arms". :-D
However, if I recollect GM knows Indian rights and their history better than any of us.
Therefore, GM also knows it's complicated; Indian Land is Sovereign Land and therefore (it's complicated)
not subject to US Laws. I have gone round and round with a few local reservations regarding subpoenas
and other legal issues. There is a long history and legal precedents pertaining to this matter. Supposedly,
America did Indians a "favor" by granting them citizenship in 1924, in essence dual citizenship since they remain
a "citizen" of their tribe. But I'm not sure America has done too many "favors" for the American Indian
throughout history.
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The best way to describe the status of Federally Recognized Tribes is they are sovereign nations as far as states are concerned (although to a lesser degree in some states, such as California) but not where the federal government/federal law is concerned. For example, a Nevada State Trooper, as a peace officer empowered by the state of Nevada could enforce all the laws of Nevada on a non-indian driving on a roadway within the boundaries of Indian Tribal land, if the Trooper were to conduct a traffic stop on members of that tribe, or any Federally Recognized Tribe he/she could lawfully detain them until Tribal or federal law enforcement officers arrived on scene. The Indian person/s could only be prosecuted in tribal and/or federal court for any crimes that under other circumstances would fall under state jurisdiction. Tribal sovereignty is most just that from states, but not from the feds.
It is complicated, however a Arizona trooper one inch over the Mexican border has NO authority, just as a Mexican law enforcement officer has no jurisdiction one inch over the US border, given that Mexico asserts it's status as a sovereign nation, and to a degree, we still do as well.
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You meant to "bear arms" as in to carry or possess arms and not to wear tank tops I'm assuming.
You interpretation appears to be rooted in the ACLU leftist paradigm, which is essentially "Quote the constitution whenever it can be misused in such a manner as to harm America."
If citizens rights were given to all born on our soil, per U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, then why would a member of an Indian tribe born within the national boundaries after that date need the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924?
Your attempt to include the 2nd amendment is invalid, as to read the writings of the founding fathers made it clear that the possession of weapons by free men was the intent of that amendment. I challenge you to show me where it was the intent of the founders to reward the violation of American law with citizenship for the children of the criminal invaders.
Your ability to interpret is uncanny. I see here that you clearly like to keep discussion civil. I appreciate that you think quoting the Constitution is treasonous.
You have a simple and unsophisticated view of the Supreme Court's ability to just *poof* make a policy. Let's see if there are some reasons why there would need to be a piece of legislation following a Supreme Court decision.
1. The Framers intended the Supreme Court to comparatively, to Congress and the President, weak. In the words of Alexander Hamiliton (a Framer, as you know doubt are aware), the Supreme Court lacks the "purse" of Congress and the "sword" of the president. In other words, the Supreme Court doesn't have the ability to enforce its decisions.
2. In addition to the citizenship issue that you raise...
A. Despite the High Bench's decision in INS v. Chadha that "legislative vetoes" violate the presentment clause of Article I (dammit, another Constitution reference), legislative vetoes have not ceased.
B. There was a Supreme Court case that included the information that an island (either Long or Ellis, IIRC) was not an island. That did not, of course, make that true. My apologies for not having the citation.
C. The Brown vs. Bd. of Education decisions were supposed to integrate schools. They didn't. It took an act of Congress a decade later to move in a forceful way to formally end segregated education. (Notice the similarity with the case and action you discuss).
D. The 14th Amendment gives Congress, not the Supreme Court, the power to enforce it. (See section 5).
E. Speaking of original intent, and you were, you are aware that the Bill of Rights was intended to limit only the national government, right? It was the 14th amendment that was intended to limit states.
F. "I challenge you to show me where it was the intent of the founders to reward the violation of American law with citizenship for the children of the criminal invaders." I don't have to. The founders, in this instance, have nothing to do with the question at hand. Again, it was the 14th amendment that gave that right.
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Recently I spoke to someone who has a lot of contact with big health insurance payers here in NJ. He states the main reason health insurance is so high is the facility costs such as hospitals. They have to recoup there losses in providing care to the uninsured. They are only able to recoup half their costs. Half of those costs are illegals.
So here in NJ the cost of insurance is in part so high because we are paying for the care of illegals.
It must be unbelievable in the Southwest.
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"it was the 14th amendment that gave that right"
IF a pregnant woman comes here on vacation, or if one come here for some other reason and delivers the baby here than that baby is automatically a citizen?
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"it was the 14th amendment that gave that right"
IF a pregnant woman comes here on vacation, or if one come here for some other reason and delivers the baby here than that baby is automatically a citizen?
Yes
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"it was the 14th amendment that gave that right"
No. It was the (wrongly decided IMO) court case cited that extended that to people passing through, ignoring that the newborn is subject to his intact family and the family is subject to a foreign emperor. The 14th specifically mentions residing in one of our states: "...of the State wherein they reside." We take the 14th at its word without intent for a desired result and then ignore the words that don't fit where we were taking it.
"by your account, the citizenship rights are dependent on residency. However, a citizen doesn't lose his or her citizenship rights if they don't live in the US. If I reside in France, or Indonesia, or... I retain my rights as a US citizen."
That logic assumes the criteria to gain citizenship and the criteria to lose citizenship are one and the same. Not so.
A citizenship test can require memorizing the Pledge of Allegiance yet I know plenty of leftists who have long ago forgotten that liberty comes before justice. :-)
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"That logic assumes the criteria to gain citizenship and the criteria to lose citizenship are one and the same. Not so."
Not at all. You are the one who made the erroneous claim that for one to be a citizen of the US, there was an implication of residency. There isn't. Oh, and natural born citizens don't need to take the citizenship test. They are just granted the rights. That's why a bunch of idiot on the left, right and middle can make claims about the Constitution without ever having read it. And, for the record, I am a firm believer in liberty.
I must confess that I don't understand the controversy here. The 14th Amendment says "All persons born". Where does the confusion come from???
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bigdog asks:
"Where does the confusion come from???"
Not sure confusion is the right term. Rather perverse incentives are noted and then some make the leap that there must be a sensible way to mitigate them. Guess the idealists among us think there should be sensible solutions to easily identifiable problems. Alas I'm too cynical to be numbered among them.
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Your ability to interpret is uncanny. I see here that you clearly like to keep discussion civil. I appreciate that you think quoting the Constitution is treasonous.
**Quoting the constitution isn't treasonous, your misinterpretation and intent is.**
You have a simple and unsophisticated view of the Supreme Court's ability to just *poof* make a policy.
**You have an incorrect view of the constitutional role of the SCOTUS if you think it is supposed to make policy.**
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http://www.14thamendment.us/articles/anchor_babies_unconstitutionality.html
The UnConstitutionality of Citizenship by Birth to Non-Americans
The 14th Amendment
By P.A. Madison
Former Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies
February 1, 2005
We well know how the courts and laws have spoken on the subject of children born to non-citizens (illegal aliens) within the jurisdiction of the United States by declaring them to be American citizens. But what does the constitution of the United States say about the issue of giving American citizenship to anyone born within its borders? As we explore the constitutions citizenship clause, as found in the Fourteenth Amendment, we can find no constitutional authority to grant such citizenship to persons born to non-American citizens within the limits of the United States of America.
We are, or should be, familiar with the phrase, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside." This can be referred to as the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but what does "subject to the jurisdiction" mean? Jurisdiction can take on different meanings that can have nothing to do with physical boundaries alone--and if the framers meant geographical boundaries they would have simply used the term "limits" rather than "jurisdiction" since that was the custom at the time when distinguishing between physical boundaries and reach of law.
Fortunately, we have the highest possible authority on record to answer this question of how the term "jurisdiction" was to be interpreted and applied, the author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard (MI) to tell us exactly what it means and its intended scope as he introduced it to the United States Senate in 1866:
Mr. HOWARD: I now move to take up House joint resolution No. 127.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution (H.R. No. 127) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all "persons born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.[1]
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It is clear the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had no intention of freely giving away American citizenship to just anyone simply because they may have been born on American soil, something our courts have wrongfully assumed. But what exactly did "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" mean to the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment? Again, we are fortunate to have on record the highest authority to tell us, Sen. Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, author of the Thirteenth Amendment, and the one who inserted the phrase:
[T]he provision is, that 'all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.' That means 'subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.' What do we mean by 'complete jurisdiction thereof?' Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.
Trumbull continues, "Can you sue a Navajo Indian in court? Are they in any sense subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? By no means. We make treaties with them, and therefore they are not subject to our jurisdiction. If they were, we wouldn't make treaties with them...It is only those persons who come completely within our jurisdiction, who are subject to our laws, that we think of making citizens; and there can be no objection to the proposition that such persons should be citizens.[2]
Sen. Howard concurs with Trumbull's construction:
Mr. HOWARD: I concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois [Trumbull], in holding that the word "jurisdiction," as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.[3]
In other words, only children born to American citizens can be considered citizens of the United States since only a American citizen could enjoy the "extent and quality" of jurisdiction of an American citizen now. Sen. Johnson, speaking on the Senate floor, offers his comments and understanding of the proposed new amendment to the constitution:
[Now], all this amendment [citizenship clause] provides is, that all persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power--for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us--shall be considered as citizens of the United States. That would seem to be not only a wise but a necessary provision. If there are to be citizens of the United States there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself and the United States, and the amendment says that citizenship may depend upon birth, and I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born to parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States.[4]
No doubt in the Senate as to what the citizenship clause means as further evidenced by Sen. W. Williams:
In one sense, all persons born within the geographical limits of the United States are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in every sense. Take the child of an ambassador. In one sense, that child born in the United States is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, because if that child commits the crime of murder, or commits any other crime against the laws of the country, to a certain extent he is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but not in every respect; and so with these Indians. All persons living within a judicial district may be said, in one sense, to be subject to the jurisdiction of the court in that district, but they are not in every sense subject to the jurisdiction of the court until they are brought, by proper process, within the reach of the power of the court. I understand the words here, 'subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,' to mean fully and completely subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.[5]
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Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, confirms the understanding and construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:
find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen...[6]
Further convincing evidence for the demand of complete allegiance required for citizenship can be found in the "Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America," an oath required to become an American citizen of the United States. It reads in part:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen...
Of course, this very oath leaves no room for dual-citizenship, but that is another troubling disregard for our National principles by modern government. Fewer today are willing to renounce completely their allegiance to their natural country of origin, further making a mockery of our citizenship laws. In fact, recently in Los Angeles you could find the American flag discarded for the flag of Mexico in celebration after taking the American Citizenship Oath.
It's noteworthy to point out a Supreme Court ruling in Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), where the court completely discarded the fourteenth's Citizenship Clause scope and intent by replacing it with their own invented Citizenship Clause. The court in effect, ruled that fourteenth amendment had elevated citizenship to a new constitutionally protected right, and thus, prevents the cancellation of a persons citizenship unless they assent.
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Unfortunately for the court, Sen. Howard effectively shoots down this feeble attempt to replace his clause with their own home grown Citizenship Clause. Firstly, Howard finds no incompatibility with expatriation and the fourteenth's Citizenship Clause when he says: "I take it for granted that when a man becomes a citizen of the United States under the Constitution he cannot cease to be a citizen, except by expatriation for the commission of some crime by which his citizenship shall be forfeited."
Secondly, Sen. Howard expressly stated, "I am not yet prepared to pass a sweeping act of naturalization by which all the Indian savages, wild or tame, belonging to a tribal relation, are to become my fellow-citizens and go to the polls and vote with me and hold lands and deal in every other way that a citizen of the United States has a right to do."
The question begs: If Howard had no intention of passing a sweeping act of naturalization--how does the court elevate Howard's Citizenship Clause to a new constitutionally protected right that cannot be taken away since this would certainly require a sweeping act with explicit language to enumerate such a new constitutional right? Remember, the court cannot create new rights that are not already expressly granted by the constitution.
A third problem for the court is the fact both Howard and Bingham viewed the citizenship clause as simply "declaratory" of what they regarded "as the law of the land already." This then requires flights of fantasy to elevate Howard's express purpose of inserting the Citizenship Clause as simply removing "all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States," and not to elevate citizenship to a new protected constitutional right. Citizenship is a privilege, not a right as say the right to freedom of religion is, and therefore, can be taken away just as any other privilege can be.
James Madison defined who America seeked to be citizens among us along with some words of wisdom:
When we are considering the advantages that may result from an easy mode of naturalization, we ought also to consider the cautions necessary to guard against abuse. It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of.[7]
What does it all mean?
In a nutshell, it means this: The constitution of the United States does not grant citizenship at birth to just anyone who happens to be born within American borders. It is the allegiance (complete jurisdiction) of the child’s birth parents at the time of birth that determines the child’s citizenship--not geographical location. If the United States does not have complete jurisdiction, for example, to compel a child’s parents to Jury Duty–then the U.S. does not have the total, complete jurisdiction demanded by the Fourteenth Amendment to make their child a citizen of the United States by birth. How could it possibly be any other way?
The framers succeeded in their desire to remove all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. They also succeeded in making both their intent and construction clear for future generations of courts and government. Whether our government or courts will start to honor and uphold the supreme law of the land for which they are obligated to by oath, is another very disturbing matter.
Footnotes
[1]. Congressional Globe, 39th Congress (1866) pg. 2890 (view actual page)
[2]. Id. at 2893
[3]. Id. at 2895
[4]. Id. at 2893
[5]. Id. at 2897
[6]. Id. at 1291
[7]. James Madison on Rule of Naturalization, 1st Congress, Feb. 3, 1790.
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Great discussion!!!
GM, although I confess to being on a terrible laptop with a wimpy screen, my initial impression of your last few posts is that you have presented powerfully on behalf of your argument.
Big Dog is well-educated in these things and I look forward to his response.
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Racism gets a whitewash
By Michelle Malkin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Few things make liberals more uncomfortable than being confronted with the racism of politically correct minorities.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Autum Ashante, the precocious 7-year-old black nationalist poet, who said white people are "devils and they should be gone." If this daughter of a Nation of Islam activist father had instead been an Aryan supremacist child of a Klan activist, she'd still be all over the network news and pages of pop culture magazines (as a pair of white nationalist teen pop singers, Lamb and Lynx Gaede, have been since last fall). But with rare exceptions, nobody wanted to touch Autum's spoon-fed hatred with a 10-foot-pole. That would be, you know, "intolerant." We have to "respect diversity."
Well, this weekend, militant racism from another protected minority group was on full display. But you wouldn't know it from press accounts that whitewashed or buried the protesters' virulent anti-American hatred.
An estimated 500,000 to 2 million people, untold numbers of them here illegally, took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest strict immigration enforcement and demand blanket amnesty for border violators, visa overstayers, deportation fugitives, immigration document fraud artists, and other lawbreakers. Mexican flags and signs advocating ethnic separatism and supremacy filled the landscape. Demonstrators gleefully defaced posters of President Bush and urged supporters to "Stop the Nazis!" Los Angeles talk show host Tammy Bruce reported that protesters burned American flags and waved placards of the North American continent with America crossed out.
Bet you didn't see that on television.
One of the largest, boldest banners visible from aerial shots of the rally read: "THIS IS STOLEN LAND." Others blared: "CHICANO POWER" and "BROWN IS BEAUTIFUL." (Can you imagine the uproar if someone had come to the rally holding up a sign reading "WHITE IS BEAUTIFUL?") Thugs with masked faces flashed gang signs on the steps of L.A.'s City Hall. Students walked out of classrooms all across southern California chanting, "Latinos, stand up!" Young people raised their fists in defiance, clothed in t-shirts bearing radical leftist guerilla Che Guevera's face and Aztlan emblems.
Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class, which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force. If the rallies across the country are any indication, reconquista is already complete.
Lest you think these ideas are moldy-oldy 1960s' leftovers that no one subscribes to today, listen to Sandra Molina, 16, a junior from L.A.'s Downtown Magnet High School, who complained to the supportive Los Angeles Times: "This is unjust. This land used to belong to us and now they're trying to kick us out."
Nor are these sovereignty-obliterating grievances confined to the wacky West Coast. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, marchers carried signs that read: "If you think I'm 'illegal' because I'm a Mexican[,] learn the true history because I'm in my HOMELAND."
Open-borders sympathizers in the press strained to look the other way. As Slate writer Mickey Kaus, who attended the L.A. demonstration, noted, the Los Angeles Times buried any mention of the presence of Mexican flags in its initial "propagandistic" report—and then eliminated any reference to them at all. Cracks Kaus: "I used to write this sort of press-releasey 'news' account when my college paper assigned me to "cover" anti-war demonstrations that I'd helped organize!�The Times' effort is filled with representative quotes from participants, without a note of dissent."
Apologists are quick to argue that Latino supremacists are just a small fringe faction of the pro-illegal immigration movement (never mind that their ranks include former and current Hispanic politicians from L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante).
But you'll never hear or read such forgiving caveats in the mainstream press's hostile coverage of the pro-immigration enforcement members of the Minutemen Project—who are universally smeared as racists. For what? For peacefully demanding that our government enforce its laws and secure its borders.
Yes, borders. Last time I checked a map of North America, they still do exist.
Unless we give in and let the bullies and their appeasers whitewash those out of existence, too.
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http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2006/08/27/protest-crash-maywood-sanctuary-city-for-illegal-immigrants/
Protest crash: Maywood, sanctuary city for illegal immigrants
By Bridget Johnson
I had a thought on Saturday when I was standing in the middle of a screaming, bottle-throwing group countering the SOS (Save Our State) protesters outside Maywood City Hall, just south of downtown L.A., staring down cops in riot gear: If my career continues to go well my beloved protest-crashing days may be numbered (sniff), as some of these ornery folks recognizing me could result in some trying to beat the tar out of me. After I returned from the immigration protest, a co-worker expressed the same sentiment. But for now, I’m cheered by the thought that ignorant protesters (”Who’s Tancredo?” one pro-immigration demonstrator asked about a “Tancredo for president” sign held by SOS members) are just ignorant enough.
Here’s the scene: SOS is peeved about Maywood’s flouting of federal immigration law, claiming they are a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants and even disbanding their police department’s traffic unit so that illegals without driver’s licenses won’t be fearful of getting their cars towed. Several dozen show up to protest this policy. Lefty groups spread the word and a few hundred show up to counterprotest. I hung out with the counterprotesters, who actually had an unfair advantage in the police barricade setup as they were right next to a mariscos joint.
Not to spoil my upcoming column on this protest, but let’s just say it was an afternoon chock full of racism, reconquista (like the “Stolen Continent” sign featuring two continents? props to the LAUSD, eh?) and riot cops. And after the local post office took down the American flag at closing time, pro-immigration demonstrators promptly ran the Mexican flag up the flagpole. Eventually, police officers surrounded the flagpole and tried to get the Mexican flag down, but the cords got twisted and they could only lower it to half-staff.
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=13863
Exclusive: The Truth About 'La Raza'
by Rep. Charlie Norwood
04/07/2006
The nation's television screens many days recently have been filled with scenes of huge crowds carrying the colorful green and red flag of Mexico viewers could well have thought it was a national holiday in Mexico City.
It was instead, downtown Los Angeles, Calif., although the scene was recreated in numerous other cities around the country with substantial Mexican populations. Hordes of Mexican expatriates, many here illegally, were protesting the very U.S. immigration laws they were violating with impunity. They found it offensive and a violation of their rights that the U.S. dared to have immigration laws to begin with.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa mounted the podium, but any hopes that he would quiet the crowds and defend the law were soon dashed. Villaraigosa, himself, has spent a lifetime opposing U.S. immigration law.
For law-abiding Americans without knowledge of the dark side of our current illegal immigration crisis, all this is unfathomable. For those who know the truth about the "La Raza" movement, these demonstrations were a prophecy fulfilled.
It is past time for all Americans to know what is at the root of this outrageous behavior, and the extent to which the nation is at risk because of "La Raza" -- The Race.
There are many immigrant groups joined in the overall "La Raza" movement. The most prominent and mainstream organization is the National Council de La Raza -- the Council of "The Race".
To most of the mainstream media, most members of Congress, and even many of their own members, the National Council of La Raza is no more than a Hispanic Rotary Club.
But the National Council of La Raza succeeded in raking in over $15.2 million in federal grants last year alone, of which $7.9 million was in U.S. Department of Education grants for Charter Schools, and undisclosed amounts were for get-out-the-vote efforts supporting La Raza political positions.
The Council of La Raza succeeded in having itself added to congressional hearings by Republican House and Senate leaders. And an anonymous senator even gave the Council of La Raza an extra $4 million in earmarked taxpayer money, supposedly for "housing reform," while La Raza continues to lobby the Senate for virtual open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
The Mexican flag flew over a crowd of pro-amnesty marchers in New York. Marches like this across the U.S. have been supported by the “La Raza” movement. (Reuters/Seth Wenig)
Radical 'Reconquista' Agenda
Behind the respectable front of the National Council of La Raza lies the real agenda of the La Raza movement, the agenda that led to those thousands of illegal immigrants in the streets of American cities, waving Mexican flags, brazenly defying our laws, and demanding concessions.
Key among the secondary organizations is the radical racist group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West.
One of America's greatest strengths has always been taking in immigrants from cultures around the world, and assimilating them into our country as Americans. By being citizens of the U.S. we are Americans first, and only, in our national loyalties.
This is totally opposed by MEChA for the hordes of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders, to whom they say:
"Chicano is our identity; it defines who we are as people. It rejects the notion that we...should assimilate into the Anglo-American melting pot...Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas ... It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny." (Statement on University of Oregon MEChA Website, Jan. 3, 2006)
MEChA isn't at all shy about their goals, or their views of other races. Their founding principles are contained in these words in "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan" (The Spiritual Plan for Aztlan):
"In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal gringo invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny. ... Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. ... We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan. For La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada."
That closing two-sentence motto is chilling to everyone who values equal rights for all. It says: "For The Race everything. Outside The Race, nothing."
If these morally sickening MEChA quotes were coming from some fringe website, Americans could at least console themselves that it was just a small group of nuts behind it. Nearly every racial and ethnic group has some shady characters and positions in its past and some unbalanced individuals today claiming racial superiority and demanding separatism. But this is coming straight from the official MEChA sites at Georgetown University, the University of Texas, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Colorado, University of Oregon, and many other colleges and universities around the country.
MEChA was in fact reported to be one of the main organizers of those street demonstrations we witnessed over the past weeks. That helps explain why those hordes of illegal immigrants weren't asking for amnesty -- they were demanding an end to U.S. law, period. Unlike past waves of immigrants who sought to become responsible members of American society, these protesters reject American society altogether, because they have been taught that America rightfully belongs to them.
MEChA and the La Raza movement teach that Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington State make up an area known as "Aztlan" -- a fictional ancestral homeland of the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America. As such, it belongs to the followers of MEChA. These are all areas America should surrender to "La Raza" once enough immigrants, legal or illegal, enter to claim a majority, as in Los Angeles. The current borders of the United States will simply be extinguished.
This plan is what is referred to as the "Reconquista" or reconquest, of the Western U.S.
But it won't end with territorial occupation and secession. The final plan for the La Raza movement includes the ethnic cleansing of Americans of European, African, and Asian descent out of "Aztlan."
As Miguel Perez of Cal State-Northridge's MEChA chapter has been quoted as saying: "The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest [to it]. Once Aztlan is established, ethnic cleansing would commence: Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled -- opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep power."
MEChA Plants
Members of these radical, anti-American, racist organizations are frequently smoothly polished into public respectability by the National Council of La Raza.
Former MEChA members include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was officially endorsed by La Raza for mayor and was awarded La Raza's Graciela Olivarez Award. Now we know why he refuses to condemn a sea of foreign flags in his city. California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is also a former MEChA member. He delivered the keynote address at La Raza's 2002 Annual Convention.
The National Council of La Raza and its allies in public office make no repudiation of the radical MEChA and its positions. In fact, as recently as 2003, La Raza was actively funding MEChA, according to federal tax records.
Imagine Robert Byrd's refusing to disavow the views of the KKK, or if Strom Thurmond had failed to admit segregation was wrong. Imagine Heritage or Brookings Foundation making grants to the American Nazi Party.
Is the National Council of La Raza itself a racist organization? Regardless of the organization's suspect ties, the majority of its members are not. When one examines all the organization's activities, they are commendable non-profit projects, such as education and housing programs.
But even these defensible efforts raise the question of whether education and housing programs funded with federal tax dollars should be used in programs specifically targeted to benefit just one ethnic group.
La Raza defenders usually respond by calling anyone making these allegations "a racist" for having called attention to La Raza's racist links. All the groups and public officials with ties to the La Raza movement can take a big step towards disproving these allegations by simply following the examples of Senators Byrd and Thurmond and repenting of their past ways.
If they are unwilling to admit past misdeeds, they can at least state -- unequivocally -- that they officially oppose the racist and anti-American positions of MEChA, and any other groups that espouse similar views.
Through public appearances, written statements, and on their respective websites, La Raza groups and allies must:
1. Denounce the motto "For La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada," as repugnant, racist, and totally incompatible with American society or citizenship.
2. Acknowledge the right of all Americans to live wherever they choose in the U.S. without segregation.
3. Commit to sponsorship of nationwide educational programs to combat racism and anti-Semitism in the Hispanic community.
4. Denounce and sever all ties with MEChA and any other organizations with which they have ever been associated which held to the racist doctrines held by MEChA.
5. Acknowledge the internationally recognized borders of the U.S., the right of the citizens of the U.S. to determine immigration policy through the democratic process, and the right of the U.S. to undertake any and all necessary steps to effectively enforce immigration law and defend its border against unauthorized entry.
6. Repudiate all claims that current American territory rightfully belongs to Mexico.
If the National Council of La Raza, other La Raza groups, and local and national political leaders with past ties and associations with the radical elements of the La Raza movement can publicly issue such a statement and live by every one of these principles, they should be welcomed into the American public policy arena, with past sins -- real or imaginary -- forgiven.
If they cannot publicly and fully support these principles, Congress needs to take appropriate steps and immediately bar any group refusing to comply from receiving any future federal funds. Both the House and Senate should strike these groups from testifying before any committees, and the White House should sever all ties. Both political parties should disengage from any further contact with these groups and individuals.
There are plenty of decent, patriotic Hispanic organizations and elected officials to provide Congress with necessary feedback on specific issues confronting Americans of Latino heritage. Any group or individual who can agree with the simple six points should be welcomed into that fold.
If not, the American people will know there's a wolf in their midst, and take the necessary precautions to defend our Republic against an enemy.
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http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090225_long_arm_lawless
The Long Arm of the Lawless
February 25, 2009 | 1906 GMT
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Last week we discussed the impact that crime, and specifically kidnapping, has been having on Mexican citizens and foreigners visiting or living in Mexico. We pointed out that there is almost no area of Mexico immune from the crime and violence. As if on cue, on the night of Feb. 21 a group of heavily armed men threw two grenades at a police building in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state, wounding at least five people. Zihuatanejo is a normally quiet beach resort just north of Acapulco; the attack has caused the town’s entire police force to go on strike. (Police strikes, or threats of strikes, are not uncommon in Mexico.)
Mexican police have regularly been targeted by drug cartels, with police officials even having been forced to seek safety in the United States, but such incidents have occurred most frequently in areas of high cartel activity like Veracruz state or Palomas. The Zihuatanejo incident is proof of the pervasiveness of violence in Mexico, and demonstrates the impact that such violence quickly can have on an area generally considered safe.
Significantly, the impact of violent Mexican criminals stretches far beyond Mexico itself. In recent weeks, Mexican criminals have been involved in killings in Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, and Mexican criminals have been arrested as far away as Italy and Spain. Their impact — and the extreme violence they embrace — is therefore not limited to Mexico or even just to Latin America. For some years now, STRATFOR has discussed the threat that Mexican cartel violence could spread to the United States, and we have chronicled the spread of such violence to the U.S.-Mexican border and beyond.
Traditionally, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations had focused largely on the transfer of narcotics through Mexico. Once the South American cartels encountered serious problems bringing narcotics directly into the United States, they began to focus more on transporting the narcotics to Mexico. From that point, the Mexican cartels transported them north and then handed them off to U.S. street gangs and other organizations, which handled much of the narcotics distribution inside the United States. In recent years, however, these Mexican groups have grown in power and have begun to take greater control of the entire narcotics-trafficking supply chain.
With greater control comes greater profitability as the percentages demanded by middlemen are cut out. The Mexican cartels have worked to have a greater presence in Central and South America, and now import from South America into Mexico an increasing percentage of the products they sell. They are also diversifying their routes and have gone global; they now even traffic their wares to Europe. At the same time, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations also have increased their distribution operations inside the United States to expand their profits even further. As these Mexican organizations continue to spread beyond the border areas, their profits and power will extend even further — and they will bring their culture of violence to new areas.
Burned in Phoenix
The spillover of violence from Mexico began some time ago in border towns like Laredo and El Paso in Texas, where merchants and wealthy families face extortion and kidnapping threats from Mexican gangs, and where drug dealers who refuse to pay “taxes” to Mexican cartel bosses are gunned down. But now, the threat posed by Mexican criminals is beginning to spread north from the U.S.-Mexican border. One location that has felt this expanding threat most acutely is Phoenix, some 185 miles north of the border. Some sensational cases have highlighted the increased threat in Phoenix, such as a June 2008 armed assault in which a group of heavily armed cartel gunmen dressed like a Phoenix Police Department tactical team fired more than 100 rounds into a residence during the targeted killing of a Jamaican drug dealer who had double-crossed a Mexican cartel. We have also observed cartel-related violence in places like Dallas and Austin, Texas. But Phoenix has been the hardest hit.
Narcotics smuggling and drug-related assassinations are not the only thing the Mexican criminals have brought to Phoenix. Other criminal gangs have been heavily involved in human smuggling, arms smuggling, money laundering and other crimes. Due to the confluence of these Mexican criminal gangs, Phoenix has now become the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the United States. According to a Phoenix Police Department source, the department received 368 kidnapping reports last year. As we discussed last week, kidnapping is a highly underreported crime in places such as Mexico, making it very difficult to measure accurately. Based upon experience with kidnapping statistics in other parts of the world — specifically Latin America — it would not be unreasonable to assume that there were at least as many unreported kidnappings in Phoenix as there are reported kidnappings.
At present, the kidnapping environment in the United States is very different from that of Mexico, Guatemala or Colombia. In those countries, kidnapping runs rampant and has become a well-developed industry with a substantial established infrastructure. Police corruption and incompetence ensures that kidnappers are rarely caught or successfully prosecuted.
A variety of motives can lie behind kidnappings. In the United States, crime statistics demonstrate that motives such as sexual exploitation, custody disputes and short-term kidnapping for robbery have far surpassed the number of reported kidnappings conducted for ransom. In places like Mexico, kidnapping for ransom is much more common.
The FBI handles kidnapping investigations in the United States. It has developed highly sophisticated teams of agents and resources to devote to investigating this type of crime. Local police departments are also far more proficient and professional in the United States than in Mexico. Because of the advanced capabilities of law enforcement in the United States, the overwhelming majority of criminals involved in kidnapping-for-ransom cases reported to police — between 95 percent and 98 percent — are caught and convicted. There are also stiff federal penalties for kidnapping. Because of this, kidnapping for ransom has become a relatively rare crime in the United States.
Most kidnapping for ransom that does happen in the United States occurs within immigrant communities. In these cases, the perpetrators and victims belong to the same immigrant group (e.g., Chinese Triad gangs kidnapping the families of Chinese businesspeople, or Haitian criminals kidnapping Haitian immigrants) — which is what is happening in Phoenix. The vast majority of the 368 known kidnapping victims in Phoenix are Mexican and Central American immigrants who are being victimized by Mexican or Mexican-American criminals.
The problem in Phoenix involves two main types of kidnapping. One is the abduction of drug dealers or their children, the other is the abduction of illegal aliens.
Drug-related kidnappings often are not strict kidnappings for ransom per se. Instead, they are intended to force the drug dealer to repay a debt to the drug trafficking organization that ordered the kidnapping.
Nondrug-related kidnappings are very different from traditional kidnappings in Mexico or the United States, in which a high-value target is abducted and held for a large ransom. Instead, some of the gangs operating in Phoenix are basing their business model on volume, and are willing to hold a large number of victims for a much smaller individual pay out. Reports have emerged of kidnapping gangs in Phoenix carjacking entire vans full of illegal immigrants away from the coyote smuggling them into the United States. The kidnappers then transport the illegal immigrants to a safe house, where they are held captive in squalid conditions — and often tortured or sexually assaulted with a family member listening in on the phone — to coerce the victims’ family members in the United States or Mexico to pay the ransom for their release. There are also reports of the gangs picking up vehicles full of victims at day labor sites and then transporting them to the kidnapping safe house rather than to the purported work site.
Drug-related kidnappings are less frequent than the nondrug-related abduction of illegal immigrants, but in both types of abductions, the victims are not likely to seek police assistance due to their immigration status or their involvement in illegal activity. This strongly suggests the kidnapping problem greatly exceeds the number of cases reported to police.
Implications for the United States
The kidnapping gangs in Phoenix that target illegal immigrants have found their chosen crime to be lucrative and relatively risk-free. If the flow of illegal immigrants had continued at high levels, there is very little doubt the kidnappers’ operations would have continued as they have for the past few years. The current economic downturn, however, means the flow of illegal immigrants has begun to slow — and by some accounts has even begun to reverse. (Reports suggest many Mexicans are returning home after being unable to find jobs in the United States.)
This reduction in the pool of targets means that we might be fast approaching a point where these groups, which have become accustomed to kidnapping as a source of easy money — and their primary source of income — might be forced to change their method of operating to make a living. While some might pursue other types of criminal activity, some might well decide to diversify their pool of victims. Watching for this shift in targeting is of critical importance. Were some of these gangs to begin targeting U.S. citizens rather than just criminals or illegal immigrants, a tremendous panic would ensue, along with demands to catch the perpetrators.
Such a shift would bring a huge amount of law enforcement pressure onto the kidnapping gangs, to include the FBI. While the FBI is fairly hard-pressed for resources given its heavy counterterrorism, foreign counterintelligence and white-collar crime caseload, it almost certainly would be able to reassign the resources needed to respond to such kidnappings in the face of publicity and a public outcry. Such a law enforcement effort could neutralize these gangs fairly quickly, but probably not quickly enough to prevent any victims from being abducted or harmed.
Since criminal groups are not comprised of fools alone, at least some of these groups will realize that targeting soccer moms will bring an avalanche of law enforcement attention upon them. Therefore, it is very likely that if kidnapping targets become harder to find in Phoenix — or if the law enforcement environment becomes too hostile due to the growing realization of this problem — then the groups may shift geography rather than targeting criteria. In such a scenario, professional kidnapping gangs from Phoenix might migrate to other locations with large communities of Latin American illegal immigrants to victimize. Some of these locations could be relatively close to the Mexican border like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego or Los Angeles, though they could also include locations farther inland like Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or even the communities around meat and poultry packing plants in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. Such a migration of ethnic criminals would not be unprecedented: Chinese Triad groups from New York for some time have traveled elsewhere on the East Coast, like Atlanta, to engage in extortion and kidnapping against Chinese businessmen there.
The issue of Mexican drug-traffic organizations kidnapping in the United States merits careful attention, especially since criminal gangs in other areas of the country could start imitating the tactics of the Phoenix gangs.
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Your ability to interpret is uncanny. I see here that you clearly like to keep discussion civil. I appreciate that you think quoting the Constitution is treasonous.
**Quoting the constitution isn't treasonous, your misinterpretation and intent is.**
You have a simple and unsophisticated view of the Supreme Court's ability to just *poof* make a policy.
**You have an incorrect view of the constitutional role of the SCOTUS if you think it is supposed to make policy.**
I didn't say that the SCOTUS "is supposed" to make policy. YOU said "If citizens rights were given to all born on our soil, per U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, then why would a member of an Indian tribe born within the national boundaries after that date need the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924?". As in, the Supreme Court and NOT the Constitution gives this right. I've said the entire time that the right is found in the Constitution.
My intent is to read the Constitution. It is interesting that I am the one reading the Constitution literally, and somehow I am being treasonous. I guess I just thought the Constitution should mean what it says.
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Agreed!
What do you make of GM's posts yesterday concerning the legislative history of the Amendment in question? They seemed quite strong to me.
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Agreed!
What do you make of GM's posts yesterday concerning the legislative history of the Amendment in question? They seemed quite strong to me.
Guro (and GM),
No need to say that they "seem strong." They are strong. Good finds. However, I stick to what I have said thus far, and here is why.
There are many different, legitimate, ways to intepret the Constitution. Some of the most common include attempting to discern the original intent (as GM has done) and literalism (as I have done). I prefer the later for one major reason, and that it the difficulty to discern the original intent of "the framers" whether directed at the original document or the amendments that followed for the following reasons (not necessarily exhaustive):
1. Who are the framers of the original document? Do we include all of the people in Independence Hall? Just the ones who actually wrote the document? Do we include the ones who came to the convention and left? What about the members of Congress at the time who only called a convention to alter the Articles of Confederation?
2. Relatedly... do we include the states' ratification conventions and debates? There are damn lot of people who play a major role in the inception of the Constitution and the amendments. Is it reasonable to look to all of the reasons why all of these people voted to ratify? And, what is to be made of any dissent at these conventions? Not only will every person likely vote yes to ratify, all of those members persent who voted no likely have something add.
3. Relatedly... in some cases, amendments were added over time. In the most extreme example, the 27th and most recent example of amendment was ratified nearly 200 years after it was proposed. (It has an interesting history... check it out.)
4. Most importantly, it is very easy to mislead the original intent. For example, the Congressional Record has all of the floor debate held on the chambers' floor. However, members of Congress can add to the Record information that was not presented on the floor... or even add material as though it was part of the original debate.
This http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_320250.html is an interesting article about how original intent can be misconstrued, and it is during the modern era, so there is likely to be a better understanding of the original intent.
Also, I would like to remind GM that debate and dissent is what brought us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to begin with. Debate can be constructive, if it is allowed to be. There is nothing un-American about what I do, my intention, my words, or my interpretation of the Constitution.
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"There are many different, legitimate, ways to intepret the Constitution. Some of the most common include attempting to discern the original intent (as GM has done) and literalism (as I have done)."
Another "intent" would be of not just founding fathers which ever group we decide on is that group but of those who came up with the 14th amendment.
Please forgive if this is out of place in the context of the ongoing discussion here (since I am not an attorney) but I think this could be included here.
***Original intent of the 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside."
Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).
The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period in which it was ratified.
Post-Civil War reforms focused on injustices to African Americans. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves. It was written in a manner so as to prevent state governments from ever denying citizenship to blacks born in the United States. But in 1868, the United States had no formal immigration policy, and the authors therefore saw no need to address immigration explicitly in the amendment.
In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by stating:
"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."
This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:
"[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the word..."
The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes automatic citizenship.
Supreme Court decisions
The correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.
Over a century ago, the Supreme Court appropriately confirmed this restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called "Slaughter-House cases" [83 US 36 (1873) and 112 US 94 (1884)]13. In the 1884 Elk v.Wilkins case12, the phrase "subject to its jurisdiction" was interpreted to exclude "children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States." In Elk, the American Indian claimant was considered not an American citizen because the law required him to be "not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance."
The Court essentially stated that the status of the parents determines the citizenship of the child. To qualify children for birthright citizenship, based on the 14th Amendment, parents must owe "direct and immediate allegiance" to the U.S. and be "completely subject" to its jurisdiction. In other words, they must be United States citizens.
Congress subsequently passed a special act to grant full citizenship to American Indians, who were not citizens even through they were born within the borders of the United States. The Citizens Act of 1924, codified in 8USCSß1401, provides that:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe.
In 1889, the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court case10,11 once again, in a ruling based strictly on the 14th Amendment, concluded that the status of the parents was crucial in determining the citizenship of the child. The current misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment is based in part upon the presumption that the Wong Kim Ark ruling encompassed illegal aliens. In fact, it did not address the children of illegal aliens and non-immigrant aliens, but rather determined an allegiance for legal immigrant parents based on the meaning of the word domicil(e). Since it is inconceivable that illegal alien parents could have a legal domicile in the United States, the ruling clearly did not extend birthright citizenship to children of illegal alien parents. Indeed, the ruling strengthened the original intent of the 14th Amendment.
The original intent of the 14th Amendment was clearly not to facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law and obtaining citizenship for their offspring, nor obtaining benefits at taxpayer expense. Current estimates indicate there may be between 300,000 and 700,000 anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration from all sources in an average year before 1965. (See consequences.)
American citizens must be wary of elected politicians voting to illegally extend our generous social benefits to illegal aliens and other criminals.
For more information, see:
1. P.A. Madison, Former Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The UnConstitutionality of Citizenship by Birth to Non-Americans (February 1, 2005)
2. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq., Illegal Aliens and American Medicine The Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10 Number 1 (Spring 2005)
3. Al Knight, Track 'anchor babies', Denver Post (September 11, 2002)
4. Al Knight, Change U.S. law on anchor babies, Denver Post (June 22, 2005)
5. Tom DeWeese, The Mexican Fifth Column (January 27, 2003)
6. Anchor Babies: The Children of Illegal Aliens (Federation for American Immigration Reform)
7. Tom DeWeese, The Outrages of the Mexican Invasion (American policy Center)
8. P.A. Madison, Alien Birthright Citizenship: A Fable That Lives Through Ignorance The Federalist Blog (December 17, 2005)
9. Dr. John C. Eastman, Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law, Director, The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Dual Citizenship, Birthright Citizenship, and the Meaning of Sovereignty - Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims (September 29, 2005)
10. William Buchanan, HR-73 -- Protecting America's Sovereignty, The Social Contract (Fall, 1999) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark 1898 Supreme Court case
11. Charles Wood, Losing Control of the Nation's Future -- Part Two -- Birthright Citizenship and Illegal Aliens, The Social Contract (Winter, 2005) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark court case
12. U.S. Supreme Court ELK v. WILKINS, 112 U.S. 94 (Findlaw, 1884)
13. U.S. Supreme Court Slaughter-House cases ('Lectric Law Library, 1873) http://www.lectlaw.com/files/case30.htm
Author: Fred Elbel Updated: 26 June, 2009***
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Though I likely lean in an originalist direction, I'm interested in the literal camp. Word meanings change over time. For instance, understanding of term "militia" has certainly changed over the last 250 years. How does one tie a literal meaning to an evolving term? What criteria is used? Is literalism an "evolving constitution" subset or does it embrace concrete and lasting standards? Do literalists use penumbras and emanations to attach add water and stir elements to the constitution?
Inquiring minds want to know. . . . :-D
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Excellent post CCP. That seems sound to me!
BD, you further the conversation with your distinction of methods of interpretation. If I may paraphrase, we have the strict/plain meaning of the words of the Constitution (or a statute) and we have legislative intent as discerned from the legislative history. Although you describe well the limitations and challenges in discerning legislative intent, ultimately I am not persuaded by your argument. As is the case with any legislation we simply do our best to discern the intent of those making the law. A committee report gets more weight than an isolated congressman flapping his gums. James Madison gets more weight than some back bencher at a State convention. Given the role of the two Senators cited by GM, it seems to by that be standard legal analysis, their words, particularly in the absence of words/writing to contrary meaning, should be given considerable weight.
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Lets keep giving it away like dopes. anything for a darn vote! Hey it ain't their money.
I don't want our country to be feared but I would like to be respected. Not dumped on and abused.
I don't think Republicans are afraid/unwilling to confront illegals because they provide cheap labor. I think they are afraid of offending Latino *voters* Rove said republicans go after illegals and we lose Latino voters for generations. However I think this country has crossed a threshold wherein a majority want the illegal invasion CRISES stopped now - yesterday! The tipping or boiling-over point, so to speak, is the dismal economy. People are not only thinking how we are being abused by foreigners invading our country but are *feeling the pain* of laying down their taxes, life savings, for anchor baby benefits, like medicaid, food stamps, education property taxes, health care and more. For God's sake with all the unempolyment why can't the real American born high school drop out/grad/college grad mow my lawn?
By Michelle Malkin • June 18, 2010 01:58 AM
***Club Fed for illegal aliens
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Thanks to their international “human rights” advocates, Gitmo detainees receive art therapy, movie nights and video games at their U.S. taxpayer-funded camp in Cuba. Now, the left’s bleeding heart lobby wants to provide similar taxpayer-sponsored perks to illegal alien detainees on American soil. Welcome to the open-borders Club Fed.
According to an internal Department of Homeland Security e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency plans a radical overhaul of the immigration detention system. No, the reforms will not increase the nation’s measly, chronically underfunded detention bed capacity — fewer than 35,000 beds last fiscal year to cover an estimated illegal alien population of between 12 million and 20 million. The Obama ICE leadership is headed in the exact opposite direction.
ICE chief John Morton — the same man who signaled last month that he may refuse to process illegal aliens sent to him by Arizona law enforcement officials — has already eliminated 50 detention facilities. This despite a DHS inspector general report released last spring exposing the federal government’s bipartisan failure to expand detention space capacity to end the dangerous game of illegal alien “catch and release.”
Instead, among the p.c. makeover measures under consideration or about to be made by Obama’s ICE agency in the next 30 days:
– “Softening” the physical appearance of privately contracted detention facilities with “hanging plants.”
- Giving illegal alien detainees e-mail access and free Internet-based phone service.
- Abandoning lockdowns, lights-out, visitor screening and detention uniform requirements.
- Serving fresh veggies and continental breakfast and providing Bingo sessions, arts and crafts classes, and, yes, movie nights.
Ensuring humane treatment of detainees is one thing. This, on the other hand, is beyond ridiculous. Detention centers should be clean, safe and temporary way stations for illegal immigrants on their way out the door. These proposals turn the immigration detention centers into permanent Dave & Buster’s-style comfort zones for illegal aliens biding their time until the next amnesty. Dancing lessons? Game halls? This is an invitation for abuse — and a recipe for exploitation by smugglers and drug cartels. Open-borders and civil liberties activists will end up endangering DHS/ICE workers — and the rest of us — under the guise of “immigrant human rights.”
The left-wing campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union, change.org and illegal alien activists targeting our detention system began in earnest after 9/11. Under the Bush administration, hundreds of illegal aliens of Arab descent were detained and questioned as “material witnesses” in counterterrorism probes. The use of immigration laws in the war against Islamic jihadists became a rallying point for the open-borders propagandists.
The New York Times hysterically reported that most of these post-9/11 detainees were held for months without charges. In fact, 60 percent of the 762 immigrants detained after the 9/11 attacks were charged within 72 hours. And the Justice Department inspector general found that there were legitimate reasons for delay in the remaining cases, including logistical disruptions in New York City after 9/11, such as electrical outages, office shutdowns and mail service cancellation that slowed delivery of charging documents. Immigrant abuse charges were hurled recklessly by the likes of Al Gore, who slandered DHS’s detention program during a paid appearance in Saudi Arabia — despite the DOJ’s failure to find any such patterns.
The truth got lost along the way. So did common sense. Allowing illegal alien terror suspects to roam free in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks would have been a dereliction of duty. And countless homeland security experts and DHS inspector general reports have repeatedly spotlighted lax enforcement in the detention safety net over the past decade.
Hundreds of thousands of “absconders” remain on the loose because of failure (or refusal) to detain them. The immigration lawyers’ racket has lobbied for compassionate “alternatives” to detention that routinely result in deportation fugitives simply ditching the process and disappearing.
Their goal is not to improve detention. Their goal is to sabotage it — all while law-breakers munch on croissants and joyfully shout “BINGO!”***
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"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside."
In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by stating:
"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."
This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:
"[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the word..."
The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes automatic citizenship.
Based upon these comments, there is no difference between illegal aliens and legal aliens. Even for a "legal alien" their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Michelle Malkin herself was born to alien parents having allegiance to their native country. Even the person taking a "vacation" in HI and while they are there delivers a baby; presuming they are on a typical "legal" tourist three month visa, they too are "legal aliens".
Now that is a can of worms. My point is that it is complicated.
Easier/better to say; "All persons born to a citizen or naturalized in the United States..."
However, the 14th Amendment says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States",
It really is quite clear; whether we like it or not.
To waste time on legal challenges or even discussions seems futile; better if you truly believe it should be changed
to spend time, money, and energy to amend the Constitution. I would support that change.
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Well no. It is not quite clear and no it is not futile.
You conveniently leave out the rest of the sentence,
"*and* subject to the jurisdiction thereof"
Legal vs. illegal aliens can certainly be viewed differently with regards to the second half of this sentence.
"better if you truly believe it should be changed
to spend time, money, and energy to amend the Constitution."
Well ok. Lets look at this option. Does this take 2/3 Senate vote?
How does one make a new amendment?
I don't care how we get it done. It has to be done. Our national security is at stake. We are less looked at as a land of opportunity and more like a bank.
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CCP: "Lets look at this option (amend the Constitution). Does this take 2/3 Senate vote?"
If you skip the constitutional conventions option, then the process goes like this:
Requires the US House and US Senate to each pass by a two-thirds majority then it goes on to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures.
(Please see US Constitution Article V: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html)
The President is not involved in the process, but it would be difficult for a minority party to force a vote on anything in the house or senate.
Re-wording something will not preclude people from quoting the beginning of the sentence while ignoring the conjunction 'and' and the important caveats that follow.
I wouldn't look to the current leaders of either House or Senate to re-write any provisions of our constitution. Better to include in a new contract with America for the next congress to address.
It will be impossible to have 'comprehensive' immigration reform in congress while this key provision is controlled by the court.
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Though I likely lean in an originalist direction, I'm interested in the literal camp. Word meanings change over time. For instance, understanding of term "militia" has certainly changed over the last 250 years. How does one tie a literal meaning to an evolving term? What criteria is used? Is literalism an "evolving constitution" subset or does it embrace concrete and lasting standards? Do literalists use penumbras and emanations to attach add water and stir elements to the constitution?
Inquiring minds want to know. . . . :-D
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_intr.html
Depends on which kind of literalist, I suppose. Given your example, and the example given within the link, I can tell you that I am strong supporter of the Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment. I should note, futher, however, that one need not be a liberal to believe in penumbras.
By the way, see also http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/interp.html. Posner, an example of non-originalists, is also a conservative judge.
Also, see http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/alito-should-be-rejected-because-he/ which argues that well known liberal (tongue in cheek) Alito is a literalist.
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Thanks for the sources; good stuff therein. Doesn't look like your constitutional philosophy will inspire me to run shrieking from the room.
Appears a lot of what's been occurring in this thread is a pragmatist v. originalist, or perhaps more correctly in view of the 14th's pedigree, historical literalist perspectives. The pragmatists here are focussed on the costs associated with a literal interpretation of the 14th; is there anything in the literal perspective that would help them grapple with this?
A confession: I ran kitchens for about two decades and so am very torn where the subject of illegal immigration is concerned. Some of the best, hardest working, exemplars of the American bootstrap ethic were, in my experience, folks who snuck across the border, as were some of the folks who I strongly felt should be taken out back and shot. Been sitting much of this debate out as I'm having a hard time reconciling my experience with current haphazard enforcement of immigration law and am repelled by the political gamesmanship occurring. But that don't mean I'm not intrigued by the possibility of getting into a nuts and bolts discussion of how our constitutional framework and perspectives can inform us as we sort these issues out.
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BBG,
"so am very torn where the subject of illegal immigration is concerned. Some of the best, hardest working, exemplars of the American bootstrap ethic were...."
Now you sound like a bleeding heart liberal. I know you mean well. Yes all of us work alongside illegals. They are all over the country - I think there may even be more then 20 million at this point. And yes they work hard. They HAVE to. But they also abuse our system and our laws. And because we are saps we lose more than we gain.
And unfortunately that is why this country is weak, and that is why it is failing IMO.
Again, I feel we need to establish respect for our country around the world. Not fear, but not the impression we are afraid to stand up for ourselves. And we need to proud. But we also need for our people to stop this entitlement binge. We need to work for it. Lest the rest of the world run over us like they are slowly working towards. Now I get off my soapbox.
Illegals - go home. Your welcome here after you get in line. Not before. EOM.
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"Also, I would like to remind GM that debate and dissent is what brought us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to begin with. Debate can be constructive, if it is allowed to be. There is nothing un-American about what I do, my intention, my words, or my interpretation of the Constitution. "
The American Revolution, and as a result the Constitution and Bill of Rights did not come about as the result of a dispassionate intellectual exercise. They decided to fight against the global superpower of that time for a long list of grievances, including "The State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within".
There are real, tangible losses to the American people, a corrosion of the rule of law and in the long term, an existential threat to the future of this nation as result of illegal aliens and the growth of a population within our borders who hold a legal status of citizen, but a loyalty to other nations.
I'll remind you that the role of intent holds a great degree of importance in the American legal system. Identical acts with differing intent can mean the difference between facing the death penalty or misdemeanor penalties.
One can play semantic games and attempt to build a box that cannot be escaped by the American people, and you can try to wrap yourself in the constitution as you do this, but your avoid examing the intent of the founders because one need not have an encyclopedic knowledge of their writings to know that they would not tolerate the destructive interpretation of the constitution you advocate.
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I'm sure it was my "taken out back and shot" comment that gave me away.
Fact of the matter is that, in lieu of a sensible guest worker program and despite a gaping inexpensive labor need, US policy has created a climate where there is little impediment to filling a vast need and then we're somehow surprised when the free market functions to bring labor and capital together. My guess is it would take a lot less effort to create a straightforward guest worker program than it does to keep the current dysfunctional hodgepodge stumbling forward.
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Cutting our destructive welfare state will go a long way to filling those low wage jobs with Americans.
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Good point, GM. Every time I get panhandled I offer to take the panhandler to the nearest restaurant and get him signed on as a dishwasher. For some odd reason I've never been taken up on it. We do a pretty good job of producing layabouts currently.
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For some reason, a true rarity, I agree with each and everyone one of BBG's quotes. :?
"I ran kitchens for about two decades and so am very torn where the subject of illegal immigration is concerned. Some of the best, hardest working, exemplars of the American bootstrap ethic were, in my experience, folks who snuck across the border, as were some of the folks who I strongly felt should be taken out back and shot.
Fact of the matter is that, in lieu of a sensible guest worker program and despite a gaping inexpensive labor need, US policy has created a climate where there is little impediment to filling a vast need and then we're somehow surprised when the free market functions to bring labor and capital together. My guess is it would take a lot less effort to create a straightforward guest worker program than it does to keep the current dysfunctional hodgepodge stumbling forward."
I also agree with, "Every time I get panhandled I offer to take the panhandler to the nearest restaurant and get him signed on as a dishwasher. For some odd reason I've never been taken up on it. We do a pretty good job of producing layabouts currently." On this point however I notice here in LA at least, in spite of the heavy Latin (legal or illegal) population, I rarely see a Latino panhandling. Rather, there is Home Depot near my home where 50+ (Latino) line up for work. My brother has a landscape gardening business and occasionally he will hire some. I asked him why he doesn't hire white, or black or Asian. He gave me a quizzical look and said they "don't work as hard".
Going back to BBG's point, in some of the best restaurants in LA (expensive) the dishwashers are Latino AND often, the sous chef is Latino too. They work very hard; they learn, and they contribute. Illegal or not, I don't know, however if they are good, somehow the owner manages to "sponsor them" so that they can obtain
a Green Card. In a way, isn't that the "American Way"? And we ALL benefit.
Conceptually, I agree with GM, "Cutting our destructive welfare state will go a long way to filling those low wage jobs with Americans.", but then I am not so sure...
Will they do these jobs? Same quality? Effort? Somehow, as BBG points out, "the free market functions to bring labor and capital together"
Further I also agree with BBG "reconciling my experience with current haphazard enforcement of immigration law and am repelled by the political gamesmanship occurring" Something is wrong there...
I am not ignoring CCP's point about healthcare; something needs to be done. I just don't know the answer.
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Time to buy that lotto ticket, I guess.
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JDN,
I did those nasty, low paying jobs. It motivated me to find a different line of work. Minimum wage jobs are supposed to be transitory, entry level positions, not lifelong jobs held by a permanent underclass, no matter how hardworking.
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JDN,
I did those nasty, low paying jobs. It motivated me to find a different line of work. Minimum wage jobs are supposed to be transitory, entry level positions, not lifelong jobs held by a permanent underclass, no matter how hardworking.
I did too. As a child I delivered papers (up hills on my bike I cannot even ride today and I bike a lot), I worked graveyard
shift in a commercial bakery and my hands bled. I washed dishes, dug ditches, worked
in a warehouse, did retail, I was a scab "protecting truck drivers" (that was a joke given my size) etc.
I also walked to school two miles each day. But I went to college (these jobs helped pay for it) on scholarship and loans where I cleaned
toilets just to avoid, like you, having to do that the rest of my life. Somehow, todays youth doesn't do that. It is a different world.
And a different subject.
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"He gave me a quizzical look and said they "don't work as hard".
Yes, a lot of people say that. But does anyone then go on to the next step and ask *why* they work harder.'
It ain't for a love of working like a dog. It ain't that they wouldn't like to work less hard. It isn't for any special philosophical coveting of some sort of "work ethic ideal." It is because they *have* to work harder.
They HAVE to prove something. I saw the same thing with foreigners in our medical training program. Many would go the extra 5 or 10%. Why? Because they felt they had something to prove. They didn't feel as secure as we did.
Those in the low paying fields also may need to work long hours precisely to make up for lower wages and precisely so they do get hired. They HAVE to work harder.
They have to prove something in order to GET HIRED in the first place.
And that is precisely why the welfare state of our bleeding heart liberals is contributing to the failure of this country. And no I don't agree that having swarms of illegals coming in is a *gain* for all of us. Not while they can obtain free benefits for themselves or their "citizen" children.
And they take jobs Americans won't do because Americans don't have to. Because the safety net has become an "entitlement" net.
I am only beginning to hear people with enough courage on radio or amongst a few politicians running for office saying this. Most of the incumbents are political cowards, or bribed, or afraid of being painted as politically incorrect.
I am not so sure that saying people should not retire at 65 is political suicide anymore.
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It is because they *have* to work harder.
They HAVE to prove something. I saw the same thing with foreigners in our medical training program. Many would go the extra 5 or 10%. Why? Because they felt they had something to prove. They didn't feel as secure as we did.
Personally, I think there is something to be said for the doctor, lawyer or ditch digger who "would go the extra 5 or 10%." Maybe, it's because they went the extra 5-10%, and probably more, that in the end they are a little bit better? They want to improve their life. And they want to prove to others that they can do it. Isn't that the American way? As a patient, or as a client, or as an employer, don't you want someone who goes the extra 5-10%?
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Time to buy that lotto ticket, I guess.
I would, but I think I've used up all of my fortuitous good luck for the time being. :-)
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"As a patient, or as a client, or as an employer, don't you want someone who goes the extra 5-10%?"
Again you miss my point - or simply don't want to address it.
We as Americans have to work harder.
We have to stop sitting back and expecting we are entitled.
We have to stop the dole.
When that happens Americans will work just as hard as the next guys.
And you miss the point. This is not just about employers saving on some payroll. This is about our institutions going broke with services provided to illegals.
This is about Americans letting them come in here and take jobs they should be doing. This is about Americans refusing to work because they can collect
Based on your logic we could completely replace all Americans with foreigners who will work harder for less.
What do you do for a living? I think we could easily find someone in some other country bring them here illegally for 10 less pay and you are out of a job.
Or lets give them all work visas and make it illegal. Now you are happy.
That is the American way? no?
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eom
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not illegal.
sorry for 2 mistakes.
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Woof,
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up here! Where is the outrage? The boycotts? The cries of racial profiling? Oh that's right, when a Dem city, owned by Obama does it, it's all good. :lol:
www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2409672,CST-NWS-aliens19.article
P.C.
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The good news for states that were hit harder and hit earlier with the illegals problem is that if it is this troublesome and dangerous all the way up to the midwest and in Obama's home neighborhood, maybe more people from more political perspectives will really start saying enough is enough.
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Woof,
A majority of Americans (70% in latest polls), from across the political spectrum (40% Dem's), say that we need to secure the border and get illegal immigration under control; the problem is our ultra Left leaning news media and press, only gives voice and support to the radical open borders, race baiting, extremist among us and at the same time mischaracterize, misinform, and miss the point that illegal immigration is detrimental to Americans on a number of different levels and its only benefits come from the exploitation of the poor.
P.C.
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Those dirty nasty jobs are ones the teenagers held to supplement the allowence that daddy paid. They HAD to work those jobs to get the car to get the girl............. Since those jobs are now taken by illegals, the teens can't get the job that is already filled. They have to find another way to get that car...........
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this thing is spreading http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_nebraska_immigration many people see what is happening I have watched immigration increase for the last 10 yrs. Alot of ppl thought I was nuts and a racist ,bigot when I'd talk out . I've watched good ppl lose jobs when alot of companies moved to Mexico and now I'm watching illegals work where alot of americans are in the unemployment lines. And as for them working harder I have not really noticed this to be true. They might start a job by working hard but after a while they tend to walk off and not be found for awhile or they take long breaks,I've worked beside them many times .
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Isabell, why do you think you are "watching illegals work where alot of americans are in the unemployment lines."
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One of the reasons they are working is because they work cheap.This is one of the things out of this recession that americans are waking up to and its not pretty folks. Big fat paychecks are not there anymore. I've worked hard ..it seems like forever. And this economy has hit me hard, but I'm still working. The thing is that alot of companies are looking for ways to get rid of workers who aren't good at their high paying jobs to bring in cheap labor. Hey this is america and for along time we have been living the dream. Many ppl just weren't prepared for the fallout. So if you have a job you'd better do your damnedest to keep it, because these little immigrants will be right there to take it.
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Woof,
I agree that companies are cutting corners everywhere they can and that by increasing the work load and degrading working conditions, American workers are being forced out of jobs because of injuries and just walking away because of the sweatshop mentality. The question is, where is OHSA and the Department of Labor? We are being hung out to dry folks and we are catching it from all sides both politically and from greed.
P.C.
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Woof,
Well to answer my own question:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/eyeblast-tv-staff/2010/06/21/video-obama-admin-says-it-will-fight-illegals-wages
Does this make sense to anyone? They are here illegally, it's illegal to hire them, they have no Green Card or work visa but Obama and the Labor Department is going to make sure their check is right? How are they going to verify this? How about as soon as they know that someone is working here illegally, they deport them and prosecute the employer that hired them? :-P This is just outrageous.
P.C.
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Woof,
And even more interference:
www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/21/republicans-interior-stop-charging-millions-border-patrol/
The fence would stop the incredible damage being done by illegals trashing the border area which has a much worse impact than building a fence and to top that there is this;
www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/16/closes-park-land-mexico-border-americans/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g12:r5:c0.233924:b35113564:z6
www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/22/mexican-gangs-permanent-lookouts-parkland/
Now Americans are banned from our own state and federal parks because criminals from a foreign nation have invaded us while our government sets on its hands.
P.C.
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isabell,
I agree with 100%.
I was watching a person from that small town in Nebraska that wants to enforce illegal immigration law being interviewed.
She was so nervous so hesitant to speak the truth for fear of being called a bigot. She starts off with the obligatory, "I am not a racist" line. It is obvious illegals and the Dems in this country who want their votes are using the threat of the "racist" or "bigot" label like a gun to the heads of legal residents who speak up. This is crazy.
***All empolyers in the USA should simply scour the world for people willing to work for less.
Hey why not? We dcould replace the entire work force of the whole country.
So what if they are illegal. Or why not make the legal and give them work visas.***
It will only end when the phoney hypocrit liberals own jobs are at stake.
The American way, yes JDN?
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All empolyers in the USA should simply scour the world for people willing to work for less.
The American way, yes JDN?
Yes, the American Way....
PC said, "A majority of Americans (70% in latest polls), from across the political spectrum (40% Dem's), say that we need to secure the border and get illegal immigration under control" Somewhere else,
I cannot find it, he said, or someone else said, to paraphrase, we need to crack down on employer's too. As you referenced, I too "want to enforce illegal immigration law" I think most Americans agree;
and we are not bigots. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, brown or yellow; illegal is simply illegal. The word "illegal" is quite clear. That is not being bigoted, but if you focus on one ethnic group, that is
being bigoted.
Note, I strongly agree with all of the above 100%. For various reasons, including national security, we need to crack down on illegal immigrants. "How" is a challenge, but one we must face.
However, that being said, I think, and I think most on this forum agree, "free market functions to bring labor and capital together". THAT is the American Way.
In a competitive world, we all need to offer either better service, a better product, or a lower price. That includes Labor. But Isabell, and you, if I read correctly, are implying we need to restrict legal immigration too.
It seems you want to "protect" jobs in America. You seem to support "keep American jobs for Americans". A "liberal" idea. You sarcastically said, "All empolyers in the USA should simply scour the world for people willing to work for less." Well why not? Basically, businesses are already doing that in our global economy. That is how a free market functions.
However, rather than offering a better service/ability or better price (labor) it seems you are proposing that we "protect" our markets and workforce. Odd, to me this sounds more like bleeding liberal union member, not a laissez-faire free market business plan. In contrast, I personally think we should open our doors and expand legal immigration. Take the health field for example; the AMA is in essence a strong Union restricting membership. Why not invite and allow qualified doctors from Canada, England, Germany, etc. who can pass a rigid Medical Exam to practice here in America? If you are a "better" doctor, a more qualified doctor, I assume your business will still thrive. However, if money is an issue, maybe a patient will will go to the less qualified, "foreign doctor" who charges less. But as a doctor, if you cannot add value, and/or are unwilling to lower costs, then, like any business you will fail. Again, the American Way.
One of the problems of our Health Insurance delivery system is that Hospital Emergency Rooms are overwhelmed by uninsured, indigent, or illegal patients. However, one of the primary reasons is that doctors are unwilling to see these low pay patients in their office. They say, "it's not cost efficient" for them to do so. But frankly a doctor's office is a lot more cost efficient than a high tech Hospital ER room, yet the individual doctor does not want to lower their wage. I bet a doctor from Mexico practicing here in a large Latino population would offer a lower rate... Why not?
One thing about the legal profession. Love them or hate them, while each one must pass the same tough license exam, some make millions of dollars per year and others barely survive. No protection; it truly is a few market based profession. It's Darwin at it's best. So is accounting...... That is the American Way. Protecting your job, restricting who can practice/work in your field, whether you are a doctor, lawyer, or dishwasher is not the American Way.
Isabel said, "One of the reasons they are working is because they work cheap." Well, again that is the American Way. McDonald's employees make close to minimal wages; McDonald's sells primarily based upon price. However, a high end Beverly Hills restaurant will pay it's sous chef quite a bit; they sell on quality. Wall Mart versus Hermes. It's just a different business plan. But the American Way is to minimize costs (labor is one aspect) to obtain the maximum profit. Business 101. Capitalism.
Also, I find it a bit odd that on this site, a conservative free market site, of which I am generally a proponent, some people are asking, "where is OHSA and the Department of Labor?" Isn't that "big government"? Sounds like a "liberal" idea? Yet I too think they are necessary. We don't want to go back to sweat shops of another era; we need government supervision and intervention. But within safety guidelines, basic minimum wage guidelines, why not open up markets/jobs to the new, the innovative, the hard working....
As Emma Lazarus said,
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...
That is the American Way...
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I agree with this point JDN made: "For various reasons, including national security, we need to crack down on illegal immigrants."
Expanding or even continuing legal immigration is another issue. I would consider expanding legal immigration if NOT for the illegal problem, but that is moot. Border security must come first and then some form of normalcy/stability.
The situation in Fremont Nebraska will be interesting. I am familiar with the town only from driving through. The needs of employers for low cost workers does not trump national security. You do not have expand citizenship to get workers but overstaying a work visa is a major part of the problem, including at least 6 of the 9/11 hijackers. Workers overstaying visas should be the easiest to track down if anyone was tracking.
The feds could require employers to disclose who they hire and the feds could require companies to transmit copies of papers to help with the screening, especially with companies or industries with known problems, but the feds should not be making companies do the job that they won't do.
As a landlord I have been curious if I am in more trouble for renting to an illegal or for turning down someone for suspecting they are illegal or that their documents are phony. In Fremont, you will be violating city ordinance to rent to illegals and violating federal housing law if you treat them at all differently based on anything other than proof of illegality. If you have ever messed with federal housing law (or employment law) you will certainly err on the side of NON-discrimination.
I do not think there are many sweatshops, substandard workplaces or under-regulated businesses left in America. The stockyards and meatpacking may be ugly places but I'm sure they are USDA inspected and the pay is relatively high for unskilled work in a small town.
We know the Census did not care if they were legal or not. Hard to hold employers to a higher standard than the U.S. government in a constitutional mandate to count its people.
I wonder what the credit agencies know; they know almost everything about almost everybody. The problem is that we are not really trying to find out who is here, who is illegal or do anything about it, much less close the border.
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I would have no problem doubling or tripling the legal immigration quota and loosening those requirements quite a bit. The only requirements being : "Is this new person really wanting to be a citizen of this country?", "does this person have a clean bill of health?", " what is the possible threat of this person as far as terrorism/crime?" A no answer to a single one of those questions during a probation period should mean a deportation.
As for illegal activities on the border, invasions by criminals......... They defined the force levels when they started killing US Citizens trying to maintain their fencelines and property rights. Roll in with an Omega Team and Gunships. Back track to the base in Mexico and Obliterate it. The legitamate members of the Mexican Government will be secretly ecstatic, they ones corrupted by the cartels will create political mayhem. What can Mexico REALLY do to hurt us? Cut the boil out regardless of the squealing, and hopefully a healthier patient will thank us for it. If not, we can drop Nafta- it would hurt them way more than us, and I think they may be in violation of several aspects anyway. Nafta was a mutual treaty, a "you do this, and so do we" setup. Different from the nature of the Geneva Accords where we took a "boy scout oath" right?
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There has always been capitalism n America. This country was founded on capitalism. Sure we got alot of other things that are great or once were. Freedom of speech which we use in written form here. Freedom of religion...which we seem to be losing ..or at least we seem to be losing are right to speak about our religion because we offend those that are not religious. Our rights are growing smaller everyday. (did you know that Ireland has become the stab capital of the world) They took their guns away. I'm not saying go shoot someone. But criminals while use whats at hand. A gun in some cases might be better. Ppl wont try to stop someone with a gun where they might think they can overpower a criminal with a knife...next they will take thier knives away.
The rights of Americans have slowly been deteriorating for years. And the article that P.C. put up about the park closer is terrible.I'm sure alot of citizens are very mad at this. Has anyone ever visited Laredo or eagles pass in Texas right on the border and very dangerous places to be...if you know any truck drivers ask them if they ever go there. Alot of them don't like the border towns. People come up missing all the time. And have for years. I drove for awhile the border patrol stops you when you leave these towns. Its pretty scary they have dogs and they are armed. Their dog went off one time as I was coming thru. I had my dog in the back. I had to get out and show them all I had was my shepard and then I had to show all her paperwork. But now I'm thankful for what they did ..just doing their job.
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U.S. Department of Illegal Alien Labor
By Michelle Malkin • June 25, 2010 08:49 AM
My syndicated column today takes aim at open-borders Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. She’s already a familiar character to those of you who read Culture of Corruption (and here’s a reminder of the roll call vote on her Senate confirmation.)
***
The U.S. Department of Illegal Alien Labor
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
President Obama’s Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is supposed to represent American workers. What you need to know is that this longtime open-borders sympathizer has always had a rather radical definition of “American.” At a Latino voter registration project conference in Los Angeles many years ago, Solis asserted to thunderous applause, “We are all Americans, whether you are legalized or not.”
That’s right. The woman in charge of enforcing our employment laws doesn’t give a hoot about our immigration laws — or about the fundamental distinction between those who followed the rules in pursuit of the American dream and those who didn’t.
While in Congress, she opposed strengthening the border fence, supported expansion of illegal alien benefits (including driver’s licenses and in-state tuition discounts), embraced sanctuary cities that refused to cooperate with federal homeland security officials to enforce immigration laws, and aggressively championed a mass amnesty. Solis was steeped in the pro-illegal alien worker organizing movement in Southern California and was buoyed by amnesty-supporting Big Labor groups led by the Service Employees International Union (see also Trevor Loudon’s profile of her radical far-left ties). She has now caused a Capitol Hill firestorm over her new taxpayer-funded advertising and outreach campaign to illegal aliens regarding fair wages:
“I’m here to tell you that your president, your secretary of labor and this department will not allow anyone to be denied his or her rightful pay — especially when so many in our nation are working long, hard and often dangerous hours,” Solis says in the video pitch. “We can help, and we will help. If you work in this country, you are protected by our laws. And you can count on the U.S. Department of Labor to see to it that those protections work for you.”
To be sure, no one should be scammed out of “fair wages.” Employers that hire and exploit illegal immigrant workers deserve full sanctions and punishment. But it’s the timing, tone-deafness and underlying blanket amnesty agenda of Solis’ illegal alien outreach that has so many American workers and their representatives on Capitol Hill rightly upset.
With double-digit unemployment and a growing nationwide revolt over Washington’s border security failures, why has Solis chosen now to hire 250 new government field investigators to bolster her illegal alien workers’ rights campaign? (Hint: Leftists unhappy with Obama’s lack of progress on “comprehensive immigration reform” need appeasing. This is a quick bone to distract them.)
Unfortunately, the federal government is not alone in lavishing attention and resources on workers who shouldn’t be here in the first place. As of 2008, California, Florida, Nevada, New York, Texas and Utah all expressly included illegal aliens in their state workers’ compensation plans — and more than a dozen other states implicitly cover them.
Solis’ public service announcement comes on the heels of little-noticed but far more troubling comments encouraging illegal alien workers in the Gulf Coast. Earlier this month, in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, according to Spanish language publication El Diario La Prensa, Solis signaled that her department was going out of its way to shield illegal immigrant laborers involved in cleanup efforts. “My purpose is to assist the workers with respect to safety and protection,” she said. “We’re protecting all workers regardless of migration status because that’s the federal law.” She told reporters that her department was in talks with local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials who had visited coastal worksites to try to verify that workers were legal.
No word yet on whether she gave ICE her “we are all Americans, whether you are legalized or not” lecture. But it’s a safe bet.
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You state:
"Note, I strongly agree with all of the above 100%. For various reasons, including national security, we need to crack down on illegal immigrants. "How" is a challenge, but one we must face."
The difficulty is all politics. We have a major party in this nation that sees immigrants as more voters. They are blocking our ability to do anything.
The way to stop it is easy. Stop the benefits, stop allowing employers to hire them, make it law that any illegal couple who has a child here can NEVER ever obtain citizenship and viola. They will be going home.
That's my answer. You appear to agree "100%" to crack down on them yet all you do is put up endless roadblocks with your arguments.
The benefits they receive is greater than any contribution to this nation. We are going broke and we continue to dole out to them.
What do you think we should do??
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ILlegal immigrants (and amnestying them into Dem votes) are one issue.
An additional issue is the loyalty of those who come.
---------------------------------------
Call the Capital switchboard 202-224-3121 and ask for your Sen/Rep office
NOW TO STOP DE FACTO AMNESTY THAT BY-PASSES CONGRESS !!!
This amnesty could go in place just by federal bureaucrats taking an
action that the President just lets happen. He would merely have to give his
quiet consent to DHS Sec. Napolitano massively abusing one or both of two
powers she already has:
1) parole authority
2) prosecutorial discretion to grant "deferred action".
These are intended to be used in individual cases, not as a blanket
amnesty to cover millions. But we have received information from both Democratic
and Republican offices that they have been told from people inside the
Department of Homeland Security that "parole" and "deferred action" are being
looked at as a way to get around the fact that Congress is not going to vote
for an amnesty this year.
We should be petitioning both Obama and Napolitano to abandon any plans to
usurp Congress' Constitutional authority over immigration by abusing the
Secretary's restricted parole and prosecutorial discretion authority to
accomplish an amnesty for illegal aliens.
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I don't quite get it; while I am not in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, we already did it once. In 1986 President Reagan, a Republican,
signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Why is going easy on illegal immigrants suddenly a sinister Democrat ploy to gain additional votes?
As for your comment Crafty, what does "the loyalty of those who come" mean?
As Rarick posted, "I would have no problem doubling or tripling the legal immigration quota and loosening those requirements quite a bit." I agree.
CCP; I'm still waiting for your comment on this matter. It seems to go counter to your beliefs.
Rarick also posted "does this person have a clean bill of health?", " what is the possible threat of this person as far as terrorism/crime?"
If that is your question/issue, I agree. Healthy and no threat; that should be a given.
However, Rarick also posted, "Is this new person really wanting to be a citizen of this country?"
Is this your question Crafty?
I'm not sure why this is relevant assuming the person meets Rarick's above two requirements and is a legal alien. I have many legal immigrant friends
working here on a legal green card; some have become US citizens, others have kept their own citizenship yet continue to work and contribute
to this country and pay taxes. Is there something wrong with this? Or H1 Visas? Or ..... Or even how about legal tourists? While I expect all legal immigrants
to be law abiding people, I do not expect them to have loyalty to the USA versus their own country. For a year I worked
in London, but my loyalty was always to the USA.
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Regarding Reagan, he did his part on the compromise but the rest that was promised never happened - no closing of the border and no end to the illegal migration. There is no way to project from that failed false compromise that he would ever support doing it again. He did relate with the people who risked it all for a shot at building a better life through hard work. Today is different. We are much less an opportunity society and much more headed in the direction of a welfare state. CCP is the one who has nailed this. We need to become much less of a welfare state as part of the 'comprehensive' solution and then people would violate our borders in smaller numbers for better reasons.
Amnesty today IS a Democrat sinister plot to deputize more voters. CCP has nailed that from the start as well. Both sides admit it. A few Republicans like Karl Rove and John McCain recognized that R's need to get on board politically regardless of principle. The momentum on this one though is shifting back with the impressive popularity of the Arizona measure - back to standing on principle and respecting a just law.
If we passed a 'comprehensive' bill today (amnesty), it would do nothing to either slow the continuing illegal migration or create any incentive to ever secure the border, which means that again it would fail.
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I don't quite get it; while I am not in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, we already did it once. In 1986 President Reagan, a Republican,
signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Why is going easy on illegal immigrants suddenly a sinister Democrat ploy to gain additional votes?
As for your comment Crafty, what does "the loyalty of those who come" mean?
As Rarick posted, "I would have no problem doubling or tripling the legal immigration quota and loosening those requirements quite a bit." I agree.
CCP; I'm still waiting for your comment on this matter. It seems to go counter to your beliefs.
Rarick also posted "does this person have a clean bill of health?", " what is the possible threat of this person as far as terrorism/crime?"
If that is your question/issue, I agree. Healthy and no threat; that should be a given.
However, Rarick also posted, "Is this new person really wanting to be a citizen of this country?"
Is this your question Crafty?
I'm not sure why this is relevant assuming the person meets Rarick's above two requirements and is a legal alien. I have many legal immigrant friends
working here on a legal green card; some have become US citizens, others have kept their own citizenship yet continue to work and contribute
to this country and pay taxes. Is there something wrong with this? Or H1 Visas? Or ..... Or even how about legal tourists? While I expect all legal immigrants
to be law abiding people, I do not expect them to have loyalty to the USA versus their own country. For a year I worked
in London, but my loyalty was always to the USA.
People on work visas are not immigrants, you were not an immigrant working in London. If you had wanted to stay the rest of your life in London- you would have been an immigrant- and subject to the loyalty issue. Also the issue of what kind of medical and governmental acces you would have would come up.
If you want to work in the tribal lands, but do not wish to join the tribe you have to expect members of the tribe to consider you an outsider. That would mean a tribe member would have preference for access to the Chief, Medicene man, shaman.....etc. That does not mean that you do not have basic human rights, it just means you do not get tribal benefits since you are choosing not to belong.
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People on work visas are not immigrants, you were not an immigrant working in London. If you had wanted to stay the rest of your life in London- you would have been an immigrant- and subject to the loyalty issue. Also the issue of what kind of medical and governmental acces you would have would come up.
If you want to work in the tribal lands, but do not wish to join the tribe you have to expect members of the tribe to consider you an outsider. That would mean a tribe member would have preference for access to the Chief, Medicene man, shaman.....etc. That does not mean that you do not have basic human rights, it just means you do not get tribal benefits since you are choosing not to belong.
I think for this discussion the definition of "immigrant" is anyone who has come from another country. "Legal Immigrant" is anyone in this country with legal (government) permission. An "illegal immigrant" in contrast does not have legal permission to be here and has entered the country without permission and/or has overstayed their legal allowable time without government permission. The issue of how long they stay or don't stay is not the point. People on a work Visa are an immigrant. People on a Green Card (Permanent Resident Card) are immigrants. People who sneak across the border are immigrants, albeit illegal ones.
Think about it. "If you want to stay the rest of your life" in America; well, how do you necessarily know that before you have lived here for a while. Only after you have been here for a while can you legally and logically decide. It's complicated, but in general to become a naturalized American Citizen you must live here for a few years first before you are eligible for citizenship. However, under the eyes of our government, you are an immigrant from the day you arrive.
That said, I agree citizens should have the most rights and they do. Legal Immigrants (Visa holders) should have nearly as many rights, however illegal immigrants should only have minimal basic human rights rights.
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http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001101----000-.html
The term “alien” means any person not a citizen or national of the United States.
http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm
Legal permanent residents (LPRs) are foreign nationals who have been granted the right to reside permanently in the United States. LPRs are often referred to simply as "immigrants," but they are also known as "permanent resident aliens" and "green card holders."
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a39e901bf9873210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a39e901bf9873210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
Working in the US
The United States welcomes thousands of foreign workers in multiple occupations or employment categories every year. These include artists, researchers, cultural exchange participants, information technology specialists, religious workers, investors, scientists, athletes, nurses, agricultural workers and others. All foreign workers must obtain permission to work legally in the United States. Each employment category for admission has different requirements, conditions and authorized periods of stay. It is important that you adhere to the terms of your application or petition for admission and visa. Any violation can result in removal or denial of re-entry into the United States.
Temporary (Nonimmigrant) Worker
A temporary worker is an individual seeking to enter the United States temporarily for a specific purpose. Nonimmigrants enter the United States for a temporary period of time, and once in the United States, are restricted to the activity or reason for which their nonimmigrant visa was issued.
Permanent (Immigrant) Worker
A permanent worker is an individual who is authorized to live and work permanently in the United States.
Students and Exchange Visitors
Students and exchange visitors may, under certain circumstances, be allowed to work in the United States. They must obtain permission from an authorized official at their school. The authorized official is known as a Designed School Official (DSO) for students and the Responsible Officer (RO) for exchange visitors.
Information for Employers & Employees
Employers must verify that an individual whom they plan to employ or continue to employ in the United States is authorized to accept employment in the United States. Individuals, such as those who have been admitted as permanent residents, granted asylum or refugee status, or admitted in work-related nonimmigrant classifications, may have employment authorization as a direct result of their immigration status. Other aliens may need to apply individually for employment authorization.
Temporary Visitors For Business
To visit the United States for business purposes you will need to obtain a visa as a temporary visitor for business (B-1 visa), unless you qualify for admission without a visa under the Visa Waiver Program. For more information on the topics above, select the category related to your situation to the left.
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"I don't quite get it; while I am not in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, we already did it once."
I guess you don't. It is quite astonishing really that you can say you are against illegal aliens 100% yet you find every argument you can think of to skirt the issue which is we have a flood of illegals using more than they contribute, we have a huge unemployment problem, we have a huge expanding debt problem, we are going bankrupt, we have a Dem controlled governement that refuses to do anything about it, we have Republicans who are afraid of offending legal latino voters, we have citizens afraid to speak out for fear of being labelled racist and the rest, and all you can do is find every reason to explain what NOT to do.
I do not believe you are against illegals. This statement is incongruent with your arguments.
As for raising the number for legal citizenship pathway I have been quite clear I personally am completely against that. What I am for is encouraging legal Americans to work harder and stop relying on 1/2 of the country to continue supporting them through taxation - period. It is really quite simple. The problem is the politicians are for themselves - not for the good of this nation.
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"I don't quite get it; while I am not in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, we already did it once."
I guess you don't. It is quite astonishing really that you can say you are against illegal aliens 100% yet you find every argument you can think of to skirt the issue which is we have a flood of illegals using more than they contribute, we have a huge unemployment problem, we have a huge expanding debt problem, we are going bankrupt, we have a Dem controlled governement that refuses to do anything about it, we have Republicans who are afraid of offending legal latino voters, we have citizens afraid to speak out for fear of being labelled racist and the rest, and all you can do is find every reason to explain what NOT to do.
I do not believe you are against illegals. This statement is incongruent with your arguments.
:?
How am I shirting the issue? Assuming the issue is immigration. I've said we should stringently enforce all our immigration laws against illegal immigrants AND employers who employ them. Also we should seriously strengthen our borders to stop the flow. I mean, I'm running out of ideas. To say you are going to round up and ship back the 10 million or so illegal immigrants already in this country is simply not practical or realistic. President Reagan granted amnesty because he too knew it was impossible to send everyone back. But if you enforced and strengthened the immigration laws against employers and therefore there were no jobs for illegals, I bet a lot of them would go back on their own. And, as Doug pointed out, somehow "close the border".
However, I do not think that "we have a huge unemployment problem, an expanding debt problem, or that we are going bankrupt, ....." due primarily to our 3-4% low paid illegal immigrants population. We seem to have done this to ourselves on our own.
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Now we agree. :-D Thanks for your response.
" I've said we should stringently enforce all our immigration laws against illegal immigrants AND employers who employ them."
I agree and have posted this.
"To say you are going to round up and ship back the 10 million or so illegal immigrants already in this country is simply not practical or realistic."
Only because we don't have the political will but...
"But if you enforced and strengthened the immigration laws against employers and therefore there were no jobs for illegals, I bet a lot of them would go back on their own."
then, I agree with this point. If we cut off the welfare, the food stamps, the jobs, start enforcing and carding people we wouldn't need to round up people and ship them over the border to wherever they came from. It would mostly take care of itself. If we cannot stop the anchor baby loophole then we could do what I otherwise suggest:
OK if illegals come here and have babies partly at our expense and we are stuck having to give them *automatic* citizenship, then those who abuse our country and our system by explicitly taking advantage of this loop hole are punishable by NEVER EVER being granted citizenship in their lifetime for any reason irregardless of their children's system.
Yes I work alongside some obvious illlegals. Yes I look at them with sympathy. But I also feel enraged that these people come here knowing that they can get benefits, hospital care, break our immigration laws, have babies that go to our tax funded schools, then turn around and call us racist, bigots and all the rest if we should even hint at protesting.
I am tired of being stupid. I say again go back to your countries, whether it be in Asia, Africa, Caribbean, South/Central America, Mexico, Canada, Europe and get in line.
"I do not think that "we have a huge unemployment problem, an expanding debt problem, or that we are going bankrupt, ....." due primarily to our 3-4% low paid illegal immigrants population."
Surely illegals are only a part of the problem and probably only a small part of it. But they are part of it. As I think I posted: It is estimated that probably half of the lost or unfunded facility (hospital care) costs in NJ are due to illegals. Our insurance rates go up yearly at least in part because of this. The health system has to get that back from somewhere.
That is significant, outrageous. :x
And the fact that Democrats are siding with foreigners who are breaking the law from day one! :x
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"of their children's system."
should be: of their children' *status*.
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1. Seal the border. It can be done, it needs to have been done a long time ago.
2. Any employer found employing illegal aliens has all the businesses assets seized.
3. Any person wishing to transfer funds outside the US must be a US citizen, permanent resident alien. Make it a felony to transfer money for an illegal alien.
4. Any entity found providing services to illegal aliens is cut off from fedewral funding for a minimum of 5 years.
5. All levels of law enforcement enforcing laws regarding illegal immigration.
Stop rewarding illegal immigration, start enforcing the laws and the majority will self-deport.
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http://cofcc.org/2010/02/one-half-of-all-immigrant-families-on-welfare/
One half of all immigrant families on welfare!
Across America, every state, county, and city is going bankrupt. The state in the worst shape is California which is now 58% non-white.
Welfare, free health care, and other public services to immigrants is pushing America to the brink. Instead of closing the border, Obama recently issued a back door amnesty for illegal aliens from Haiti. Even releasing Haitian illegal aliens from detention centers who have already been convicted of crimes in the United States!
Interesting read.
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http://cofcc.org/introduction/statement-of-principles/
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.
:-o
Perhaps this group is not a good source of information.
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Methinks GM is quite correct.
Folks, yes we post our sources so others can size things up for themselves, but let us filter out obviously unworthy sources or at least note the dubious nature of the source when we quote it.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-VMMweYcd8
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This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Journal Broadcast Group, Inc..
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Its to bad that you feel this article not worthy because of a statement of principle. Lots of orgaizations have statements similar to this. The thing is you have to look at the organization as a whole. The good with the bad. My point is that the article is interesting. Alot of things on here that are in links are from fox news...I dont like them and won't watch them ..but I keep an open mind and look them over anyway. I could just say I don't like them and they are unworthy.All articles are things that make you think and as craftydog said .A person has to make up his own mind on what he wants to see in the written word. But to deem an article unworthy because you don't like a statement of principle ...is like calling the kettle black....unworthy..lol. Do to me what you will I stand on my principle of the article...think about it ..its what all of you have been saying anyway.
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My interest in stopping illegal immigration is the preservation of the rule of law and American ideals. America is a universal nation , not a "white" or european nation. We are founded on ideas, not a skin color or ethnicity. I welcome lawful immigrants who wish to become Americans, no matter from where on the planet they come from or what they look like, just so long as they love and honor this nation.
I want nothing to do with any racist group that holds an allegance to a race or ethnicity over their loyalty to this nation, no matter if it's the cofcc.org, La Raza or Obama's church of 20 + years.
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Leave the bigoted sources for Prison Planet or the white, black, brown, red, or whatever supremacist sites. Bad sources taint the whole argument; making a valid point should not have to rely on racist web sites or any other source.
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GM and BBG are exactly right.
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Well I can see your point on that. The article is interesting though. The point of racism is something I always overlook. My oldest two childern are biracial and I have just learned from many years of dealing with this to just ignore it .....they are beautiful kids American Samoan and me. A very happy and loving people. But we have had some hard times. Its just a thing. But many people are afraid of this. And then comes the racism. Its just a site and their principles arent mine . But I do use them I have wrote many articles for college on immigration.And as I stated before I have been watching immigration for the last 10 yrs. Tolerance is the same as patience it takes alot to make the world go round. With the rate of immigration growing both illegal and legal and its not all mexicians we are dealing with. I deal with 4 haitian families everyday. Its amazing our government has them in the apartment complex I help run. Not only are we the tax payers paying their rent but we are also paying for them to have domestic lessons,driving lessons and for them to have small business classes...so the government can set them up in business. I've never had any of this for free. But they are refugee's and I do feel sorry for them because some of them have never used a stove before , their lives are so different from ours. In this modern age to have never used a stove or a micro wave....I wouldn't know how to cook without a stove.
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And to the good people of this forum..who read the article and found it interesting ..without going into politics and racism I bid you all farewell...I came here to discuss an issue I have alot of interest in. Years as a mater of fact . But I feel that your all very narrow minded and cannot see an interesting article for what it is...interesting......it does not matter where it comes from and it does not seem that anyone here can see anything but what you all claim s right. I'm pretty much a free thinker and I love America...Army here 1978-1981 I served my time. My husband retired Army. My son is a marine now and I have a daughter going Army. They are biracial and I'm as proud as I can be of them. And as an American I think I can I very loyal to America.
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The Adventure continues.
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Woof,
Wow. :| Some folk's stepping off point is mighty close. Anyway, in light of the fact that the open borders folks and the press and the Left in general and every other whack job in the country that want to destabilize and ultimately cause the fall of our Constitutional Republic, as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, consistently paint anyone that wants our laws enforced and our borders secure as being racist, bigoted, human rights abusers as a way of discrediting them and smearing them so that no one, in or out of power, that has any ability to get some forward movement with actually getting something done, won't have anything to do with it because they don't want to be associated in any way with racist, bigoted, human rights abusers. Now it is hard enough just dealing with out and out lies and being wrongfully smeared has a racist just because we want the laws already put in place to protect us from all the problems associated with an unsecured border and illegal immigration rightfully enforced but when you pull something in that actually is tainted with racism then the wacko's win. It doesn't matter if the article said, "God is good.", we still lose our legitmate place as citizens simply concerned with the rule of law, and rightfully so because there is no justification for hate or racist views in this issue, whatsoever, however slight. When we fail to recognise this we become our own worst enemy.
P.C.
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http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/29/obama-admin-trying-to-deport-son-of-hamas-founder-and-christian-convert-who-spied-for-israel-on-grounds-hes-a-security-threat/
There is an alien Obama wants to deport....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10469572.stm
'Son of Hamas' granted US asylum
Page last updated at 18:28 GMT, Wednesday, 30 June 2010 19:28 UK
Mr Yousef said he grew disillusioned with Hamas The son of a founder of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is to be granted asylum in the US, a judge has ruled.
Mosab Hassan Yousef said he became a spy for Israel's intelligence service and converted to Christianity before moving to California in 2007.
He went public earlier this year when he published his memoir called Son of Hamas.
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http://www.investors.com/EditorialCartoons/Cartoon.aspx?id=539231
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http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/29/obama-admin-trying-to-deport-son-of-hamas-founder-and-christian-convert-who-spied-for-israel-on-grounds-hes-a-security-threat/
There is an alien Obama wants to deport....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10469572.stm
'Son of Hamas' granted US asylum
Page last updated at 18:28 GMT, Wednesday, 30 June 2010 19:28 UK
Mr Yousef said he grew disillusioned with Hamas The son of a founder of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is to be granted asylum in the US, a judge has ruled.
Mosab Hassan Yousef said he became a spy for Israel's intelligence service and converted to Christianity before moving to California in 2007.
He went public earlier this year when he published his memoir called Son of Hamas.
That is the main problem I have with the last 3-4 presidential administrations. Laws are getting selectively enforced, depending on what your connections are. That is "the King's Justice" aka Medieval and should have no place in America. The government should not be above the law either- wrong is wrong no matter who or what is acting. That is one of my main peeves with groups and government- somehow what is immoral/wrong to do as an individual become okay if it is a group acting.........
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I don't understand. Why would Baraq Hussein Obama want to deport this man? :lol: :x :x
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<tin foil hat> Obama is a closet islamist and is helping the cause by deporting an apostate for proper revenge killing to encourage the others? </tinfoil hat> Amonst other conspiracy theories I have seen ranging from simple "secret appeasement" to what I just mentioned........
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http://world-news.newsvine.com/_question/2010/05/12/4274124-do-you-support-arizonas-tough-new-law-on-illegal-immigration
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Re the Arizona DOJ lawsuit:
Apparently, the deep-blue state of Rhode Island has been doing the same thing as Arizona is set to do, for years:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2010/07/06/ri_troopers_embrace_firm_immigration_role/
Oklahoma, Utah, and South Carolina are looking at similar legislation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070703017.html?hpid=topnews
Surprisingly, a majority (62%) of San Diego residents oppose the DOJ's lawsuit against Arizona:
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=603455a2-67bc-468d-b483-6a577f3bb2ad
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Woof,
One quick point and then a story about funds being raised to fight the government's lawsuit; if it is found that the Federal government alone can make and enforce immigration laws then immigration laws drawn up by sanctuary cities would by default also be unconstitutional. :lol:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100709/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_donations
Oh, and I notice the government's complaint doesn't mention racial profiling so much for race baiting in the courts; I guess it doesn't get the same effect as it does as a public smear; and I wonder if the four judge's that were so hot and heavy on states rights to ban guns, will be so willing to go to bat for AZ on this issue, of course Leftist political agendas have nothing to do with their findings they strictly follow the Constitution on these matters. :-P
P.C.
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The DOJ could be considered part of the problem, at least in this area. The DOJ attorney that resigned over the ACORN prosecution sidelining and the folderol around him indicate that there is a bias among the political appointees at the helm of the department. (agenda is taking precedent over plain old good law)
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Woof,
Well this is better than nothing but deportations along with this could really do a lot to solve the problem.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38176981/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times
P.C.
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Edited to add something to the Subject line. This facilitates search requests. --Marc
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Published: July 11, 2010
BOSTON — In a private meeting with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors voiced deep anxiety about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, worrying that it could cost a vulnerable Democratic Party in the fall elections.
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.
While the weak economy dominated the official agenda at the summer meeting here of the National Governors Association, concern over immigration policy pervaded the closed-door session between Democratic governors and White House officials and simmered throughout the three-day event.
At the Democrats’ meeting on Saturday, some governors bemoaned the timing of the Justice Department lawsuit, according to two governors who spoke anonymously because the discussion was private.
“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’ ” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said in an interview. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on.”
He added, “It is such a toxic subject, such an important time for Democrats.”
The administration seemed to be taking a carrot-and-stick approach on Sunday. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in town to give the governors a classified national security briefing, met one-on-one with Jan Brewer, the Republican who succeeded her as governor of Arizona and ardently supports the immigration law.
About the same time as that meeting, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on a taped Sunday talk show that the Justice Department could bring yet another lawsuit against Arizona if there is evidence that the immigration law leads to racial profiling.
Ms. Brewer said she and Ms. Napolitano did not discuss the current lawsuit. Instead, in a conversation she described as cordial, they discussed Arizona’s request for more National Guard troops along the border with Mexico, as well as other resources.
The Democrats’ meeting provided a window on tensions between the White House and states over the suit, which the Justice Department filed last week in federal court in Phoenix. Nineteen Democratic governors are either leaving office or seeking re-election this year, and Republicans see those seats as crucial to swaying the 2012 presidential race.
The Arizona law — which Ms. Brewer signed in April and which, barring an injunction, takes effect July 29 — makes it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant there. It also requires police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop for other offenses if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants.
The lawsuit contends that controlling immigration is a federal responsibility, but polls suggest that a majority of Americans support the Arizona law, or at least the concept of a state having a strong role in immigration enforcement.
Republican governors at the Boston meeting were also critical of the lawsuit, saying it infringed on states’ rights and rallying around Ms. Brewer, whose presence spurred a raucous protest around the downtown hotel where the governors gathered.
“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s,” said Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican seeking re-election.
But the unease of Democratic governors, seven of whom are seeking re-election this year, was more striking.
“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” said Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat who was facing a tough fight for re-election and pulled out of the race earlier this year. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”
The White House would not directly respond to reports of complaints from some Democratic governors.
But David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the president remained committed to passing an immigration overhaul, and that addressing the issue did not mean he was ignoring the economy.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good, healthy debate about the economy and other issues,” Mr. Axelrod said.
Mr. Obama addressed the economy last week during stops in Kansas City and Las Vegas, and has been calling on Congress to offer additional tax relief to small businesses.
And the heads of Mr. Obama’s national debt commission — Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles — were on hand here on Sunday to press the economic issue.
The nation’s total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion, and Mr. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Mr. Bowles, a Democrat and the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, offered a gloomy assessment if spending is not brought under control even more.
“This debt is like a cancer,” Mr. Bowles said. “It is truly going to destroy the country from within.”
Still, the issue of immigration commanded as much attention as anything here this weekend.
Ms. Brewer, who was trailed by television cameras all weekend, called the lawsuit “outrageous” and said the state was receiving donations from around the country to help fight it.
“I think Arizona will win,” she said, “and we will take a position for all of America.”
Immigration was not the only topic at the Saturday meeting between Democratic governors and two White House officials — Patrick Gaspard, Mr. Obama’s political director, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs. But several governors, including Christine Gregoire of Washington, said it was a particularly heated issue.
Ms. Gregoire, who does not face an election this year, said the White House was doing a poor job of showing the American public that it was working on the problem of illegal immigration.
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Page 2 of 2)
“They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border,” Ms. Gregoire said of the White House officials at the closed-door meeting. “And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’ ”
She added, “We’ve got a message void, and the only thing we’re hearing is that they’re filing a lawsuit.”
Some Democrats also joined Republicans in calling for Congress to pass an immigration policy overhaul this year.
“There are 535 members of Congress,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat. “Certainly somebody back there can chew gum and hold the basketball at the same time. This is not an either-or.”
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico praised the Justice Department’s lawsuit, saying his fellow Democrats’ concerns were “misguided.”
“Policy-wise it makes sense,” said Mr. Richardson, who is Hispanic and who leaves office this year on term limits, “and Obama is popular with Hispanic voters and this is going to be a popular move with them nationally.”
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland — a Democrat who voiced apprehension about the lawsuit in the private meeting, according to the two governors who requested anonymity — said in an interview that he supported it.
“The president doesn’t have control over some of the timing of things that happen,” Mr. O’Malley said. “When those things arise, you can’t be too precious about what’s in it for your own personal political timing or even your party’s timing. When matters like this arise, I think the president has to take a principled stand.”
But Mr. Bredesen said that in Tennessee, where the governor’s race will be tight this year, Democratic candidates were already on the defensive about the federal health care overhaul, and the suit against Arizona further weakened them. In Tennessee, he said, Democratic candidates are already “disavowing” the immigration lawsuit.
“Maybe you do that when you’re strong,” he said of the suit, “and not when there’s an election looming out there.”
Mr. Ritter of Colorado said he wished the Justice Department had waited to sue Arizona until after the law went into effect, to give the public a chance to see how difficult it would be to enforce.
“It’s just an easier case to make,” he said. “I just think that law enforcement officers are going to have a terribly difficult time applying this law in a constitutional way.”
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“All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian” - Pat Paulsen for President, 1968
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This is exactly the sort of subject wherein the NYT becomes POTH the most:
================================
At a time when the prospects for immigration overhaul seem most dim, supporters have unleashed a secret weapon: a group of influential evangelical Christian leaders.
Normally on the opposite side of political issues backed by the Obama White House, these leaders are aligning with the president to support an overhaul that would include some path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here. They are preaching from pulpits, conducting conference calls with pastors and testifying in Washington — as they did last Wednesday.
“I am a Christian and I am a conservative and I am a Republican, in that order,” said Matthew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious law firm. “There is very little I agree with regarding President Barack Obama. On the other hand, I’m not going to let politicized rhetoric or party affiliation trump my values, and if he’s right on this issue, I will support him on this issue.”
When President Obama gave a major address pushing immigration overhaul this month, he was introduced by a prominent evangelical, the Rev. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois. Three other evangelical pastors were in the audience, front and center.
Their presence was a testament, in part, to the work of politically active Hispanic evangelical pastors, who have forged friendships with non-Hispanic pastors in recent years while working in coalitions to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. The Hispanics made a concerted effort to convince their brethren that immigration reform should be a moral and practical priority.
Hispanic storefront churches are popping up in strip malls, and Spanish-speaking congregations are renting space in other churches. Some pastors, like Mr. Hybels, lead churches that include growing numbers of Hispanics. Several evangelical leaders said they were convinced that Hispanics are the key to growth not only for the evangelical movement, but also for the social conservative movement.
“Hispanics are religious, family-oriented, pro-life, entrepreneurial,” said the Rev. Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm. “They are hard-wired social conservatives, unless they’re driven away.
“I’ve had some older conservative leaders say: ‘Richard, stop this. You’re going to split the conservative coalition,’ ” Dr. Land continued. “I say it might split the old conservative coalition, but it won’t split the new one. And if the new one is going to be a governing coalition, it’s going to have to have a lot of Hispanics in it. And you don’t get a lot of Hispanics in your coalition by engaging in anti-Hispanic anti-immigration rhetoric.”
Congress is unlikely to pass an immigration law this year. Republicans and Democrats who face re-election in November are skittish about the issue, given the broad public support for Arizona’s new law aiming to crack down on illegal immigration.
The support of evangelical leaders is not yet enough to change the equation. But they could mobilize a potentially large constituency of religious conservatives, an important part of the Republican base better known for lobbying against abortion and same-sex marriage. They already threaten the party’s near unity on immigration.
“These cross-cutting clusters are just splinter groups, so far,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Support for the Arizona law is so strong within the G.O.P. that it will be difficult for the comprehensive-immigration-reform evangelicals to have much short-term impact.”
But some evangelical leaders said their latest strategy was to push a handful of lame-duck Republicans to join Democrats — probably after the midterms — to pass an immigration bill on the ground that it is morally right.
Although other religious leaders have long favored immigration overhaul — including Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jews and Muslims — the evangelicals are crucial because they have the relationships and the pull with Republicans.
“My message to Republican leaders,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and one of the leaders who engaged his non-Hispanic peers, “is if you’re anti-immigration reform, you’re anti-Latino, and if you’re anti-Latino, you are anti-Christian church in America, and you are anti-evangelical.”
About 70 percent of Hispanics in the United States are Catholic, but some 15 percent are evangelicals, and they are far more likely than the Catholics to identify themselves as conservative and Republican.
Evangelicals at the grass-roots level are divided on immigration, just as the nation is. But among the leaders, recent interviews suggest that those in favor of an immigration overhaul are far more vocal and more organized than those who oppose it.
(There is more but you get the gist of it.
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Geopolitics, Nationalism and Dual Citizenship
July 20, 2010
By George Friedman
Geopolitics is central to STRATFOR’s methodology, providing the framework upon which we study the world. The foundation of geopolitics in our time is the study of the nation-state, and fundamental to this is the question of the relationship of the individual to the nation-state. Changes in the relationship of the individual to the nation and to the state are fundamental issues in geopolitics, and thus worth discussing.
Many issues affect this complex relationship, notable among them the increasing global trend of multiple citizenship. This is obviously linked to the question of immigration, but it also raises a deeper question, namely, what is the meaning of citizenship in the 21st century?
Nation vs. State
It is difficult to make sense of the international system without making sense of the nation-state. The concept is complicated by a reality that includes multinational states like Belgium, where national identity plays a significant role, and Russia or China, where it can be both significant and at times violent. In looking at the nation-state, the idea of nation is more complex, and perhaps more interesting, than that of state.
The idea of nation is not always clear. At root, a nation is a group of people who share a fate, and with that fate, an identity. Nations can be consciously created, as the United States was. Nations can exist for hundreds or thousands of years, as seen in parts of Europe or Asia. However long a nation exists and whatever its origins, a nation is founded on what I’ve called elsewhere “love of one’s own,” a unique relationship with the community in which an individual is born or to which he chose to come. That affinity is the foundation of a nation.
If that dissolves, the nation dissolves, something that has happened on numerous occasions in history. If a nation disappears, the international system begins to behave differently. And if nations in general lose their identity and cohesion, massive shifts might take place. Some might say it would be for better and others for worse. It is sufficient to note here that either way would make a profound difference.
The state is much clearer: It is the political directorate of the nation. How the leaders are selected and how they govern varies widely. The relationship of the state to the nation also varies widely. All nations do not have states. Some are occupied by other nation-states. Some are divided between multiple states. Some are part of an entity that governs many nations. And some are communities that have developed systems of government that do not involve states, although this is increasingly rare.
The relation to the nation is personal. The relation to the state is legal. We can see this linguistically in the case of the United States. I can state my relation to my nation simply: I am an American. I cannot state my relationship to my state nearly as simply. Saying I am a “United Statian” makes no sense. I have to say that I am a citizen of the United States, to state my legal relationship, not personal affinity. The linguistic complexity of the United States doesn’t repeat itself everywhere, but a distinction does exist between nationality and citizenship. They may coincide easily, as when a person is born in a country and becomes a citizen simply through that, or they may develop, as when an individual is permitted to immigrate and become naturalized. Note the interesting formulation of that term, as it implies the creation of a natural relationship with the state.
In the United States, the following oath is administered when one is permitted to become a citizen, generally five years after being permitted to immigrate:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
I should say I took this oath at the age of 17. Although I became a citizen of the United States when my father was naturalized years earlier, receiving my own citizenship papers involved going to a courthouse and taking this oath personally. Being confronted with the obligations of citizenship was a sobering experience.
The American oath is one of the most rigorous; other nations have much simpler and less demanding oaths. Intriguingly, many countries with less explicitly demanding oaths are also countries where becoming a naturalized citizen is more difficult and less common. For the United States, a nation and a state that were consciously invented, the idea of immigration was inherent in the very idea of the nation, as was this oath. Immigration and naturalization required an oath of this magnitude, as naturalization meant taking on not only a new state identity but also a new national identity.
The American nation was built on immigrants from other nations. Unless they were prepared to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen,” the American enterprise could fall into chaos as immigrants came to the United States to secure the benefits of full citizenship but refused to abandon prior obligations and refused to agree to the obligations and sacrifices the oath demanded. The United States therefore is in a position shared only with a few other immigration-based nations, and it has staked out the most demanding position on naturalization.
The Dual Citizenship Anomaly
It is therefore odd that the United States — along with many other nations — permits nationals to be citizens of other countries. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t bar this, but the oath of citizenship would seem to do so. The oath demands that the immigrant abandon all obligations to foreign states. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk in 1967 that revoking citizenship on grounds of voting in foreign elections was unconstitutional. The ruling involved a naturalized American who presumably had taken the oath. The Supreme Court left the oath in place, but if we are to understand the court correctly, it ruled that the oath did not preclude multiple citizenship.
It is impossible to know how many people in the United States or other countries currently hold multiple citizenship, but anecdotally it would appear that the practice is not uncommon. Not being required to renounce one’s foreign citizenship verifiably obviously facilitates the practice.
And this raises a fundamental question. Is citizenship a license to live and earn a living in a country, or is it equally or more so a set of legal and moral obligations? There are many ways legally to reside in a country without becoming a citizen. But the American oath, for example, makes it appear that the naturalized citizen (as opposed to just the legal resident) has an overriding obligation to the United States that can require substantial and onerous responsibilities within military and civilian life. An individual might be able to juggle multiple obligations until they came into conflict. Does the citizen choose his prime obligation at that time or when he becomes a citizen?
The reality is that in many cases, citizenship is seen less as a system of mutual obligations and rights than as a convenience. This creates an obvious tension between the citizen and his obligations under his oath. But it also creates a deep ambiguity between his multiple nationalities. The concept of immigration involves the idea of movement to a new place. It involves the assumption of legal and moral obligations. But it also involves a commitment to the nation, at least as far as citizenship goes. This has nothing to do with retaining ethnicity. It has to do with a definition of what it means to love one’s own — if you are a citizen of multiple nations, which nation is yours?
It is interesting to note that the United States has been equally ambiguous about serving in other countries’ militaries. John Paul Jones served as an admiral in the Russian navy. American pilots flew for Britain and China prior to American entry into World War II. They did not take the citizenship oath, having been born in the United States. While you could argue that there was an implicit oath, you could also argue that they did not compromise their nationality: They remained Americans even in fighting for other countries. The immigration issue is more complex, however. In electing to become American citizens, immigrants consciously take the citizenship oath. The explicit oath would seem to create a unique set of obligations for naturalized immigrants.
The Pull of the Old Country
Apart from acquiring convenient passports on obscure tropical islands, the dual citizenship phenomenon appears to operate by linking ancestral homelands with adopted countries. Immigrants, and frequently their children and grandchildren, retain their old citizenship alongside citizenship in the country they now live in. This seems a benign practice and remains so until there is conflict or disagreement between the two countries — or where, as in some cases, the original country demands military service as the price of retaining citizenship.
In immigrant countries in particular, the blurring of the line between nationalities becomes a potential threat in a way that it is not for the country of origin. The sense of national identity (if not willingness to sacrifice for it) is often stronger in countries whose nationhood is built on centuries of shared history and fates than it is in countries that must manage waves of immigration. These countries have less room for maneuver on these matters, unless they have the fortune to be secure and need not ask much of citizens. But in those countries that are built on immigrants and that do need to call for sacrifice, this evolution is potentially more troublesome.
There are those who regard nationalism as divisive and harmful, leading to conflict. I am of the view that nationalism has endured because it provides individuals with a sense of place, community, history and identity. It gives individuals something beyond themselves that is small enough to be comprehensible but far greater than they are. That nationalism can become monstrous is obviously true; anything that is useful can also become harmful. But nationalism has survived and flourished for a reason.
The rise of multiple citizenship undoubtedly provides freedom. But as is frequently the case, the freedom raises the question of what an individual is committed to beyond himself. In blurring the lines between nations, it does not seem that it has reduced conflict. Quite the contrary, it raises the question of where the true loyalties of citizens lie, something unhealthy for the citizen and the nation-state.
In the United States, it is difficult to reconcile the oath of citizenship with the Supreme Court’s ruling affirming the right of dual citizenship. That ambiguity over time could give rise to serious problems. This is not just an American problem, although it might be more intense and noticeable here. It is a more general question, namely, what does it mean to be a citizen?
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Woof,
Boy o' boy.... :|
www.businessinsider.com/maywood-ca-lays-off-all-city-employees-dismantles-police-department-2010-6
www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37671
www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/seven-latin-american-nati_n_652440.html
P.C.
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Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru
You know what. It is time we expolre suing these countries for damages they cause us with the drugs they send over.
We need a Prez that will stand up to this abus of our country. Not one who sides with THEM! :x
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/22/AR2010072201548_pf.html
Hearing on Arizona immigration law begins
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2010; A01
PHOENIX -- A federal judge pushed back Thursday against a contention by the Obama Justice Department that a tough new Arizona immigration law set to take effect next week would cause "irreparable harm" and intrude into federal immigration enforcement.
"Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?" U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked in a pointed exchange with Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler. Her comment came during a rare federal court hearing in the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R).
Bolton, a Democratic appointee, also questioned a core part of the Justice Department's argument that she should declare the law unconstitutional: that it is "preempted" by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.
"How is there a preemption issue?" the judge asked. "I understand there may be other issues, but you're arguing preemption. Where is the preemption if everybody who is arrested for some crime has their immigration status checked?"
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Obama ordered Holder to sue Arizona? Rich Lowry questioning Rep. Steve King R-IA
LOWRY: Now, this judge, Susan, is a Democratic appointee. And she sounds very skeptical I think very understandably. This lawsuit just on common sense grounds makes no sense. Basically you have the federal government saying we don't want a state to tell us about people who are here illegally, violating federal law. That makes no sense.
KING: It is what it sounds like, Rich. And we know that the law was written in order to mirror federal law and not to go expand beyond the limits of federal law. When the federal government takes a position it's a matter of principle. I'd be curious what principle that might be.
I'm convinced and I think that Eric Holder essentially admitted that President Obama ordered him to sue Arizona. And I asked him before the Judiciary Committee when he was under oath point to a constitutional violation, a statutory violation or a federal case law that Arizona law would have violated. He could not answer any of those questions. That was about five minutes before Ted Poe asked him, have you read the bill?
It was politically motivated. He admitted essentially that the president ordered him to sue Arizona.
What was principle? They couldn't articulate that principle, now they're trying.
LOWRY: You know, that's an excellent point. And there's a real radicalism to this lawsuit because what the administration is basically saying, the law is written by Congress, by you guys, doesn't matter. What's there on paper doesn't matter.
What basically does matter is what the administration decides to enforce by picking and choosing. So I see this suit as an assault on your institution as much as it's an assault against Arizona.
KING: Which it is. And it's a new legal principle as far as I'm concerned. They write in this — in the DOJ's lawsuit that Congress has entrusted and in fact implies that Congress has directed the executive branch to establish this careful balance between the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the State Department.
Now this careful balance was nothing in our legislation. We expect all laws to be enforced. And they're making this careful balance argument. And then they argue that if a state interferes with that delicate balance or that careful balance, then it throws it out of balance, therefore it should be preempted.
And there's another argument that I don't know if it's made in anybody's brief at this point. But if they will argue the Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution grants the federal government exclusive authority to establish immigration law because it says that Congress shall have the power to establish an uniformed naturalization policy.
In the same sentence it says Congress shall have the authority to establish a uniformed bankruptcy policy across the country. So if this would be — if they invalidate Arizona's law on that argument it will then, I think, put the bankruptcy laws in jeopardy in all of our states as well.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,597704,00.html
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Reader beware, unsourced, but I can verify part of it knowing the family of one of the hikers held in Iran.
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Border Violatons - How they are handled in countries around the world
If you cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard labor.
If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.
If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.
If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed.
If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from again.
If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed.
If you cross the Mexican borders illegally you will jailed for two years.
If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political prison to rot.
If you cross the United States border illegally you get:
1 - A job
2 - A driver's license
3 - A Social Security card
4 - Welfare
5 - Food stamps
6 - Credit cards
7 - Subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house
8 - Free education
9 - Free health care
10 - A lobbyist in Washington
11 - Billions of dollars in public documents printed in your language
12 - The right to carry the flag of your country - the one you walked out on - while you call America racist and protest that you don't get enough respect.
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Woof,
Well, they are celebrating in D.C., the AZ law was stopped from going into effect. Yea! Now drug dealers and criminals from all over the world can freely roam about our country without fear of being caught. I mean why shouldn't our top law enforcement officer in the land be happy! Let's party! :-P
With a Parthian shot (www.yourdictionary.com/parthian-shot), I'll say that this is far from over and that Holder and Obama are soon to have their arrogant asses handed to them by the little Governor from AZ. 8-)
P.C.
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She is going to cite violation of contract (constitution) and do it anyway? or appeal?
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" I'll say that this is far from over and that Holder and Obama are soon to have their arrogant asses handed to them by the little Governor from AZ"
Maybe with SCOTUS, but by the time it gets in front of SCOTUS it may well be in time to help His Glibness fire up the Hispanic vote. IMHO so far the Reps are not doing what needs to be done to prevent this from being a replay of CA's Prop 187. 187 won, and now the Reps are toast with the Mexican-American vote in CA and as such are toast period.
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Curious Crafty if you could expand on your observations from Prop. 187. There are/were a minority of Republicans in the state but a majority of Californians supported it, so how was it so completely spun against R's? Did it go too far or are you saying it shouldn't have been pushed at all??
I still thing the best course besides securing the border is to scale back welfare and transfer payments of all types to all people, so that illegals or Hispanics are not singled out and illegals aren't lured in for the wrong reasons.
Every amnesty card should include an enforced promissory note for one share of our total debt paid over let's say 30 years with interest.
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I voted for 187 and would do so again.
187 also led some of the Mexican-Americans who voted Republican to perceive the Reps as anti-Latino and now they vote Dem. It also got some of the non-voting MAs to bother to vote, and they now vote Dem. Also, Latino citizens who came of age to vote now vote Dem in larger % than would otherwise have been the case. Given the underlying demographics, this last category is not to be underestimated and will become increasingly Democratic.
The net result here in CA is that the Rep party is locked in to a declining demographic and we are headed towards becoming like the northeast of the US we Rep victories are a great rarity and the Reps that do win are RINOs e.g. Snowe of Maine.
One reason for the perception of anti Mex/Latino bias is comments like those about "scal(ing) back welfare and transfer payments". I am NOT NOT NOT suggesting actual bias on your part. I am saying that such comments are PERCEIVED as such. The preferred story in the Mex-Amer population, and one with considerable basis in reality, is of hard working people doing the work that Americans are unwilling to do, and sending the money home to support their families. Suggestions that they are bums on welfare go over very poorly.
IMHO the Reps must align with the natural family values and entrepeneurial spirit of this population.
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Woof,
If we can't get the border sealed and illegals deported then there will only be the Democrat Party. That is why Obama doesn't care if Americans are being raped, robbed and murdered by criminals here illegally. If the problem is solved he can't keep the American people held hostage over amnesty for 13 million new Democrats and their family's that will be coming later; because we can't separate family's and we know how family friendly the Left is; at least to illegal alien families. :-P
P.C.
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Woof,
It's nice when unions bus in members to help protest against racial profiling and human rights. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38467252/ns/us_news-immigration_a-nation_divided Yeah that's why they show up, they are known for their humanitarian nature. Of course they are too lazy to walk their own picket lines so they hire non union workers at minimun wage to walk for them and that leaves them plenty of time to travel to AZ to do Obama's dirty work. http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-union-label-is-hypocrisy-unions-hire-minimum-wage-non-union-workers-to-do-their-picketing-for-them/
I don't think Governor Brewer will wait for the courts; she'll be taking other actions soon. They're doing everything they can to intimidate her and the people of AZ, and I don't see them backing down.
P.C.
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The Foundation
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
Judge Blocks Part of Arizona's Immigration Law
Trash left along the border by illegal aliensClinton-appointed District Court Judge Susan Bolton blocked most of Arizona's immigration law this week, ruling that it would "impermissibly burden federal resources." In other words, enforcing federal law is a violation of federal law. The preliminary injunction, she said, would merely preserve the status quo and be less harmful to immigrants than allowing the law to be enforced in full. The next step for Arizona is an appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Bolton said that the Justice Department's suit was "likely to succeed on the merits."
Bolton blocked the primary provisions of the law -- including those requiring state law enforcement officials to check immigration status when other legitimate contact occurs, as well as the requirement that foreigners carry their papers at all times (federal law already requires this). On the other hand, 12 provisions, including some on human smuggling and transporting illegals, were left intact. All told, though, her ruling went even further than the DoJ had hoped.
The Department of Homeland Security is bound by federal law to "respond to an inquiry by a federal, state, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status ... for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information." Yet Bolton wrote, "An increase in the number of requests for determinations of immigration ... will divert resources from the federal government's other responsibilities and priorities." Or as National Review put it, "she accepts Justice's implicit argument that it's not the letter of the federal law that matters, but what parts of the law the executive decides to enforce."
National Review concludes:
The bottom line is that Arizona wants to enforce the law against illegal aliens. It wants them to be cognizant of the fact that the state is serious about the law, and therefore to conclude that it's best to leave or not come in the first place. Arizona did not deem these people illegal aliens. The federal government did, in laws passed by Congress and signed by the president of the United States. Arizona thinks those laws mean something. If the Justice Department's suit -- and Judge Bolton's line of argument -- prevails, then we'll know that they don't. The real law of the land will be our current, de facto amnesty, imposed by executive whim.
For the administration, the bottom line isn't the law, but getting voters from the Hispanic bloc. With the help of their Leftmedia minions, they are succeeding. Meanwhile, America's immigration system remains broken and in desperate need of repair -- preferably by those who value and uphold the Rule of Law.
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From wikepedia. The constitution grants pardon power to the Pres. So nothing can stop Bamster from doing this. I predict he will. Suppose in 2012 he loses reelection. Nothing can stop him as a lame duck from pardoning 20 million illegals before he walks out the door. And I believe he will do it if it comes to that. I wonder if the founders ever imagined this. I believe Obama will do it sooner if he can get away with it politically. Suppose he simply decides to do this before the election. He will then have 20 million more people to vote for him. I wonder how long in advance he would have to do this so the illegals can register/qualify to vote for him.
Reagan made a big mistake setting precedent for this.
****In the United States, the pardon power for federal crimes is granted to the President of the United States under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution which states that the President "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment." The Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted this language to include the power to grant pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines and forfeitures, respites and amnesties.[12]
All federal pardon petitions are addressed to the President, who grants or denies the request. Typically, applications for pardons are referred for review and non-binding recommendation by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, an official of the United States Department of Justice. The percentage of pardons and reprieves granted varies from administration to administration (fewer pardons have been granted since World War II).[13]
The pardon power was controversial from the outset; many Anti-Federalists remembered examples of royal abuses of the pardon power in Europe, and warned that the same would happen in the new republic. Alexander Hamilton defended the pardon power in Federalist Papers, particularly in Federalist No. 74. In his final day in office, George Washington granted the first high-profile federal pardon to leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.
Many pardons have been controversial. Critics argue that pardons have been used more often for the sake of political expediency than to correct judicial error. One of the more famous recent pardons was granted by President Gerald Ford to former President Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974, for official misconduct which gave rise to the Watergate scandal. Polls showed a majority of Americans disapproved of the pardon, and Ford's public-approval ratings tumbled afterward. Other controversial uses of the pardon power include Andrew Johnson's sweeping pardons of thousands of former Confederate officials and military personnel after the American Civil War, Jimmy Carter's grant of amnesty to Vietnam-era draft dodgers, George H. W. Bush's pardons of 75 people, including six Reagan administration officials accused and/or convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, and Bill Clinton's commutation of sentences for 16 members of FALN in 1999 and of 140 people on his last day in office, including billionaire fugitive Marc Rich. Most recently, George W. Bush's commutation of the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was controversial.
The Justice Department recommends anyone requesting a pardon must wait five years after conviction or release prior to receiving a pardon. A presidential pardon may be granted at any time, however, and as when Ford pardoned Nixon, the pardoned person need not yet have been convicted or even formally charged with a crime. Clemency may also be granted without the filing of a formal request and even if the intended recipient has no desire to be pardoned. In the overwhelming majority of cases, however, the Pardon Attorney will consider only petitions from persons who have completed their sentences and, in addition, have demonstrated their ability to lead a responsible and productive life for a significant period after conviction or release from confinement.[14]
It appears that a pardon can be rejected, and must be affirmatively accepted to be officially recognized by the courts. Acceptance also carries with it an admission of guilt.[15] However, the federal courts have yet to make it clear how this logic applies to persons who are deceased (such as Henry Ossian Flipper - who was pardoned by Bill Clinton), those who are relieved from penalties as a result of general amnesties and those whose punishments are relieved via a commutation of sentence (which cannot be rejected in any sense of the language.)[16]
While a presidential pardon will restore various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and should lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, it will not erase or expunge the record of that conviction. Therefore, even if a person is granted a pardon, they must still disclose their conviction on any form where such information is required, although they may also disclose the fact that they received a pardon. In addition, most civil disabilities attendant upon a federal felony conviction, such as loss of the right to vote and hold state public office, are imposed by state rather than federal law, and also may be removed by state action. Because the federal pardon process is exacting and may be more time-consuming than analogous state procedures, pardon recipients may wish to consult with the appropriate authorities in the state of their residence regarding the procedures for restoring their state civil rights.****
[edit] State law
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CCP; if Obama does pardon all illegal aliens, another form of amnesty I suppose, I still don't understand your comment;
"Suppose he simply decides to do this before the election. He will then have 20 million more people to vote for him".
However Aliens, even legal Resident aliens, are not allowed to vote in federal elections. Their voting in federal elections is a criminal
offense that can result in one year in prison and deportation.
You must be a citizen to vote in Federal elections.
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You mean it's illegal like all the dead people who vote in Chicago elections? Or illegal like getting people to register and vote in more than 1 jurisdiction like ACORN was accused of doing? Or illegal like the felons who voted, putting Al Franken over the top in Minnesota? That kind of illegal?
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JDN,
I don't know how soon after one is granted amnesty they will be able to vote. Perhaps you are right and it wouldn't be soon enough to give Bamster all thse votes.
The larger more despicible situation is this guy can alter the course of our history by granting amnesty to tens of millions who will largely vote for a party that taxes and spends money to buy votes of their contstuents. And not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The founders gave too much power to the President in retrospect.
Wikepedia even points out how this was troubling to them from day one.
I see no reason why bama wouldn't do this. It totally fits with his goals of distributing wealth to buy votes and keep power. Again does anyone for one second think the Dems would be stalling for this if these people were not going to vote for them. Sure come to this country and vote for socialistic programs that distributes money to them. I don't know why American Blacks do not see this as screwing them as well. As well as the Latinos who cme here legally.
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The pardon question is interesting. I don't see how that would grant citizenship. For the Pres. to grant blanket citizenship appears to be outside of his powers. If it requires congress, hard to believe any amnesty deal could get through right now that allowed immediate voting to change the next election. He would love to have the amnesty citizenship legacy with healthcare, even as a one-termer, still I don't think he could get a that deal through 60 senators before or after the correcting midterms and not through the House either. People are upset about this in places like Nebraska, not just Arizona. Suing AZ and stirring up the controversy is helping him presumably with Hispanics and maybe that is his intent, but it is not helping him overall - his Gallup approval sunk to 41 this week.
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An email is circulating that attributes the following to Gov. Jan Brewer. I can't find that she said it, but these are the points she could have / should have made back to the protesting Phoenix Suns. Those who complain about Arizona law seem to have their own obsession with 'secure borders'.
'What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying? What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected. Furthermore, what if Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink? And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?'
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Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when you're 8 1/2 months pregnant, give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind, a sacred constitutional right, as old as the 14th Amendment itself.
The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right, the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades. In fact, this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when no one was looking, and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not the massive welfare state operating as a magnet for malingerers, frauds and cheats that it is today, it's amazing the drafters even considered the amendment's effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians -- because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years, that was how it stood, with only one case adding the caveat that children born to legal permanent residents of the U.S., gainfully employed, and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898.)
And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennan's authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, the Clement L. Bouve -- the one you've heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.
So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author's intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who, I'm guessing, was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper.
Any half-wit, including Clement L. Bouve, could conjure up a raft of such "plausible distinction(s)" before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties, contagious diseases, and have some qualification to be here other than "lives within walking distance."
But most important, Americans have a right to decide, as the people of other countries do, who becomes a citizen.
Combine Justice Brennan's footnote with America's ludicrously generous welfare policies, and you end up with a bankrupt country.
Consider the story of one family of illegal immigrants described in the Spring 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:
"Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan, Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children aged 19, 12 and 8. Felipa ... gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, (Felipa's 19-year-old daughter) Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby, Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby, Cristian. ... The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies."
In the Silverios' munificent new hometown of Stockton, Calif., 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in 2003 in the San Joaquin General Hospital were anchor babies. As of this month, Stockton is $23 million in the hole.
It's bad enough to be governed by 5-4 decisions written by liberal judicial activists. In the case of "anchor babies," America is being governed by Brennan's 1982 footnote.
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Second post of the morning:
Some 11 million to 15 million illegal aliens are now residing in America, most after crossing into America unlawfully. Once a federal law is arbitrarily not enforced, all sorts of bizarre paradoxes arise from that original contradiction. As proof, examine the following illogical policies and contradictions involving illegal immigration.
Take, for example, profiling -- the controversial questioning of those who appear likely to be illegal aliens. Apparently, American border guards have developed criteria for profiling those deemed likely to be unlawful aliens. Otherwise, how would they have arrested and deported hundreds of thousands in 2009?
Yet apparently, at some arbitrary point distant from the border, those who cross illegally are not supposed to be asked about their immigration status. OK, but exactly why did procedures so radically change at, say, five, 10, 20, or is it 100 miles from the border? A border patrolman often profiles, but a nearby highway patrolman cannot?
The federal government is suing Arizona for the state's efforts to enforce the federal immigration law. The lawsuit alleges that Arizona is too zealous both in enforcing immigration law and encroaching on federal jurisdiction.
But wait -- for years, several American cities have declared themselves sanctuary cities. City officials have even bragged that they would not allow their municipalities to enforce federal immigration statutes. So why does Washington sue a state that seeks to enhance federal immigration laws and yet ignore cities that blatantly try to erode them?
Something is going very wrong in Mexico to prompt more than half a million of its citizens to cross the border illegally each year. Impoverished Mexican nationals variously cite poor economic conditions back home, government corruption, a lack of social services, and racism. In other words, it is not just the desirability of America but also the perceived undesirability of Mexico that explains one of largest mass exoduses in modern history.
But why, then, would Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country's conditions are forcing out its own citizens, criticize the United States, which is receiving so many of them? And why, for that matter, would many of those illegal immigrants identify, if only symbolically, with the country that made them leave, whether by waving its flag or criticizing the attitudes of the Americans who took them in?
And how does Mexico treat the hundreds of thousands of aliens who seek to illegally cross its own southern border with Central America each year? Does Mexico believe in sovereign borders to its south but not to its north?
Is Mexico more or less humane to illegal aliens than the country it so often faults? Why, exactly, does Mexico believe that nearly a million of its own nationals annually have claims on American residency, when Chinese, Indian, European and African would-be immigrants are deemed not to? Is the reason proximity? Past history?
Proponents of open borders have organized May Day rallies, staged boycotts of Arizona, sued in federal and state courts, and sought to portray those who want to enforce existing federal immigration law as racially insensitive. But about 70 percent of Americans support securing our borders, and support the Arizona law in particular. Are a clear majority of Americans racist, brainwashed or deluded in believing that their laws should be enforced? And if so, why would immigrants wish to join them?
It is considered liberal to support open borders and reactionary to want to close them. But illegal immigration drives down the hourly wages of the working American poor. Tens of thousands of impoverished people abroad, from Africa to Asia, wait patiently to enter America legally, while hundreds of thousands from Latin America do not. How liberal can all that be?
America extends housing, food and education subsidies to illegal aliens in need. But Mexico receives more than $20 billion in American remittances a year -- its second-highest source of foreign exchange, and almost of it from its own nationals living in the United States. Are Americans then subsidizing the Mexican government by extending social services to aliens, freeing up cash for them to send back home?
These baffling questions are rarely posed, never addressed and often considered politically incorrect. But they will only be asked more frequently in the months ahead.
You see, once a law is not considered quite a law, all sorts of even stranger paradoxes follow.
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Hey CCP, (You should bring your last post over to here)
"why don't [networks] give us the real objective picture about illegals."
The latest news from our metro we are up 19 Somalians from Minneapolis charged with Al Qaida-tied terrorist activities. This is not about heritage, it is about right to know and control who comes in, what for, and how long they will be staying.
As argued on L. issues, our cops can follow any one of us for nothing and watch for a screwup to pull us over, but feds don't track people they know came in, then insist we play 'don't ask, don't tell' across the fruited plain.
It's not good for security. The good news is that now it is on the radar screen politically and this is a pivotal year.
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http://wcco.com/wireapnewsmn/Timeline.of.important.2.1845631.html
In Minneapolis, 19 people have been charged in the FBI's investigation into a terror recruiting operation
Read the detailed timeline too long to post. The ties of terror to twin cities communities and the revolving door travel in and out of MN to terror locations is freightening and that is just the part we know about.
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"our cops can follow any one of us for nothing and watch for a screwup to pull us over"
I was once pulled over while driving a relative's car while mine was in the shop.
My wrong? I stared at a local police officer while driving past him in his car because I thought he looked familiar and might be a patient. of mine. He thought that was odd so he looked up the plate and then realized the registration was overdue by a few days. So I got pullled over and had to explain all the above.
I gave my relative the ticket after getting an oil job and filling the tank for his allowing me the privilege of using his car. It was all a minor thing.
But if I was illegal and the policeman happened to ask for proof of residence than perhaps I could have said the police officer had profiled me - a Jew - and sued.
I am not sure if the ACLU would have picked up the case because I am also a white guy.
Doug your right. Like so many of us are saying this country is turned up side down by liberals who are hell bent on giving it away towards a world government, and world socialism.
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RE-POSTED: The link works now.
Woof,
Ah yes, the many opportunities that a open border presents. :-P
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38615156/ns/world_news-americas (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38615156/ns/world_news-americas)
I'm sure they are just doing the job that American pimps won't do. This is what Obama and the Left are willing to let happen just so they can get more votes and power for their Party and their agenda. They obviously could care less about anything else. I wonder :roll:, does Obama think about the exploitation that he allows to take place with these young Mexican girls as he tucks his daughters into bed each night? He could stop this tomorrow but he refuses to do so for political reasons; what a heartless bunch of sorry ass ideologues. The ends justify the means. Really? :x
P.C.
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From MSNBC.COM
About 8% of children born in the U.S. in 2008 -- about 340,000 -- were unauthorized immigrants, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center released on Wednesday.
The center said that unauthorized immigrants compose about 4% of the adult population, but because they are relatively young and have high birthrates, their children make up a much larger share of the newborn population and the child population (7% of those younger than age 18).
The center said it analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau's March 2009 Current Population Survey.
The Pew Hispanic analysis found that 79% of the 5.1 million children of unauthorized immigrants were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38663819/ns/us_news-life
Taxpayers rejoice, have a cigar! You might as well, you paid for their hospital cost and you're going to be putting them through school, and I bet we don't even get invited to their graduations. :-P We have got to wise up voters and take a hard look at who we are voting for and what they will represent. Do you want them to represent the best interest of Mexico? And for you citizens that don't care enough to vote, maybe you don't want or deserve the freedom and prosperity we have here. Well, just keep on thinking your vote doesn't count, because it doesn't if you don't use it. The fact that you don't cast a vote, means that you're voting for us to turn into a third world sh#* hole, where there is only the very rich, the very poor and the very screwed, like us in the middle.
P.C.
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From MSNBC.COM
About 8% of children born in the U.S. in 2008 -- about 340,000 -- were unauthorized immigrants, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center released on Wednesday.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38663819/ns/us_news-life
P.C.
That is a slight misquote. I believe the quote is:
About 8 percent of children born in the United States in 2008 — about 340,000 — WERE OFFSPRING OF unauthorized immigrants,......"
In fact, those 8% are legal citizens just like you and I.
In my opinion, it is the "unauthorized" (illegal) parents that should be deported; the citizen baby may either join them or stay in America with a legal relative.
Theoretically, that is the current law. We just need to start enforcing it.
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Wrong. They are not.
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Wrong. They are not.
:?
You may not want them to be "legal citizens just like you and I" but they are. They have EVERY right and privilege that you and I do. That's is clearly the law;
further IMHO there will not be a constitutional amendment changing that law.
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Today on drudge we have the report that youth unemployment is an all time high.
Yet we have tens of millions of illegals who seem to find work here.
So for kids today those jobs are all too demeaning?
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Wrong. They are not.
:?
You may not want them to be "legal citizens just like you and I" but they are. They have EVERY right and privilege that you and I do. That's is clearly the law;
further IMHO there will not be a constitutional amendment changing that law.
**Re-read this until it sinks in:
Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when you're 8 1/2 months pregnant, give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind, a sacred constitutional right, as old as the 14th Amendment itself.
The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right, the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades. In fact, this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when no one was looking, and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S.
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No reason to "Re-read this until it sinks in"....." Frankly, such conjecture is irrelevant, albeit interesting.
I am not trying to argue what was or was not intended; it has already been legally decided. Today, it's a truth/FACT that children of illegal parents born in the USA are citizens. Accept it. Agree or disagree; that is how it is. Clearly, an anchor baby has the same rights and privileges that you and I do. And it's not going to change without a Constitutional Amendment which IMHO is not going to happen.
Whether you personally agree or disagree, I presume as an officer of the law, you understand that is the law.
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I would restate that as "That is the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment".
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Today on drudge we have the report that youth unemployment is an all time high.
Yet we have tens of millions of illegals who seem to find work here.
So for kids today those jobs are all too demeaning?
Actually the cash and carry jobs that used to be done by teens have been taken over by the Illegals. If you were a business who you gonna hire, a guys who will be there on time and no nonsense while working because he has kids to feed? or a pimply faced kid who is still being fed by mom and dad, and is kind of casual about times, accuracy and quality of work since he does not NEED like the other guy..........
I do not think it is a case of demeaning, I think it is a case of simple competition. A lawn service was practically unheard of 20+ years ago, you did it youself or hired one of the neighbors kids right? Unless you were rich, or were a business............
The paper boy of today has a minivan, and delivers for several different papers...............so much for the kid walking/ riding a bike and tossing them like in those business commercials.
Labor laws have tightend things up so a kid cannot earn soda money that way anymore too, I guess it was part of the vote buying process.
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Rarick,
I think much of what you said is part of it. I suppose also some of the work done by illegals is somewhat skilled such as construction - though the quality of their construction may be suspect. In any case, we do not hear this obvious relationship one ioda from MSM (at least that I have heard) about this obvious relationship. IT is simple to connect the dots.
The phoney dirtballs at "keeping them honest" CNN continue to ommit discussing the discongruity of having illegals flooding our low wage market while at the same time we see that youth unemployment is at an all time high.
It *doesn't fit* in their agenda of protecting the plight of illegals while the USA burns. The persist in prvoding cover for illegas showing us day after day about their "sad" plight.
Another example of the fruadulent political agenda of those at CNN. As for the Dems in the WH and other houses of bullshit, well it is obvious they are just gunning for votes to enhance their power.
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CCP, I brought this quote over from your Cheryl Crow story: "I remember someone who was not an American citizen once told me (decades ago) "the world is a joke, Always Remember I tell you this. The world is a joke". His context was that it wasn't fair I was an American citizen and he was not. I had privileges and lived in the greatest country and he did not - only because of a twist of faith. I was born here he was not. The longer I live the more I have come to agree he was right. I always remembered he told me that wondering if one day I would agree with him."
The world is not a joke; it is more of a puzzle, and figuring things out for ourselves isn't good enough. We need to articulate and persuade and hold certain things without compromise and sometimes to rise up and sometimes to risk all and fight wars to preserve that which we value.
We have (or had) the greatest country on earth. We need to protect what we have. We exclude most outsiders, but we don't prevent them from adopting our principles or copying any of our good qualities such as personal and economic freedom, limited government and a market-based, competitive economy into their homeland.
Instead people in these same countries where they love to escape speak mostly the language of anti-Americanism and choose governments opposite to our founding principles. And so do we.
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I know it's fashionable on this site to bash Obama; even I seriously question his calls on the economy and "big" government.
But let's look at Obama on Immigration for a moment.
Keep in mind that the guy has conservatives attacking him (only natural) and lately Liberals attacking him
for not being liberal enough. Heck, I have a hard time pleasing everyone in my own small world; I can't imagine
his job.
But....
Just recently he did sign a bipartisan bill authorizing an additional 600 million to help secure our borders. Previous significant steps
have already been taken to secure the border.
illegal Immigration is down these past two years (partially because of the economy, but still, it's down).
Most of the 12 million plus illegals entered on Bush's watch and probably quite a few on Clintons. Where was the outrage then?
As for this being a democrat attempt to steal votes, illegal aliens cannot vote. For that matter even legal resident aliens cannot vote
in Federal elections. It takes 5+ years after becoming legal to become a citizen. Obama will be gone. And frankly, I don't understand why the Republican party cannot appeal to Mexicans. Republicans support hard work, self sufficiency, low taxes, etc. Many of the same ideals that illegals have who cross the border for jobs. I don't think the Republicans are telling their story very well.
Yes, illegals cost money; but then I prefer to have illegals in school versus running wild on the street or in gangs. I am a strong
believer in education.
Yes, medical bills mount up, but then as a humanitarian I think emergency services (that is all that is supposedly offered) should
be offered to all people. We cannot let them die in the street. And a few preventative measures, i.e. birth control, vaccinations, etc.
are cost effective.
Most of the illegals come here to work; perhaps they take jobs from Americans, but I wonder how many Americans are willing to
dig ditches, wash dishes, etc. Most of the Mexicans I know work hard for their family, keep their nose clean, and simply want
to better their life. I still believe America is "the greatest country on earth". Do you blame them for wanting to come here?
With 12 million plus illegal immigrants some form of amnesty needs to be worked out. It simply is not practical to ship them all back.
Let's be realistic. We need to come up with a reasonable workable plan. Better to debate how we can solve this problem rather than
merely complaining.
And while I agree with America First, I also think Rarick has a point; Mexico is our neighbor. Before I attack or sue or .... my neighbor
I make an extra effort to get along. We live side by side. We can't/shouldn't tell them what to do. It just doesn't work long term.
I guess my point in this rant of mine is that Obama is not doing that bad of a job on immigration. Sure we can agree or disagree on what more
he can do, but frankly, whoever was President, Republican or Democrat, would have his plate full trying to appease everyone. I just
thought I would throw in my 2 cents for the guy. It's not easy.
:-)
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JDN,here are a few points back. a) I don't bash Obama because it's fashionable. I post heartfelt views here because I can. b) If 0.6B extra for one of our greatest problems out of 4000B in spending strikes you as 'significant', I don't know what to say except we can watch and see what the results will be. It strikes me as small, insignificant and coming 100% from political advisers saying that is enough to say we did something, and not at all from border security advisers that see this for what it is to me, an invasion threatening our national security. c) I can't imagine that this small step could begin to offset the acceleration of the surge inward that I would expect from all the loose talk about amnesty for those who do come in.
"With 12 million plus illegal immigrants some form of amnesty needs to be worked out."
- Where else could that level of logic be applied? How about tax evasion or child abduction. Look, everyone is doing it.
"I prefer to have illegals in school versus running wild on the street or in gangs."
- Do I prefer if I am mugged that the money that was formerly mine go toward nutritional snacks for the mugger's children? Again, I have no ability to follow your logic past the word illegal or that a crime was committed. And why would you think that they don't vote? They are counted in the U.S. Census, correct? Propose making the borders open and unattended if that is your wish, and have an up or down vote on it, but do we have to keep playing games with national security and national sovereignty.
"...on Bush's watch ... Where was the outrage then?"
- Come on JDN, at least argue seriously. I refuse to believe as informed as you are that you were not aware of the earthquake sized fault line in the Republican Party over borders and immigration under Bush. For an indicator, political conservatives make up about 40% of the electorate. When Bush's approvals dropped into the 20s after proposing 'comprehensive' immigration reform that put him close to the proportion of people in the poll who did not understand the question.
"frankly, I don't understand why the Republican party cannot appeal to Mexicans."
- There it is, the nut of the matter. We have a hard enough time selling the outrageous idea of having a little freedom and security to Americans in 50 states. They had to witness Obama-Pelosi economics in action to get any idea what we were talking about. Now we have to translate and sell to 3rd world countries. Maybe run political ads in the prestigious Mexico City market or a comprehensive reachout program to the gangs in Nuevo Laredo to start exposing them to our ideas and founding principles before they come and before they are told on the way in to always vote Dem if you want to get the benefits, amnesty and programs that you deserve for your troubles. What about the Chinese, JDN? Why don't they have equal rights in America? If we are going to not enforce borders over land, why is it fair to check everyone at our airports and sea ports? How many of the 3879000000 disadvantaged people from Asia would need to come here before you would see a security or sovereignty problem?
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JDN,
I hear your opinion. I disagree with most of it. But that is just my opinion. I have already posted my thoughts and you posted yours. And I agree with you that we just need to agree to disagree about what to do about the problem of ilegals.
Doug,
Getting off the immigration topic but wanting to respond to Doug's thoughts about the "world is a joke" I don't know what to think anymore. Look at this article below andy not to conclude the world is a joke. When our own "leaders" are such outlandish thieves, liars, crooks, bullshit artists. When our own officials who run the country refuse to even level with us and lie and lie. I don't know what else to conclude about the human race. And not justur officials but Americans have just as much of the blame. We want early retirement, someone else to pay for medical care, take care of us when we lose jobs, pay the rents, someone else mpay our mortgage, pay for the food, don't want to work when it is easier to sit at home and collect on someone else's dime, double dip. play the system by robbing medicare, medicaid, disabilities plans, faint injuries, use drugs and allow the Mexicans to die in their streest fighting the narco terror, complain about illegals coming here to work yet we refuse to do it and rather go get a pay check, wealthy fat cats stealing all over in wall street, banks, CEO's, union bosses, politicians stealing lying, physicians some who game the system, lawyers finding any excuse to sue protecting people's legal rights, government emplyees joining unions turning around telling the taxpayers what to do, police firefighters retiring at 50 then getting other jobs for 30 years, Blacks forever blaming race, foreigners coming here illegally then turning around and sticking it is our faces, Muslims building on the site of murder and also sticking it our faces, liberal Jews defending 'them' screaming something about their rights, and on and on and on. The world and the human race is not a joke?
*** The mystery of Jerry Brown’s pension
August 13th, 2010, 3:00 am · 282 Comments · posted by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Correspondent
Updated with comment from Brown’s spokesman
As Jerry Brown grabbed the spotlight with his criticism of Bell city officials and their outrageous pensions, The Watchdog got to wondering: How much will the Democrat for Governor make in retirement?
That, as it turns out, is a very difficult question to answer. After more than a month of investigation, the Watchdog can only say for certain that Brown and a handful of other top officials are eligible for generous benefits under a special pension fund so obscure that few people in government know how it works and many thought it had been eliminated 20 years ago by outraged voters.
Under the law, Brown should have accrued, at most, 16 years of service credit in this special fund, known as the Legislators’ Retirement System, or LRS. Actuarial statements produced by LRS, however, indicate that an unnamed person of Brown’s age and earning Brown’s exact salary has been credited with 25 to 29 years of service. The difference would mean tens of thousands of dollars in additional pension payments for Brown each year.
Brown’s campaign staff acknowledge the unnamed person sure looks like the gubernatorial candidate but have been unable to explain the discrepancy over service.
Officials at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which manages LRS, have similarly refused to cooperate, saying the law forbids them from answering questions about specific individuals. Meanwhile, The Watchdog has sought help from the offices of seven state lawmakers, one constitutional officer and one state department as well three outside pension experts and not one has been able to explain the discrepancy.
It’s a mystery as persistent as LRS itself.
THE PENSION SYSTEM THAT WON’T DIE
Founded in 1947, LRS was established by the California State Legislature as a special pension system to serve, well, members of the California State Legislature. Later, it was expanded a little to include constitutional officers, like the governor and attorney general, as well as four unelected legislative statutory officers who hold special responsibilities at the State Capitol. At the absolute most, no more than 136 working officials in state government could be members of LRS, which, by the way, offers pension benefits far more generous than what your typical state worker could earn.
For decades, LRS operated in relative anonymity, doling out pension and health benefits to retired lawmakers and other elected state officials, until the late 1980s, when frustration with state government reached a fever pitch in California. Riding a wave of discontent, voters in 1990 approved Proposition 140, a ballot measure which implemented term limits for state officials and eliminated pensions for state lawmakers.
Many thought Prop. 140 meant the end of LRS. Ted Costa, one of the driving forces behind Prop. 140, certainly did when the Watchdog spoke to him recently.
But Prop. 140 didn’t kill LRS, it merely shrunk it. Today, LRS membership is open only to the state’s eight constitutional officers, the four members of the Board of Equalization, the four legislative statutory officers and lawmakers first elected to the Legislature prior to 1990, who are grandfathered in. As of March, only 13 working officials were members of this independent pension system.
For that baker’s dozen, LRS is a good deal.
State Controller John Chiang, for example, currently is eligible for a $67,897 annual pension for a little over 11 years of elected service under LRS. Under the pension plan offered to typical state employees, Chiang would be eligible, at most, for $40,738 annually.
At the same time, LRS is enticing for retired lawmakers. In recent years, Assemblymen Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, and Jim Nielsen, R-Biggs, have come out of retirement to re-join the Legislature. By virtue of having first been elected to the Legislature prior to 1990, both are eligible to earn pension benefits for time in Sacramento while all other lawmakers are not.
WHERE’S JERRY?
But perhaps most eyebrow-raising is the service of a current LRS member identified in actuarial reports only as 65 years or older with 25 to 29 years of service and a salary of $184,301. CalPERS staff won’t talk about specific members, but with so few people in the system you can tell quite a bit from the actuarials.
Only two statewide elected officials have ever had the exact annual salary of $184,301, according to the California Citizens Compensation Commission: Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Brown was born on April 7, 1938 — he’s 72. O’Connell was born on Oct. 8, 1951. He won’t turn 65 until 2016. The person listed in the actuarials appears then to be Brown.
The only problem is Brown should have only 16 years of LRS-eligible service: four years as Secretary of State (1971 to 1974), eight years as Governor (1975 to 1982) and four years as Attorney General (2007 to 2010).
The Watchdog has spent weeks trying to account for the additional time, to no avail. LRS rules don’t allow members to transfer in service credit accrued in other elected offices, so that eliminates Brown’s time as Oakland mayor or as member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees. LRS members also can’t purchase “air time,” that is, they can’t add years of service credit by paying a fee, as is allowed in other public pension plans. There goes that option.
MYSTERY ENDURES
So how could Brown have additional time?
CalPERS official refuse to say. Spokespeople Brad Pacheco and Pat Macht have both told the Watchdog that even though CalPERS knows the answer, they are prohibited under the law from sharing it with the public.
“I am very sorry CalPERS staff can’t be more helpful, we have gone as far as we can go within the law,” Macht wrote in an email this week.
Brown’s campaign, for its part, says that the attorney general shouldn’t have more than 16 years of service in LRS. The Watchdog first asked the campaign about the discrepancy 3 1/2 weeks ago and while staff there have been polite, they haven’t gotten to the bottom of it nor have staff at the attorney general’s office been able to explain it either.
Campaign spokesman Sterling Clifford did tell the Watchdog that Brown started receiving an annual pension of about $20,000 when he turned 60 in 1998 and pocketed it every year until he assumed the attorney general’s office, when it was suspended. That means Brown’s received a pension on top of his $115,000 salary as Oakland mayor, but it doesn’t explain the discrepancy.
As best as we can tell, Brown would be eligible for an annual LRS pension of $73,720 if he has 16 years of service. If, somehow, he has 25 or more years, it would be $110,580.
We’re going to keep digging. Hopefully, we can get some answers.
UPDATE
Clifford contacted the Watchdog again and had a few more insights. He said that Brown was not a member of any pension system while he served on the community college board, but he did work one year as a clerk at the California Supreme Court, which combined with his time as Oakland mayor would give him nine years in the pension system open to all state workers. He also noted that pensions are calculated based on an employee’s highest salary and because the California Citizens Compensation Commission cut state officials’ pay last year (and very well could keep the pay cut in effect for the coming years), Brown’s pension has likely topped out.
He concluded his brief email with this reminder: “And of course if you are worried about paying out Jerry’s pension, the best thing to do is elect him Governor so he doesn’t collect it.”****
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May I ask you to please post the JB pension piece in the California thread?
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Doug, illegal immigration these past two years is down compared to previous years. Under Obama, our borders are tighter than they have ever been. And the $600 million will further help. That's good right?
And if you are realistic, some form of amnesty needs to be worked out. Or are you going to lock up the 12million+ illegal aliens in left over Japanese WWII prisons still left in MN? You can't just put your head
in the sand and ignore 12 million. Or lock them all up. A workable solution needs to be found.
For your reference Illegal aliens don't vote because they cannot vote (yes voter fraud exists but very little compared to the overall). So their "vote" will have no impact on this year's democrat or republican races. Further as I mentioned, even legal resident aliens cannot vote in federal elections. You must be a citizen which takes 5+ years after you become a legal resident alien. Don't worry, they are not going to help Obama.
As for Bush's ratings, they fell like a dead weight for various and good reasons, but frankly, I don't remember reading the the cause of this drop had much to do with his comprehensive immigration
reform. Yet I'll bet many/most of the current illegals arrived on his watch. And I also don't remember much republican outrage about this fact.
As for "frankly, I don't understand why the Republican party cannot appeal to Mexicans." I don't quite get your tirade. I was merely pointing out that perhaps the republicans should learn to market to Mexicans.
However, as you say, if the republicans are having a "hard enough time selling the outrageous idea of having a little freedom and security to Americans in 50 states." may respectfully suggest they find new leaders in their party, learn to communicate better, and perhaps reexamine their platform. That's how it's done in a democracy.
As for your comments about China, etc. I don't get it. I never said to not enforce the border; actually I commended Obama for doing just that. I have stated I support a secure border. Most Americans, republicans and democrats want our borders secure. So your point about letting a billion or so Asians in was? Or maybe you didn't have a point...
Better I think to look for solutions. Secure our border and find a way to reasonably assimilate the 12 million illegal aliens already here.
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JDN, Thanks for the reply. As CCP put it, I would also like to agree to disagree, just try to clarify my own view without too much repetition.
Finding a workable solution does not equal blanket amnesty. You are courageous to use that term amnesty as it doesn't poll well at all. In the business of processing people who broke the law I would use the term plea bargain rather than amnesty. If we process some of the undocumented onto a path toward citizenship, some into work visas with an end date and some out now, that might be a comprehensive solution that involves compromise, but how do you sort that out under equal protection?
You say give citizenship to Mexicans and Republicans need to adjust their views to attract Mexicans :-( I assume you mean to refer to them as 'Americans', but as you again courageously admit, they are not.
Yes I was referring to the illegal vote of the illegals. The 60th vote in the senate that enabled healthcare overhaul came from a state that does not verify citizenship. I was there and watched it happen. You need nothing but a voter registered in a precinct to vouch for your ADDRESS, not your citizenship, or a STUDENT ID, or one of many other documents that DO NOT VERIFY CITIZENSHIP: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/index.aspx?page=204. To vote, a non-citizen would have too check the box marked citizen, but that is well-known to be unverified and unverifiable. (Note that they are already breaking the law and wishing to vote.)
One interesting point of JDN is that border crossing is down. With both the precise number of 12 million and the measured trend line, I wonder how we know and I wonder why that trend might be down. My guess is that double digit unemployment explains that far more than anything US border enforcement is doing. Also it looks to me like border enforcement has shifted to the gangs in charge. They require a high fee which most don't have, and they require you to use their service. Free spirited individuals setting up to cross in their territory without paying the fee are likely killed or captured on one side of the border or the other - and dealt with accordingly. I didn't eyewitness this but have other first hand knowledge about how gangs protect their economic interests. Violence statistics on both sides of the border offer some corroboration of that theory.
Lastly, no I don't assume that 600M worth of public employee union members sent to vacation near the border (sorry for the cynicism) with rules of engagement that include don't ask don't tell will make a significant impact on anything except making possible a line in an upcoming campaign or state of the union speech of this administration stepping up border enforcement. In other words, we would have to clarify the mission, commit to the mission and change the rules of engagement before sending more money will make a difference IMHO.
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Hi Doug,
I like your point about "plea bargain". Admit they committed a crime (they did) but on a case by case basis (eliminate the bad apples; send them back to Mexico or wherever) find a path towards becoming a legal resident alien and later if they keep their nose clean, towards citizenship. But let's do something!
And yes, I meant Mexican "Americans". :-) Also, Resident Aliens can vote in local local elections. Along with Mexican Americans, legal aliens too need attention (I don't mean pandering) by Republicans. Until Bush came along I was a life long Republican. The Republican core ideals can and do apply to all ethnic groups. I blame it on poor Republican leadership and vague or unrealistic platforms. The core (good) story of the Republican party is just not getting out. But then, a similar point can be made of Jews. I agree with CCP; I don't understand why Jews overwhelmingly support democrats. I'm missing something.
I can't speak for MN laws; but by voting in a Federal election and not being a citizen they broke the law. Maybe MN should tighten up it's verification system? Even CA (liberal that we are) requires proof of legal residency to obtain a driver's license.
I don't know about gangs requiring a fee to cross the border although if they do and it cuts down on illegal immigration, I suppose that is a residual benefit. I do agree with you that double digit unemployment has a huge effect of migration. I too don't give much credit to Obama although I suppose it is one good thing (only good thing?) you can say about his economic policies. :-)
I disagree that being a border patrolman is a "vacation". Frankly, I think it's a tough job, whether they are in a union or not. Here in LA the police have a union too, yet I think they do a great job in difficult circumstances. I do agree, we should "clarify the mission, commit to the mission and change the rules of engagement."
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/15/california-gets-tough-on-illegal-border-crossings/
Priorities.
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Woof,
Here's the deal with Obama and the 600 million; we have something called elections coming up and many of these elections take place in less than liberal areas and in areas where Hispanics don't factor as a voting block. The political calculation is that what Obama giveth now, can be taken away at a later date. That is, after the elections. Besides, this plays into his getting movement on the comprehensive immigration reform bill he wants passed. He kills two birds with one stone. The 600 million isn't a long term commitment to seal the border and the deportations he's getting are mainly criminals already in the system. The rest are targeted in high crime, high unemployment, traditionally African American districts of certain cities and the occasional high profile chicken processing plant with 300 or so illegals working. This is all just one big dog and pony show for the gullible voters that keep sending these useless political hacks back to Washington. That includes some Republicans as well. Any voter in AZ that thinks that McCain is suddenly interested in sealing the border, needs to have their head examined! Enjoy! :-P
P.C.
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Woof,
Yawn, who cares... I'm just blowing smoke up your skirt about there being any danger having an open border with criminals coming and going as they please. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/hezbollahs-mexican-cartel-connection (http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/hezbollahs-mexican-cartel-connection)
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201134.php (http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201134.php)
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2010/08/stratfor-hezbollah-radical-but.html (http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2010/08/stratfor-hezbollah-radical-but.html)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/02/mexico.cartels.al.qaeda/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/02/mexico.cartels.al.qaeda/index.html)
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052970203440104574400792835972018.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052970203440104574400792835972018.html)
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/04/026098.php (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/04/026098.php)
P.C.
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http://www.amazon.com/Homeland-Siege-Tactics-Police-Military/dp/0981865917/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Looks relevant.
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Would you please post the link in the Homeland Security thread as well?
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Woof,
Interesting resource's on illegal immigration and on drugs and illicit trafficking.
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1998-01-01_1.pdf (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1998-01-01_1.pdf)
http://www.populationenvironmentresearch.org/papers/Colemanmigration.pdf (http://www.populationenvironmentresearch.org/papers/Colemanmigration.pdf)
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/huddlenr.html (http://www.carryingcapacity.org/huddlenr.html)
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html (http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html)
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/issues.html (http://www.numbersusa.com/content/issues.html)
P.C.
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Hey CCP; being in the medical field I thought of you today. :-)
As I was getting a root canal :cry: my Chinese doctor who barely speaks English
(but graduated from USC; a very good dental school) spent an hour+ telling
me about how great America is, but how soft we are, too much welfare, etc.
and the evils of illegal immigration.
I thought it was rather unfair; my mouth was in pain and I couldn't speak! :-)
But I thought it was interesting coming from a first generation (legal) immigrant.
He had some good points!
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Interesting....
My dentist is Chinese!
"spent an hour+ telling
me about how great America is..."
I would rather he be President. Unlike the one we have now he at least appreciates this country.
JDN, let me know when you get carpal tunnel surgery. Then I can post my opnions to you and you won't be able to post back. :-D
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Woof,
Coming to a town near you...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100818/wl_nm/us_mexico_drugs_5 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100818/wl_nm/us_mexico_drugs_5)
P.C.
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Yes, go after our own law enforcement for doing it's job and report to the UN. :x
Feds sue Arizona sheriff in civil rights probe
DOJ Going After America's Toughest Sheriff? FOX News By AMANDA LEE MYERS and PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer Amanda Lee Myers And Paul Davenport, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 2, 7:49 pm ET
PHOENIX – The Justice Department sued the nation's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" on Thursday, calling Joe Arpaio's defiance of an investigation into his office's alleged discrimination against Hispanics "unprecedented."
It's the first time in decades a lawman has refused to cooperate in one of the agency's probes, the department said.
The Arizona sheriff had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the federal government first asked for 15 months ago, when it started investigating alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills.
Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the department's civil rights division, said it's unfortunate the department had to sue to get the documents, which neither the agency nor Arpaio would describe.
But Arpaio called the lawsuit "a ruse" and said the federal government is just trying to score a win against the state, which has found itself at the center of the nation's argument over illegal immigration since passing a law that mirrors many of the policies Arpaio has put into place in the greater Phoenix area.
"I think they know we have not been racial profiling, so what's the next step — camouflage the situation, go the courts, and make it look like I'm not cooperating," Arpaio said Thursday.
Arpaio said he provided "hundreds of thousands" of reports but hasn't turned over others because the department's request was too broad.
Kevin Ryan, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California and a law professor at the University of San Francisco, said he thought the department's characterization of Arpaio's behavior as unprecedented was overstating it.
He said the contentious relationship between the sheriff and the department is no secret.
"You really can't hold it against the sheriff and assume he's guilty because he's not rolling over for the Justice Department," he said.
But Rory Little, a law professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law who formerly worked at the Justice Department, disagreed, called Arpaio's actions "pretty unusual" because the lawsuit says Arpaio's office signed agreements promising to cooperate with civil-rights investigations and other reviews when it accepted federal law enforcement grants.
Last year, the nearly $113 million that Maricopa County received from the federal government accounted for about 5 percent of the county's $2 billion budget. The lawsuit listed $16.5 million of funding provided Arpaio's office through several programs.
"Normally when you receive $113 million in grants you're going to cooperate and send over whatever they want to see," Little said. Otherwise, "it raises the level of suspicion pretty significantly."
He also said it's rare for a law enforcement agency to push the department all the way to a lawsuit.
"Cooperating with the Department of Justice is usually not a bad thing so long as you're not the target of a criminal investigation, and the federal government has a lot of power in terms of grants and you don't want to get on their bad side," he said.
Arpaio believes the department's inquiry is focused on his immigration sweeps, patrols where deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases heavily Latino areas — to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.
Critics say the deputies pull people over for minor traffic infractions because of the color of their skin so they can ask them for their proof of citizenship.
Thursday's lawsuit is the latest action in a slew against Arizona by the federal government.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stripped Arpaio's office of its special powers to enforce federal immigration laws, and in May, the Obama administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Arizona from enforcing its employer sanctions law.
In July, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit to overturn portions of Arizona's strict new immigration law that would require police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally. A federal judge put that provision and most of the law on hold.
The continued attention on the state sends a clear political message that the federal government doesn't want Arizona enforcing federal immigration laws, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict immigration laws.
"It's surprising that the administration would focus on Arizona and go after it on such a high-profile and persistent way," he said.
In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.
A Hispanic activist said a federal judge might have to threaten jail time to get Arpaio to cooperate in the lawsuit filed Thursday.
"It's going to take the hard hand of the judge to order some sanctions against the sheriff's office," said Lydia Guzman of the Phoenix-based civil rights group Somos America.
Arizona Republican Sen. Russell Pearce, author of the new Arizona law, called the Justice Department's actions against Arpaio a "witch hunt."
"This is the game that's played," he said. "They couldn't find any violations ... that's why they're very vague about what they want. It doesn't take a very high IQ to figure out what's going on with these folks."
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Associated Press Writer Jacques Billeaud contributed to this report.
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Kill 2 birds with one stone? Step on Arpaio for being conservative on law enforcement, and make a point with other county sheriffs that are nominally part of the OathKeepers ?
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/ (http://oathkeepers.org/oath/)
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Arizona colleges accused of immigrant discrimination
Before this year, Phoenix-area community colleges asked legal immigrants to show a green card before hiring them. The Justice Department calls the policy 'document abuse' and seeks damages.
David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau
September 4, 2010
Employers who hire illegal immigrants can be fined, but the Obama administration warned this week that they also can be fined for asking legal immigrants to show their green cards before hiring them.
The Justice Department's civil rights division sued the Maricopa County Community Colleges in Arizona, seeking damages from schools for having "intentionally committed document abuse discrimination."
Prior to this year, the local colleges in the Phoenix area asked job applicants who were not U.S. citizens to show a driver's license, a Social Security card and their permanent resident card, commonly called a green card.
The Justice Department said a valid driver's license and a Social Security card are usually sufficient to show that a person is authorized to work. Requesting a green card amounts to "immigration-related employment discrimination," said Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Federal law forbids treating "authorized workers differently during the hiring process based on their citizenship status," Perez said. He said the department's Office of Special Counsel would bring legal actions against employers who impose "unnecessary and discriminatory hurdles to employment for work-authorized noncitizens."
Amid the fierce controversy over immigration, the Obama administration has launched three lawsuits this summer to protect the rights of Latinos and legal immigrants — all three targeting Arizona.
In July, the administration successfully blocked Arizona's law that authorized state and local police to check the immigration status of persons who were arrested. On Thursday, it sued Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio seeking documents that could show he has illegally targeted Latinos in the course of his immigration sweeps.
The suit against the Maricopa community colleges, announced Monday, and could affect employers across the nation.
"Employers are getting very mixed messages from the government," said Jessica Vaughan, a policy analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies.
On one hand, employers have been told they need to do more to verify that their workers are legal and authorized to work in the United States. Federal immigration law says hiring "an unauthorized alien" can result in fines of up to $3,000 per worker. However, another provision of the same law bars employers from requesting "more or different documents" than are needed to prove a noncitizen's legal status.
In the Maricopa college case, the Justice Department said it wanted "full remedial relief" for 247 noncitizens who applied for jobs with the community college district between August 2008 and January of this year, plus a civil penalty of $1,100 for each of them.
"We are extremely disappointed by the Justice Department's action. We had no intent to discriminate against any foreign national, and we feel we have been singled out for the maximum penalty under the law," said Charles Reinebold, a spokesman for the community colleges. "There was no actual harm here. This was a paperwork error, and we revised it after it was brought to our attention."
Vaughan said she was "very surprised the administration would resort to a lawsuit. In the past, the emphasis has been on mediation to resolve these issues."
But others applauded the administration's move to enforce the anti-discrimination parts of the immigration law.
Gening Liao, a lawyer for the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, said the law itself is clear.
"If you bring in a driver's license and a Social Security card, those documents are sufficient. Employers are prohibited from asking for extra documents or different documents," she said. "This is blatant discrimination, and we get calls about it all the time. We hope to see more lawsuits like this."
david.savage@latimes.com
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Parts of Arizona are controlled by the cartels, yet this is what the DOJ wants to devote it's resources to.
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Woof,
While they still can they are going to try every backdoor way there is to get amnesty for illegals and whatever other lib agenda item they want to shove down our throats, passed.
www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/congress-blog/civil-rights/118745-defense-authorization-bill-will-address-the-dream-act-and-discrimination-in-the-military-sen-harry-reid
P.C.
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A realistic take on the issues.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-allen-fourteenth-amendment-20100920,0,7944786.story
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An U.N.-Conscionable Act
Published on September 22, 2010 by Edwin Feulner, Ph.D.
Thanks to a certain immigration law, the Obama administration isn’t very happy with Arizona these days. But did you know the White House has gone so far as to put Arizona “on report”? And to the United Nations, no less.
That’s right. Apparently the federal government can’t handle this dispute alone. It needs to elevate it to the world stage, encouraging international criticism of the offending state. So Arizona’s alleged transgression comes up in a report the administration submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council:
“A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.
“President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system, because he recognizes that our ability to innovate, our ties to the world, and our economic prosperity depend on our capacity to welcome and assimilate immigrants. The Administration will continue its efforts to work with the U.S. Congress and affected communities toward this end.”
No wonder Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called this “downright offensive.” If the administration felt compelled to mention an unsettled legal dispute in a report to an international body, it should have at least adopted a more neutral tone. Instead, it sounds like the administration is saying, “Don’t worry, world; we’re doing all we can to show this slow, backward child of ours the error of its ways.”
Here’s a larger question, one worth considering as the United Nations gathers for its annual General Assembly meeting: Should the United States even have joined the Human Rights Council, whose membership roll includes such blatant human-rights tramplers as China and Cuba?
The HRC was created in 2006 as a replacement for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. For years, the commission had failed to hold governments accountable for violating basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Unfortunately, the HRC’s track record has been no better. In theory, it “offers an unprecedented opportunity to hold the human rights practices of every country open for public examination and criticism,” as Heritage Foundation experts Brett Schaefer and Steven Groves have noted. But in practice, the HRC “has proven to be a flawed process hijacked by countries seeking to shield themselves from criticism.”
Consider Cuba’s report to the HRC. It turns out its “democratic system is based on the principle of ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’.” And guess what? Its citizens enjoy the right to “freedom of opinion, expression and the press.” I’m sure that will surprise the thousands of Cubans who have risked life and limb to escape the island nation, and the thousands more who remain locked in Castro’s jails for political “crimes.”
China made similarly laughable assertions in its report to the HRC. It even claimed its citizens enjoy a right to religious freedom. North Korea, too, is a downright utopia, judging from its report to the U.N.
It’s bad enough these countries lie. But it’s not unexpected. What’s worse is that the U.N. accepts these demonstrably false claims at face value. The majority of member states approve these reports.
To avoid becoming a party to this charade, the Bush administration wisely declined membership in the HRC. The Obama administration reversed that policy. So we have a situation where the U.S., just by being a member, lends legitimacy to a U.N. farce on human rights. And now the administration is compounding the error by offering up a state for criticism by a body that includes some of the world’s most egregious human-rights offenders.
Talk about “downright offensive.”
Dr. Edwin Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Commentary/2010/09/An-UN-Conscionable-Act
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BUENOS AIRES NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Ariz. — In this remote, semidesert landscape along the United States-Mexico border, water is a precious commodity — and a contentious one, too.
Two years ago, Daniel J. Millis was ticketed for littering after he was caught by a federal Fish and Wildlife officer placing gallon jugs of water for passing immigrants in the brush of this 118,000-acre preserve.
“I do extreme sports, and I know I couldn’t walk as far as they do,” said Mr. Millis, driving through the refuge recently. “It’s no surprise people are dying.”
Mr. Millis, 31, was not the only one to get a ticket. Fourteen other volunteers for Tucson-based organizations that provide aid to immigrants crossing from Mexico to the United States were similarly cited. Most of the cases were later dropped, but Mr. Millis and another volunteer for a religious group called No More Deaths were convicted of defacing the refuge with their water jug drops.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit weighed in on Mr. Millis’s appeal this month, ruling that it was “ambiguous as to whether purified water in a sealed bottle intended for human consumption meets the definition of ‘garbage.’ ” Voting 2-to-1, a three-judge panel overturned Mr. Millis’s conviction.
The issue remains far from settled, though. The court ruled that Mr. Millis probably could have been charged under a different statute, something other than littering. And the Fish and Wildlife Service continues to forbid anyone to leave gallon jugs of water in the refuge — a policy backed by this state’s immigration hardliners, who say comforting immigrants will only encourage them to cross.
From 2002 to 2009, 25 illegal immigrants died while passing through the refuge’s rolling hills, which are flanked by mountains and are home to pronghorns, coyotes, rattlesnakes and four different kinds of skunks. Throughout southern Arizona, the death toll totaled 1,715 from 2002 to 2009, with this year’s hot temperatures putting deaths at a record-breaking pace.
The Border Patrol has installed rescue beacons in remote areas along the border, including several in the Buenos Aires refuge, to allow immigrants in distress to call for help. Those who are injured and have been left behind by their guides are often so desperate they no longer fear deportation.
Still, the federal government has acknowledged that additional steps are needed to keep deaths down on its land. In 2001, it gave another aid group, Humane Borders, a permit to keep several large water drums on the refuge, each of them marked by a blue flag and featuring a spigot to allow immigrants to fill their water bottles for the long trek north.
Last year, the government considered but ultimately decided against allowing No More Deaths to tether gallon jugs to trees to allow immigrants in more remote areas to drink without taking the jugs on their way.
Right now, even after the court decision, there is what amounts to a standoff. This month, the federal government said it was willing to allow more 55-gallon drums on main pathways in the refuge. It said it would not permit any gallon jugs.
But the water jugs continue to appear.
Last week, Gene Lefebvre, a retired minister who co-founded No More Deaths, hiked along a path popular among immigrants until he reached a clearing where volunteers for his organization had recently left some jugs.
Each bottle had markings on it noting the date it was left and the exact location on the group’s GPS mapping software. There were also signs of encouragement for the immigrants: a heart and a cross on one bottle and the words, “Good luck, friends,” on another.
“We’d give water to anyone we found in the desert, even the Border Patrol,” Mr. Lefebvre said.
But opponents say the water drops are encouraging immigrants to continue to come across the border illegally. The critics say there ought to be Border Patrol agents stationed near the water stations to arrest those who are crossing illegally as soon as they finish drinking. So furious are some at the practice of aiding immigrants that they have slashed open the water jugs, crushed them with their vehicles or simply poured the water into the desert.
The Buenos Aires refuge is among the most troubled of the 551 refuge areas across the country, the federal government says. The reason is its location, adjacent to the border.
“Since its establishment in 1985, refuge staff have worked diligently to protect species such as the endangered masked bobwhite quail and pronghorn, as well as offer meaningful visitor recreational opportunities,” a recently released government report on the water controversy said. “However, over the past decade an increasing amount of refuge time and energy has been required to address the growing issue of illegal traffic entering the U.S. across refuge lands.”
In 2006 and 2007, an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 illegal immigrants crossed the refuge annually, along with Border Patrol agents pursing them, federal officials say. “As a result, refuge lands have been marred by illegal trails and roads, litter and degraded habitat,” said a government report on the problem.
The numbers have dropped in recent years, to 31,500 in 2008 and about 20,000 in 2009. “This still averages approximately 50 to 60 illegal immigrants traveling through the refuge daily,” the government report said.
Mr. Millis, a former high school Spanish teacher who now works for the Sierra Club, disputes the notion that leaving out water jugs is luring more immigrants. He said it was border enforcement efforts that had pushed those seeking to cross into dangerous desert areas.
As for spoiling the environment, he said he collected as many jugs as he left behind. He also recounts how he found the dead body of a 14-year-old Salvadoran girl near the refuge days before he was ticketed.
“People are part of the environment,” he said.
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Good audio of Marc Levin interviewing Gloria Allred the Democrat lawyer using the illegal alien for a hit on Whitman:
http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article.asp?id=1970739&spid=32364
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I don't quite agree that this is a "good audio of Marc Levin; rather like typical talk radio
each party is yelling and interrupting each other and both saying nothing.
That said, and while I am not a Meg Whitman fan, I don't understand why this is a big deal.
It is my understanding that the woman forged documents to obtain employment. Ms. Whitman
relied on those forged documents, the employee's false testimony, and the employment agency's incorrect information and therefore
hired the person. All taxes, Social Security taxes, unemployment taxes, etc. were paid by Ms. Whitman in good faith.
Upon finding out that the employee was illegal (undocumented) Ms. Whitman fired said employee.
Seems appropriate to me.
I mean what was she suppose to do?
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"and interrupting each other and both saying nothing"
It seems you and I will never totally agree on anything.
Your conclusion that Whitman was justifed is same as mine.
Yet, if you don't think that Levin doesn't expose Allred for being full of BS than I can't help you.
Levin cannot get a straight answer from her about the facts. That is clear.
"I don't understand why this is a big deal"
I don't undertand what you don't understand. The big deal is Democrat operatives are using this illegal alien to whip up the hispanic vote.
We the people appear to have NO say as to come here, stays here, and any ability to do anything about it other than make noise while being labelled as bigots.
That IS the big deal.
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It seems you and I will never totally agree on anything.
Your conclusion that Whitman was justifed is same as mine.
:? I think we do agree! :-)
As for Allred she is always full of BS; I mean why does a bear shit in the woods? It's just their nature.
But Levin doesn't give and take much but I guess that's talk radio....
and as an attorney he should understand Allred might
not confirm that her client is "illegal" on talk radio, etc.
As for it being "a big deal" I understand. I just don't think it should be a big deal.
Whitman did nothing wrong. Just bad luck.
Yet, that's politics. It's not pretty...
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JDN, I did not listen to the clip but follow you on one point: how is an employer receiving forged documents supposed to know? How did Gen. Colin Powell 'know' his contractor had illegals working in his house. Did they look Hispanic and speak with an accent?
I have a family member who works with employers in the Human Resources field and is not in favor of putting more burdens on employers to solve this problem. My thought is that the government can ask the employer to disclose who they hire and they could require documents or copies of identification for the new hires be faxed to them for enforcement, but not to require the business to do the federal government's job for them (when they won't even let the states do it). If the business is in the conspiracy to produce or accept fake documents, that is another matter.
Why should a business have to be tougher than a police officer would be in a routine traffic stop?
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I think many employers are profiting by the relationship. Perhaps if you apply penalties to employers and enforce those penalties,
we will have fewer illegal aliens working here. Work on both the Supply and the Demand.
For example, here in CA in order to obtain a Driver's License you must show proof of citizenship or legal status.
Therefore I don't think it's onerous for employers to require a Driver's License at time of employment and to keep a copy thereof.
I'm not necessarily asking the employer to turn the person in to ICE, but the employer should understand that if he knowingly hires
an illegal employee he will suffer financial consequences. That seems fair to me.
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JDN and Doug,
Yes I do agree on those points.
Getting ID verification from the employee by the employer requires some sort of enforcement and unfortunately, the gov. simply will not enforce ID fraud.
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"I think many employers are profiting by the relationship."
I know that is true, but you are missing the word knowingly. Sort of knowing it because tens of millions of them are illegal is not knowing it.
"Perhaps if you apply penalties to employers and enforce those penalties,
we will have fewer illegal aliens working here."
Penalties without again using the word " knowingly"? I don't mean should have guessed it by how they look or speak, but knowing with certainty in individual cases. Should not the same penalty apply to anyone else who does business with the illegal and benefits from it like the grocer?
"I don't think it's onerous for employers to require a Driver's License at time of employment and to keep a copy thereof."
Require a DL for a non-driving job? To pick fruit or for heavy lifting or to work on a roof? Or maybe only for Hispanics with a suspicious heavy accent?
"I'm not necessarily asking the employer to turn the person in to ICE..."
Which is someone else who will do nothing about it.
What about the welfare agencies. They are an employer of sorts. Same penalties, same requirements? What about the public school? They benefit. Using local numbers, they get about 10k per year per student, legal or illegal. What about the emergency rooms? They benefit financially. They do business and bill back (us) for their services. We (the federal government suing Arizona) don't even let police officers do the type of scrutiny that we want to asking of business. A police officer could stumble into an identity fraud racket and make a lasting difference.
"the employer should understand that if he knowingly hires an illegal employee he will suffer financial consequences"
:-) Okay, you came through for me with the word knowingly, but HOW? All the employer can do it seems to me is require of the applicant what the government requires them to require and pass it to the government for a determination of authenticity. These employers aren't receiving documents that certify someone is illegal and then going ahead with business. Try turning people away for ethnicity based reasons and see how busy your legal department gets.
We aren't far apart here, the point is (like CCP says) that it doesn't make any sense until the government agrees to do their part FIRST and then require the rest of us to cooperate REASONABLY and comply.
I can't get all fussy with someone who looks different or talks different than me in my business. I have to treat everyone exactly the same under the strict laws that prohibit discrimination based on ethnicity and a host of other things. If I would hire my brother without an ID and a background check then I have to give a Canadian looking person the same treatment.
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See my post #415 of 9/4/10.
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"See my post #415 of 9/4/10."
"Employers who hire illegal immigrants can be fined, but the Obama administration warned this week that they also can be fined for asking legal immigrants to show their green cards before hiring them."
----------------
Thank you. Unbleepingbelievable. We find a legitimate function for the federal government and they refuse to do it, refuse to let anyone else do it and then blame us back for the problem. Time to throw the tea into the harbor and rattle their cages electorally until we get someone's attention.
If the Feds were all over the border security function and actively finding and deporting illegals and undocumented people, then requiring the reasonable cooperation of businesses would make perfect sense.
You can't scrutinize a non-English speaking Hispanic person, airport security can't target a young Muslim male with a one way cash ticket any more than they would your grandmother, and up here are we supposed to card check or ignore it when we catch someone finishing a question with... eh?
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An Open Letter
September 24, 2010
Dear Stephen Colbert,
In preparing this open letter to you, I am literally fighting back the tears! It truly breaks my heart that so many people in positions of power and authority continue to make light of illegal immigration!
Are you aware of, and/or concerned with the fact, that American citizens and legal immigrants are murdered everyday by illegal aliens? Have you ever spent one second thinking about that?
In speaking to Congress today, do you think you would have prepared anything different if one of your love ones was murdered by an illegal alien? You think you would make fun of this illegal alien invasion if you lost a loved one to this crime?
What if your mother was shot in the head by an illegal alien? Do you think you could make that funny? What about your children? Would it be comical if your daughter or your son or your niece or nephew was lying in the street dead, shot in the head, by someone living in this country illegally?
Here’s a challenge for you Mr. Colbert. I challenge you to visit a Memorial Plaque in Los Angeles, California. The Plaque where my 17 year old nephew, Jamiel Andre’ Shaw II, was murdered on March 2, 2008, by a documented illegal alien gang member.
Minutes after Jamiel hung up the phone with his father Jamiel Sr., Jamiel was shot in the stomach and then shot in the head, three doors from our home.
Jamiel’s mother, U.S. Army Sergeant Anita Shaw was serving in Iraq when her son was murdered. Would you like to meet Anita, Mr. Colbert?
I challenge you to visit where Cheryl Green was murdered in Los Angeles. Cheryl Green was 14 years old when she was shot and left for dead by an illegal alien. She was riding her bike across an imaginary line that the illegal alien gang members told each other, “the next black person that crosses this line will die”.
Would you like to meet Cheryl’s mother, Charlene Lovett? I’m sure she could use a good laugh!
Maybe walking the streets of Los Angeles are not a challenge you would accept.
So, how about Arizona, Mr. Colbert? I challenge you to visit the place where Robert Krentz was murdered by an illegal alien. Robert Krentz was 58. He was a well-liked cattle rancher, working on his 34,000 acre ranch, when he and his dog were shot dead by an illegal alien.
These are just three of the American Citizens who I’m sure were not laughing when they were shot and murdered. Unfortunately, we have a long list of names of American citizens who were murdered by illegal aliens. Would you like to see their faces and meet their families?
As a matter of fact, there are tens of thousands of Americans across the United States of America who were murdered and left for dead by people who were never supposed to be in the USA! Many of these criminals have never been caught!
If you decide to accept this challenge, why not invite about 40 families who lost love ones due to illegal immigration, to come to your studio? Then, you can tell us all about your experience working on this farm. You can even tell us, “how bad your back was hurting when you were working with illegal aliens”. I wonder how many families would laugh and think that’s funny.
To be honest with you, I’m having a very hard time trying to understand why Representative Zoe Lofgren invited you, to speak on this serious issue! Perhaps she too thinks illegal immigration is a laughing matter! She seriously needs to be replaced!!
Call me Mr. Colbert if you accept this challenge, because I know my family would love a good laugh!!
Sincerely,
Jamiel Shaw’s Angry Aunt!
Althea Rae Shaw
Los Angeles, CA
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That is what I figure.
You can card someone, suspect they are not legal and then what? Who are you going to tell?
And *you* may be the one in trouble. Criminally and civily.
And whomever you notify will do nothing anyway!
It is like a couple of people who came into my office some years back at different times. They had each swindled narcotic prescriptions out of me. Their stories were not totally believable but I gave them the benefit of the doubt in case they were really in pain. I called the State's department that handles this and the response was , "well you gave them the prescription doctor!" They sent me some waste of time forms to fill out, which I did and sent back and naturally I never heard another word.
In short they could care less.
And that would be the result now with employers checking for job prospects' immigration status.
So while I do feel empolyers should have some obligation to make some sort of attempt at verification, No one will back them up anyway.
And that is why the Allred thing is such a big deal. It is a blatant example of *in the faces* of rightful, legal residents and to think that this criminal illegal alien who is being used as a pawn could possible effect the outcome of an election of our biggest state. JDN, you don't think that is a big deal?
It is a Democrat lawyer defending potential votes for the party they have bought and paid for.
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"See my post #415 of 9/4/10."
"The Justice Department said a valid driver's license and a Social Security card are usually sufficient to show that a person is authorized to work. Requesting a green card amounts to "immigration-related employment discrimination," said Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights."
That's reasonable "eh" :-) (I was born in Wisconsin and am a Scandinavian/German)
To obtain a Driver's License in CA you must show proof of legal status. And to obtain a SS# that is also true. Given that, I too think that should be sufficient for employers. Anything else probably is discrimination. I happen to be blond (grey) so I have never in my life been asked for papers. Why should someone else because they are brown? Or are you in favor of a national ID card?
I want the employers to stop hiring illegal aliens (limit supply and demand), but it's not their job to enforce immigration laws. Just obey them.
And CCP, yes it is a big deal that this matter might affect the outcome of CA's election. However, I have already stated that while I personally think Whitman
did nothing wrong, she did in fact hire an illegal alien and continued to employ her even after receiving notice from the SS Administration that the employee's
number was invalid. Whitman made a mistake and she may pay for it. That's politics.
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Whitman has a hypocrisy problem, but she is running against Jerry Brown so will see what high standard voters hold her to, lol.
What I don't get in the Whitman maid case is if the Feds KNOW she is illegal and where to find her during the day, why are they putting law enforcement responsibility on the citizen or business? What would it accomplish for Whitman to have chased her out of their employ. Is the thought that she would then never again find work, starve and die or walk back toward her old home through the gang controlled border crossings? Not when every welfare agency in the state would welcome her with open arms. Point is there is no enforcement, no consistency, no consequence.
This discussion tells me we need to hold public services and employment to the same standard. Why we would stop someone from working and then let them stay in the US to use public services? That doesn't make sense.
It points back to - secure the borders first and then deal with who is here.
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"Whitman has a hypocrisy problem"
I am not so sure. She had copies of ID and SSN. She/husband was notified there was a descrepancy and she let the empolyee know to check into it.
I am not clear she was notifed person was *illegal*; just that SSN didn't match or check out.
She paid this person well for her duties. She paid taxes etc and other obligations for this employee. If someone knows they are hiring an illegal they pay them cash under the table. They don't submit work papers to the Feds. It sounds like Whitman and or husband was actually being quite kind to this person and gave her the benefit of the doubt. Yet for political purposes they are being accused of lying, treating her poorly and I guess not turning her in to ICE??
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**From the far from conservative SF Chron.**
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/30/MN931FME32.DTL
Lawyers said an employer's obligation upon receiving a no-match letter from the Social Security Administration is to check their own records for typographical or other errors, inform the employee that the records do not match and tell the employee to correct them.
"There is no additional legal obligation for an employer to follow up or respond to SSA with new information," said Gening Liao, a labor and employment attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, which defends immigrants.
Liao added that it is "very important that the employer does not take adverse action against the employee" merely based on a letter from Social Security.
Nor was Diaz under any obligation to pursue the matter, Liao said. Correcting a mismatch is "primarily for the benefit of the employee," she said, to make sure they can collect all the benefits due them for their work.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/30/MN931FME32.DTL#ixzz11F97GpYN
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Knowingly or unknowingly Whitman hired, retained and subsequently fired an illegal employee who had been
"a member of the family" for a number of years.
The right says Whitman should have had her illegal maid arrested.
The left says she is not "compassionate" and should have fought for her maid.
Whitman can't win this one.
"Legal obligations"? This is not a court of law; perception is what matters in politics.
The voters decide, not a Judge.
Bad luck, hypocrisy, call it what you want, but this has hurt Whitman.
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"this has hurt Whitman"
I read but did not watch the 2nd debate so I cannot gauge the reaction. Certainly this is a major, unwanted distraction.
JDN, I don't get a vote in Calif. What is yours likely to be? and why.
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It is a giant game of "gotcha".
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"this has hurt Whitman"
I read but did not watch the 2nd debate so I cannot gauge the reaction. Certainly this is a major, unwanted distraction.
JDN, I don't get a vote in Calif. What is yours likely to be? and why.
I'm honestly not sure who I will vote for. For the record, this matter has no influence on my decision.
Whitman did a marvelous job at Ebay. We need a good manager. Yet I question someone who spends over 110 million dollars of their own money
to be elected. And rumor has it she has problems getting along with others ($200,000 payout for "pushing" an employee). This
matters since we will still have Democratic legislature even if she is elected.
People dump on Arnold Schwarzenegger, but frankly he has butted heads over and over (and lost) with the democratic legislature. I think if
he had had a neutral or republican legislature, he would have done an excellent job.
I don't see Whitman doing any better. She seems more antagonistic than Arnold.
I don't think Brown is that bad, he was an ok governor before and perhaps he can get some things accomplished to move this state forward.
That said, I don't like his position on immigration or spending.
Maybe I will just go play golf on election day.
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Woof,
Yeah, this is dirty politics at its worse. This was planned and well timed by Gloria Allred who has worked on Jerry Brown's champaign's in the the past and contributed money to him. So let's look at the facts: A lady illegally came across our border, legally procured fake Id's, documents, and a social security number, that she used to deceive Ms. Whitman into hiring her and paying her $23 an hour to do house keeping. Ms. Whitman kept her gainfully employed for 9 years and treated her as family. At some point in 2003, Ms Whitman gets a letter saying there was a problem with the lady's SS number and that she might not be getting proper credit for her witholdings. The letter sternly warns that no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights and this letter did not mean that the lady was here illegally. So Ms Whitman and her husband showed the letter to their employee and told her she needed to look into this to make sure she would have her money going into her SS account. Later on after nine years in early 2009 the illegal alien fessed up to being illegally here and Ms Whitman had no choice at that point but to fire her. Now suddenly over a year later and just before an election, boom! a avalanche of false accusations hits Ms Whitman.
I think it is Ms Whitman that has the legal grounds for a lawsuit and if Jerry Brown gets elected because of this smear attack, I think he should be recalled.
P.C.
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"And rumor has it she has problems getting along with others ($200,000 payout for "pushing" an employee)."
So?
Look at our President. There are at least 150 million people in the US he cannot get along with.
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"I think it is Ms Whitman that has the legal grounds for a lawsuit and if Jerry Brown gets elected because of this smear attack, I think he should be recalled". :?
What smear? It's true; she hired, albeit unknowingly an illegal alien. Did she do something wrong? I don't think so, but it just looks bad. Appearance matters.
That's politics.
As for the Social Security Letter,
"At some point in 2003, Ms Whitman gets a letter saying there was a problem with the lady's SS number and that she might not be getting proper credit for her witholdings. The letter sternly warns that no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights and this letter did not mean that the lady was here illegally. So Ms Whitman and her husband showed the letter to their employee and told her she needed to look into this to make sure she would have her money going into her SS account."
Do you have a source? My information shows that Whitman received a letter from Social Security Administration questioning the validity of the submitted social security number; period. There is no mention or warning in the letter that "no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights".
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Do you have a source? My information shows that Whitman received a letter from Social Security Administration questioning the validity of the submitted social security number; period. There is no mention or warning in the letter that "no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights".
Lawyers said an employer's obligation upon receiving a no-match letter from the Social Security Administration is to check their own records for typographical or other errors, inform the employee that the records do not match and tell the employee to correct them.
"There is no additional legal obligation for an employer to follow up or respond to SSA with new information," said Gening Liao, a labor and employment attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, which defends immigrants.
Liao added that it is "very important that the employer does not take adverse action against the employee" merely based on a letter from Social Security.
Nor was Diaz under any obligation to pursue the matter, Liao said. Correcting a mismatch is "primarily for the benefit of the employee," she said, to make sure they can collect all the benefits due them for their work.
The attorney for Diaz Santillan has not said whether the Whitmans' former housekeeper received a mismatch notice. Social Security's notice to employees says the letter "does not, in and of itself, allow your employer to change your job, lay you off, fire you or take other action against you."
Had Whitman questioned Diaz's legal status after Diaz presented documents when she was hired, Whitman again would have exposed herself to discrimination violations.
"Not only is (accepting the documents) all the law required her to do, but there's a counterbalancing anti-discrimination law that keeps her from probing further or demanding different documents," said Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/30/MN931FME32.DTL#ixzz11JRw6iUg
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"I think it is Ms Whitman that has the legal grounds for a lawsuit and if Jerry Brown gets elected because of this smear attack, I think he should be recalled". :?
What smear? It's true; she hired, albeit unknowingly an illegal alien. Did she do something wrong? I don't think so, but it just looks bad. Appearance matters.
That's politics.
As for the Social Security Letter,
"At some point in 2003, Ms Whitman gets a letter saying there was a problem with the lady's SS number and that she might not be getting proper credit for her witholdings. The letter sternly warns that no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights and this letter did not mean that the lady was here illegally. So Ms Whitman and her husband showed the letter to their employee and told her she needed to look into this to make sure she would have her money going into her SS account."
Do you have a source? My information shows that Whitman received a letter from Social Security Administration questioning the validity of the submitted social security number; period. There is no mention or warning in the letter that "no action should be taken against the lady or be fired by Ms Whitman because that would be a violation of the lady's rights".
Woof,
The letter has the warning printed on it; and yes a smear; Allred accused Ms Whitman of hiring an illegal worker, receiving a letter that exposed her as an illegal and still retain her until Ms Whitman decided to run for Governor and then getting rid of the illegal because she was afraid she would get caught. She is also saying Ms Whitman abused the illegal. That is all a lie/smear to discredit Ms Whitman just before a Spanish language debate between Brown and Whitman. As for the source the media is finally catching up to the false allegations and any new report on it will have that information about the letter and you need to understand that the info you got was controlled by Allred and that is why you are in the dark about the facts.
P.C.
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"It is a giant game of "gotcha"."
True and too bad both ways. I assume Calif has larger problems. I'm not following the campaign, we have our own governor's race, but the choices in general are spend more / more of the same vs. spend less / control spending and I assume both campaigns work hard to blur the choices. From the state budget point of view, illegal immigration puts a burden on state spending. No one will say no to public services for illegals, especially their children. Even bringing up that budget burden offends legal, law abiding Hispanic voters. From the federal point of view, either we have borders or we don't. If not, then we have no nation, no way to plan, spend, or budget services for our citizens. Either we are a nation of laws or we are not. The good laws we need to enforce and the bad laws we need to repeal.
JDN, thanks for the candid reply. I didn't you are a golfer, maybe I can win back the money I might lose to you in squash... Jerry Brown' previous experience as Governor, like Reagan's, like Brown's father, was in a different time. California was leading the nation and the nation was leading the world all in a positive sense. Now the opposite. I doubt if either of these people can fix it but I would vote for whoever I thought would stand up stronger to the legislature. Probably not someone in the legislature's same party with the same donors and same power groups.
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Woof,
This is back firing on old Gloria:
www.mediaite.com/online/greta-van-susteren-to-gloria-allred-youre-blackmailing-meg-whitman/ (http://www.mediaite.com/online/greta-van-susteren-to-gloria-allred-youre-blackmailing-meg-whitman/)
P.C.
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"It is a giant game of "gotcha"."
True and too bad both ways. I assume Calif has larger problems. I'm not following the campaign, we have our own governor's race, but the choices in general are spend more / more of the same vs. spend less / control spending and I assume both campaigns work hard to blur the choices. From the state budget point of view, illegal immigration puts a burden on state spending. No one will say no to public services for illegals, especially their children. Even bringing up that budget burden offends legal, law abiding Hispanic voters. From the federal point of view, either we have borders or we don't. If not, then we have no nation, no way to plan, spend, or budget services for our citizens. Either we are a nation of laws or we are not. The good laws we need to enforce and the bad laws we need to repeal.
JDN, thanks for the candid reply. I didn't you are a golfer, maybe I can win back the money I might lose to you in squash... Jerry Brown' previous experience as Governor, like Reagan's, like Brown's father, was in a different time. California was leading the nation and the nation was leading the world all in a positive sense. Now the opposite. I doubt if either of these people can fix it but I would vote for whoever I thought would stand up stronger to the legislature. Probably not someone in the legislature's same party with the same donors and same power groups.
"I assume Calif has larger problems."
Now that's an understatement!!!
I'm not sure "standing up to the legislature" is the answer. Rather, convincing them to work together for the greater good is the answer.
Reagan got a lot accomplished behind closed doors after midterm elections because he was able to communicate and persuade, not only because
he "stood up". And I think back then both sides were willing to work together for the greater good. It seems partisan politics rules the day now.
Both parties are guilty.
As for getting together I think you overestimate my squash game lately! :-)
But golf sounds good. They have built some fabulous courses in Wisconsin, unfortunately I left the state before they were built.
Perhaps one day I will return and we can play a round?
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http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/10/03/mexican-mayors-stop-deporting-all-these-mexicans-theyre-too-violent-and-dangerous/
Mexican Mayors: Stop Deporting All These Mexicans, They’re Too Violent and Dangerous!
posted at 10:38 am on October 3, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
In what may be the most snort-worthy post I’ve read recently, Mexican mayors are actually complaining about Mexicans being deported back to Mexico… because they’re too dangerous and violent.
Well, yeah. That’s why we don’t want them here. Because they’re criminals.
conference in which the mayors of four Mexican border cities and one U.S. mayor, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, gathered to discuss cross-border issues.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes blamed U.S. deportation policy for contributing to his city’s violence, saying that of the 80,000 people deported to Juarez in the past three years, 28,000 had U.S. criminal records — including 7,000 convicted rapists and 2,000 convicted murderers.
Those criminal deportees, he said, have contributed to the violence in Juarez, which has reported more than 2,200 murders this year. Reyes and the other Mexican mayors said that when the U.S. deports criminals back to Mexico, it should fly them to their hometowns, not just bus them to the border.
But critics in America say the Mexican lawmakers are simply trying to pass the buck to the U.S. and its taxpayers. They say the Mexicans should take responsibility for their criminals, who are putting both Mexican and American lives in danger.
It’s especially snort-worthy considering that open-borders extremists have recently been spouting ridiculous drivel about how calling illegal immigrants illegal is leading to loads of anti-immigrant violence. Reality, of course, is that violent crimes committed by the poor, sweet, victimized illegal immigrants far outweighs any anti-Latino violence imagined by the amnesty advocates.
And this is, of course, Mexican officials trying to put the blame on the United States instead of taking responsibility for their own citizens. Yes, a large number of these Mexican illegal immigrants are, in fact, criminals, and oftentimes violent criminals at that. That’s why we don’t want them here. That’s why so many Americans want to get tough on immigration — starting with securing the border. You’d think Mexican officials would understand this, considering Mexico’s own strict immigration laws. Could this have anything to do with the Reconquista mindset encouraged by Mexico’s own president?
Speaking of violent Mexicans, Green Room blogger Director Blue reports on another tragic American death at the hands of Mexicans. David and Tiffany Hartley were jet skiing on Falcon Lake, and rode over to the Mexican side to take pictures of a Spanish mission. They were chased by Mexican boats, where Tiffany’s husband David was shot in the head and fell into the water. When she went back to retrieve his body, the thugs held a gun to her head.
Tiffany Hartley told deputies she and her husband David were jet skiing near the town of Old Guerrrero. Hartley told investigators her husband was shot in the head and killed. She says she was forced to leave his body behind as the gunmen fired more bullets at her.
… Hartley did tell authorities after the shooting she got help from a man on shore. The Good Samaritan told deputies he saw the Mexican boats chasing her into US waters. CHANNEL 5 NEWS spoke to the man who stepped up to help Tiffany in those first terrifying moments after her husbands murder.
The Good Samaritan wants to remain anonymous because he fears for his life. He was on the west side of the lake. He goes there once a week, but for some reason he went twice this week.
For him it was just another day on Falcon Lake. The sky was clear, and there were people out having fun. Then, out of the blue he saw a jetski being chased by a boat. Everything would change for the Good Samaritan when he heard Tiffany Hartley rushing toward him. As she sobbed she told him her husband had been shot.
“She could see the gunshots wounds to his head. His brains were falling and he was not breathing,” he said. The man tried to console her. She told him she and her husband David had gone to old Guerrro on the Mexico side of the lake to take pictures of a Spanish mission.
“Three boats approached them, waving guns talking in Spanish,” he said. “They got scared, spooked then they heard the gunshots going on. She could see they were hitting the water and the water was coming up at them. [A]ll of a sudden she sees her husband flying off.”
Tiffany told him she turned around to go take care of her husband, but two pirates went after her jetski. One pirate held a gun to her head. Once he left she tried to pull her husband body onto her jetski but she didn’t have the strength.
She told the Good Samaritan she made an agonizing decision. She left her husband behind because she could see a pirate charging towards her. Her story is forever imprinted in his head.
Authorities believe this was the work of pirates working for a drug cartel, who have often been robbing boaters at gunpoint. This is the fifth violent incident at Falcon Lake in five months, with the worst obviously being David Hartley’s murder.
Why would we want to keep these kind of violent criminals in United States territory? The stance of the Mexican mayors would be understandable if we were abandoning violent American criminals in Mexico. But we aren’t. These are Mexican citizens, meaning they were Mexico’s problem. Americans are already shouldering the burden of harboring Mexico’s worst criminals. These violent criminals are Mexico’s responsibility.
Of course, knowing our current leadership, these Mexican loons will probably get time to complain in front of Congress, where Obama will promptly apologize for the United States selfishness in expecting Mexico to take responsibility for its own citizens.
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Woof GM,
That one made me slap the side of my head; good grief people we have got to seal that border.. :|
P.C.http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/10/03/mexican-mayors-stop-deporting-all-these-mexicans-theyre-too-violent-and-dangerous/
Mexican Mayors: Stop Deporting All These Mexicans, They’re Too Violent and Dangerous!
posted at 10:38 am on October 3, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
In what may be the most snort-worthy post I’ve read recently, Mexican mayors are actually complaining about Mexicans being deported back to Mexico… because they’re too dangerous and violent.
Well, yeah. That’s why we don’t want them here. Because they’re criminals.
conference in which the mayors of four Mexican border cities and one U.S. mayor, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, gathered to discuss cross-border issues.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes blamed U.S. deportation policy for contributing to his city’s violence, saying that of the 80,000 people deported to Juarez in the past three years, 28,000 had U.S. criminal records — including 7,000 convicted rapists and 2,000 convicted murderers.
Those criminal deportees, he said, have contributed to the violence in Juarez, which has reported more than 2,200 murders this year. Reyes and the other Mexican mayors said that when the U.S. deports criminals back to Mexico, it should fly them to their hometowns, not just bus them to the border.
But critics in America say the Mexican lawmakers are simply trying to pass the buck to the U.S. and its taxpayers. They say the Mexicans should take responsibility for their criminals, who are putting both Mexican and American lives in danger.
It’s especially snort-worthy considering that open-borders extremists have recently been spouting ridiculous drivel about how calling illegal immigrants illegal is leading to loads of anti-immigrant violence. Reality, of course, is that violent crimes committed by the poor, sweet, victimized illegal immigrants far outweighs any anti-Latino violence imagined by the amnesty advocates.
And this is, of course, Mexican officials trying to put the blame on the United States instead of taking responsibility for their own citizens. Yes, a large number of these Mexican illegal immigrants are, in fact, criminals, and oftentimes violent criminals at that. That’s why we don’t want them here. That’s why so many Americans want to get tough on immigration — starting with securing the border. You’d think Mexican officials would understand this, considering Mexico’s own strict immigration laws. Could this have anything to do with the Reconquista mindset encouraged by Mexico’s own president?
Speaking of violent Mexicans, Green Room blogger Director Blue reports on another tragic American death at the hands of Mexicans. David and Tiffany Hartley were jet skiing on Falcon Lake, and rode over to the Mexican side to take pictures of a Spanish mission. They were chased by Mexican boats, where Tiffany’s husband David was shot in the head and fell into the water. When she went back to retrieve his body, the thugs held a gun to her head.
Tiffany Hartley told deputies she and her husband David were jet skiing near the town of Old Guerrrero. Hartley told investigators her husband was shot in the head and killed. She says she was forced to leave his body behind as the gunmen fired more bullets at her.
… Hartley did tell authorities after the shooting she got help from a man on shore. The Good Samaritan told deputies he saw the Mexican boats chasing her into US waters. CHANNEL 5 NEWS spoke to the man who stepped up to help Tiffany in those first terrifying moments after her husbands murder.
The Good Samaritan wants to remain anonymous because he fears for his life. He was on the west side of the lake. He goes there once a week, but for some reason he went twice this week.
For him it was just another day on Falcon Lake. The sky was clear, and there were people out having fun. Then, out of the blue he saw a jetski being chased by a boat. Everything would change for the Good Samaritan when he heard Tiffany Hartley rushing toward him. As she sobbed she told him her husband had been shot.
“She could see the gunshots wounds to his head. His brains were falling and he was not breathing,” he said. The man tried to console her. She told him she and her husband David had gone to old Guerrro on the Mexico side of the lake to take pictures of a Spanish mission.
“Three boats approached them, waving guns talking in Spanish,” he said. “They got scared, spooked then they heard the gunshots going on. She could see they were hitting the water and the water was coming up at them. [A]ll of a sudden she sees her husband flying off.”
Tiffany told him she turned around to go take care of her husband, but two pirates went after her jetski. One pirate held a gun to her head. Once he left she tried to pull her husband body onto her jetski but she didn’t have the strength.
She told the Good Samaritan she made an agonizing decision. She left her husband behind because she could see a pirate charging towards her. Her story is forever imprinted in his head.
Authorities believe this was the work of pirates working for a drug cartel, who have often been robbing boaters at gunpoint. This is the fifth violent incident at Falcon Lake in five months, with the worst obviously being David Hartley’s murder.
Why would we want to keep these kind of violent criminals in United States territory? The stance of the Mexican mayors would be understandable if we were abandoning violent American criminals in Mexico. But we aren’t. These are Mexican citizens, meaning they were Mexico’s problem. Americans are already shouldering the burden of harboring Mexico’s worst criminals. These violent criminals are Mexico’s responsibility.
Of course, knowing our current leadership, these Mexican loons will probably get time to complain in front of Congress, where Obama will promptly apologize for the United States selfishness in expecting Mexico to take responsibility for its own citizens.
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" That one made me slap the side of my head; good grief people we have got to seal that border.. P.C."
Not just the ordinary violent thugs, gangs and cartels of Mexican and Latin American origin but I can imagine some middle east types with 911 hijacker style motives coming across the southern border or those home grown British and northern European terror types like the London bombers, Theo van Gogh's killers or Danish cartoon protesters coming across our northern border or vice versa.
We have about the right number of thugs of our own here already IMO. The new people coming in need to be screened and held to a little higher standard like being crime free and trained in field where we have a shortage of workers. Right now it seems like it is the border gang and drug cartels doing that screening for us and using the wrong criteria.
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PHOENIX — Here in Arizona, illegal immigrants get the boot. But refugees get the welcome mat.
Victor Acevedo migrated illegally to Arizona and is now awaiting deportation back to Mexico. Through a new law that gained widespread attention this year, the state is known for being particularly tough on illegal immigrants.
Even as officials rage at what they have called the “invasion” of illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, Arizona has welcomed thousands of legal immigrants from such grief-torn lands as Somalia, Myanmar and Iraq, and is known for treating them unusually well.
Indeed, the scorched expanse of the Phoenix valley can seem like a giant resettlement lab. Bosnians trim the watered lawns of the Arizona Biltmore, and Karenni speakers have their own prenatal class at St. Joseph’s hospital. A Sudanese goat farmer is thriving in a desert slaughterhouse built with a micro-enterprise loan. (He is glad to demonstrate his skill in turning goats to goat meat.)
Hai Doo, a laundry worker from Myanmar, got grants to buy his first home. Yasoda Bhattarai, a new mother from Bhutan, credits 10 weeks of free hospital care for saving her daughter, who was born with tuberculosis. “Whenever people ask me about Phoenix, I tell them it is the best place,” she said.
Only three states accepted more refugees on a per capita basis over the past six years. Arizona took nearly twice as many refugees per capita as its liberal neighbor, California, and more than twice as many per capita as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
“In the degree of welcome and receptivity we see, I would certainly put Arizona at the top,” said Robert Carey, a vice president at the International Rescue Committee, which resettles refugees in a dozen states.
The work contrasts with the state’s renown as the scourge of illegal immigrants, whom critics blame for driving up crime, stealing jobs and burdening hospitals and schools.
“We’re not anti-immigrant — never have been,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican who is a leading critic of illegal immigration. “But we expect people to follow the law.”
Mr. Pearce sponsored a new law that would give the police greater power to question people about their immigration status. The Obama administration has sued, arguing the law usurps federal power and encourages racial profiling.
Numerically, the groups do not compare; Arizona took in about 4,700 refugees last year, but is thought to have about 375,000 illegal immigrants. Refugees are not economic migrants but survivors of war and persecution whom the United States admits for humanitarian and foreign policy reasons. In fleeing violence, many refugees themselves illegally crossed borders overseas.
Refugee groups in Arizona sometimes feel caught in the political crossfire, wanting to emphasize that their clients are legal immigrants without taking sides in the larger war.
“We don’t want to be in the position of saying one group is good and another is bad,” said Robin Dunn Marcos, who runs the rescue group’s Phoenix office.
Arizona first drew refugees because the cost of living is low, and until the recession the state had lots of entry-level jobs open to non-English speakers, like housekeeping and lawn care. Early success, with Bosnians and Kosovars in the late 1990s and later with war orphans from Sudan, helped build local support.
Efforts intensified after the hiring in 2002 of a new state coordinator, Charles Shipman, who is married to a former Cambodian refugee and known for his advocacy. In recent years, Arizona has taken more than three times as many refugees as it did when he arrived.
Mr. Shipman quickly spotted a shortage of interpreters for a population ever more ethnically diverse. He commissioned a study that found language barriers “quite troubling.” The rescue group then used it to win a private grant to start an interpreting service. It now operates in 14 languages, including Kirundi (Burundi), Tigrinya (Ethiopia) and Hakka (China).
As the recession took hold, Mr. Shipman led a charge to prevent homelessness among newly arrived refugees. In part at his prompting, the federal government let Arizona shift some federal money into rent relief and urged other states to follow.
That benefited Harith Khalid Aziz, an Iraqi refugee with a master’s degree, who was earning little as a part-time clerk in a grocery. With a wife and a young son, he said it was “a horrible feeling” to fear eviction.
A few months’ aid sustained him until he found a better job. In Arizona, even “if you are not from the same race, they welcome you,” he said. “The U.S. is built on this.”
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Page 2 of 2)
Last year, the federal government admitted about 75,000 refugees, out of 10.5 million worldwide, and it covers most resettlement costs. State officials administer the money and help decide how many refugees they can take; private agencies do the casework, helping find housing and jobs.
The Biltmore not only hired refugees but donated used furniture to them. The private Tesseract School (tuition: $19,000 a year), established a scholarship just for refugees. When the rescue group encouraged clients to farm, Hickman’s Eggs donated 60 tons of chicken manure. Hai Doo, the laundry worker from the former Burma, thought the home ownership program was too good to be true. Matching grants converted his $5,000 in savings into a $24,000 down payment on a house. Most of the money came from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, which is required to spend some of its profits on housing aid.
“I never thought I would get help like this,” he said.
The flip side of the Arizona story includes the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who courts a national following by advertising his toughness toward illegal immigrants. (“The rumor is I could run for president,” he said in a recent interview.)
Mr. Arpaio conducts frequent raids on immigrant neighborhoods, stopping people for minor infractions and reviewing their immigration status. He says these raids have netted hundreds of illegal immigrants. Critics say they spread fear and harass legal residents. Victor Acevedo, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said he was stopped in January after failing to use his turn signal and was found with a small amount of marijuana. He is now awaiting deportation in one of Mr. Arpaio’s famed prison tents, dressed in the standard outfit: black stripes and pink underwear.
In a tent-side interview in 107-degree heat, Mr. Acevedo, 29, said he came nine years ago for a “better livelihood,” found a landscaping job, married an American and had two American-born sons. He was deported in 2008 but returned a year later to be with his family.
“We’re here illegally, but we’re still human beings,” he said.
Refugees seem slow to sympathize. The two groups often compete for jobs or housing, and some refugees say Latino gangs have preyed on them.
The United States “stands for law and order,” said Wissam Salman, 35, a hotel housekeeper from Iraq. “If they don’t look for these people it will be a disaster.”
Ibrahim Swara-Dahab, the Sudanese goat farmer, agrees.
“I have some problems with the Mexican people; they stole my goats,” he said. “If they don’t have documents, they should go back to their country.”
Mr. Swara-Dahab acknowledged that he, too, crossed a border illegally when he fled to Kenya but called that a matter of life and death. “Here, the situation is different,” he said. “You need documents.”
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/10/11/20101011Chandler-police-decapitated-man-arrest.html
Open borders kill.
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http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/10/eric-holder-was-unavailable-for-comment.html
Eric Holder Was Unavailable for Comment
Remember when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was ridiculed for saying headless bodies were being found in the desert? Well, now they're turning up in the Phoenix area. It's curious how the Democrats aren't running against her this election cycle. They obviously realize what a losing issue they support. Speaking of losers, has anyone seen Eric Holder lately?
The gruesome case of a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment has police investigating whether the killing is potentially the most extreme example of Mexican drug cartel violence spilling over the border.
Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy's body was found Oct. 10 in a Chandler apartment -- his severed head a couple feet away. One man suspected in the killing has been arrested, and a manhunt is under way for three others.
Detectives are focused on whether the men belong to a Mexican drug cartel, and they suspect that Cota-Monroy's killing was punishment for stealing drugs. The brutal nature of the killing could be designed to send a message to others within the cartel.
"If it does turn out to be a drug cartel out of Mexico, typically that's a message being sent," said Chandler police Detective David Ramer. "This person was chosen to be executed. It sends a message to other people: If you cross us, this is what happens."
Decapitations are a regular part of the drug war in Mexico as cartels fight over territory. Headless bodies have been hanged from bridges by their feet, severed heads have been sent to victims' family members and government officials, and bags of up to 12 heads have been dropped off in high-profile locations.
More than 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers to battle the cartels in their strongholds.
If the suspects in the Arizona case belong to a cartel, the crime could be the only known beheading in the U.S. carried out by a drug cartel, said Tony Payan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has done extensive research about border violence.
The killing could also affect the immigration debate in Arizona. Supporters of the state's controversial immigration law frequently cite this type of violence as reason to crack down on illegal immigrants. The decapitation victim and the suspects were all illegal immigrants.
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer drew criticism this year for claiming that headless bodies were being found in the Arizona desert as she sought to bolster her argument for immigration reform. She later backtracked on those claims, but said such violence in the broader border region is cause enough for alarm.
The killing has unnerved residents in the neighborhood and apartment complex where Cota-Monroy was killed.
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On a cheerier note there is a new Chinese foot massage place in the neighborhood with AWESOME foot/body massages for one hour for $20. I took my Pretty Kitty there yesterday and scored huge points 8-)
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I don't get it.....
Illegal immigrants can qualify for in-state college tuition, court rules
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-illegal-students-20101116,0,2917015.story
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It is too late to stop illegals in Cal. The game appears over in California. The invasion is a success.
The rest of the Southwest is next.
Crats couldn't be happier.
Cans are too afraid to do anything.
Legal and free residents are the losers.
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JDN:
Agreed. This is madness.
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Of course we could persuade most ot them to be Republicans. Yeah right.
****Michelle Malkin Lead StoryDREAM Act scorecard: The GOP Senate fence-sitters
By Michelle Malkin • November 18, 2010 09:39 AM
Yesterday, I published a target phone list of GOP Senators for the upcoming stand-alone vote on the DREAM Act/Illegal Alien Student Bailout.
I’ve polled Republican Senate offices and you should know that many open-borders squishes remain on the fence about this Obama/Reid down payment on blanket illegal alien amnesty. That’s right. The following GOP Senators haven’t made up their mind on whether they should oppose a bill that amounts to a 2.1 million future Democrat voter recruitment drive. Know your fence-sitters:
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN 202-224-2235; 480-897-6289: Staff says he “hasn’t made a public statement” and “hasn’t made up his mind.” He talked a tough border security game to get re-elected, while promising illegal alien activists he would “resolve their issues.” (Refresh your memories here.)
Arizona, you chose to re-elect him. You get what you deserve.
SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE 202-224-5344; 207-874-0883: Staff says she “hasn’t released a statement.”
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS 202-224-2523; 207-945-0417: Staff says she “hasn’t released a public statement.”
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI 202-224-6665; 907-271-3735: Staff says she’s “still reviewing the bill.”
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK 202-224-6521; 785-233-2503 Staff says he “hasn’t had a chance to look at it” and remains non-committal.
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON 202-224-5922; 214-361-3500: Staff says she “hasn’t released a statement,” but will probably do so later today.
SEN. GEORGE LEMIEUX 202-224-3041; 904-398-8586: Recorded message informs callers that he’s “in a meeting.” He has yet to publicly state his position as open-borders extremists step up pressure.
***
FYI: The following GOP Senators who had been of concern say they are opposed to the stand-along DREAM Act:
SEN. SCOTT BROWN: Staff says he “does not support ANY taxpayer illegal alien amnesty bills,” including the DREAM Act.
SEN. MIKE JOHANNS: Opposed the DREAM Act. Period.
SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH: Opposed.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH: A former DREAM Act champion, he is now opposed.
***
SEN. JUDD GREGG: Staff says he is a likely no vote.
***
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR, an original co-sponsor of the DREAM Act amnesty, remains a staunch supporter.
***
Your voice and your calls count. Make yourselves heard.
***
Yesterday, I mentioned GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions’ alert on the DREAM Act dangers. Here is the full memo. Spread the word and make sure your Senators know where you stand.
Ten Things You Need To Know About S.3827, The DREAM Act
1. The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children, And It Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard Working, Law-Abiding Americans
Proponents of the DREAM Act frequently claim the bill offers relief only to illegal alien “kids.” Incredibly, previous versions of the DREAM Act had no age limit at all, so illegal aliens of any age who satisfied the Act’s requirements—not just children—could obtain lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. In response to this criticism, S.3827 includes a requirement that aliens be under the age of 35 on the date of enactment to be eligible for LPR status. Even with this cap, many aliens would be at least 41 years old before obtaining full LPR status under the Act—hardly the “kids” the Act’s advocates keep talking about.
The DREAM Act requires that DHS/USCIS process all DREAM Act applications (applications that would require complex, multi-step adjudication) without being able to increase fees to handle processing. This mandate would require either additional Congressional appropriations, or for USCIS, a primarily fee-funded agency, to raise fees on other types of immigration benefit applications. This would unfairly spread the cost of administering the DREAM Act legalization program among applicants and petitioners who have abided by U.S. laws and force taxpayers to pay for amnesty. Taxpayers would also be on the hook for all Federal benefits the DREAM Act seeks to offer illegal aliens, including student loans and grants.
2. The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application
Although DREAM Act proponents claim it will benefit only those who meet certain age, presence, and educational requirements, amazingly the Act protects ANY alien who simply submits an application for status no matter how frivolous. The bill forbids the Secretary of Homeland Security from removing “any alien who has a pending application for conditional status” under the DREAM Act—regardless of age or criminal record—providing a safe harbor for all illegal aliens. This loophole will open the floodgates for applications that could stay pending for many years or be litigated as a delay tactic to prevent the illegal aliens’ removal from the United States. The provision will further erode any chances of ending the rampant illegality and fraud in the existing system.
3. Certain Criminal Aliens Will Be Eligible For Amnesty Under The DREAM Act
Certain categories of criminal aliens will be eligible for the DREAM Act amnesty, including alien gang members and aliens with misdemeanor convictions, even DUIs. The DREAM Act allows illegal aliens guilty of the following offenses to be eligible for amnesty: alien absconders (aliens who failed to attend their removal proceedings), aliens who have engaged in voter fraud or unlawfully voted, aliens who have falsely claimed U.S. citizenship, aliens who have abused their student visas, and aliens who have committed marriage fraud. Additionally, illegal aliens who pose a public health risk, aliens who have been permanently barred from obtaining U.S. citizenship, and aliens who are likely to become a public charge are also eligible.
4. Estimates Suggest That At Least 2.1 Million Illegal Aliens Will Be Eligible For the DREAM Act Amnesty. In Reality, We Have No Idea How Many Illegal Aliens Will Apply
Section 4(d) of the DREAM Act waives all numerical limitations on green cards, and prohibits any numerical limitation on the number of aliens eligible for amnesty under its provisions. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the DREAM Act will make approximately 2.1 million illegal aliens eligible for amnesty. It is highly likely that the number of illegal aliens receiving amnesty under the DREAM Act will be much higher than the estimated 2.1 million due to fraud and our inherent inability to accurately estimate the illegal alien population. Clearly, the message sent by the DREAM Act will be that if any young person can enter the country illegally, within 5 years, they will be placed on a path to citizenship.
5. Illegal Aliens Will Get In-State Tuition Benefits
The DREAM Act will allow illegal aliens to qualify for in-state tuition, even when it is not being offered to U.S. citizens and legally present aliens living just across state lines. Section 3 of the DREAM Act repeals Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1623) which prohibits giving education benefits to an unlawfully present individual unless that same benefit is offered to all U.S. citizens.
6. The DREAM Act Does Not Require That An Illegal Alien Finish Any Type of Degree (Vocational, Two-Year, or Bachelor’s Degree) As A Condition of Amnesty
DREAM Act supporters would have you believe that the bill is intended to benefit illegal immigrants who have graduated from high school and are on their way to earning college degrees. However, the bill is careful to ensure that illegal alien high school drop-outs will also be put on a pathway to citizenship – they simply have to get a GED and be admitted to “an institution of higher education,” defined by the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Under the Higher Education Act, an “institution of higher education” includes institutions that provide 2-year programs (community colleges) and any “school that provides not less than a 1-year program of training to prepare students for gainful employment” (a vocational school). Within 8 years of the initial grant of status, the alien must prove only that they finished 2 years of a bachelor’s degree program, not that they completed any program or earned any degree.
If the alien is unable to complete 2 years of college but can demonstrate that their removal would result in hardship to themselves or their U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, child, or parent, the education requirement can be waived altogether.
7. The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien serve in the military as a condition for amnesty, and There is ALREADY A Legal Process In Place For Illegal Aliens to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Through Military Service
DREAM Act supporters would have you believe that illegal aliens who don’t go to college will earn their citizenship through service in the U.S. Armed Forces. However, the bill does not require aliens to join the U.S. Armed Forces (the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard); instead it requires enlistment in the “uniformed services.” This means that aliens need only go to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Public Health Service for 2 years to get U.S. citizenship. If the alien is unable to complete 2 years in the “uniformed services,” and can demonstrate that their removal would result in hardship to themselves or their U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, child, or parent, the military service requirement can be waived altogether. Such claims will likely engender much litigation and place a huge burden on DHS.
Furthermore, under current law (10 USC § 504), the Secretary of Defense can authorize the enlistment of illegal aliens. Once enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces, under 8 USC § 1440, these illegal aliens can become naturalized citizens through expedited processing, often obtaining U.S. citizenship in six months.
8. Despite Their Current Illegal Status, DREAM Act Aliens Will Be Given All The Rights That Legal Immigrants Receive—Including The Legal Right To Sponsor Their Parents and Extended Family Members For Immigration
Under current federal law, U.S. citizens have the right to immigrate their “immediate relatives” to the U.S. without regard to numerical caps. Similarly, lawful permanent residents can immigrate their spouses and children to the U.S. as long as they retain their status. This means illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the DREAM Act will have the right to immigrate their family members—including the parents who sent for or brought them to the U.S. illegally in the first place—in unlimited numbers as soon as they become U.S. citizens (6 to 8 years after enactment) and are 21 years of age.
Additionally, amnestied aliens who become U.S. citizens will be able to petition for their adult siblings living abroad to immigrate to the U.S., further incentivizing chain migration and potentially illegal entry into the United States (for those who don’t want to wait for the petition process overseas). When an adult brother or sister receives a green card, the family (spouse and children) of the adult sibling receive green cards as well.
9. Current Illegal Aliens Will Get Federal Student Loans, Federal Work Study Programs, and Other Forms of Federal Financial Aid
Section 10 of the DREAM Act allows illegal aliens amnestied under the bill’s provisions to qualify for federal student assistance under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.) in the form of federal student loans (Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans, Federal Direct Stafford/Ford Loans), federal work-study programs, and other federal education services such as tutoring and counseling.
10. DHS Is Prohibited From Using the Information Provided By Illegal Aliens Whose DREAM Act Amnesty Applications Are Denied To Initiate Their Removal Proceedings or Investigate or Prosecute Fraud in the Application Process
When an illegal alien’s DREAM Act amnesty application is denied, the bill states that the alien will revert to their “previous immigration status,” which is likely illegal or deportable. The bill, however, prohibits using any of the information contained in the amnesty application (name, address, length of illegal presence that the alien admits to, etc) to initiate a removal proceeding or investigate or prosecute fraud in the application process. Thus, it will be extremely hard for DHS to remove aliens who they now know are illegally present in the U.S., because illegal aliens will be able to claim that the legal action is a product of the amnesty application, and DHS will have the nearly impossible task of proving a negative.****
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Out of wedlock, out of luck?
The court should rule that unwed mothers and unwed fathers be treated identically.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-citizens-20101123,0,102.story
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Woof,
An update on the border agent murder; the government doesn't seem to be interested in giving out the details on what they are calling a criminal gang that killed the agent. Trust me if they were U.S. citizens or immigrants here legally they would be falling over themselves to get that out. They are actively protecting their intentional efforts to keep our border unsecured and our immigration laws unenforced and they don't want any blowback from the consequences of that.
www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/12/18/20101218border-roberts1218.html (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/12/18/20101218border-roberts1218.html)
P.C.
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They couldn't do it without the help of the media, luckily for them, the media won't push any story that doesn't further the pro-illegal alien agenda.
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Or this:
"Border Patrol Agent Terry and the BORTAC team were under standing orders to always use ("non-lethal") bean-bag rounds first before using live ammunition. When the smugglers heard the first rounds, they returned fire with real bullets, and Agent Terry was killed in that exchange. Real bullets outperform bean bags every time."
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WTF??!
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Moving discussion from education thread to here I found this on illegals in military. It is from 2005. I am not clear how prevalent it is but it certainly occurs and obviously the military is not going to come clean publically with this so no one knows for sure, I doubt anyone is seriously looking into this with any real diigence.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-09-27/news/marines-looking-for-a-few-good-aliens/
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Reforms made since that article stopped my wife from enlisting. When she first tried to enlist, she was here legally but had not yet been issued her permanent resident alien card "green card". After getting her green card, she started processing when her Social Security number came up as belonging to a non-resident alien, because she had been a non-resident when she had it issued because she was lawfully employed (work permit). When she was issued her green card, the SSA never adjusted the status on her SSN. By the time she got that sorted out, other opportunities came up so she did not end up enlisting.
Dealing with the INS/USCIS and other federal entities when you are a "legal" is a nightmare.
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I think most on this forum, myself included think illegal immigration needs to be stopped.
But it's not an easy problem to solve.
The Obama administration on Friday ended a high-tech border fence project that cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but did little to improve security. Congress ordered the high-tech fence along the border with Mexico in 2006 amid a clamor over the porous border, but it yielded only 53 miles of protection.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-border-security-virtual-fence,0,4815402.story
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Not difficult at all. Put sufficent troops/national guard along the border.
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If most people who come to this country illegally and their children were potential Republicans and not Democrats we would see the entire military on the border.
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Woof ccp,
I can follow your logic there but the reality is that the controlling Republican leadership hasn't been anymore willing to seal that border or deport illegals or prosecute employers or go after sanctuary cities or bring pressure on the Mexican government anymore than the Dem's. They pay lip service to NATIONAL SECURITY, HUMAN SMUGGLING, DRUG TRAFFICKING, ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIMINALS, AND THE COST TO THE AMERICAN WORKER AND TAXPAYER AND THE VALUE OF CITIZENSHIP. Not to mention they allow all of this while ignoring the will of the majority of Americans, that just want them to do their F'in job!
P.C.
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The two points are not mutually exclusive. IMHO both CCP and PC are correct.
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Woof,
And thus the beat goes on with 20 million illegal aliens and counting......
P.C.
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JDN's piont moved here:
"Still, here in America my Japanese, Korean, or Chinese friends, although they are have become naturalized citizens, often still refer to themselves
as Korean, etc. or I might call them "Korean". I don't think an offense is taken either way. I think the first generation always has one leg in the country of their birth and one
in America, their adopted country. It's understandable."
As a doctor many of my colleagues are from somewhere else. I think more than half of doctors in NJ are Indian, Pakistan, Arab, Asian.
Yes we generally get along yet I am never quite sure how they actually think about America or for me, Jews.
Some if not many or most would be the first to tell me America is still the best place in the world. But what about the ones who harbor a dislike or even hatred of Americans or Jews? Of course they aren't going to tell me. Are some of them sending money to Jihadists? Or some of them sympathetic with the WTC bombers?
Are some of the Chinese sending intellectual property back to China? There is NO doubt some are. But which ones.
I wouldn't know. I couldn't know. I know only one thing. As an elderly retired dentist once told my mother decades ago while we were walking down to the corner stores, "one never knows what is going on in the back of a man's mind!"
I never forgot him saying that.
One Pakistani physician whose son was almost killed when that lady was assinated in Pakistan told me these Jhadists and trouble makers are crazy. They used to be mostly in the western part of the country but now they are everywhere. And he said the problem is one can not know who is who or who is loyal to what. Even they can't tell what the other ones are doing or thinking.
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What I've observed from first gen immigrants is a true appreciation of how good America is. Those born here tend to be complacent about our freedoms and standard of living.
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As far as JDN's post, most every country is founded on a shared race, ethnicity, religion. The US was founded on a set of ideas.
On the topic of race, east asians tend to make a Klansman from the deep south look liberal. Japan is no exception.
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2007/09/117_9419.html
Koreans Reassess Concept of Blood Purity
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
A heated debate is mounting over the term ``blood purity'' as the United Nations advised the Korean government to refrain from using the term.
____________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.amazon.com/Cleanest-Race-Koreans-Themselves-Matters/dp/1933633913
A particularly nasty strain of racist propaganda has enabled North Korea's dictatorship to maintain power, according to this fascinating cultural survey. An American-born, South Korea-based instructor of North Korean literature, Myers (A Reader's Manifesto) combines his cultural and linguistic fluency with sharp analysis to throw light on one of the world's most closed-off cultures. Examining North Korean books, news broadcasts, and films, Myers finds that the country's supremacist propaganda can be traced to imperial Japan, which sought to convince Koreans that they were part of the "world's purest race." Myers acidly discredits Western interpretations of North Korea as "hard-line communist" or "Confucian," noting the prevalence of maternal rather than paternal imagery and the societal scorn for the former Soviet bloc. Esoteric cultural markers-e.g., the heavy use of flashbacks in film and literature-are mined for compelling clues to the North Korean sensibility. Myers' greatest feat is his explanation of how the regime has maintained power despite its failures in almost every area of governance-how it has convinced average North Korean citizens that shipments of U.S. food aid, for example, are actually reparations for past "Yankee" crimes. A sharp and smart introduction to one of the world's most secretive societies.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/21/china.race/?imw=Y
Shanghai, China (CNN) -- It all started with the lure of the glitz, the glamour and the dream of being China's next pop star. But, as with many reality shows, Lou Jing's instant fame came with unanticipated consequences.
Lou Jing was born 20 years ago in Shanghai to a Chinese mother and an African-American father. According to her mother, who asked not to be identified in this report, she met Lou's father while she was still in college. He left China before their daughter was born.
Growing up with a single mom in central Shanghai, Lou Jing said she had good friends and lived a normal life. "When I was young, I didn't feel any different," she said.
But as soon as she stepped into the national spotlight on a Chinese reality television show called "Go! Oriental Angel," Lou Jing became a national sensation -- not necessarily because of her talent, but how she looked.
"After the contest started, I often got more attention than the other girls. It made me feel strange," Lou said.
The reality show hosts fondly called her "chocolate girl" and "black pearl." The Chinese media fixated on her skin color. Netizens flooded Web sites with comments saying she "never should have been born" and telling her to "get out of China."
Lou Jing's background became fodder for national gossip, sparking a vitriolic debate about race across a country that, in many respects, can be quite homogenous. There are 56 different recognized ethnic groups in China, but more than 90 percent of the population is Han Chinese. So people who look different stand out.
"We lived in a small circle before," said her mother. "But after Lou was seen nationwide, some Chinese people couldn't accept her."
It has been a shocking ordeal for someone who says she always considered herself just like every other Chinese girl.
"Sometimes people on the street would ask me, 'Why do you speak Chinese so well?' I'd just say, 'Because I'm Chinese!'" Lou said.
But, as any curious child would, Lou Jing certainly thought about why she looked different. In a clip reel aired on the show, her classmates say they tried to protect her from feeling out of place.
"She used to wonder why she had black skin," said one classmate. "We thought about this question together and decided to tell her it's because she likes dark chocolate. So her skin turned darker gradually."
Another classmate weighed in, "We said it's because she used to drink too much soy sauce."
Even Lou Jing's maternal grandmother admitted in a taped interview, "I told Lou Jing she was black because her mom was not very well and had to take Chinese medicine."
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CCP said, "As a doctor many of my colleagues are from somewhere else. I think more than half of doctors in NJ are Indian, Pakistan, Arab, Asian.
Yes we generally get along yet I am never quite sure how they actually think about America or for me, Jews."
I'm making a broad generalization, but in my experience most educated foreigners who work here have a positive attitude towards America. The "Land of opportunity".
As for their attitude towards Jews, again making a broad generalization, I think there is admiration. Most Jews I know are successful, hard working, value education and academics, make money, love their God, value family, and as a general rule, avoid violent crime. Attributes successful foreigners all admire. And I have told this time after time by successful foreigners; they respect Jews in general. I wouldn't worry CCP what your foreign colleagues here in America think. Frankly, I think we need more educated bright foreigners here in America and less day laborers.
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Arriving as Pregnant Tourists, Leaving With American Babies
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: March 28, 2011
SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — The building inspectors and police officers walked into the small row of connected town houses here knowing something was amiss. Neighbors had complained about noise and a lot of pregnant women coming and going. And when they went into a kitchen they saw a row of clear bassinets holding several infants, with a woman acting as a nurse hovering over them.
For months, officials say, the house was home to “maternity tourists,” in this case, women from China who had paid tens of thousands of dollars to deliver their babies in the United States, making the infants automatic American citizens. Officials shut down the home, sending the 10 mothers who had been living there with their babies to nearby motels.
“These were not women living in squalor — it was a well taken care of place and clean, but there were a lot of women and babies,” said Clayton Anderson, a city inspector who shut down the house on March 9. “I have never seen anything like this before. We really couldn’t determine the exact number of people living there.”
For the last year, the debate over birthright citizenship has raged across the country, with some political leaders calling for an end to the 14th Amendment, which gives automatic citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Much of the debate has focused on immigrants entering illegally from poor countries in Latin America. But in this case the women were not only relatively wealthy, but also here legally on tourist visas. Most of them, officials say, have already returned to China with their American babies.
Immigration experts say it is impossible to know precisely how widespread “maternity tourism” is. Businesses in China, Mexico and South Korea advertise packages that arrange for doctors, insurance and postpartum care. And the Marmara, a Turkish-owned hotel on the Upper East Side in New York City, has advertised monthlong “baby stays” that come with a stroller.
For the most part, though, the practice has involved individuals. The discovery of the large-scale facility here in the San Gabriel foothills raises questions about whether it was a rare phenomenon or an indication that maternity tourism is entering a new, more institutionalized phase with more hospital-like facilities operating quietly around the country.
The San Gabriel town houses are nestled in a small street lined with modest houses, small apartment buildings and palm trees. A construction crew was at work late last week, closing up walls that had been knocked down between units, in violation of the housing code.
Signs of a makeshift maternity house were evident everywhere. In one kitchen, stacks of pictures showing a mother holding her days-old baby sat next to several cans of formula. In another, boxes of prenatal vitamins were tucked into rice cookers. Several bedroom doors had numbers on them. Some rooms were rather luxurious — B9, for instance, had a large walk-in closet, a whirlpool and a small personal refrigerator.
The Center for Health Care Statistics estimates that there were 7,462 births to foreign residents in the United States in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That is a small fraction of the roughly 4.3 million total births that year.
Immigration experts say they can only guess why well-to-do Chinese women are so eager to get United States passports for their babies, but they suspect it is largely as a kind of insurance policy should they need to move. The children, once they turn 21, would also be able to petition for their parents to get United States citizenship.
Angela Maria Kelley, the vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning research group, said the existence of businesses helping foreign women give birth in the United States had only just begun to enter the public consciousness.
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“If this is something that was really widespread and happening all over, you would have expected it to really have revealed itself,” Ms. Kelley said. “I think it deserves a lot more study and a lot more attention. But to say that you want to change the Constitution because of this feels like killing a fly with an Uzi.”
The State Department, which grants tourist visas, is not permitted to deny visa applications simply because a woman is pregnant.
“These people aren’t doing anything in violation of our laws,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tougher immigration controls. “But if anything, it is worse than illegal immigrants delivering a baby here. Those kids are socialized as Americans. This phenomenon of coming to the U.S. and then leaving with people who have unlimited access to come back is just ridiculous.”
San Gabriel, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles, has grown rapidly in recent years and is now a hub of businesses catering to Asian immigrants — tea shops fill the strip malls and for-sale signs in Chinese and Vietnamese are planted in front of several homes.
Mr. Anderson said a kind of “semitransient” community had a strong presence in this suburb. It is not uncommon for a single residence to be home to as many as 40 people. But as in other cities, the boarders are usually men, often working to send money to their families back home.
City officials asked basic questions to the women they found in the maternity house: how did they get here and who paid for them to come? The answers: on a tourist visa, and our family paid. The house’s owner, Dwight Chang, was fined $800 for code violations. Mr. Chang did not return several phone calls, and one worker at the building said he was traveling and not available.
“We didn’t do an extensive interview of the women; that wasn’t their job nor should it be,” said Jennifer Davis, the director of community development for the city. The city did alert public health officials, she said, who found nothing wrong with the babies.
Ms. Davis said city officials had also alerted the immigration authorities. Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency had investigated a similar situation in another Southern California city last year, but it yielded no evidence of any federal violations. She declined to say whether federal officials were investigating the San Gabriel operation, citing agency policy.
Yolanda Alvarez, who walks her dog past the town houses twice each day, said neighbors had complained among themselves for nearly a year, noticing “many, many young women” going in and out of the house.
Several pictures of a nurse posing with new mothers were scattered on the counters Friday. A framed tile was collecting dust amid the construction. “Home,” it said, “is where your story begins.”
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The problem isn't the 14th, it's the common misinterpretation of it.
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Remarkable how the liberals have their heads on backwards. The liberal media will go after ARizona for trying to enforce the borders when the Feds will not. Yet when San Fran refuses to cooperate with the Feds in *enforcing* illegal immigration not a peep from the MSM. No doubt if illegals were predominantly potential Republicans we would hear the outrage broadcasted coast to coast. And of course here it comes. The phoney One, is now going to Texas for his "reform" immigration tour to garner more votes. Without Fox would any of us ever heard of this. "Immigration reform" = code for secrue more Democrat voters:
***San Francisco to Stop Detaining Arrested Immigrants for Deportation
Published May 07, 2011
| In this July 26, 2010 photo,Senior Deputy Jerry Anttila looks at a set of fingerprints for an unidentified suspect during the booking process at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in Centennial, Colo. (AP)
San Francisco, one of the first sanctuary cities in the nation, plans to end its cooperation with federal immigration officials and start releasing illegal immigrants arrested for minor offenses before they can be picked up for deportation.
The city's decision is the latest development in a tug of war between several communities and the federal government over its controversial national program that automatically checks the immigration status of arrestees.
Officials in jurisdictions including Providence, R.I., and Chicago have also challenged the program, which they say undermines trust that it has taken local law enforcement years to build in immigrant communities.
California and Illinois lawmakers are considering measures to let communities retreat from the so-called "Secure Communities" program, which links up the FBI's criminal database and the Department of Homeland Security's records so that every time someone is arrested their immigration status is automatically, electronically checked.
Washington state has deferred to local governments on whether they want to join program overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
But their efforts could be thwarted as federal officials argue that states have no control over what information is shared among federal agencies.
In the absence of a nationwide fix on immigration, the tension between states and the federal government has been simmering in recent years. In the last four years, states have passed a flurry of bills and resolutions on issues ranging from employer verification to access to driver's licenses, most notably Arizona's tough local immigration enforcement law.
Immigrant advocates have lambasted ICE's fingerprint sharing program for sweeping up crime victims and witnesses who are arrested during an investigation in addition to those accused of committing a crime. About 29 percent of the 102,000 immigrants deported under the program since it began in 2008 have no criminal conviction, according to federal government statistics.
Between October 2008 and March 2011, more than 7 million people who have been arrested have had their fingerprints run through the ICE program. Roughly 197,000 were identified as suspected illegal immigrants, and nearly 40 percent of those were in California, according to statistics provided by ICE.
In San Francisco, Sheriff Michael Hennessey told the San Francisco Examiner he is making the change effective June 1 to comply with the city's sanctuary ordinance.
The law, which has caused tension between local and federal authorities, prohibits officials from assisting ICE in cases that do not involve felonies.
The city currently keeps low-level offenders ICE has identified as illegal immigrants through fingerprints until immigration officials collect them. The Examiner reports that 111 inmates were detained for deportation between last June and February.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told the newspaper that Hennessey's decision was unfortunate.
Immigration attorney Francisco Hernandez told Fox News on Saturday that the city still has to hold suspects for 72 hours if federal immigration officials ask.
"That is the law," he said. "The question is whether they are going to be reporting people that are committing speeding tickets or small violations rather than the felonies or criminal people that should be deported under the criminal alien program."
Hernandez said that approach is the one being used across the country.
But Mike Cutter, a former senior special agent for the now defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), sought to highlight the significance of the program by estimating that about half of the FBI's 10 most wanted get arrested for motor vehicle violations.
"If you have somebody in custody who is an illegal alien, it's important that immigration does get notified," he said, arguing that the debate is minimizing the reason for immigration laws in the first place. He said the law lists categories of illegal immigrants that cross the border because they know they couldn't get through the inspections process, including terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, human rights violators and war criminals.
"So if you have somebody who ran the border, somebody whose presence is illegal and you have them in custody, it's in everyone's best interest, including the people in the immigrant communities who very often fall victim to criminal aliens, to have ICE pick them and let ICE make a determination as to whether or not these folks are a priority to remove," he said.
But Hernandez said law enforcement does not have the resources to arrest everyone stopped for a speeding ticket.
"We have to focus our resources on things that are more serious and people that have actual criminal warrants for serious offenses," he said.
The debate over the ICE program is playing out across the country as federal authorities aim to achieve nationwide coverage in 2013. It currently is in effect in more than 1,200 jurisdictions in 42 states.
Immigration officials say the goal is to ensure illegal immigrants who commit crimes are flagged and deported. Nationwide, about 26 percent of those deported under program have been convicted of major drug offenses or violent crimes.
Some communities have welcomed the program as a cost savings measure and a way to ensure illegal immigrants who commit crimes are not released back into their neighborhoods. In Colorado, for example, lawmakers were considering a measure to withhold funding from localities that refused to participate, but it failed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.***
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Showing latest available data. Rank States Amount
# 1 California: 2,209,000
# 2 Texas: 1,041,000
# 3 New York: 489,000
# 4 Illinois: 432,000
# 5 Florida: 337,000
# 6 Arizona: 283,000
# 7 Georgia: 228,000
# 8 New Jersey: 221,000
# 9 North Carolina: 206,000
# 10 Colorado: 144,000
# 11 Washington: 136,000
# 12 Virginia: 103,000
# 13 Nevada: 101,000
# 14 Oregon: 90,000
# 15 Massachusetts: 87,000
# 16 Michigan: 70,000
# 17 Utah: 65,000
# 18 Minnesota: 60,000
# 19 Maryland: 56,000
# 20 Pennsylvania: 49,000
# 21 Kansas: 47,000
= 22 Tennessee: 46,000
= 22 Oklahoma: 46,000
# 24 Indiana: 45,000
# 25 Wisconsin: 41,000
# 26 Ohio: 40,000
= 27 Connecticut: 39,000
= 27 New Mexico: 39,000
# 29 South Carolina: 36,000
# 30 Arkansas: 27,000
= 31 Alabama: 24,000
= 31 Iowa: 24,000
= 31 Nebraska: 24,000
# 34 Missouri: 22,000
# 35 Idaho: 19,000
# 36 Rhode Island: 16,000
# 37 Kentucky: 15,000
# 38 Delaware: 10,000
# 39 Mississippi: 8,000
# 40 District of Columbia: 7,000
= 41 Louisiana: 5,000
= 41 Alaska: 5,000
# 43 Hawaii: 2,000
Total: 6,994,000
Weighted average: 162,651.2
DEFINITION: Estimated number of Illegal Immigrants. Latest available data - 2000 Census. Eight other States --Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming --each had fewer than 2,500 estimated unauthorized residents in 1990 and 2000. The US Citizenship ad Immigration Services also highlights that the illegal immigrant population in America grows by approximatley a half a million each year. Taken into account, the current illegal immigrant population is between 9 and 11 million people.
SOURCE: US Citizenship and Immigration Services, field report, 2000.
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http://immigration.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000845
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Those numbers are very interesting but too bad they are year 2000, more than a decade old, telling us everything except recent and current trends. I am guessing that the 2010 did not differentiate illegals, counting them same as citizens for representation, and therefore we will never have an update with similar accuracy or undercount.
Note how quickly the numbers drop from the problem areas in 2000. By 2010 I would guess that many of those migrated further in to other states for jobs (or welfare and public services) while many many new ones were entering Calif, TX, AZ, etc.
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Woof,
Obama has the solution to the illegal immigration problem; just make it legal. Of course he has a very highminded humanitarian reason and justification for just making it all go away, he wants the hispanic vote so he can continue to run the nation into the ground in furtherance of his Liberal agenda. States and their citizens who simply want our laws enforced and a secure border have been mocked by the President by his putting forth the false premise that Republicans want to return all 14 million illegal aliens back to their homelands overnight. It took 30 years for things to get this bad and things are going to quickly continue to get worse under the President's plan. He always forgets to mention that if these 14 million obtain legal status they will in time be able to bring the rest of their families in as well. Mom, dad, little sis and suddenly 14 turns into 30 million+. On top of that there's little likelyhood that any new laws will be enforced or the border secured any better than the old ones, so expect a continual flow of more illegal aliens that will be given legal status as well somewhere down the road.
How about this Mr. President, seal the border now so that no new illegals can get in or deported ones come back, start fully enforcing our laws, prosecuting employers and start today and deal with each individual that's here illegally, deporting them one at a time and continue to do this from now on. You've already proved with your targeted round ups that enforcement works. I don't think it will even take thirty years and at the very least things won't continue to get worse; of course you'll have to give up that small percentage of the hispanic vote that thinks Mexico still owns most of the U.S. but you'll get my vote and a whole lot more from those that think American citizenship is valuable and that our sovereignty is important to safeguard. Oh, but that's right, your not interested in my vote or representing the majority of American citizens and our Republic, are you?
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42965563/ns/politics (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42965563/ns/politics)
P.C.
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Woof,
The President wants transparency and wants the public to know what's really going on and not be fooled by those evil Conservatives, so why hasn't he been talking about this while he's out champaigning on the taxpayers dime?
www.usillegalaliens.com/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration.html (http://www.usillegalaliens.com/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration.html)
Maybe he's not aware of the problem, so maybe we should all go to www.whitehouse.gov/contact (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact) and send him this url. :wink:
P.C.
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Finally, a small and fair step in the right direction; employers can and should be held accountable.
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has sustained Arizona's law that penalizes businesses for hiring workers who are in the United States illegally, rejecting arguments that states have no role in immigration matters.
By a 5-3 vote, the court said Thursday that federal immigration law gives states the authority to impose sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized workers.
The decision upholding the validity of the 2007 law comes as the state is appealing a ruling that blocked key components of a second, more controversial Arizona immigration enforcement law. Thursday's decision applies only to business licenses and does not signal how the high court might rule if the other law comes before it.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a majority made up of Republican-appointed justices, said the Arizona's employer sanctions law "falls well within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the states."
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, all Democratic appointees, dissented. The fourth Democratic appointee, Justice Elena Kagan, did not participate in the case because she worked on it while serving as President Barack Obama's solicitor general
Breyer said the Arizona law upsets a balance in federal law between dissuading employers from hiring illegal workers and ensuring that people are not discriminated against because they may speak with an accent or look like they might be immigrants.
Employers "will hesitate to hire those they fear will turn out to lack the right to work in the United States," he said.
.Business interests and civil liberties groups challenged the law, backed by the Obama administration.
The measure was signed into law in 2007 by Democrat Janet Napolitano, then the governor of Arizona and now the administration's Homeland Security secretary.
The employer sanctions law has been only infrequently used. It was intended to diminish Arizona's role as the nation's hub for immigrant smuggling by requiring employers to verify the eligibility of new workers through a federal database. Employers found to have violated the law can have their business licenses suspended or revoked.
Lower courts, including the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, previously upheld the law.
The case is Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 09-115.
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Good news!
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"The debate about immigration reform tends to focus on catching illegal immigrants like those in the smugglers' trucks at the U.S. border, by measures like more fencing or more Border Patrol agents. But the most effective way to reduce illegal immigration is to reduce the demand for the labor of illegal immigrants."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/19/lind.immigration/index.html?iref=obnetwork
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If you require on a state level, proof of legal status for employment or goverment goodies, you'll see many illegals self-deport.
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"If you require on a state level, proof of legal status for employment or government goodies, you'll see many illegals self-deport."
GM, If we had a rule like that and applied it evenly to all employers, all employees and all applicants, wouldn't that be discriminatory? :wink:
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Just like those monsters that think only Americans should vote in American elections. :-o
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"Just like those monsters that think only Americans should vote in American elections."
We are halfway there. Did we not just grant them all representation in the 2010 census?
http://www.city-data.com/forum/illegal-immigration/809069-senate-rejected-2010-census-citizenship-question.html
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/censusandaliens.htm
"Why the Census Should Count Illegal Aliens
A Matter of Money
Not counting illegal aliens costs cities and states federal money, resulting in a reduction of services to all residents. The census count is used by Congress in deciding how to distribute more than $400 billion annually to state, local and tribal governments. The formula is simple: the greater the population your state or city reports, the more federal money it might get." [And representation"
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That's the game, Doug. See, the whole purpose of this is to create a permanent underclass voting bloc from illegal immigrants. Part of the deconstruction of America.
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Woof,
When they lose Holder and Obama become very very quite and so does the Leftwing media, so I'll post it here and hope it spreads because if one state can do it then all of them can and should.
http://www.latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/26/supreme-court-upholds-arizona-immigration-employer-sanctions-law/ (http://www.latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/26/supreme-court-upholds-arizona-immigration-employer-sanctions-law/)
P.C.
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"If you require on a state level, proof of legal status for employment or government goodies, you'll see many illegals self-deport."
GM, If we had a rule like that and applied it evenly to all employers, all employees and all applicants, wouldn't that be discriminatory? :wink:
I think that is the key, apply "it evenly to all employers, all employees and all applicants." Not just to those with dark skin or those with an accent.
Maybe a National ID card that is difficult to duplicate? But do we want that?
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The I-9 is, and hopefully soon E-Verify will be manditory for employment in the US.
"those with an accent."
If someome has a foreign accent, or can't speak english, this is what we call a clue that they might not be a US citizen. What harm is there for a LEO from making further inquiry into their legal status?
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JDN, The death penalty is applied to people convicted of heinous crimes in certain jurisdictions, it hits blacks disproportionately and it is labeled discriminatory and racist. (Their victims were disproportionately black as well!) Abortions paid for by taxpayers hit black babies disproportionately more than 3 times worse than white babies, and they are not labeled discriminatory by the people who put themselves in charge of those labels. Employee check will hit people of certain ethnicities disproportionately, maybe Hispanic where you are and maybe Somali and Hmong here, but much harder than 4th or 5th generation midwestern Scandinavian Americans for certain. Applying the law evenly doesn't make the charge go away.
Employers are not the enforcement arm of the federal government and don't need more burdens. IMO they should supply and submit to the federal immigration authorities any information that the feds require of them for each applicant or employee. Then the Feds have the responsibility to act on the information, come out and arrest and deport if they were serious about their job. Simply turning away English challenged, medium skinned people with lousy documentation from work to welfare is no solution in my view.
The same rules that are applied to employers to pay someone should apply to all agencies of government and welfare. How is it legal to pay out or take money for doing nothing but illegal to work and earn it? I will need that explained to me.
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"those with an accent."
If someome has a foreign accent, or can't speak english, this is what we call a clue that they might not be a US citizen. What harm is there for a LEO from making further inquiry into their legal status?
I suppose it doesn't IF the LEO applies that theory to everyone; i.e. a Welsh accent (my friend) or a Norwegian accent, or German, or....
If you see my point. The problem is that none of my "foreign" friends from Europe get asked, but Latinos do. Why? That is discriminatory.
Also, unlike your wife (my wife is a foreigner too) who doesn't seem to mind being asked about her papers, my wife (now a citizen) finds it offense
that she be asked, and I am not asked, when we are together. I understand her point.
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Latinos do. Why? That is discriminatory.
Perhaps because the big flood of illegal immigrants is from south of the border. It's common sense. We don't have a big flood of Welsh illegals, so an accent from the UK doesn't attract the same attention.
"Also, unlike your wife (my wife is a foreigner too) who doesn't seem to mind being asked about her papers, my wife (now a citizen) finds it offense
that she be asked, and I am not asked, when we are together. I understand her point."
Exactly how often does this happen? Details please.
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JDN, The death penalty is applied to people convicted of heinous crimes in certain jurisdictions, it hits blacks disproportionately and it is labeled discriminatory and racist. (Their victims were disproportionately black as well!) Abortions paid for by taxpayers hit black babies disproportionately more than 3 times worse than white babies, and they are not labeled discriminatory by the people who put themselves in charge of those labels. Employee check will hit people of certain ethnicities disproportionately, maybe Hispanic where you are and maybe Somali and Hmong here, but much harder than 4th or 5th generation midwestern Scandinavian Americans for certain. Applying the law evenly doesn't make the charge go away.
Employers are not the enforcement arm of the federal government and don't need more burdens. IMO they should supply and submit to the federal immigration authorities any information that the feds require of them for each applicant or employee. Then the Feds have the responsibility to act on the information, come out and arrest and deport if they were serious about their job. Simply turning away English challenged, medium skinned people with lousy documentation from work to welfare is no solution in my view.
I'm not quite understanding your logic. Those that commit crimes, do voluntarily and well, they committed a crime and should pay the penalty. A legal immigrant with an accent did not break the law. That said, I'm not sure I am in favor of the death penalty, but that is another subject. Abortion, again we respectfully disagree on the subject - taxpayers actually save money since as you indirectly point out, many of those children would be on welfare otherwise, but if it is discriminatory, well it is voluntary.
I'm not asking Employers to enforce the law. Just reject any applicant who doesn't have a social security card, isn't of legal age to work, and in this instance doesn't have a legal right to work. Cut off the jobs, and you take away the incentive to be illegal and come to America. And in CA there are a lot of predatory employers, paying illegals less than minimum wage, no benefits, unsafe working conditions, etc. I have no sympathy for those employers. They too are criminals and should be punished.
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[quote author=DougMacG link=topic=1080.msg49876#msg49876 date=1306513390
The same rules that are applied to employers to pay someone should apply to all agencies of government and welfare. How is it legal to pay out or take money for doing nothing but illegal to work and earn it? I will need that explained to me.
[/quote]
Sorry, I can't help you. :? I don't get it either. If you are illegal, except for true emergency care, I don't think you should receive any benefits.
When you find the answer, let me know. :-)
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Imagine how few bank robbers would be caught if only FBI agents could arrest them. It's my understanding that ICE only has about 2000 LEOs nationwide working cases on illegal aliens. In a nation of 300 million, with millions of illegals that's an impossible task. The reason the criminal alien lobby screams so loudly at having local level LEOs enforcing immigration law is that it is game over for their plans, if properly implemented.
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"Also, unlike your wife (my wife is a foreigner too) who doesn't seem to mind being asked about her papers, my wife (now a citizen) finds it offense
that she be asked, and I am not asked, when we are together. I understand her point."
Exactly how often does this happen? Details please.
[/quote]
Odd, it happened last month, that's why it's fresh in my mind. We both went to the local community college to sign up for a class. At the registration desk, they demanded proof of legality from my wife (the cost is different for legal foreign students) (odd, the price is not different for illegal foreign students who attended high school in CA - someday explain that one to me) and while I was right next to her, they never asked me regarding my legal status.
And I don't have a problem with LEO's asking about my legal status, but perhaps they should just ask everyone. That would be fair. But merely because you have an accent, you should not have to jump through hoops.
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Slightly different subject, but GM, if I am stopped, I provide a valid CA Driver's license, can't I simply
refuse to answer any other questions? I mean how is my legal status relevant to my speeding ticket or
broken taillight?
For example, on my Driver's License, I have my Post Office Box; not my Home Address. A few months ago I was stopped
for not yielding in a cross walk. The LEO asked, "Where do I live?" I politely replied that's not relevant and he got upset, but accepted
(he had to) my answer - I live in a PO Box as far as you are concerned. I knew I was getting the ticket, I knew
I would beat it, so let's just move on with the process. My personal life is not his business.
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Slightly different subject, but GM, if I am stopped, I provide a valid CA Driver's license, can't I simply
refuse to answer any other questions? I mean how is my legal status relevant to my speeding ticket or
broken taillight?
For example, on my Driver's License, I have my Post Office Box; not my Home Address. A few months ago I was stopped
for not yielding in a cross walk. The LEO asked, "Where do I live?" I politely replied that's not relevant and he got upset, but accepted
(he had to) my answer - I live in a PO Box as far as you are concerned. I knew I was getting the ticket, I knew
I would beat it, so let's just move on with the process. My personal life is not his business.
In some states, like mine you are required to list your current physical address on you DL/ID per state statute. I'm guessing Cali requires that if stopped that you provide a valid DL/registration and proof of insurance, like most states. You don't have to answer any other questions, but it is resonable for a LEO to ask them as traffic stops for minor offenses can be an opportunity for the detection of serious crimes. Timothy McVeigh was arrested by an OK State Trooper after a stop for a missing lic. plate. The trooper observed a concealed weapon on McVeigh and arrested him for that. Ted Bundy was first arrested on a traffic stop for a minor violation, the officer observed burgalary tools during the stop and arrested him for that.
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You are right; in CA only a valid DL/registration and proof of insurance is required here.
Nothing wrong with being observant; if you see a weapon of course you ask (safety).
However, even if I was in your state and listed my home address on my license, I presume I could refuse to answer any
other questions.
So to summarize, as you just said, IF I was stopped for a traffic stop for a minor violation and asked if I was illegal, I could legally and politely say,
"none of your business". And, I presume this is probably true in any state.
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Under the controversial AZ law, providing a valid AZ DL was considered a valid form of proof of legal presence for the AZ LEOs.
Something I've dealt with more than a few times is contacting an obvious illegal that has no form of valid ID. When you do get a chance to book them and get an opportunity to run their prints, it's amazing the number of warrants and aliases they usually have in the system.
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"asked if I was illegal, I could legally and politely say": ... ninguno de su negocio ?? :-)
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Murder and euthanasia can save the taxpayer money too, wrong criteria and wrong topic. My point is that discrimination as an accusation is thrown around so loosely that fear of that accusation is both ubiquitous and somewhat meaningless.
Some indication that you may be from elsewhere (and need documentation) is more like some indication that you were drinking some (also not illegal) but may cause a further look or test for which you have already given 'implied consent'. The burglary tools in themselves may not be illegal. As a landlord, those same tools of mine may be in plain view and misconstrued without explanation.
GM explained and that is reasonable, but I also don't like it when they ask me where I am coming from and where I am going either for having a pinhole leak of white light out of a red tail light lens. Engage in conversation is what they do to look for other things. I agree with the JDN right to not engage but not necessarily agree its your best strategy.
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"in CA there are a lot of predatory employers, paying illegals less than minimum wage, no benefits, unsafe working conditions, etc. I have no sympathy for those employers."
- Agreed, if true, for those obvious cases. In the accusation will be the word 'knowingly' plus they are breaking plenty of other laws.
"Cut off the jobs, and you take away the incentive to be illegal and come to America."
- No. Cut off the jobs and the welfare simultaneously, add real enforcement and they will not come. Let's lock in at least the agreement we already discovered!
I'm not aware of ever showing identification to get a job. Of course I haven't gotten one recently either and my local accent is very authentic. :-( My town in Colo has the illegals problem. The bank there required two forms of photo id to open an account. I never carry a passport and it's expired anyway. I started out the door and they were willing to lose me as a customer to be consistent on their policy, then I remembered my Vail season pass has a mug on it, and they accepted that. What did that prove?
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We beat around the bush on immigration. The problem continues because the executive branch in charge of enforcement doesn't like the law and the opposition party is split about it. The flagrant business may still exist out there but this isn't overall a private sector issue. The Arizona enforcement law created a healthy debate. Still meaningless if the Feds do nothing. Catch and release. The sanctuary city phenomenon is a violation of federal law, harboring and co-conspiring? The transportation dept. wouldn't nor would any other department or agency accept rogue municipalities failing to follow federal law. If a law is wrong, unconstitutional or meaningless, repeal it or strike it down, not just selectively ignore it. Otherwise, enforce it - at all levels.
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That is kind of what I am driving at. It is expected and proper that you ask for a Driver's License from anyone you stop regardless of their color or ethnicity.
If they don't have one, they are fair game again, regardless of color or ethnicity. That's fair and nondiscriminatory. And if, after you run their prints
they are guilty of any crime, perhaps driving without a license? or if a warrant is outstanding, or... well, I have no sympathy. But IF they have have a valid Driver's License,
it also follows they do not have to answer any other questions, therefore if they are smart they should politely refuse to answer any other questions
and simply go on about their business be they legal or illegal, a criminal or not.
But how about passengers in the car? It is my understanding that assuming there is no reasonable suspicion that you are involved in a criminal activity (Hiibel) the LEO has no right
to ask for ID. And in CA you still don't have to provide ID; note CA like many states does not have a stop and identify law therefore Hiibel does not even apply in CA.
Again, if I am illegal, just keep my mouth shut...
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Back in the 60's/70's, the US Border Patrol used to pay bounties to local/state LEOs who arrested illegals and turned them over to the BP. Think about how little a problem we had then.
Yes, you can only detain people on a traffic for a limited amount of time. The courts have said it must be a reasonable amont of time based on the totality of the circumstances, and unless there is a statute in the state requiring that ID be provided, pasengers need not provide it without cause for it to be demanded.
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Woof,
The idea is to make hiring an illegal alien so costly to employers so that there is no incentive for them to do so. Employers are not hiring them out of a sense of compassion or equality, they hire them so they can exploit them. They work for next to nothing, they receive no benefits, and they don't complain about work conditions or getting hurt because they are here illegally. It's about profit. You take the profit out of it and the jobs dry up and with that the incentive for illegals to come here in the first place is gone so that the ones here self deport and others stop coming. The full enforcement of our laws over time will reduce the problem down to manageable levels. I love it when the open borders folks yell you can't deport 12 million people! Yes we can, the same way they came in, one at a time over a period of years and during that time we can work out a fair work program that makes employers responsible for the needs of any immigrant worker they hire while here and not the taxpayer. As for those that want citizenship, we have a process for that already and they need to get in line and for those that have been here for a number of years you give them the opportunity to come forward and identify themselves and give them time to get their affairs in order and then leave of their own accord and see to it that they retain the ability to apply for citizenship and take part in any future work program. If they don't then when we catch them they should be deported immediately and then forever banned from entering the U.S. again.
P.C.
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I would quibble a bit with the broad brush with which the word "exploit" is applied there. While hiring illegals certainly can and often is done with such motives and in such a manner, it can also be:
a) willingess to work for less means work that is unprofitable at wages that include governmentally imposed costs gets done.
b) there is a work ethic in many illegals not found in many native-born Americans
c) there are cultural values found in many illegals not found in many native-born Americans. For example, there is a respect to the importance of warm maternal care to young children found in many Latina nannies not commonly found in modern Jerry Springer feminist Americans , , ,
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The Arizona immigration law was controversial from the beginning. Critics said it was ripe for abuse, implicitly discriminatory and probably unconstitutional as well. Business groups and liberal activists joined forces to oppose it. But now that it’s been implemented, it might just be a model for nationwide reform.
No, I’m not talking about the Arizona law that empowers local police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain, which generated a wave of boycotts and a surfeit of Gestapo analogies last spring. I mean the 2007 Arizona law requiring businesses to confirm their employees’ legal status with the federal E-Verify database, which was upheld last week in a 5-to-3 decision by the United States Supreme Court.
The E-Verify law was never as polarizing as last year’s police-powers legislation, but it still attracted plenty of opposition. Arizona business interests called it unfair and draconian. (An employer’s business license is suspended for the first offense and revoked for the second.) Civil liberties groups argued that the E-Verify database’s error rate is unacceptably high, and that the law creates a presumptive bias against hiring Hispanics.
If these arguments sound familiar, it’s because similar critiques are always leveled against any attempt to actually enforce America’s immigration laws. From the border to the workplace, immigration enforcement is invariably depicted as terribly harsh, hopelessly expensive and probably racist into the bargain.
Not to mention counterproductive: advocates for “comprehensive” reform, the holy grail of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans alike, have long implied that it’s essentially impossible to prevent illegal immigrants from finding their way to eager employers. Instead, they argue, we have no choice but to ratify the status quo — i.e., mass low-skilled immigration from Mexico and Central America — by creating a vast new guest-worker program and offering citizenship to illegal immigrants already here.
So far, though, Arizona’s E-Verify law seems to be providing a strong counterpoint to this counsel of despair. According to a recent study from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, the legislation reduced Arizona’s population of working-age illegal immigrants by about 17 percent, or roughly 92,000 people, in just a single year. (This effect was entirely distinct from the Great Recession’s broader impact on immigration, the study argues.) And the swift attrition was mainly achieved through voluntary compliance: the number of employers prosecuted under the law can be counted on one hand.
These results suggest that maybe — just maybe — America’s immigration rate isn’t determined by forces beyond any lawmaker’s control. Maybe public policy can make a difference after all. Maybe we could have an immigration system that looked as if it were designed on purpose, not embraced in a fit of absence of mind.
At least in the short term, there’s no good reason for such a system to include any kind of amnesty. This was a dubious idea even during the last decade’s economic boom. It would be folly (and a political nonstarter) in this economic climate, which has left Americans without high school diplomas (who tend to lose out from low-skilled immigration) facing a 15 percent unemployment rate.
But eschewing amnesty doesn’t require shutting down immigration. Quite the opposite: With increased enforcement (to date, only a few states have Arizona-style E-Verify laws on the books, though the Obama White House seems to be stepping up prosecutions of employers), the United States could welcome as many immigrants as we do today. But instead of shrugging as low-skilled workers jump the border to compete with the struggling American working class, our immigration policy should focus on recruiting well-educated migrants, opening the door to greater legal immigration from Asia, Africa and Europe.
As it happens, a system along these lines exists right now — in Canada. A recent report from the Manhattan Institute found that the United States still assimilates immigrants more successfully than many Western European countries. But culturally and economically, we lag well behind our northern neighbor when it comes to integrating new arrivals.
In part, this is because Canada fast-tracks immigrants to citizenship. But it’s also because Canada does more to recruit highly educated émigrés than the United States — and the Dominion’s more international, geographically diverse immigrant population probably discourages balkanization and self-segregation. (No single country or region dominates Canada’s immigration numbers to the extent that Mexico and the rest of Latin America dominate immigration to the United States.)
The result is a system that welcomes newcomers but serves the national interest as well. America isn’t close to that sweet spot at the moment, but it’s what we should be aiming for. By learning from Arizona, and becoming more like Canada, we might finally have an immigration policy worthy of the U.S.A.
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State Senator: You've been here 23 years, why aren't you speaking English?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoR3qLgL_uU&feature=player_embedded
He is not very good at math either.
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http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/06/26/ice-agents-warn-americans-to-brace-themselves-for-whats-coming-as-catch-and-release-of-illegals-caught-committing-other-crimes-begins/
ICE agents warn Americans “to brace themselves for what’s coming” as catch-and-release of illegals — caught committing other crimes — begins
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Where I live we have our own border issue when Packer fans take over the Vikings metrodome once a year. This story in American Thinker says that the US team was booed in their soccer matchup against Mexico:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/in_rose_bowl_mexico_is_home_team_as_us_soccer_team_is_booed.html
In Rose Bowl, Mexico is 'home' team as U.S. soccer team is booed
...for the sake of those who will say this is just a sporting contest, and nothing is to be inferred or learned from it, here are a couple thoughts:
In soccer, as in no other sport, team allegiance mirrors national allegiance. Soccer's ultimate contest, The World Cup, is a competition of national teams. The national team World Cup mentality dominates the entire fan base. In inter-country games, the fan roots for the team whose flag owns his heart and claims his first allegiance. The PC Los Angeles Times quotes one of the Mexican team's Rose Bowl fans, in part, as follows: "I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be." Exactly. And that's the problem with recent and present Mexican immigration.
The massive river of immigrants from Mexico, legal and illegal, that the Democratic Party has been chaperoning into America for decades, in goals and desires, is not your grandparents' immigrants. The vast majority come to share space and partake of our prosperity (such as it is), not to become Americans. They are encouraged in these aims by those who welcome them for their own electoral purposes -- Democrat activists, who know that, as an unassimilated nation apart, laden with grievances and a sense of victimhood, Mexican immigrants are most likely to become dependable clients and voters of the statist party.
Judging by the sympathies of the vast majority of the Rose Bowl crowd, Democrats are getting their wish. No one will ever know for sure how many present at Pasadena on that warm southern California evening were second or third generation "Americans", or how many are in fact American citizens. But those in the crowd who fit these profiles must have been huge in number. And still, whether second or third generation, or American citizen, their first allegiance manifestly was to a foreign state.
And that first allegiance is dragging America into balkanization and disintegration. In these trends, as in so many other phenomena destructive of the nation we all once knew, California leads the way. New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado are right behind, closing fast. Other states will follow if the pattern is not stopped and soon.
In his last public utterance, then former President Theodore Roosevelt spoke of the terms on which immigration to America should be offered, and of the reward for the immigrant's acceptance of those terms:
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated on the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American.
If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American.
"We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."
Letter of President Theodore Roosevelt, January, 1919, written and read, as intended, in public, just before his death.
Theodore Roosevelt's views of immigration to America, and the promise America extended to the immigrants who kept their side of the bargain, were in fact the terms on which the great waves of European immigrants to America during the period 1880-1920 came, lived their lives, and became Americans. This writer's four grandparents were among them. That system worked. And it would work again. In fact, Theodore Roosevelt's terms are those which every nation in the world, including Mexico, (but not America), requires of its immigrants.
We need to return to our grandparents' immigration: assimilation, English and single, undivided loyalty. Multiculturalism is a catastrophic, nation-destroying mistake, invented by Democrats to prop up their sagging electoral base. It is pulling America apart.
In the meantime, to each of those living in America whose hearts will always be in Mexico, we can only wish a safe one way journey that reunites heart with body.
Yet another example of Mexico's reconquista of America's Southwest was displayed at the Rose Bowl in the prestigious Gold Cup Final between the U.S. and Mexico's soccer teams.
Mexico was the "home team" for the largely Hispanic crowd. America's national anthem got no respect: Air horns blared. And once the game started, the U.S. team was constantly booed. Every goal by Mexico's team drew shouts of "Ole!"
So what does the Los Angeles Times think about this unsettling spectacle? Sports reporter Bill Plaschke likes it and says so in an article, "In Gold Cup final, it's red, white and boo again."
He writes:
How many places are so diverse that it could fill football stadiums with folks whose roots are somewhere else? How many places offer such a freedom of speech that someone can display an American flag on their porch one day and cheer against the flag the next? I hated it, but I loved it. It felt as if I was in a strange place, and yet I felt right at home."
He loves it?...But hates it? And gets a warm and fuzzy feeling because it's all about "diversity." Well, this certainly sounds like a nasty case of liberal cognitive dissonance - an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas in one's mind at the same time.
To be sure, the sort of thing that Plaschke and L.A. Times regard as an all-American display has been going on for years in Los Angeles. Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington was particularly appalled by what he considered the anti-American displays evident in the Rose Bowl in 1998.
In his famous essay "The Hispanic Challenge" in Foreign Policy magazine, Huntington saw the disrespect for American's national anthem and the booing of the U.S. soccer team as harbingers of things to come - a country split in two as Mexicans and other Latinos failed to assimilate into American culture.
Referring to Mexican-Americans booing America's national anthem and even assaulting U.S. soccer players, Huntington wrote:
"Such dramatic rejections of the United States and assertions of Mexican identity are not limited to an extremist minority in the Mexican-American community. Many Mexican immigrants and their offspring simply do not appear to identify primarily with the United States."
That a Los Angles Times writer approves of the most recent Rose Bowl spectacle underscores yet again that many in the mainstream media are out-of-step with what most Americans believe.
Incidentally, one Mexican-American quoted by the L.A. Times said that booing the U.S. team was a natural thing to do. Victor Sanchez, 37, was apparently brought to the U.S. as a boy. Dressed in a Mexico jersey, he explained: "I love this country, it has given me everything that I have, and I'm proud to be part of it. But yet, I didn't have a choice to come here, I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be."
He added: "We're not booing the country, we're booing the team. There is a big difference."
Samuel Huntington, who died in 2008, would not be surprised.
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We have the Times writer being lauded by the MSM as some sort of hero for forging documents while in US illegally, and millions here illegally with forged documents yet this guy may go to jail:
***Vet Checks Wrong Box, Faces Charges
Army, Navy Photographer Accused Of Passport Fraud
POSTED: Monday, June 27, 2011
UPDATED: 7:35 pm EDT June 27, 2011
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Elisha Dawkins graduated in August from nursing school in Jacksonville.
He put on hold his plans for taking the board exams because the Navy called him into action as a photographer.
Dawkins photographed happenings at Guantanamo Bay, an act that's evidence he's a trusted member of the military with top secret clearance.
Now, Dawkins, a Navy reservist and decorated Army combat photographer who served in Iraq, is in jail, charged with passport fraud. He's facing 10 years in prison for what could be a simple misunderstanding.
"Suddenly, he's picked up and thrown in jail? Then it's time for this senator to start asking questions," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson., D-Fla., said.
Nelson has questions echoed by Dawkins' friends, including Dianne Rinehardt.
Elisha Dawkins served with the Army in Iraq.
"It's a travesty, and we're trying to stop it," Rinehardt said.
Rinehardt went through nursing school with Dawkins and is a veteran herself. She's upset about the trouble her friend is in. In sharing his story with other vets, Rinehardt said that lots of people who don't know Dawkins can't believe it.
"We're all appalled that, how can you serve this country and be more dedicated to the ideals of this country, and serve this country and then be told, 'Guess what, you made a little clerical error. You're out of here.' And that's a travesty," Rinehardt said.
A federal indictment states that Dawkins started to fill out a passport application in 2004, didn't complete it, then filled out a new application two years later.
On that new application, he checked a box "no" for the question, "Have you ever applied before?" according to the indictment.
Dawkins got the passport, but three months ago, the government issued a warrant for his arrest. He was taking photos for the Navy at the time.
When Dawkins got back to the U.S. in April, he was arrested about a week later and has been in jail for two months since.
"The state department is implying there's something more. I want to know, and that's why I've written them," Nelson said.
"We've sent emails through our standard home, family email chains throughout the country," Rinehardt said. "The more attention we bring to this, the more people will see this as a disservice."
Dawkins' attorney calls the case an "absurd prosecution," saying that filling out a "no" box "did not merit criminal charges."
Because the trial is scheduled for next month, if Dawkins is still in jail at that point, he will insist on going to trial.
A pretrial hearing Tuesday in Miami is the next step.
Copyright 2011 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.****
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An interesting idea.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schuck-visa-lottery-20110713,0,1695947.story
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"We should handpick our immigrants with a view to our national interests and the individual attributes that they bring to the table."
JDN, I agree.
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Ask not what our country can do for you, ask what you (immigrant) can do for our country.
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"Ask not what our country can do for you, ask what you (immigrant) can do for our country."
:-) Isn't that what they ask now - in the tunnels under our southern border where we pass out sample assault rifles.
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"In soccer, as in no other sport, team allegiance mirrors national allegiance. Soccer's ultimate contest, The World Cup, is a competition of national teams. The national team World Cup mentality dominates the entire fan base. In inter-country games, the fan roots for the team whose flag owns his heart and claims his first allegiance. The PC Los Angeles Times quotes one of the Mexican team's Rose Bowl fans, in part, as follows: "I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be." Exactly. And that's the problem with recent and present Mexican immigration."
This quote was from a previous post here on immigration. I disagreed; and I still do.
I thought of this post today. I have many Japanese friends; they truly love America. Many are citizens, working hard; quite a few are happily married to Americans. But I think ALL of them cheered for Japan today. No disrespect meant to America, but Japan is still where there heart lies. I think the same can be said of many Mexicans. And while I cheered for America, I was glad for Japan today as well.
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Forgive me JDN, but what pleasant sophistry that seeks to ignore the elephant in the room! We don't share a border with Japan, which is not in a state of war with its narco gangs, nor do we have 12-20 million illegal Japanese here who think the Southwest of the US should belong to them.
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http://michellemalkin.com/2006/08/28/hoisting-the-mexican-flag-at-a-us-post-office/
Japanese flag?
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http://michellemalkin.com/2006/03/29/the-american-flag-comes-second/
Patriots.
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Forgive me JDN, but what pleasant sophistry that seeks to ignore the elephant in the room! We don't share a border with Japan, which is not in a state of war with its narco gangs, nor do we have 12-20 million illegal Japanese here who think the Southwest of the US should belong to them.
Actually Crafty, my quote was from the American Thinker previously posted on this site.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/in_rose_bowl_mexico_is_home_team_as_us_soccer_team_is_booed.html
No mention of the "state of war with it's narco gangs" or even illegal immigration.
Your "elephant" wasn't even brought up in the article. He wasn't even in the room.
The American Thinker article despairingly referenced, "The PC Los Angeles Times quotes one of the Mexican team's Rose Bowl fans, in part, as follows: "I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be." The American Thinker then went on to comment, Exactly. And that's the problem with recent and present Mexican immigration."
No "elephant" issues; IMHO the article was simply racist and slanted. That was/is my point.
"If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American."
That's @#$%^&
As I said, my Japanese friends in LA were all cheering for Japan yesterday. I know this was also true in NY, Boston, and SF; I received emails. Many of them were "segregated" at bars or friend's homes, cheering together "with men and women of their own origin". Most of them were speaking Japanese to each other (something also disparaged in the article). They were all born in Japan, and frankly, that is where their heart will always be. Yet they love America, work hard for America, and if necessary would fight and die for America. The same could be said for most Mexicans I know.
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Absent from the discussion if I read this correctly is that the Mexicans in America were booing America publicly in America, on a Rose Bowl scale.
JDN, When you wrote previously that people on the board oppose legal immigration, I recall CCP sharing that view but most I think support legal immigration or even expanding it. We live in different parts of the country, work or operate in different crowds and see different things. I respect and trust CCP's vieweeing and hearing things that I haven't.
I suspect JDN's Japanese friends were NOT booing America, at least not to their faces.
The whole episode makes me rethink my position on liberal, legal immigration. My support has been based on the premise that there are plenty of people around the world who could contribute to our society and economy and would love to come to America, become Americans, and love this country as their own. That premise may very likely be false. Japan is also a great country and Mexico could be. If that is where your national price is, then build a great nation there.
If Japanese or Mexicans or Tajiks or anyone else want to come here to be Japanese people, Mexicans, Tajiks or anyone else working or residing in America - we have an app for that - it comes with an expiration/renewal date, you don't get voting shares and it isn't called citizenship.
(I enjoy a good soccer match, missed all this, but for the World Cup to be settled in a kickoff... They don't settle the US Opens with a long drive contest or a serving contest or settle the NBA finals with a slam dunk contest? I thought it was a team sport. Those Japanese friends should be celebrating their 2-2 tie with the Americans or playing overtime.)
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JDN:
I like to think I read with above average reading comprehension. My comments were directed at what you said, not the article you quoted.
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-The cognitive dissonance of the illegal immigration debate.- All we hear from the Democrats is they are "not illegal" they are "undocumented" yet we see this *documentation* of their numbers and reports they are filing tax returns! So are they undocumented or documented? Which the hell is it?? My short answer is they are neither - they are illegal. This article suggest 9% of laborors in Kalifornia are illegal! That is unbelievable. So why are so many "legal" people/citizens UNemployed? For God's sake can't we get rid of the doles? This might get some people off their asses and back to work in jobs they don't love:
****Improving Mexican economy draws undocumented immigrants home from California
By Stephen Magagnini
Published: Thursday, Jul. 28, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Thursday, Jul. 28, 2011 - 11:16 am
There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California – and the Sacramento region – because many are now finding the American dream south of the border.
"It's now easier to buy homes on credit, find a job and access higher education in Mexico," Sacramento's Mexican consul general, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said Wednesday. "We have become a middle-class country."
Mexico's unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States.
An estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants have left California since 2008, though the remaining 2.6 million still make up 7 percent of the population and 9 percent of the labor force, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Among metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, Sacramento County ranks among the lowest, with an unauthorized population of 4.6 percent of its 1.4 million residents in 2008, according to Laura Hill, a demographer with the PPIC.
The Sacramento region, suffering from 12.3 percent unemployment and the construction bust, may have triggered a large exodus of undocumented immigrants, González Gutiérrez said.
The best-paid jobs for undocumented migrants are in the building industry, "and because of the severe crisis in the construction business here, their first response has been to move into the service industry," González Gutiérrez said. "But that has its limits. Then, they move to other areas in the U.S. to find better jobs – or back to Mexico."
Hill said it's hard to know whether the benefit of having fewer undocumented migrants outweighs the cost to employers and taxpayers.
California may have to provide less free education to the children of undocumented immigrants and less emergency medical care, she said, but it will also get less tax revenue.
In 2008, at least 836,100 undocumented immigrants filed U.S. tax returns in California using individual tax identification numbers known as ITINS, said Hill, who conducted the tax survey.
Based on those tax returns, the study found there were 65,000 undocumented immigrants in Sacramento County that year, far fewer than in many other big counties.
Sacramento's undocumented population ranked 10th in the state that year, behind Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Riverside, Alameda, Contra Costa and Ventura.
There were an estimated 12,000 undocumented immigrants in Yolo County; 9,000 in the Sutter-Yuba area; and 8,000 in Placer County.
An analysis of local ZIP codes showed that Sacramento (95815, 95823, 95824), West Sacramento (95605), Clarksburg (95612), Esparto (95627), Guinda (95637), Knights Landing (95645), Winters (95694) and Woodland (95776) each had an undocumented population of 10 percent to 15 percent.
Yolo County relies heavily on migrant workers to grow and harvest crops.
"People in construction are now turning to agriculture; it's the start of the tomato season so the harvesters will be jump-started pretty soon," said Woodland Mayor Art Pimentel, whose 55,000 residents are 48 percent Latino, some of them undocumented.
Some aren't sticking around for the upcoming tomato harvest, said Sylvina Frausto, secretary of Holy Rosary Church in Woodland. "Some have a small parcel in Mexico. They own their own home there, so instead of renting here they go back to their small business there."
Many raise animals, run grocery stores or sell fruits and goods on street corners.
"They're going back home because they can't get medical help or government assistance anymore," Frausto said, "And when it's getting so difficult for them to find a job without proper documentation, it's pushing them away."
Anita Barnes, director of La Familia Counseling Center on Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, said she recently spoke to a high school graduate who had lost his job in a restaurant and was thinking of going back to Mexico.
"He came over with his mom, who was in the process of losing her restaurant job," Barnes said. "It's frightening, especially for the children. They feel this is their country, they don't know anything else, and they find they can't get driver's licenses or jobs."
As its economy rebounds, Mexico "is becoming a better option than it was in the past, but you still have to find a job and reconnect," Barnes said.
While the weakened U.S. economy, rising deportations and tougher border enforcement have led to fewer undocumented migrants, changes in Mexico are playing a significant role, González Gutiérrez said.
Mexico's average standard of living – including health, education and per capita income – is now higher than those in Russia, China and India, according to the United Nations.
Mexico's growing middle class "reduces the appetites to come because there are simply many more options" at home, González Gutiérrez said. "Most people who decided to migrate already have a job in Mexico and tend to be the most ambitious and attracted to the income gap between the U.S. and Mexico."
Mexico's economy is growing at 4 percent to 5 percent, benefiting from low inflation, exports and a strong banking system, the consul said.
Mexico's birthrate is also declining sharply. "As a natural consequence of us transforming from a rural to an urban society, we are running out of Mexicans to export," González Gutiérrez said. "Our society's growing at a rate of 2.1 children per woman – in the 1970s it was more than five."
Once the U.S. economy recovers, the flow of migrants moving north "may go up again, although most likely they will not reach the peak levels we saw in the first half of the decade," González Gutiérrez said.****
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I was talking to my 80 yr old aunt who is second generation American.
I was asking her didn't my grandfather talk much about his home country?
Her response was absolutely not. He learned English as soon as he could and he never talked about his previous country of origin.
He wanted to be an American as soon as possible and blend right in.
My Aunt who is liberal agreed right away when I pointed out the immigrants of today are not like those of past generations.
Now the first words of English many learn are medicaid, food stamps, fake ID, and all the rest.
It is probably too late.
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Alan Simpson who has been making the MSM rounds criticizing the Tea Party for not agreeing with him on what to do about the debt was one of the authors of the amnesty bill signed by Reagan that encouraged what we see today. I note in Wikepedia below that employers were supposed to be responsible for insuring their hirees were legal which of course never happened. And borders were never secured. Yet this act in retrospect clearly sent the signal that the US was not serious about enforcing our immigration policies. Now we have 5 to 10 times the number of illegals in the country:
****Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
Colloquial name(s) Simpson–Mazzoli Act
Enacted by the 99th United States Congress
Citations
Public Law Pub.L. 99-603
Stat. 100 Stat. 3359
Codification
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 1200 by Alan K. Simpson on May 23, 1985
Committee consideration by: Senate Judiciary, Senate Budget
Passed the Senate on September 19, 1985 (69–30)
Passed the House on October 9, 1986 (voice vote after incorporating H.R. 3810 , passed 230–166)
Reported by the joint conference committee on October 14, 1986; agreed to by the House on October 15, 1986 (238–173) and by the Senate on October 17, 1986 (63–24)
Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986
Major amendments
Relevant Supreme Court cases
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359, enacted November 6, 1986, also Simpson-Mazzoli Act, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law.
In brief the act:[1]
required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status.
made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants.
granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously.
Contents [hide]
1 Legislative background and description
2 Effect upon the labor market
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
[edit] Legislative background and description
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)
Romano L. Mazzoli was a Democratic representative from Kentucky and Alan K. Simpson was a Republican senator from Wyoming who chaired their respective immigration subcommittees in Congress. Their effort was assisted by the recommendations of the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then President of the University of Notre Dame.
The law criminalized the act of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal aliens under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce illegal immigration. It introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States.
These sanctions would apply only to employers that had more than three employees and did not make a sufficient effort to determine the legal status of their workers.
The first Simpson-Mazzoli Bill was reported out of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The bill failed to be received by the House, but civil rights advocates were concerned over the potential for abuse and discrimination against Hispanics, growers' groups rallied for additional provisions for foreign labor, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce persistently opposed sanctions against employers.
The second Simpson-Mazzoli Bill finally passed both houses in 1985, but it came apart in the conference committee over the issue of cost. The year marked an important turning point for the reform effort. Employer opposition to employer sanctions began to subside, partly because of the "affirmative defense" clause in the law that explicitly released employers from any obligation to check the authenticity of workers' documents.
Also, agricultural employers shifted their focus from opposition to employer sanctions to a concerted campaign to secure alternative sources of foreign labor. As opposition to employer sanctions waned and growers' lobbying efforts for extensive temporary worker programs intensified, agricultural worker programs began to outrank employer sanctions component as the most controversial element of reform.
"The following year, Sen. Simpson reintroduced the bill that Congressional opponents were now calling 'The Monster from the Blue Lagoon' because of its eerie ability to rise from the dead. By September, this Senate version had already passed...."[2]
The act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. An estimated 3 million unauthorized immigrants received amnesty under the act. A May 26, 2006 New York Times article arrived at the figure 2.8 million: 1.7 million under a general amnesty, plus 90% of the 1.3 million that applied under a special program for agricultural workers.[1]
[edit] Effect upon the labor market
According to one study, the IRCA caused some employers to discriminate against workers who appeared foreign, resulting in a small reduction in overall Hispanic employment. There is no statistical evidence that a reduction in employment correlated to unemployment in the economy as a whole or was separate from the general unemployment population statistics.[3] Another study stated that if hired, wages were being lowered to compensate employers for the perceived risk of hiring foreigners.[4]
The hiring process also changed as employers turned to indirect hiring through subcontractors. "Under a subcontracting agreement, a U.S. citizen or resident alien contractually agrees with an employer to provide a specific number of workers for a certain period of time to undertake a defined task at a fixed rate of pay per worker".[4] "By using a subcontractor the firm is not held liable since the workers are not employees. The use of a subcontractor decreases a worker's wages since a portion is kept by the subcontractor. This indirect hiring is imposed on everyone regardless of legality".[4]
[
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Good find, thanks for that.
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Hat tip to CCP; pasting his post from Cognitive Dissonance here as well
****New DHS Rules Cancel Deportations – Washington Times
The Homeland Security Department said Thursday it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria such as attending school, having family in the military or are primarily responsible for other family members’ care.
The move, announced in letters to Congress, won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had chided President Obama for months for the pace of deportations and had argued he had authority to exempt broad swaths of illegal immigrants from deportation.
“Today’s announcement shows that this president is willing to put muscle behind his words and to use his power to intervene when the lives of good people are being ruined by bad laws,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat.
In the letters to Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases and see who meets the new criteria on a case-by-case basis.
“This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety,” she said. “Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons.”
The new rules apply to those who have been apprehended and are in deportation proceedings, but have not been officially ordered out of the country by a judge. Miss Napolitano said a working group will try to come up with “guidance on how to provide for appropriate discretionary consideration” for “compelling cases” in those instances where someone has already been ordered deported.
It was unclear how many people might be affected by the new rules, though in fiscal year 2010 the government deported nearly 200,000 illegal immigrants who it said did not have criminal records.
The Obama administration has argued for months that it did not have authority to grant blanket absolution, and Miss Napolitano stressed that these cases will be treated individually, though the new guidance applies across the board.
In June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that handles interior immigration law enforcement, issued new guidance expanding authority to decline to prosecute illegal immigrants. The goal, ICE leaders said, was to focus on their priority of catching illegal immigrants who have also committed other crimes or are part of gangs.
The chief beneficiaries of the new guidance are likely to be illegal immigrant students who would have been eligible for legal status under the Dream Act, which stalled in Congress last year.
“Today is a victory not just for immigrants but for the American people as a whole because it makes no sense to deport Dream Act students and others who can make great contributions to America and pose no threat,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “It is not in our national interest to send away young people who were raised in the U.S. and have been educated here and want only to contribute to this country’s success. “
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who earlier this year wrote asking Homeland Security to exempt illegal immigrant students from deportation, said the move will free up immigration courts to handle cases involving serious criminals.
Both men said, though, that they will continue to push for legislation that would grant a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants and expands new pathways for more immigrants to come legally in the future.
But groups pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration said the administration’s move abused the Constitution by usurping a power Congress should have.
“Supporters of comprehensive and targeted amnesties for illegal aliens have consistently failed to win approval by Congress or gain support from the American public,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Having failed in the legislative process, the Obama administration has simply decided to usurp Congress’s constitutional authority and implement an amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens.”****
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Way to win over the swing voters who are concerned about illegal aliens.
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Way to win over the swing voters who are concerned about illegal aliens.
Yeah, but he locks up the Hispanic and immigrant vote. Probably a good political move.
Still, I don't like it.
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Way to win over the swing voters who are concerned about illegal aliens.
Yeah, but he locks up the Hispanic and immigrant vote. Probably a good political move.
Still, I don't like it.
Legal immigrants are pissed off at the pandering done towards illegals. There are plenty of Americans of hispanic ancestry that dislike the criminal invaders damaging this county as much as any other American. Obama already had the Razaist vote locked up.
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I disagree; I think most immigrants (Hispanic) want some form of immigration relief. It will sway votes in his favor. Watch.
It's a cultural thing I guess.
That said, I have many friends here on proper Visa's. All legal, but all wish they could stay beyond their Visa term, but Obama
is not helping them. Too bad they followed the rules. It's kind of sad.
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I disagree; I think most immigrants (Hispanic) want some form of immigration relief. It will sway votes in his favor. Watch.
It's a cultural racist thing I guess.
Fixed it for you.
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Thanks for the "correction", :-) but I don't think so. That is where the votes are. And Hispanics are the majority of illegals.
And as a group, hispanics seem to stick together, and vote, more so than other ethnic groups.
It's just practical and politics for Obama, but I still don't like it.
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Thanks for the "correction", :-) but I don't think so. That is where the votes are. And Hispanics are the majority of illegals.
And as a group, hispanics seem to stick together, and vote, more so than other ethnic groups.
It's just practical and politics for Obama, but I still don't like it.
When you work against the best interests of your nation because of a racial/ethnic alligence to criminals, that's racist, or in this case "razaist".
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"Criminal" is perhaps too strong of a word (most are hard working, honest people) for an illegal immigrant raised here as a child, or someone who fought for our country, and I'm not sure it "works against the best interest of our nation" to admit them, although it should be a gradual step by step IMHO, however, in general, I"m against blanket amnesty. And sorry, Obama's decision is not racist, just practical. Something has to be done. We are not going to deport 12 million people.
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If you did not enter the US through an authorized point of entry and submit to customs/immigrations inspection, that's a violation of federal law. Meaning it's a crime. If you use bogus documents for employment, that's a crime. If you steal an American's identity, that's a crime. Even if you aren't doing the robbing, raping and murdering many illegal aliens do, you're still a criminal.
What part of "illegal" don't you understand?
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il·le·gal (-lgl) KEY
ADJECTIVE:
Prohibited by law.
Prohibited by official rules: an illegal pass in football.
Unacceptable to or not performable by a computer: an illegal operation.
NOUN:
An illegal immigrant."
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8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien
Search 8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien
(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection;
misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States
at any time or place other than as designated by immigration
officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration
officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United
States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the
willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first
commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or
imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent
commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or
imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
(b) Improper time or place; civil penalties
Any alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to
enter) the United States at a time or place other than as
designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil
penalty of -
(1) at least $50 and not more than $250 for each such entry (or
attempted entry); or
(2) twice the amount specified in paragraph (1) in the case of
an alien who has been previously subject to a civil penalty under
this subsection.
Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not
in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be
imposed.
(c) Marriage fraud
Any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the
purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be
imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than
$250,000, or both.
(d) Immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud
Any individual who knowingly establishes a commercial enterprise
for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws
shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, fined in accordance
with title 18, or both.
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"Way to win over the swing voters who are concerned about illegal aliens."
"Yeah, but he locks up the Hispanic and immigrant vote. Probably a good political move."
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The Hispanic vote is something like this 60-40 Dem. This may energize the 60 somewhat who may have relatives/friends with an issue. The other 40 lean R for other reasons, economic, pro-life, pro-family, pro-business, who knows.
For the non-Hispanic, it probably leans the other way. Some have had it with the illegals especially depending on where you live, some see the other side of it. I would guess that 'typical white people' are 60-40 anti-illegal-immigration.
Where I live the border issue has more to do with those pesky Canadians infiltrating our hockey leagues.
Things get really complicated when the law comes to mean nothing.
The anti-deportation move is Obama flexing the powers of incumbency. If it was good policy, he would have done it 2 1/2 years ago. Like most desperate moves by desperate people, it is most likely to backfire.
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Asssessing the politics of this: Net I think it gets Baraq more votes. I doubt the Reps will draw much attention to this-- the cases that meet the criteria are precisely those most susceptible to heart strings.
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"Net I think it gets Baraq more votes. I doubt the Reps will draw much attention to this-- the cases that meet the criteria are precisely those most susceptible to heart strings."
I disagree with only the middle part of this. At least some of the R. candidates will try to run with this as a) symbolic of his soft on borders stance - mocking people who wanted moats?, and b) symbolic of his czar style of governance where big moves (like regulating carbon emissions) don't need to go through any other branch.
Presumably he did it out of the compassion in his heart - but if so why wait nearly 1000 days. Maybe he did it to energize Bachmann as Perry is a little soft on the issue and Romney neutral(?) and stir up some divisive passions in his opponents while he is gone.
He is also flaunting the (unlimited?) powers of incumbency to any would-be challengers in his own party, as his economic approval dips to 26%.
What I don't like is that he knew and planned this big secret for the perfect everyone-is-leaving-Washington moment. So if listen carefully to him daily to find out what he is thinking and planning for our country you will know less than the people who don't.
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Doug writes Hispanics vote 40/60 Rep/Dem. I find it hard to believe that most illegals, if had the chance to vote (some I bet do already) would vote Rep at a rate as high as 40% yet this from Barone?Rasmussen:
****GOP Shouldn't Panic If Whites Become a Minority
A Commentary By Michael Barone
Monday, April 04, 2011 Email to a Friend ShareThisAdvertisement
Are whites on the verge of becoming a minority of the American population? That's what some analysts of the 2010 Census results claim. Many go on, sometimes with relish, to say that this spells electoral doom for the Republican Party.
I think the picture is more complicated than that. And that the demise of the Republican Party is no more foreordained than it was a century ago when Italian, Jewish and Polish immigrants were pouring into the United States in proportions much greater than the Hispanic and Asian immigration of the past two decades.
The numbers do appear stark. The Census tells us that 16 percent of U.S. residents are Hispanic, up from 13 percent in 2000 and 9 percent in 1990, and that 5 percent are Asian, up from 4 percent in 2000. The percentage of blacks held steady at 13. Among children, the voters of tomorrow, those percentages are higher.
But it's a mistake to see blacks, Hispanics and Asians as a single "people of color" voting bloc. The 2010 exit poll shows that the Republican percentages in the vote for the U.S. House were 60 percent among whites, 9 percent among blacks, 38 percent among Hispanics and 40 percent among Asians.
Simple arithmetic tells you that Hispanics and Asians vote more like whites than like blacks. The picture is similar in the 2008 exit poll.
Moreover, while blacks vote similarly in just about every state, there is wide variation among Hispanics. In 2010 governor elections, Hispanics voted 31 percent Republican in California, 38 percent Republican in Texas and 50 percent Republican in Florida (where Cubans are no longer a majority of Hispanics).
As RealClearPolitics senior political analyst Sean Trende has written, Hispanics tend to vote 10 percent to 15 percent less Republican than whites of similar income and education levels. An increasingly Hispanic electorate puts Republicans at a disadvantage, but not an overwhelming one.
The same is true of Asians. In 2010, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid got 79 percent from Asians in Nevada, where many are Filipinos. But the Asians in Middlesex County, N.J., most of whom are from India, seem to have voted for Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2009.
The 2010 Census tells something else that may prove important: There's been a slowdown of immigration since the recession began in 2007 and even some reverse migration. If you look at the Census results for Hispanic immigrant entry points -- East Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Calif., the east side of Houston, the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago -- you find that the Hispanic population has dropped sharply since 2000.
One reason is the business cycle. The 2000 Census was taken on April 1, 2000, less than a month after the peak of the tech boom. Unemployment was low, immigration was high, and entry-point houses and apartments were crammed with large families.
The 2010 Census was taken after two years of recession, when immigration had slackened off. We simply don't know whether this was just a temporary response to the business cycle or the beginning of a permanent decline in migration.
Past mass migrations, which most experts expected to continue indefinitely, in fact ended abruptly. Net Puerto Rican migration to New York City stopped in 1961, and the huge movement of Southern blacks to Northern cities ended in 1965. Those who extrapolate current trends far into the future end up being wrong sooner or later.
Finally there is an assumption -- which is particularly strong among those who expect a majority "people of color" electorate to put Democrats in power permanently -- that racial consciousness never changes. But sometimes it does.
American blacks do have common roots in slavery and segregation. But African immigrants don't share that heritage, and Hispanics come from many different countries and cultures (there are big regional differences just within Mexico). The Asian category includes anyone from Japan to Lebanon and in between.
Under the definitions in use in the America of a century ago, when Southern and Eastern European immigrants were not regarded as white, the United States became a majority non-white nation sometime in the 1950s. By today's definitions, we'll become majority non-white a few decades hence.
But that may not make for the vast cultural and political change some predict. Not if we assimilate newcomers, and if our two political parties adapt, as we and they have done in the past.
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
COPYRIGHT 2011 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Rasmussen Reports Platinum Members get an all-access pass to polling news, analysis and insight not available to the general public.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade. To learn more about our methodology, click here.
TOP STORIES
©2011 Rasmussen Reports, LLC****
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That would also belong in the Demographics thread.
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NBC NEWS: The foreign national who was part of a group wearing wetsuits and fins and using self-propelled sea scooters to reach the shore by way of the Pacific Ocean, Sgt. David Ross, with the Imperial Beach Sheriff's Station, told NBC station KNSD.
Five or six men were first seen at about 6:30 a.m., Ross said. Shortly after that, Border Patrol agents took one of the men into custody and it was that man who said he and the drowning victim had tried to enter the country from Mexico.
The other men are believed to have either run off or swam back out to sea, said Ross.
Border Patrol Agent Steven Pitts told the San Diego Union Tribune that the Border Patrol and Coast Guard have stepped up patrols along the water to keep people from dying, he said.
"They were swimming in the ocean trying to make it to the beach," Pitts said. "This underscores the dangers of trying to cross through the ocean. It's so unpredictable."
The use of sea scooters, which can dive about 15 feet under water, was reported in early February as a novelty by Reuters and other news outlets.
Two men, 38 and 16 years old, walking on a beach south of San Diego were wearing wet suits and holding their scooters when they were spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter.
"These devices can be used to come north along the coastline and steer into shore ... where they can meet someone who will pick them up in a vehicle and further their entrance into the United States," said Michael Jiminez, a Border Patrol spokesperson.
At the time, he noted that once-rare attempts to cross the border by water had doubled each year since 2008 as land crossings became more difficult.
Several groups were recently arrested after traversing ocean waters in pangas, long fishing boats used in Mexico, the Union-Tribune and other news agencis reported.
On Wednesday, 19 men and a woman, ages 24 to 55, suspected of entering the country illegally by a panga boat, were taken into custody at South Carlsbad State Beach.
Eleven people trying to enter off the coast of San Onofre State Beach were arrested early Tuesday morning after Border Patrol agents spotted their panga-style boat near Camp Pendleton.
In November 2009, agents arrested 21 suspected illegal immigrants, all Mexican nationals, seen in a 15-foot panga when they came ashore on Beacon's Beach, near Encinitas. It was the third boat interception in a week.
A month earlier, a small fishing boat dropped off 20 illegal immigrants on South Ponto Beach in Carlsbad, officials said.
© 2011 msnbc.com Reprints
P.C.
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I have no problem giving Visa's to people who bring money and create jobs in America.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-easy-visa-20110904,0,1683067.story
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Agreed-- especially if you take the apostrophe out of "Visa's" and make the "V" lower case :lol:
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While the data herein is of interest, IMO the article misses the larger point about the issue's relation with the moves to create not only 10-20 million new overwhelmingly Democratic voters out of the illegals here, but the literally tens of millions more out of the family members that they would get to bring in. It also misses the point about what happens when, God willing, someday our economy improves. Furthermore while some of the anti-illegal folks are xenophobic, lots of us would LOVE to see easier entry for desirable folks with more rational procedures.
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To listen to the recent Republican Presidential debates, you'd think illegal immigration was the biggest threat to the U.S. economy—not to mention to the rule of law, our social fabric and national security. We hate to spoil the political reverie, but the real immigration story these days is how many fewer illegal migrants are trying to get into the land of the free.
That's the news from the Department of Homeland Security, which reports that border apprehensions have dropped to their lowest level in nearly 40 years. For fiscal 2010, arrests were 463,000, down from 724,000 in 2008—a one-third decline in two years.
Enlarge Image
Close..In the first 11 months of fiscal 2011, through August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports that apprehensions were 316,458, well below last year's level. As the nearby chart shows, as recently as 2006 more than one million illegals were arrested entering the country each year.
Some of the decline in illegal crossings is no doubt due to both the reality of, and the deterrence effect from, increased security at the Rio Grande Valley and other border areas. The number of agents has roughly doubled over the past decade, and the Border Patrol has improved its surveillance.
But surely the biggest factor is the poor U.S. economy. Immigrants of all types come to the U.S. primarily for jobs and opportunity. In the booming 1980s and 1990s, when the economy created more than 35 million net new jobs, border crossings were often three times higher than they are today. As growth has slowed and job openings are fewer, the attraction of the U.S. has dimmed.
Related Video
Stuart Anderson, on why conservatives are opposing E-Verify.
..This may be cause for celebration in some places, but not in these columns. The fact that foreign workers, like overseas investment funds, aren't as attracted to the U.S. as they once were is another sign of economic malaise. According to the Census Bureau's historical data, the only time in U.S. history when more people left America than arrived was during the height of the Great Depression. This is not a period to emulate. We'd gladly take faster growth with more illegal immigration over slower growth and fewer illegals.
Despite these falling apprehension numbers, Republicans and their talk show minders are still shouting that the border isn't "secure." But by their definition the border will never be secure. This line has become the all-seasons excuse to block any immigration reform that would allow more legal avenues into the U.S. This campaign is already doing great harm to U.S. agriculture, as farmers are unable to find enough workers of any kind to harvest their crops. Yet Republicans are putting onerous restrictions on recruiting legal workers for those jobs. (See our editorial, "Republican Overregulation," Sept. 13.)
The declining border apprehensions show that economic opportunity, not a life on the dole, is the main motivation for immigrants who enter the U.S. with or without a visa. If there were more legal avenues, fewer migrants would have an incentive to enter illegally.
Immigrants bring vitality and skills to the U.S. economy, whether in the tech centers of Silicon Valley or the farmlands of the Midwest and Yuma Valley. We need more of both these days
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Noted from WSJ.
There appears to be a complete surrender from Republican "elites" on isues of illegals as well as the gay fatada.
I can understand Anderson Cooper whipping up every school age gay bully incident into a national level tragedy but I don't know why the republicans have mea culpad (if you will pardon the grammer) on these issues.
Like Mark Levin noted Perry is like the Bushes on illegals. They sound like they are looking the other way completely and pursuing policies that simply encourage more to come and take advantage of our society.
I am not sure why. I guess they fear the loss of the spanish vote?
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As well articulated by Jude Wanniski in his "The Way the World Works", leaders are those who best discern the zeitgeist (am I using this word properly) of what "the people" want, as inchoate as it may be; (successful entrepeneurs too.)
State more simply, politicians are for sale to the biggest number of voters.
The IQ around here is such that I don't need to spell out the demographics of the American population and the trends over time built into it.
If Reps lose the latino vote (of which a very large percentage is Mexican American) over time the Republican Party will become nationally what it already is in the northeast-- a sure loser. Look at what happened to the Republican Party in California after Gov. Pete Wilson and the Reps succeeded in passing the , , , what was it , , , the no bi-lingual education initiative , , , or was it no welfare for illegals? Anyway, it passed, the Fed courts threw it out and the Latino vote decided the Reps were anti-Latino. Time went on, the demographic trends asserted themselves, and now the Reps near extinction in California.
The majority of us around here may desire a hard line on illegals, but I'm not sure we yet have a good practical strategy.
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It is probably safe to bet that the tradition of heated arguments over immigration began millennia ago, when the first country drew a line in the sand. But the past week in the United States of America has been a hot one, at least by any recent comparison.
You might say it began on Tuesday night, like many a bloody fight, in Vegas, when this exchange took place at the Republican debate:
Rather unpleasant, no?
Or it could have been said to begin back on Saturday, when Herman Cain, at a Tea Party sponsored event in Tennessee, proposed an electrified fence — not the joy buzzer type but the type that kills those who dare to breach it — on the U.S.-Mexico border. Or even earlier on Saturday, when Michele Bachmann, campaigning in Iowa proposed her own “secure double fence” for the border. (Bachmann, who seems to always have a pen handy, signed a pledge with the group Americans for Securing the Border, affirming her commitment to the fence.)
Midweek, The Times’s Trip Gabriel reported on the potential fallout for the G.O.P. of this kind of tough talk: the alienation of droves of Latino voters in battleground states in 2012.
And one might even suppose it culminated in an immigration fight of a different sort —the late-week dust-up that began when a story in The Washington Post asserted that the U.S. senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, “embellished” the story of his parents arrival in the United States from Cuba, for his political advantage. Many — including The Miami Herald and Rubio himself — responded with outrage at the story, and called the motives of the paper into question. Rubio’s stature as a popular Latino Republican, one who has been mentioned as a vice-presidential candidate, has led some to assert that the story itself was a “hit job.”
And lest anyone think the issue breaks clearly down partisan lines, there was this, as reported by The Hill: “The U.S. deported more people — nearly 400,000 — who were in the country illegally in fiscal 2011 than ever before, according to the latest numbers released Tuesday by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau.
“President Obama’s administration touted the startling figures as evidence of its progress in stopping illegal immigration, a record that could help the president win back independent voters who abandoned Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.”
Despite all the hot collars and flaring tempers brought on by the Republican antics, it was this last point, a revealing bit of information on the Obama administration’s position on the matter, which opened a round of soul-searching among some bloggers on the left. How tough should Democrats be on immigration and border security?
Soon after the debate, Joe Klein at Swampland pointed out.
It should also be noted that all this macho posturing about electrified fences, crocodiles etc. avoids the most basic fact about illegal immigration — it is down dramatically. The bad economy means there are fewer jobs to lure illegals. The efforts of the last several Presidents [have] significantly beefed up Border Patrol, fencing and high-tech surveillance. And the Obama Administration has been very tough on illegals–almost 400,000, a record, have been deported in the past year. (Of course, you won’t hear the Obama Administration touting this since it might turn away Latino votes…the President, like a strict Franciscan Friar, does not tout his good works, like tax cuts and tightening the border. Weird.)
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones replied to Klein’s post:
I don’t really have a big problem with beefing up the border patrol, but the real answer to illegal immigration (in the short term, anyway) is to lower the cost of legal immigration by boosting quota levels and to raise the cost of illegal immigration by making it unprofitable for employers to hire undocumented workers. That means getting E-verify to work and then tightening up the enforcement and penalties on employers who cheat. It will be interesting to see if the American public actually supports this once they see the results (no more cheap gardeners, no more cheap vegetables, etc.), but the basic idea is hardly impossible to implement.
So far, so good. Then Ryan Bonneville at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen threw a wet blanket on the border patrol bandwagon:
As has been widely reported for several days now, Obama set a new deportation record in the last fiscal year (narrowly edging out the previous record, which also belonged to his administration). This is, no doubt, the latest in his myriad attempts to co-opt the right and burnish his bipartisan credentials heading into the upcoming election. …
Any time he moves to the right, they are going to move further to the right, and their base is going to move with them. There is nothing Obama can do to alter the political calculus here.
But Bonneville truly sounded a note of despair about Klein, Drum and what he calls the “feckless discourse” of Obama and his base on immigration:
Obama’s base is as feckless as he is, which is why he expresses no compunctions about the policy choices he makes. What do you say to Joe Klein when he claims that the “most basic fact” about illegal immigration is that it’s “down”? That the real reason we don’t need crocodiles patrolling the border has nothing at all to do with the number of people illegally crossing it? Drum isn’t much better when his response is “I don’t really have a big problem with beefing up the border patrol”. Why not, Kevin? …
Instead of the fine, self-righteous rage I was working up about what a failure Obama’s presidency has been, I’m left mostly with disappointment. I don’t want to imply that there aren’t any voices doing great work on this ([Adam] Serwer is one of them, most of the time), but more and more it’s becoming clear that Obama is right about what liberals want, and I’m wrong. That’s not infuriating; it’s crushing.
(For those who are riveted by this, Drum defends his stance in a response post, which in turn elicited a response from Matt Yglesias.)
But still the fireworks were being generated by Republicans. On Thursday, Steven Benen at Political Animal expanded on the Times analysis of the Latino voter fallout:
A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney’s campaign launched an attack ad, going after Rick Perry for a Texas policy that offers in-state tuition to children of undocumented immigrants. It was an ugly, borderline-racist commercial, intended to exploit right-wing animus towards Latino immigrants. I noted at the time that Romney appears to be hoping that these voters have short memories and will forget about his divisive antics by Election Day 2012.
Of course, the larger issue goes well beyond one obnoxious ad. Given the extent to which Republican presidential hopefuls are appealing to anti-immigrant voters, the Latino community isn’t exactly being made to feel welcome in the GOP.
But it’s clear Latino voters may not just run up against that problem with Republicans. Adam Serwer, who Bonneville praises, had this to say even before Tuesday’s debate, on the cognitive dissonance of the administration’s stance on “immigration removal:”
In the twisted bizarro world of Washington politics, media conventions have obliged journalists to report with equal “balance” the Republican claim that Obama is pursuing a policy of “backdoor amnesty” even as he racks up more deportations than any president ever before. You’ll hear something similar at the GOP debate tonight if the Republican candidates are asked what needs to be done about illegal immigrations. Perhaps the other candidates will compete with Herman Cain at imagining the most elaborate possible death trap that could be placed at the border to deter would-be migrants.
What you won’t hear about, however, is the human cost to the families, citizen and non-citizen, impacted by the sheer volume and efficiency of the Obama administraton’s immigration removal policy. Neither side is particularly interested in talking about that — Republicans because compassion for the undocumented is political suicide, and the administration because it’s attempting a delicate balancing act between strict immigration enforcement policies and maintaining the approval of Latino voters who were hoping for more out of the Obama administration than record deportation numbers.
Some borders, it seems, can’t be crossed.
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"“President Obama’s administration touted the startling figures as evidence of its progress in stopping illegal immigration, a record that could help the president win back independent voters who abandoned Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.”
Sad to say I for one do not trust any statistics that come from our government.
Remember I noted a patient a while back who I advised might have too much wear and tear to be doing the heavy work he does so he promptly took that as a signal to go and apply for total permanent disability and to my amazement he got it in a few weeks. The guy is in late 50s.
I have since seen him back and he looked pretty good. He told me retirement is going well and he is exercising everyday doing long walks and machines. This from a guy who is on Federal disability because he has too much arthritis.
That said it occured to me the gov may very well be granting disability to a wider group of people because that keeps them from being on the unemployment rolls. Thus the unemployment figures are lower.
What does it say about our government when it is obvious we cannot trust their own statistics as not being truthful and manipulated for political gain?
I think Michelle Bachman is over her head but I am respecting her steadfastness more and more. If only there were more, a lot more like her!
Romney seems to me just too much of the same establishment guy. Surely that is why he still cannot pull away from the pack in the polls.
I guess the counter argument is that he might be better to attract the middle of the roaders but I agree overall with those who correctly point out compromise is what has gotten us here to start with.
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By NAFTALI BENDAVID and ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES
Many Republicans see Marco Rubio as a rising star who can help them win over the fast-growing Hispanic population, but the Florida senator says toned-down rhetoric on the hot-button issue of immigration would be more likely to bring those voters to the GOP.
Many in the GOP think Florida Sen. Marco Rubio can help the party appeal to swing-state Hispanic voters—possibly as vice-presidential nominee.
"The policies are important, but the rhetoric is sometimes the impediment," Mr. Rubio said in an interview. "Sometimes—and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone—the way the message is communicated is harmful and has hurt Republicans."
Mr. Rubio, 40 years old, is viewed by some Republicans as almost a savior when it comes to winning over Hispanics. Whether as the party's vice-presidential nominee—potentially tipping key swing states into the GOP column—or simply a fresh new voice, Republican leaders say, he can persuade Hispanics to take a second look at the party.
"I don't think any individual can do that," said Mr. Rubio.
Mr. Rubio has established himself as a foreign-policy hawk, advocating a muscular role for the U.S. abroad and criticizing President Barack Obama for what he views as a hesitancy on Iran. He is also a fiscal conservative who shares the small-government, anti-tax views of many in the tea-party movement. He has opposed some of this year's bipartisan spending deals, saying they didn't cut enough.
Just as his political portfolio includes issues far beyond immigration, Mr. Rubio says the concerns of Hispanic voters cover the spectrum—not just immigration.
"They have the same concerns as the rest of the country, and in many respects heightened concerns," he said, citing unemployment and the weak economy.
Republicans have long argued their party should be a natural home for Latinos. "A lot of Hispanics are social conservatives," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah). "They are pro-life, they are religious, they believe in work. Marco can really help us connect with them because he is the son of immigrants."
But the GOP emphasis on border enforcement and opposition to a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is alienating many Hispanic voters, polls suggest. Democrats won 66% of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential election and 60% in last year's congressional elections, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Mr. Rubio generally embraces his party's immigration policies.
The buzz around Mr. Rubio has only intensified in recent days. Straw polls and interviews suggest he's easily Republicans' leading choice for vice president. Some Republicans believe Mr. Rubio fits the GOP's needs of the moment. Democrats are skeptical of Mr. Rubio's national appeal.
"You have all these Republican candidates during the debates tripping over each other to see who can be more…anti-immigration," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.). "So they…pick Marco Rubio, and they think that will be enticing to Latinos?"
Mr. Rubio rules out joining the ticket, saying he has only been in the Senate 10 months. "I take it as a compliment, but I have a job, and it's an important job," he said.
Mr. Rubio's engagement in two recent high-profile spats highlighted the problems he could face in appealing to Latinos nationally. He locked horns with Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language network, over a segment on his brother-in-law's drug conviction.
Then last week, the senator sparred with news organizations over reports suggesting Mr. Rubio had embellished the story of his family's emigration from Cuba. The accounts suggested his parents fled for economic opportunity more than to escape political persecution, triggering a debate over whether his family could be considered typical of the community of Cuban-American political exiles.
Mr. Rubio said he'd like the GOP to discuss immigration in a different way.
Excerpts
'I really try not to ride the highs or the lows.'
—Read more from the interview.
."The Republican Party needs to be the pro-legal immigration party," said Mr. Rubio. "We need to say, 'We believe in immigration and we think it's good for America.' But it has to be orderly, a system based on law, a system that works." He notes that people in Florida welcome Canadians who winter in their state and that farmers need agricultural workers.
But his positions on immigration policies may be a hindrance. He opposes a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and opposes the Dream Act, which would provide a chance for some undocumented youth to become legal.
Lionel Sosa, an adviser to Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign who's long been involved with GOP Hispanic politics, said Mr. Rubio "will have to moderate his positions" on immigration if he is to attract a large numbers of Hispanics.
Mr. Rubio faces another delicate issue—he's from the Cuban-American community, which is more conservative than other Latino groups and has benefited from immigration policies that afford its members a quick path to legalization.
Latino Decisions, a nonpartisan firm that polls the Hispanic community, found that Mr. Rubio garnered 78% of Cuban-American support when he ran for Senate but only 40% of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote, though that is still a relatively high number for a Republican. Such numbers worry many GOP strategists, because Hispanics play important roles in swing states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.
"Republicans are in definite need of doing better with Hispanic voters around the country," said GOP consultant Whit Ayres.
This concern dovetails with Mr. Rubio's growing national profile. He has been delivering speeches around the U.S. and using a perch on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to speak out on foreign affairs. He has created a political action committee to support conservatives, and he plans a memoir.
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Interesting that Rubio is against the pathway or whatever amnesty is now called. I agree with his point that at the very least politically, Republicans must be pro-legal-immigration in a lawful and orderly way. If done right this makes good economic sense too and follows in a great tradition that got most of the rest of us here.
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Woof,
Let's see if the State's are at the mercy of the distant, inept, and corrupt Federal government (exactly why the Revolutionary war was fought). The headline comes at the end: Kagan recluses herself!!!!
High court to review tough Arizona immigration law
By MARK SHERMAN | AP – 8 hrs ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court stepped into the fight Monday over a tough Arizona law that requires local police to help enforce federal immigration laws — pushing the court deeper into hot, partisan issues of the 2012 election campaign.
The court's election-year docket now contains three politically charged disputes, including President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and Texas redistricting.
The debate over immigration already is shaping presidential politics, and now the court is undertaking a review of an Arizona law that has spawned a host of copycat state laws targeting illegal immigrants.
The court will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while enforcing other laws, question a person's immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally.
The case is the court's biggest foray into immigration law in decades, said Temple University law professor Peter Spiro, an expert in that area.
The Obama administration challenged the Arizona law by arguing that regulating immigration is the job of the federal government, not states. Similar laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah also are facing administration lawsuits. Private groups are suing over immigration measures adopted in Georgia and Indiana.
"This case is not just about Arizona. It's about every state grappling with the costs of illegal immigration," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said following the court's announcement Monday.
Fifty-nine Republicans in Congress, including presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, filed a brief with the court backing the Arizona law.
The immigration case, like the challenge to Obama's health care overhaul, pits Republican-led states against the Democratic administration in an argument about the reach of federal power. The redistricting case has a similarly partisan tinge to it, with Republicans who control the state government in Texas facing off against Democrats and minority groups that tend vote Democratic.
In the immigration arena, the states say that the federal government isn't doing enough to address a major problem and that border states are suffering disproportionately.
The issue has been widely discussed by the Republican candidates for president. They have mostly embraced a hard line to avoid accusations that they support any kind of "amnesty" for the some 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S.
Newt Gingrich was most recently criticized by his opponents for saying he would grant legal status to some with longstanding family and community ties, and Gingrich has since endorsed the South Carolina law that allows police to demand a person's immigration status. That law is among the four state laws that have been challenged by the administration.
Brewer signed the Arizona immigration measure into law in April 2010. The administration sued three months later to block it from taking effect.
In April, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge's ruling halting enforcement of several provisions of the law. Among the blocked provisions: requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers; making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job and allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.
In October, the federal appeals court in Atlanta blocked parts of the Alabama law that forced public schools to check the immigration status of students and allowed police to file criminal charges against people who were unable to prove their citizenship.
Lawsuits in South Carolina and Utah are not as far along.
The administration argued that the justices should have waited to see how other courts ruled on the challenges to other laws before getting involved. Still, following the court's announcement Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We look forward to arguing our point of view in that case when the time comes."
Spiro, the Temple University immigration expert, said the court easily could have passed on the Arizona case for now. "They could have waited for the more extreme case to come from Alabama, which really outflanked the Arizona law," Spiro said.
He predicted the court would uphold the police check of immigration status but perhaps not the measure making it a crime to be without immigration documents.
Arguments probably will take place in late April, which would give the court roughly two months to decide the case
Justice Elena Kagan will not take part case, presumably because of her work on the issue when she served in the Justice Department in the Obama administration.
The case is Arizona v. U.S., 11-182.
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By ROBERT GUEST
I once asked the boss of Tata Consulting Services, a gigantic Indian IT firm, how many of his top executives had worked or studied abroad. He replied: "All of them."
The world's most talented people are exceptionally mobile. When they move to America, they make it smarter, and that's not just because they are smart. It is also because migration creates connections.
A couple of generations ago, immigrants might sail to America and never see their old friends again. Today, they can text their brothers, wire money to their business partners, and fly back home regularly.
So they form networks. Brainy Indians in Silicon Valley natter constantly with brainy Indians in Bangalore. Brainy Chinese and Peruvians do likewise. Diaspora networks speed the flow of ideas across borders. And this has far-reaching consequences.
It turbocharges trade. Immigrants often start companies that are multinational from day one. Consider the story of Mei Xu. She was born in China during the Cultural Revolution. Her childhood memories are of being locked in a small room while her parents were harangued by a Maoist mob for being "bourgeois."
Now she lives in suburban Maryland and runs an ocean-straddling business. It started when she spotted a gap in the American market for fancy candles. She designed them herself and persuaded her sister in China to set up a factory to make them. Now her firm, Pacific Trade International, grosses $100 million a year.
Her success depends on having a foot in both countries. She understands American tastes. And she has contacts in China, without which she would struggle to get anything done.
Contacts are crucial in emerging markets, because the rule of law is typically weak. If you can't rely on the courts to enforce contracts, you need to know whom you can trust. William Kerr of Harvard Business School has shown that American firms that hire immigrants find it easier to do business with those immigrants' countries of origin.
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.This matters for the United States: Most of the growth in the global economy is in emerging markets. And the diaspora effect is very large. For example, an estimated 70% of the world's foreign direct investment in China passes through ethnic Chinese who live outside mainland China.
Migrant networks accelerate the spread of technology, too. Immigrant researchers in America constantly bounce ideas off their chums back home. As these ideas bounce back and forth, they evolve.
For example, three Indian-American engineers had the idea of adapting the cooling technology from a computer to cool a refrigerator. Through a personal introduction, their firm in Texas, Sheetak Inc., linked up with Godrej & Boyce, an appliance manufacturer in Mumbai. Together, they developed a fridge that costs only $70.
Indian and Chinese consumers demand ultra-cheap products. Local engineers strain every brain cell to invent such "frugal" products, which are often an order of magnitude cheaper than their Western equivalents. We're talking about $300 prefabricated houses and $1,800 heart operations.
If America wants to tap the gusher of innovation that is starting to come out of emerging markets, it has to keep letting in immigrants from those places. Some will stay; others will eventually go home. Either way, they will keep ideas flowing through America. A study by the Kauffman Foundation found that two-thirds of Indian entrepreneurs who move back to India from America maintain at least monthly contact with their former colleagues in the U.S. Chinese returnees are nearly as chatty.
Immigrants also provide America with an army of unofficial diplomats, recruiters and deal-brokers. When they visit the countries where they were born, they may grumble about American foreign policy. But they also talk about their well-paid jobs, their amiable neighbors, and the vibrancy of American churches.
And immigrants often absorb and spread American ideals. The opening of the Indian economy in 1991 was partly inspired by the success of Indians living abroad. (During the closed era, a lawmaker cheekily asked Indira Gandhi: "Can the prime minister explain why Indians seem to thrive economically under every government in the world except her own?")
Today, students from China who come to America cannot help noticing that the air is cleaner, the people are richer, and the political system allows people to choose a new government without bloodshed.
Hundreds of thousands of foreign-educated Chinese, known as "sea turtles," have moved back to China in the past decade. They are the elite—bright enough to win scholarships or rich enough to pay American college fees. Many are now highly influential. They dominate the Chinese technology industry, Chinese universities and the think tanks that advise the government in Beijing. They are also steadily rising within the Communist Party.
Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution calculates that sea turtles were 6% of the Communist Party's central committee in 2002. When the next generation of leaders takes over in 2012, he expects, they will be 15%-17%. Few sea turtles return home loudly proclaiming the merits of democracy—that would be career suicide. But China's eventual transition to one-person, one-vote will surely come sooner, and more smoothly, because such a high proportion of the Chinese elite have seen firsthand how free societies work.
While skilled immigrants make America smarter, richer and more influential, the process for obtaining a work visa is dismayingly slow, capricious and humiliating. The political debate in the United States about immigration focuses almost entirely on keeping unskilled Mexicans out, which is odd, since they stopped coming in large numbers when the construction industry crashed in 2008.
Skilled migrants have choices. Canada, Australia and New Zealand welcome them. America, by contrast, lets them come to study and then throws them out when they graduate. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls this "national suicide." He is right. For America to shut out immigrants is like Saudi Arabia setting fire to its oil wells.
Mr. Guest is business editor at the Economist. His new book is "Borderless Economics: Chinese Sea Turtles, Indian Fridges and the New Fruits of Global Capitalism" (Palgrave Macmillan).
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Hundreds of thousands of foreign-educated Chinese, known as "sea turtles," have moved back to China in the past decade. They are the elite—bright enough to win scholarships or rich enough to pay American college fees. Many are now highly influential. They dominate the Chinese technology industry, Chinese universities and the think tanks that advise the government in Beijing. They are also steadily rising within the Communist Party.
Is this a explanation for why Wukan hasn't been leveled? Although I think they aren't out of the woods yet.....
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WASHINGTON — The federal agency in charge of deportations is conducting a far-reaching training course to push immigration enforcement officers and prosecutors nationwide to focus their efforts on removing immigrants convicted of crimes.
The training course is the clearest sign yet that administration officials want to transform the way immigration officers work, asking them to make nuanced decisions to speed deportations of high-risk offenders while halting those of illegal immigrants with clean records and strong ties to the country. The policy is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative before the November elections, senior administration officials said.
But in a new sign of the deep dissension over immigration, the union representing some 7,000 deportation officers of the agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has so far not allowed its members to participate in the training. Without the formal assent of the union, the administration’s strategy could be significantly slowed for months in labor negotiations.
Chris Crane, the president of the union, the National ICE Council, has fiercely criticized the strategy, saying it amounts to orders from ICE officials for agents not to enforce the law. In Congressional testimony, Mr. Crane accused the administration of tailoring its enforcement practices to win support from immigrant communities for Mr. Obama’s re-election.
“Law enforcement and public safety have taken a back seat to attempts to satisfy immigrant advocacy groups,” Mr. Crane told a House Judiciary subcommittee in October.
Department of Homeland Security officials say the training seminar, although only half a day, is central to bringing all ICE officers on board for an effort that they say will significantly raise the numbers of convicted criminals among deportees and is expected to lead in coming months to unprecedented suspensions of deportations of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Virtually all ICE commanding officers and prosecutors have gone through the training course and are working on the new strategy, Homeland Security Department officials said. But because of the silence from the ICE Council, a local of the American Federation of Government Employees, the officials will miss their Jan. 13 goal for completing the nationwide training blitz, which began in November.
Mr. Crane has channeled his criticisms primarily through Republican leaders in Congress, working with Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Calling the administration’s plan “backdoor amnesty,” Mr. Smith said last week that evidence Mr. Crane presented to the committee showed that directives from ICE officials for agents to use discretion in enforcement decisions had “undermined the agency’s credibility and mission.”
The National ICE Council faces a deadline late this month to say whether it will demand negotiations over the training, the officials said. Mr. Crane did not respond to repeated e-mail requests over several months for comment.
On another side, the administration is facing intense pressure from Latino leaders and immigrant organizations to begin halting deportations.
The cornerstone of the policy is a June 17 memorandum by John Morton, the director of ICE, in which he laid out a list of no fewer than 31 factors that ICE officers should weigh when deciding whether to proceed with a deportation. Peter S. Vincent, ICE’s top lawyer, added further guidelines on Nov. 17.
With slide shows and chalk talks on a dozen hypothetical immigration cases, the training seminar challenges officers to decide which foreigners should be deported, using prosecutorial discretion to make more complex decisions than they have in decades. It instructs agents to focus on the worst offenders, including criminal convicts, gang members and foreigners who came back after being expelled. Other groups of immigrants — elderly people, children, military veterans, college students and parents of young citizens — are low priorities who can be allowed to stay, even if they are here illegally. A New York Times reporter sat through an abbreviated version of the seminar.
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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the policy was based on existing statutes and was intended to make good use of strained resources. With each deportation costing at least $23,000, she said, immigration agencies have money for 400,000 removals each year, a goal that the Obama administration has met in each of the past three years. But an estimated 11 million immigrants live here illegally.
The training asks ICE agents what they should do, for example, with a young illegal immigrant turned over to the agency after being arrested by a state trooper for driving without a license. She has been living in this country since 1993 and has an infant son, an American citizen because he was born here. But she lied to ICE officers, failing to tell them she had a conviction for shoplifting in 1995.
Answer: She is not a threatening criminal and may still be nursing her American baby. Officers should close her deportation case.
How about the migrant who has been living here since he crossed the Southwest border illegally in 1996? He failed to appear for a crucial immigration court hearing back then. But he has no criminal record, and he coaches soccer at the school where his twin daughters, both citizens, are enrolled.
Answer: This case, too, should be closed.
Then there is the man from an Asian Pacific island, a legal resident of the United States since 1984 who even served two distinguished combat tours in Iraq. But he left the military and is now finishing a six-year prison sentence for a federal sex-trafficking felony.
Answer: Despite his service, because of his grave sex offense he loses his resident status and will be sent by ICE to his birth country.
Cases against illegal immigrants who win favorable prosecutorial discretion will be closed but not canceled, so ICE can easily reopen them. Mr. Morton said the immigrants would remain in “legal limbo,” not gaining any legal immigration status.
Mr. Crane told Congress that the Morton directives presented enforcement agents with “a roller coaster of arrest authority that has changed from month to month, week to week and at times from day to day.” He said some agents were afraid to make any arrests.
It is not clear how deeply the union’s resistance reaches into ICE ranks. ICE officials say many field agents have been drawn to the professional appeal of the high-profile anticrime operations against foreign street gangs, drug dealers and sex offenders that the agency is conducting ever more frequently.
“Our folks understand that we have limited resources and we have to focus more than ever on our priorities,” said Chris Shanahan, the ICE field office director who oversees deportation operations in New York City, where all supervisors have had the training.
“What I see from my officers,” Mr. Shanahan said, “is that they understand that criminal aliens and national security threats should be taken into custody and removed before a single mother, a pregnant woman or someone with small United States citizen children.”
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[From Pres.2012] "Contrary to his own previous statements on the subject, with his Executive Order BO today blew off his responsibilities under our Constitution to enforce the immigration laws. ... "
Note that this topic went dormant since Jan. Illegal immigration is down because of the bad economy. People instead are going home. Still it needs to be solved - and mass deportation of otherwise law abiding citizens is mostly not going to happen.
Reactions to Obama's move:
1) Already mentioned, it is abuse of power and a shirk of his constitutional responsibilities.
2) It is an Obama flip flop. He already said it would be inappropriate for the executive branch to act unilaterally. They had already done everything they could legally do. Must see video link below.
3) Picking off the low hanging fruit first undermines a larger idea of acting comprehensively.
4) Roughly 100% of the voters are going to see this as a cynical political ploy to win votes though many with a direct family, neighbor or friend stake in it will see that as worth it. The Hispanic vote was only 9% of the total 2008 vote and Obama won 67% of them. Hispanics make a crucial difference in certain swing states. Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona come to mind.
5) Conservatives and people who respect our laws may have to in the end make concessions on some existing illegal immigrants. If the end game is concessions, too bad to look like the enemy of Hispanics during the negotiations. Romney and Rubio are mindful of this. They need to win the election to have any power over this or anything else going forward. But out of that caving and compromise should have come permanent border security, for one thing.
6) Romney risks perception of flip-flop-flip with his next move as he went pretty hardline on illegals during the chase for the Republican nomination.
7) There are other areas of political/economic opportunity: expanding LEGAL immigration of scientists, engineers and business owners from around the world where Republicans still can lead.
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Krauthammer, out and out lawlessness: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/06/15/krauthammer_obamas_immigration_policy_is_out-and-out_lawlessness.html
John Yoo, Executive overreach: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/303038/executive-overreach-john-yoo#
Romney: Obama immigration move makes long term fix harder
http://www.breakingnews.com/item/ahZzfmJyZWFraW5nbmV3cy13d3ctaHJkcg0LEgRTZWVkGOSn6ggM/2012/06/15/romney-obama-immigration-move-makes-long-term-fix-harder-political
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/12/26/politicians-study-myths-realities-2012-hispanic-vote/
Shock Video: Obama Admits He Can’t Do What He Did Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J9isifcg9ik
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It was a stupid move by Mitt (during the FL debate IIRC) when he jumped on Newt for Newt's early forerunner version of this.
As to reasons for declining illegal immigration I would add
a) the official unemployment rate (yeah, yeah, I know) in Mexico is something like 5 or 6 %
b) the narco gangs scoop up large numbers of mojados as they approach the border to steal their money, to rape the women, to forcibly recruit the men as mules and hit men, and so forth. Mass graves (we're talking 40-60 at a time here being typical numbers) are common.
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4) Roughly 100% of the voters are going to see this as a cynical political ploy to win votes though many with a direct family, neighbor or friend stake in it will see that as worth it. The Hispanic vote was only 9% of the total 2008 vote and Obama won 67% of them. Hispanics make a crucial difference in certain swing states. Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona come to mind."
Most Americans support this kind of program. Hispanics OVERWHELMINGLY support this kind of action. As pointed out by Doug, that's important in "crucial swing states". What do the Republicans suggest? Rounding them all up after they finish school and sending them back to Mexico? I think it's a realistic program that most Americans will support and it will win Hispanic votes in key states. Smart move by Obama.
As a side note, although the subject is avoided, it is also a road to citizenship. Once you have a Green Card, citizenship is not that hard to obtain. Further, once you are a citizen, you can sponsor other relatives....
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/opinion/noorani-immigration-children-obama/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
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C'mon JDN, as already noted in this thread Marco Rubio was at work on this with both sides of the aisle-- which is probably why Baraq decided to blow off his previous concerns that he was not allowed to do what has he done here-- blow off his responsibility to enforce our laws. Apparently this seems to be of little interest to you.
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What I don't understand about the Obama/JDN plan is that if you repeal Article Two of the Constitution, who would be Commander in Chief?
Can you have a President just selectively choose which of his responsibilities he wants to do and then what, have well organized militias step in and do the rest?
Did you miss this link of the President making excuses to Hispanics one year ago? Please watch! Obama the constitutionalist opposes Obama's policy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J9isifcg9ik
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9isifcg9ik[/youtube]
George W Bush, McCain, Jeb Bush and other Republicans, Lugar I'm sure, favor some form of amnesty without using the a-word that polls so terribly. Reagan signed a deal with the devil Nov 6 1986 trading some form of amnesty for border security later that never happened.
Crafty mentions unemployment of our youth, but the ease of gang and terrorist mobility is reason enough to ask the federal government to do their job.
Democrats want no ID check coming in, no ID check for voting and then the power to pass laws that apply to other people and not to yourself, like raising tax rates on only the wealthiest Americans.
Maybe after we remove the meaning of the word marriage from the dictionary we can get rid of the concept of sovereignty too. All true libs want is one world government anyway.
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Text of Pres. Obama from one year ago. Read carefully. Was he lying to us then or is he lying to us now?
With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed — and I know that everybody here at Bell is studying hard so you know that we’ve got three branches of government. Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws. And then the judiciary has to interpret the laws.
There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/15/flashback-obama-said-he-wouldnt-do-executive-order-on-deportations-weve-got-three-branches-of-government/#ixzz1y54QbRkM
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"Was he lying to us then or is he lying to us now?"
Both. It doesn't seem to matter thought. The deciders of elections, the "undecideds" don't seem to think honesty is important enough a requisite job qualification. Clinton certainly proved that case in the 90's.
Say whatever it takes to get re elected.
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C'mon JDN, as already noted in this thread Marco Rubio was at work on this with both sides of the aisle-- which is probably why Baraq decided to blow off his previous concerns that he was not allowed to do what has he done here-- blow off his responsibility to enforce our laws. Apparently this seems to be of little interest to you.
Perhaps Rubio was working on this; an uphill battle in the Republican party. Romney sure isn't in favor of anything close to what Obama has done. Nor is Santorum.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-mocks-romneys-self-deportation-plan-for-illegal-immigrants/2012/01/25/gIQAlxzaQQ_story.html
And he didn't blow of his responsibility to enforce our laws; or are you saying that the President should "enforce our laws" and round op 12 million illegal immigrants and deport them all?
That's ridiculous.
Obama gave the best and brightest a possible future here.
Good move by Obama. Romney seems rather speechless in his response so far. When asked if he will repeal Obama's order if elected, Romney jumped into the bus with no further questions being allowed. :-o
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Lalalala, it is all so simple, but absolutely no comment on the fact that Obama 2011 and half of 2012 disagrees with Obama's June 2012 campaign decision. If it is all so simple, so right, so obvious, why didn't he issue the executive order sooner? Why did he make the 2011 statement?
"round up 12 million illegal immigrants and deport them all"
Is it fun or challenging to argue with straw?
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Doug, rather than finding a practical solution, the Republicans in the last year and a half have been moving to the right of this issue. The best they can do is say, "we should enforce the law". What does that mean? As I said, does that mean "round up 12 million illegal immigrants and deport them all." Republicans offer no solution.
That is ridiculous.
Obama, the American people have been waiting for some movement. In the interim, Obama has reduced immigration at the border. Obama has been enforcing the law vigorously deporting criminals. So now he has decided not to focus on a small group, i.e. students; he did not include millions upon millions who hope not to be deported. Like the cop on the street, given limited money and allocation of time, he can decide how to enforce the law. Where to set priorities. It's been done before.
Romney if elected can repeal that executive order the first day. Whoops :? Romney is awful quiet on that subject when asked it that is what he will do? :-o
If you want to see a professional flip flopper, look at what Romney says on various issues.
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JDN:
Sometimes I am left wondering at how little you can replicate the other POV.
"Enforce the law" means , , , "Enforce the Law". It does not mean saying that one WILL NOT enforce certain parts of the law-- WHICH HAS BEEN NOTED WITH SPECIFICITY IN THIS THREAD PRESIDENT OBAMA HIMSELF HAS SAID HE CANNOT DO on various occassions. Setting enforcement priorities is fine, but saying that one WILL NOT enforce certain parts of the law is not. What is so hard to grasp about this distinction?
"As I said, does that mean "round up 12 million illegal immigrants and deport them all." Republicans offer no solution."
PLEASE.
I would say that for most Reps (i.e. excluding Ron Paul) the solution is clear. Enforce the law. CONTROL THE BORDER and then and only then COMPREHENSIVE reform. The shape of that reform matters. As best as I can tell for the Dems it means "Let in as many latinos as possible and define things so they can bring as many of their family members as possible because they will vote Dem."
If we were to grant the 11 million here amnesty and allow them to lever in their family members as envisioned by various proffered Dem plans, it would mean some 30-50 million new American citizens from Latin America. In that we already have serious balkanization and even secessionist tendencies already, this seems to me a REALLY bad idea. It seem to me that the Dems could give a flying fk because for them it is only a matter of expanding a class of people likely to vote for them regardless of the danger to the social fabric of the country.
Comprehensive reform IMHO should
a) make it easier for seasonal farm labor;
b) make it easier for high IQ, educated skilled people to get work visas, including with a path to citizenship.
But CONTROL OF THE BORDER must come first, lest there be a repeat of what happened with the Reagan amnesty. Yes Baraq can show some decent numbers about expelling criminal elements amongst the illegals (who by definition are criminal I know, but I think my point is understood anyway)-- but this also has included a big wink at the rest of the illegals.
With some frustration at having to repeat myself, much of the decline of border traffic comes not from truly controlling the border (witness the many expressions of the narco wars coming onto our side) but from our economy being stagnant, the Mexican economy doing rather well, and narco gangs preying upon those headed for the US in terrible ways.
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The question to me was not the Obama flip flop; that is most obvious. The qestion was the legal merit and substance of what he said previously. He presents himself to be a constitutional scholar. So was he right that he cannot act unilaterally or was be wrong?
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Actually, if we "enforced the law" all 12 million illegal immigrants would be arrested and returned to their country of origin. "Enforce the Law" doesn't only mean tighten the border, although from all accounts Obama has done that. Illegal immigration across the border is down albeit for various reasons but including increased enforcement.
Law enforcement on all levels selectively enforces the law. As for precedent, Bush did something very similar.
http://www.voanews.com/content/a-13-2007-09-14-voa6/343743.html
Even as you point out, why not let educated illegals and/or ones who have served in our military have a path citizenship?
It was a brilliant move by Obama. If the Republicans don't like it; repeal it if Romney is elected. But Romney doesn't know how to react. :-o
Negative reaction is just sour grapes; Republicans don't have a good answer.
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JDN:
Please don't be tedious, it drags down the level of the conversation.
1) "Enforce the law" does not mean all 12 million would be arrested and returned. It means that those caught would be treated according to the law. This is not hard to understand. (BTW as best as I can tell, the Bush reference article you cite is not precise enough to make clear the legal context).
2) "Even as you point out, why not let educated illegals and/or ones who have served in our military have a path citizenship?"
That simply is not what I said. I said this:
"Comprehensive reform IMHO should
a) make it easier for seasonal farm labor;
b) make it easier for high IQ, educated skilled people to get work visas, including with a path to citizenship."
There is NOTHING in there about giving illegals any kind of a leg up to citizenship.
As for "brilliant" move, perhaps , , , if one does not give a fk about the very same Constitutional issues cited by Baraq himself not so long ago , , ,
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It's seems Romney has quite the dilemma. :-o
What's he going to do?
The rock and the hard place......
Even the Republican blogs are taking him to task.....
http://www.alipac.us/content/romney-won-t-say-he-ll-overturn-immigration-order-641/
Obama did nothing illegal, although I do admit it was a stretch, nevertheless brilliant.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/obamas-immigration-policy-shift-was-legal-but-was-it-proper/
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You say brilliant with repetition yet never address the objections raised or questions posed.
Tedious is putting it kindly.
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You say brilliant with repetition yet never address the objections raised or questions posed.
Tedious is putting it kindly.
Doug, did your read my second most recent link? I think it addresses that issue about the "legality" of his actions.
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I would have liked to see you contribute that much earlier in the conversation.
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"Romney doesn’t want to come out against leniency for those brought here illegally when they were under 16, who have since graduated high school or served in the military and are now under 30. He is trailing by as much as 3 to 1 among Hispanic voters. He got himself in a box during the Republican primaries by taking a hard line on illegal immigrants, calling on them to “self-deport” and vowing to veto the DREAM Act, among other things. He wants to edge back toward the center, but Obama has just blocked the easiest path, which would be wrapping himself around whatever Rubio proposes.
I thought the president’s move—an obvious election-year gambit--would spark an explosion on the Republican right. But the reaction has been muted, even on Fox News. That tells me that in purely political terms, Obama has outmaneuvered the opposition by putting a young face on the politically divisive immigration problem. Hence the Romney two-step."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/17/romney-dances-on-immigration.html
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How Skilled Immigrants Create Jobs
The Employ American Workers Act has achieved three things: Lost ideas. Lost jobs. Lost taxes.
By MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER
President Obama thrust immigration back into the spotlight last week with his executive order halting deportations for certain young illegal immigrants. In the context of America's jobs crisis, however, this is the wrong immigration issue to focus on. Our most pressing immigration problem marched across platforms at American colleges and universities in recent weeks—skilled foreign-born graduates whom we do not adequately incentivize to stay and work here.
At the Tuck School's graduation ceremony this month, I proudly read the names of 277 M.B.A. graduates. The Tuck class of 2012 was 35% foreign-born, representing countries from Australia to Zimbabwe. Many of these graduates chose Tuck over peer schools abroad because they aimed to apply their world-class U.S. education in the U.S. labor market. The same is true across academic fields. Today nearly 42% of all U.S. doctorate-level science and engineering workers are foreign-born.
Won't more immigrant graduates staying in America mean fewer jobs for Americans? No. On the contrary, they will create jobs for Americans—in large corporations and new companies alike. Large companies that hire skilled immigrants tend to hire more U.S. nationals as well. Bill Gates has testified that for every immigrant hire at Microsoft, an average of four non-immigrant employees are hired.
As for start-ups, a 2007 study by researchers at Duke and UC Berkeley found that 25% of all U.S. high-technology firms established between 1995 and 2005 had at least one foreign-born founder. In 2005, these new companies employed 450,000 workers and generated over $50 billion in sales.
Skilled immigrants have long supported U.S. jobs and living standards. They bring human capital, financial capital, and connections to opportunities abroad. Despite all this dynamism, U.S. policy toward skilled immigrants has long been far too restrictive. The H1-B program, which accounts for nearly all of America's legal skilled immigration, imposes a cap of 85,000 visas annually—65,000 with at least a bachelor's degree and 20,000 with at least a master's degree. For years, demand far exceeded the supply. In 2007, the year before the financial crisis struck, more than 150,000 H1-B applications were submitted on the first day.
Since the financial crisis, America's immigration policy has further tightened. Buried in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was the Employ American Workers Act, which restricted H1-B hiring at any U.S. company that received government support from either TARP or new Federal Reserve credit facilities. This act foolishly hurt hundreds of finance companies by limiting their talent pool precisely when they needed new talent the most.
I saw the damage done by this misguided legislation firsthand. Within days of the president signing it into law, a number of U.S. banks reneged on job offers extended months earlier to foreign-born M.B.A. students. Six Tuckies were soon in my office, confused and upset at suddenly facing unemployment. By graduation only one had secured employment in America, after randomly winning a visa lottery. The other five all secured jobs—but all abroad. All five said they would probably never return to the U.S. because of the Employ American Workers Act. The long-term result? Lost ideas. Lost jobs. Lost taxes.
These five graduates exemplify the worrisome reality that America's attractiveness is waning for talented immigrants from dynamic countries. In the past decade, the share of doctoral-degree recipients in science and engineering from China and India who report definite plans to stay in America has been falling. A recent survey by Duke University researcher Vivek Wadwha found that 72% of Indian immigrants who returned to their home country said that opportunities to start their own businesses were "better" or "much better" there than in the U.S. For Chinese immigrant returnees, the figure was an alarming 81%.
We need to reverse this trend if we hope to overcome our jobs crisis, the depth of which is sobering. The 111 million private-sector jobs in America today are the same number there were 12 years ago. Leaders in Washington can keep fiddling with haphazard fiscal incentives or temporary proposals whose political rationale trumps economic ones. Or they can instead rebuild the foundation of new-business formation, innovation and investment that ultimately creates jobs. Opening U.S. doors much wider to skilled immigrants educated here should be a cornerstone of any pro-growth policy. It is a graduation gift that the Class of 2012 and all of America deserve.
Mr. Slaughter is a professor and associate dean at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. From 2005 to 2007 he served on the President's Council of Economic Advisers.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0625-rodriguez-pew-asians--20120625,0,6955824.column
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I saw a reference in today's Daily Breeze (a pretty good local paper) that a bill is moving through the CA legislature withdrawing CA from the ICE program wherein CA sends fingerprints of the incarcerated to ICE. unless they have been convicted of "serious felonies". Apparently minor felonies are OK, as is the fact of being here illegally :-P :x
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Noonan: 'Is That Allowed?' 'It Is Here.'
By PEGGY NOONAN
There's something Haley Barbour reminded me of called the Gate Rule. The former Mississippi governor said it's the first thing you should think of when you think about immigration. People are either lined up at the gate trying to get out of a country, or lined up trying to get in.
It says something about the health of a nation when they're lined up to get in, as they are, still, with America. It says, of course, that compared with a lot of the rest of the world, America's economy isn't in such bad shape. But it says more than that. People don't want to come to a place when they know they'll be treated badly. They don't want to call your home their home unless they know you'll make room for them in more than economic ways.
And so this July 4, a small tribute to American friendliness, openness, and lack of—what to call it? The old hatreds. They dissipate here. In Ireland, Catholics and Protestants could be at each other's throats for centuries, but the minute they moved here, they were in the Kiwanis Club together. The Mideast is a cauldron, but when its residents move here, they wind up on the same PTA committee. It sounds sentimental, but this is part of the magic of America, and the world still knows it even if we, in our arguments, especially about immigration, forget.
So, three stories of American friendliness, openness and lack of the old hatreds.
There was a teenager who came here with his parents and younger brother. They arrived New York and got an apartment on 181st Street and Broadway. He spoke little English but went right into public school. The family needed money, so when he was 16, he transferred to night school and got a day job at a shaving-brush factory. He wore big, heavy rubber gloves and squeezed bleaching acid out of the bristles. Soon he went part time to City College, and then he entered the U.S. Army.
David Gothard
.This is a classic immigrant story. It could be about anyone. But the teenager went on to become an American secretary of state, and his name is Henry Kissinger. Here is another part of the story that is classic: how Americans treated him. The workers at the factory were older than he, mostly Italian-American, some second-generation. They wanted to help make him part of things, so they started taking him to baseball games. "It was the summer of 1939. . . . I didn't know anything about baseball," he remembered this week. Now here he was in the roaring stands at Yankee Stadium. About the people in the bleachers, he said, "the most striking thing was the enormous friendliness, the bantering." In Hitler's Germany, "I saw crowds, I'd go to the other side of the street." Here, no sense of looming threat. "That I would say was a very American part of my experience."
He was "enchanted" by the game—"the subtlety, the little nuances—you can watch what the strategy is and how they judge what the opponent is likely to do by the way the fielders position themselves. . . . It is a game that combines leisure with highly dramatic moments!"
And there was the man called Joe DiMaggio. The factory workers would sort of say, "If you take a look at Joe DiMaggio," you will learn something about this country. DiMaggio was "infinitely graceful" as a fielder, "he would sort of lope towards the ball . . . nothing dramatic, he didn't tumble, he didn't strut, and he made it look effortless." He didn't "stand there wagging his bat. . . . He would just stand there with his bat raised. . . . He was all concentration."
Years later they met, and Mr. Kissinger, faced with his boyhood idol, that symbol of those early years, was awed. It was like being a kid and meeting a movie star: "I didn't know exactly what to say to him." They became friends. "He had a fierce kind of integrity."
So Henry Kissinger learned some things about Americans, and America, thanks to a bunch of Italian guys in a brush factory downtown. They were good to him. They were welcoming. Probably when they or their people were new here, someone was good to them.
That is American friendliness. Here is American openness—meaning if you are open to it, it will be open to you. Mary Dorian was an uneducated Irish farm girl with no family to speak of and no prospects She came to America on her own, around 1920. She wrote to the one girl she knew, a distant cousin in Brooklyn, to ask that she meet her at the ship. She landed at Ellis Island, went to the agreed-upon spot, and the cousin wasn't there. She had forgotten. Mary, my grandmother, spent her first night in America alone on a park bench in lower Manhattan.
She went on to find Brooklyn and settle in. She joined an Irish club and a step-dancing club. They didn't have anything like that back home. We make a mistake when we worry that sometimes immigrants come here and burrow more into their old nationality than their new one. It's not a rejection of America, just a way of not being lonely, of still being connected to something. She met her husband in an Irish club, and she got a job hanging up coats in a restaurant. Then she became a bathroom attendant at Abraham & Strauss on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn. When she died in 1960, a lot of black people came to the funeral. This, in a Brooklyn broken up into separate ethnic enclaves, was surprising, but it wouldn't have been to her. They were her coworkers from A&S, all the girls who worked in the ladies room, and their families. They loved her.
When she died, Mary Dorian had a job, a family and friends. She had come here with none of those things. She trusted America, and it came through.
As for the old hatreds:
There was a 7-year-old boy who came over from Germany on the SS Bremen. He was travelling with his younger brother—they too were fleeing the Nazis—and a steward. The Bremen anchored on Manhattan's west side on May 4, 1939, and the children were joined by their father, who was already in New York. They stood on deck watching the bustle of disembarking, and then the boy saw something. "Across the street from where we were, and visible from the boat, was a delicatessen which had its name in neon with Hebrew letters," he remembered this week.
He was startled. Something with Hebrew letters—that was impossible back home. He asked his father, "Is that allowed?"
And his father said, "It is here."
It is here.
The little boy was Mike Nichols, the great film and stage director, who went on to do brilliant things with the freedom he was given here.
Sometimes we think our problems are so big we have to remake ourselves to meet them. But maybe we don't. Maybe we just have to remember who we are—open, friendly, welcoming and free.
Happy Fourth of July to this tender little country, to the great and fabled nation that is still, this day, the hope of the world.
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How long until Obama/Holder shut this operation down?
http://vimeo.com/45377841 (2 minute Houston television news, must see video)
http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2012/07/11/border-insecurity-heavily-armed-texas-gunboats-now-patrolling-the-rio-grande/
"Now, to deal with the Federal failure to secure the river and the drug and human smugglers who use it, Texas Department of Public Safety has deployed gunboats on the river, armed with major firepower. DPS now has 4 shallow-water vessels (soon to increase to 6), each armed with six M-240, 30-caliber automatic machine guns that fire 900 rounds per minute.
Each of the boats, equipped with armor-plating, night vision equipment and a small arsenal of weaponry, costs about $580,000."
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That's AZ it seems; spend over 2 million dollars on needless river boats and blame the immigrants for all their problems.
Crime rates in Arizona at lowest point in decades. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the violent crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 -- the most recent year from which data are available -- than any year since 1983. The property crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 than any year since 1968. In addition, in Arizona, the violent crime rate dropped from 577.9 per 100,000 population in 1998 to 447 per 100,000 population in 2008; the property crime rate dropped from 5,997 to 4,291 during the same period. During the same decade, Arizona's undocumented immigrant population grew rapidly. The Arizona Republic reported: "Between January 2000 and January 2008, Arizona's undocumented population grew 70 percent, according to the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] report. Nationally, it grew 37 percent."
Crime rates have dropped during past decade in other border states. The BJS data further show that violent crime rates and property crime rates in California, New Mexico, and Texas dropped from 1998 through 2008 -- the most recent year from which data are available:
In California, the violent crime rate dropped from 703.7 in 1998 to 503.8 in 2008; the property crime rate dropped from 3,639.1 to 2,940.3 during the same period.
In New Mexico, the violent crime rate dropped from 961.4 in 1998 to 649.9 in 2008; the property crime rate dropped from 5,757.7 to 3,909.2 over the same period.
In Texas, the violent crime rate dropped from 564.6 in 1998 to 507.9 in 2008; the property crime rate dropped from 4,547 to 3,985.6 over the same period.
Cato's Griswold: "t is a smear to blame low-skilled immigrant workers from Latin America for creating a crime problem in Arizona." In an April 27 post, Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies, wrote that "Arizona's harsh new law against illegal immigration is being justified in part as a measure to combat crime" and that "drug-related violence along the border is a real problem." But, Griswold continued, "it is a smear to blame low-skilled immigrant workers from Latin America for creating a crime problem in Arizona." From Griswold's post:
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The boat is marked Texas Highway Patrol. Don't let the facts get you off message.
Arizona doesn't blame immigrants for their problems. What a bunch of Bullshit to intentional confuse armed robbers with invited guests. Hard to say what the crime problems would be without Eric Holder arming them.
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The Democrats answer to illegal border intrusions was to decimate the job situation in our economy. Got to hand it to 'em, it worked.
Illegals entering down, crime rate down. Hmmmm.
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The boat is marked Texas Highway Patrol. Don't let the facts get you off message.
Whoops! :-o Sorry, although my comments and point don't change.
Arizona doesn't blame immigrants for their problems. What a bunch of Bullshit to intentional confuse armed robbers with invited guests. Hard to say what the crime problems would be without Eric Holder arming them.
Actually, AZ and often TX does seem to blame immigrants for their problems. And I don't get your point about the intention to "confuse armed robbers with invited guests".
The point is that illegal immigration, although up in AZ and TX, CA and other border states in the period quoted, are not in fact the cause of an increase in violent crimes yet they seem to get blamed for everything.
TX would be better off spending the 2 million dollars on it's abominable K-12 educational system (ranking at the bottom) or it's health care (again, TX ranks at the bottom).
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Many good points in this, but in my opinion he fails to address the major issue concerning Mexican immigration-- its continued connection to its homeland and the widely felt irredentist emotions of many. The author's failure to distinguish legal and illegal immigration is another major shortcoming.
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In 1817 the great English economist David Ricardo coined the phrase "comparative advantage" to identify activities that one nation can do better than most others. The concept here is that if the Swiss make the best watches, or the Israelis grow the best oranges, they should make use of their advantages to profit in the marketplace.
Today, America has advantages in the global marketplace that stem from its immigrant population. Lets consider some of these.
Modern nations that have expanding domestic markets are more likely to be economically healthy. For the most part, European nations do not have that advantage, and it hurts them.
When birth and fertility rates are low, over the decades population shrinks, sometimes rapidly in places such as in Italy, Germany, Spain and Greece. In Japan and South Korea, birth and fertility rates are also perilously low. The result: All of their socialized pension plans and programs to provide health care for the aged are dreadfully underfunded. The only serious remedies are higher deficits, reduced benefits or higher taxes—none of them pleasant.
In the U.S., on the other hand, total fertility rates are higher and population continues to grow. While the numbers are down somewhat due to the recession, immigration remains relatively high—an estimated 1.1 million, legal and illegal, in 2010, according to the Census Bureau. This immigration will lead the country on a path of healthy long-term population growth from (roughly) 300 million people in 2000, up to 400 million in 2050 and to half a billion in 2100. This is good news for the growth of the domestic market.
Moreover, America's immigrant population (median age of roughly 29) is younger than that of the native-born (about a decade older). That means they will have many more years of working life, paying into and helping support our old-age pension and health-care systems for years before they take out a dime.
Survey after survey shows that Americans are the most patriotic people on the planet, and that immigrants to the U.S. are among the most patriotic of all Americans. For example, immigrants serve with distinction in our armed forces.
Most immigrants, particularly young ones, assimilate rapidly into the larger American culture. One indicator: intermarriage. There is a lot of it, according to the Census. Latinos and Asians in particular marry outside their race or ethnicity, a pattern characteristic of larger immigrant groups. Their offspring and the offspring of their children lose much of their ancestral identification, even as the grandparents may sob a bit.
The new waves of immigrants since the 1960s, when restrictive legislation was abandoned, have assimilated rapidly and well. The intermarried couples and especially their children become "blended families" and likely call themselves just plain Americans. This follows the traditional pattern throughout American history.
Also traditional is the pattern of how native-born Americans feel about waves of immigration—which is to say, not well. The Irish were "micks" and met signs on stores that had hiring posters in the windows reading "no Irish need apply." The Jews were "kikes" and hotels had signs that read "no Jews and no dogs." The Poles were "Polacks," the Hungarians were "Hunkies," and the Italians were "dagos."
Americans have been afraid of each new group of immigrants as they arrived. As far back as the 18th century, Germans grew almost as numerous as people of English background; there was even some sentiment in favor of German as a second official language. All that didn't stop Benjamin Franklin from writing bitter screeds denouncing them.
Today only the identities of the immigrants have changed. Pat Buchanan, who celebrates hard work, religion and family values, regularly condemns Mexican immigrants who honor hard work, religion and family values.
Mr. Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute, is working on "The Death of the Population Explosion: Why Americans Gain and Others Lose," from which this op-ed is drawn.
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Woof,
The anti law enforcement witch hunt seems to be over.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/31/13597578-feds-end-probe-of-americas-toughest-sheriff-joe-arpaio-no-charges?lite (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/31/13597578-feds-end-probe-of-americas-toughest-sheriff-joe-arpaio-no-charges?lite)
P.C.
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Glad to hear of the good news for Joe but the war on those who would defend our borders continues.
The American Creed thinks the people should choose the government. Liberal fascism, not liking the opinion of the majority of the American people, seeks to choose a new people for America. This has not changed.
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Incubating Ideas in the U.S., Hatching Them Elsewhere
By ALEXANDRA STARR
In 2009, Argentinian entrepreneur Pablo Ambram spent three months at a prestigious business incubator in San Diego, Calif., developing his company, Agent Piggy, which uses technology to teach children about financial management. The Founders' Institute helped Mr. Ambram develop his business and introduced him to promising contacts. Mr. Ambram assembled a board of directors that included a former Oracle executive.
But in the end, Mr. Ambram did not incorporate in the United States. Why? Because he wasn't allowed to stay here. "I met with a few lawyers," he says, "and they said trying to sponsor myself as the CEO of a company would be very expensive, take months, and there was no guarantee it would work."
The most obvious route to residency would have been through a job offer from a U.S.-based company, but Mr. Ambram wanted to start a business. When his six-month visa expired, he left for Chile, where he has raised more than $300,000 and hired four employees. "It was frustrating," he says, "because I wanted and still want to be based in the States. The marketplace there is unparalleled."
The United States—unlike Chile, Britain, Singapore, New Zealand and other countries—does not have a visa category for immigrants who aspire to found companies and create jobs. That means we are turning away potential job creators like Mr. Ambram. The unfortunate state of affairs has drawn attention on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers including Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Brad Polis (D., Colo.) proposing that immigrants who raise cash from U.S. investors be allowed to remain in the country to launch companies.
But no legislation has been passed. If Congress does move on the matter, lawmakers would be wise to stipulate that visa-granting decisions take into account advice from the existing start-up ecosystem—venture-capitalists and business incubators—rather than giving the task solely to immigration adjudicators, who would be less well-equipped to identify deserving recipients.
The first business incubator popped up in Batavia, N.Y., in 1959, but the most influential programs are less than a decade old. Places like YCombinator in Mountain View, Calif., and TechStars in Bolder, Colo., have nurtured hundreds of tech companies. According to the National Business Incubation Association, there were 1,115 business incubators in the U.S. as of 2006.
The top-flight programs, which are sometimes called accelerators, generally offer office space for three or four months, provide equity capital, and—most important—make introductions to venture capitalists and mentors. Participation can substantially increase a young entrepreneur's odds of success. According to Inc. magazine, of the 126 companies that have gone through the full TechStars program, only 8% have failed, a fraction of the bankruptcy rate for most technology start-ups.
Relatively few of these graduates are foreigners—in part, according to TechStars co-founder David Cohen, because foreign applicants "on the bubble" of gaining acceptance are sometimes turned away because incubators know they have little prospect of being able to remain here. Those who do participate in the programs come on tourist visas, because most incubator programs last just a few months.
Staying in the U.S. can be all but impossible. Mr. Cohen says he has seen graduates who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the U.S., yet for lack of visas have had to leave and run their businesses remotely from abroad. That limits their productivity and means that jobs that would have gone to American workers were filled elsewhere.
Other countries use incubators to select immigrant entrepreneurial talent. In the U.K., immigrants participating in incubators are granted one- to two-year visas to develop their businesses. The Chilean government has created an incubator in its capital city, called StartUp Chile. It provides work space, visas and $40,000 to entrepreneurs willing to relocate to the city for a minimum of six months. Those who choose to stay longer are allowed to extend their residencies. StartUp Chile lured Mr. Ambram, the Argentinian, to Santiago.
Stars of the tech community have pushed novel solutions to the visa quandary. PayPal founder Peter Thiel is backing a venture to launch a cruise ship 12 miles off the coast of San Francisco that would be populated with foreign entrepreneurs eager to develop business ideas in the U.S. market. Residing offshore would let them circumvent visa issues. Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator, advocates the creation of 10,000 founders visas, with an unspecified group—presumably from the venture capital community—developing the accreditation procedure.
Proposals for entrepreneur visas still don't make use of our elite business incubators as a way to identify worthy applicants. The StartUp Visa bill, introduced by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, and StartUp Visa Act 2.0—which has Mr. Rubio and a bipartisan group of senators behind it—require that foreigners raise a minimum of $100,000 for a two-year visa to launch a business. That would leave out many incubator participants because of a chicken-and-egg problem; investors might be wary of writing checks if it's unclear whether the entrepreneur could reach the threshold to remain in the U.S.
Gaining acceptance to the most selective incubators should be weighed in an applicant's favor. The StartUp Visa 2.0 bill provides a blueprint for how we could do this: It proposes that a university graduate with a higher degree in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university who raises a minimum of $20,000 can earn a temporary visa.
If the immigrant's company has created three jobs and raised at least $100,000 within two years, the founder can apply for a green card. Basically, the bill uses the filter of an advanced degree to identify foreigners who show enough promise that they deserve more leeway to start a company here.
Extending a similar opportunity to those who participate in the best incubators would be a low-risk proposition. It would give them a chance to make good on the faith that investors have shown in them. And that would help ensure that fewer Pablo Ambrams get away.
Ms. Starr is the author of a new report on Latino-immigrant entrepreneurship for the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Emerson fellow at the New America Foundation.
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second post of the day
http://news.yahoo.com/canada-revoke-citizenship-3-100-people-154756030.html?_esi=1
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Washington's New Twist on Human Sacrifice Another missed chance to hold onto foreign-born scientists and technology experts who were educated in the U.S.
By L. GORDON CROVITZ
In the 1990s, just before the handover of Hong Kong to China, there was a going-away lunch for the Canadian consul general. When I entered the venue, I thought it must be the wrong place. The hundreds of ethnic Chinese gathered for the lunch in the colony's largest hotel ballroom didn't look like "Canadians." But before I could complete my turn back out the ballroom door, I realized this was indeed a roomful of Canadians.
After Britain agreed to transfer sovereignty—and Hong Kong's seven million people—to China, many Hong Kong Chinese sought foreign passports, anxious that after the handover in 1997 the Communist regime in Beijing would curtail their freedoms. Canada saw a way to add talented people, offering citizenship to Hong Kong people who qualified through investments or other criteria.
In contrast to Canada, the United States engages in a kind of human sacrifice, refusing to let technologists and scientists stay after they earn advanced degrees from top U.S. universities. Earlier this month, Congress missed its latest chance to open the doors to the best-educated and most-needed workers. Why can't the U.S. be as welcoming as its neighbor to the north?
Political leaders of both parties say they agree with the approach first defined by venture capitalist John Doerr in 2008 as a reform to "staple a green card to the diploma of anybody who graduates with a degree in the physical sciences in the U.S."
In last year's State of the Union address, President Obama said: "As soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. That doesn't make sense." Mitt Romney agrees: "If someone's got a Ph.D., particularly from a U.S. institute of higher learning, or even an accredited foreign institution, staple a green card to it." About half of all graduate students in the hard sciences, and a majority of those completing doctorates, are foreigners.
Here's a sampling of the immigration bills Washington has failed to pass: the Stopping Trained in America Ph.D.s from Leaving the Economy Act; the Advanced Degree Visa Bill; the Startup Act; the Immigration Driving Entrepreneurship in America Act; and the Benefits to Research and American Innovation through Nationality Statutes Act.
The most recent was the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Jobs Act, proposed by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, a Republican. The bill made it to a vote, but under a procedure requiring two-thirds approval. The vote fell short, 257-158, with almost all Republicans in favor as well as 30 Democrats. The bill would have substituted visas for graduates from qualifying universities in the hard sciences for the current program awarding visas in a lottery system that limits the number granted for each country, discriminating against applicants from populous nations such as China and India. "Unfortunately, the Democrats voted today to send the best and brightest foreign graduates back home to work for our global competitors," Rep. Smith said.
There's no debate about the importance of skilled immigrants. Between 1995 and 2005, foreign-born and technically trained entrepreneurs founded half the firms in Silicon Valley.
Graduates in scientific and technical fields can stay in the U.S. for 29 months under a program called Optional Practical Training. Then they can apply for one of 65,000 three- to six-year H-1B visas or one of 20,000 visas for advanced degree holders, including in nontechnical fields. This year the quota for H-1B visas was filled in less than three months.
Even if someone gets one of these visas, he eventually needs to apply for a green card, of which 140,000 are granted each year, fewer than 10% for work-based applicants. The majority are for applicants who have family members in the U.S. These applicants should be admitted under other programs.
In the meantime, countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Israel and Singapore have adopted policies in recent years to lure talented emigrants. The governments are hoping to beat the U.S. at its historic comparative advantage in attracting and assimilating people from around the world.
Washington's failure to retain foreigners trained in the U.S. was the last straw for Steve Jobs, who had been an Obama supporter and put together a group of Silicon Valley executives to advise him. "The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done," Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson. "It infuriates me."
Companies are now even willing to pay a new tax for permission to hire skilled workers. At a Brookings Institution event last week, Microsoft proposed more open borders in exchange for employers paying $10,000 per visa and $15,000 per green card. The company estimates this would raise $500 million the federal government could then give to school districts to boost scientific education in the U.S.
In other words, a technology leader like Microsoft is now so desperate that it's willing to bribe—er, contribute to—Washington to get it to do its job of ensuring sensible immigration laws.
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The Arizonification of America
By JEFF BIGGERS
Phoenix, Ariz.
With the “papers please” provision of Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 immigration law now in effect, Bill Clinton roused an overflowing crowd at Arizona State University last week with a special shout out to the state’s “dreamers,” the highly organized ranks of undocumented youth seeking permanent residency either through education or the military (and sometimes both). Appearing on behalf of the former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, whose surging campaign to become the first Latino Senator in Arizona now leads in the latest polls, Clinton drew some of his biggest cheers for his support of the DREAM Act merely by calling it the “right thing to do.”
Welcome to the Arizona showdown.
Underscored by Gov. Jan Brewer’s latest act of defiance in denying state benefits to undocumented youth affected by President Obama’s deferral of immigration action against them, the Republican Party’s full embrace of Arizona’s immigration policy at its summer convention drew a clear line in the state’s sand. The “Arizonification” of America continues to frame the national immigration debate. It has cemented the state’s frontline image as so hopelessly wedded to a punitive approach of “attrition through enforcement” at any cost that the “Daily Show” once referred to Arizona as the “meth lab of democracy.”
Not that the headline-grabbing nativists, frontier justice sheriffs, neo-Nazi marchers, gun-toting militiamen and Tea Party political figures don’t exist in Arizona. But as the estimated 5,500 in attendance for Carmona and Clinton reminded the state, the fringe elements dominating the media and Arizona’s state house may have finally met their match. Case in point: An electrified citizens’ campaign has mounted the most serious get-out-the-vote effort against Joe Arpaio, the notorious Maricopa County Sheriff, in his 20-year reign.
The resurgence of this “other Arizona” signals a revival of the state’s century-old legacy of fighting against such anti-immigrant and thinly veiled racism, a movement that beganmalmost as soon as Arizona’s entry as a territory in the mid-19th century. For example, in Tucson, the pioneering Mexican immigrant Estevan Ochoa not only salvaged public education but single-handedly faced down the Confederate occupation of the Old Pueblo. When the Tucson Unified School District dismantled its acclaimed Mexican-American Studies program in Ochoa’s hometown last spring, Latino youth were quick to rekindle his memory.
I believe that today’s overlooked but growing alliance among Latinos, retiring baby boomers and rooted centrists will have a far a more lasting impact on both the liberal and conservative agendas nationally than the headline-grabbing but faltering Tea Party. This alliance might even have an impact on the 2012 election: Beyond Carmona’s surprising gains, the latest polling data to include Spanish-speaking voters now places the presidential showdown in a dead heat, even as Gov. Mitt Romney hangs on to a healthy overall lead in Arizona.
Is the other Arizona coming back?
Consider the progressive stalwarts who wrote one of the most enlightened constitutions in the country at Arizona’s birth in 1912. In a prophetic speech that he gave after negotiating a nationally watched labor agreement between striking union miners and copper companies, Gov. George W. Hunt spelled out the challenge facing the entire nation:
It will be a happy day for the nation when the corporations shall be excluded from political activity and vast accumulations of capital cannot be employed in an attempt to control government.
Railing against corporate influence and money in politics in Arizona in 1916, Hunt foretold the Occupy Wall Street movement a century in advance:
“The working class, plus the professional class, represent 99 percent,” he declared. “The remaining 1 percent is represented by those who make a business of employing capital.”
For all of his enlightenment, Hunt and his progressive forces succumbed to anti-immigrant pressures from more conservative unions and excluded the very foot soldiers who had built his labor ranks before statehood: in 1903, Mexican-American, native and immigrant workers led the first strikes in the state in Morenci.
The betrayal came full circle in 1917. Driven by a similar anti-immigrant hysteria during World War I, armed copper company thugs led by a border sheriff rounded up and deported striking immigrant miners in the copper capital of Bisbee. The extreme measure drew national condemnation, but also set a precedent of using punitive measures against immigrants over the next century whenever the economy slumped, wars ended or election time heated up.
But Arizonans also fought back. In 1972, the national media once again focused here, when Gov. Jack Williams signed a bill that banned secondary boycotts and strikes during harvest time, cracked down on collective bargaining rights and union membership procedures, and made it a crime to make “misleading” speeches about boycotted products. The headlines screamed: “Arizona-type legislation is spreading to many other farm states, despite protests.”
Launching his “Si Se Puede” movement, the inspiring slogan that would be adopted as “Yes, We Can” by President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, Cesar Chavez, an Arizona native and co-founder of the United Farm Workers embarked in 1972 on a “fast for love” in Phoenix in the “spirit of social justice in Arizona.” Chavez wrote:
The fast is to try to reach the hearts of those men, so that they will understand that we too have rights and we’re not here to destroy, because we’re not destroyers, we’re builders.
Larry Downing/Reuters President Barack Obama at the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument on Oct. 8, 2012, in Keene, Calif.
Although Williams’s hard-line anti-union legislation would be fought in the courts for years, the Chavez-led campaign signed up 150,000 new voters, ushering in a new era of electoral participation: Within two years, thanks to Chavez’s work, Raul Castro became the state’s first (and still the only) Latino governor.
In one of the most overlooked major news stories last year, a similar “Si Se Puede” movement once again shocked local and national media observers and entrenched political interests lulled into believing Arizona’s SB 1070 had placed the state on electoral lockdown. Led by Randy Parraz, a labor organizer, new bipartisan movement fed up with the state’s extremist policies took its organizational momentum into electoral politics and carried out the historic recall of former state senator Russell Pearce, the self-declared “Tea Party President” and legislative mastermind behind SB 1070. The historic nature of the recall, dating back to the state’s progressive constitution battle a century ago, was the opening salvo in the 2012 elections, for two reasons.
First, Parraz and his Citizens for a Better Arizona brought together often disparate factions in Arizona —including rising Latino youth, retiring baby boomers, centrists that included the Mormon church, and the demoralized local Democratic Party — in arguably one of the most conservative legislative districts in the nation. “Arizona has been in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons,” Parraz told his forces. “We need a victory now.” And they got it. Pearce, considered one of the most influential voices in the “attrition through enforcement” movement spreading across numerous states, was the first state senate president to be recalled in American history, according to election record keepers.
Speaking about the Pearce recall, Dan O’Neal, chairman of the Arizona Progressive Democrats of America, said: “This election sends a message to other Democratic efforts,” to not be afraid to take on issues and races in red states.”
Secondly, the recall also spotlighted the emergence of a new Latino generation and its role in a historic demographic shift taking place in Arizona and across the nation. With the nation’s highest “cultural generation” gap, according to a Brookings Metropolitan Policy study in 2010 — 83 percent of the state’s aging population was categorized as Anglo, and 57 percent of the children came from Latino families in the last census — Arizona has changed from 72 percent to 50 percent non-Latino in the past two decades. The demographics don’t pull any punches. A new political conversation is about to take place in Arizona. And organizers are not sitting back and waiting.
Working with several other civil rights groups, Parraz and his Citizens for a Better Arizona now lead the “Joe’s Got to Go” campaign against Arpaio, whose one-time insurmountable lead over his opponent Paul Penzone has shrunk to a few percentage points. With the sheriff under investigation for racial profiling by the Department of Justice, the take-no-prisoners challenge of Arpaio’s role as the face of SB 1070 enforcement has already electrified the state’s once timid liberal ranks.
If an Arpaio upset happens, with the state “papers please” law a part of all races in the state and the nation, the rise of the “other Arizona” and its bipartisan rejection of extremism could reverse the “Arizonification of America” push back in the opposite direction. As one of fifteen swing states where the margin of victory often hangs on one to three percentage points, the expected 6-8 percent increase in Latino voters places Arizona on the cusp of electing Carmona to a highly prized Senate position for the Democrats.
In essence: While Arizona may not swing to President Obama, the defeat of Arpaio or a victory for Carmona would be a huge step toward dismantling Republican control behind Arizona’s state immigration policy, and changing a state of mind for the media and outside observers.
No more “meth lab of democracy.”
Inspired by organizers like Parraz, and driven by the changing demographics, electoral change is coming in increments to Arizona in 2012 — and ultimately laying the groundwork for the gubernatorial race in 2014 for either Brewer or a bevy of Republican candidates. A groundwork deeply rooted in the other Arizona’s powerful lessons of history that transcend the state’s borders.
As Phoenix-based Puente human rights advocate Carlos Garcia recently told me, Arizona’s gift to the nation may simply be this legacy of resiliency against extremism on the front lines. “Turning the tide from hate to human rights,” as Garcia put it, sends a powerful message that will reach far beyond the ballot box.
Jeff Biggers is the author, most recently, of “State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream.”
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the highly organized ranks of undocumented youth seeking permanent residency either through education or the military (and sometimes both).
You can't join the US military if you are an illegal alien. My wife was ready to join the Army Nat'l Guard, and despite having a Permanent Resident Card (Which she must carry with her at all times, a federal law) had a SSN card that was issued before she had her "green card" and couldn't enlist because of that. It said "not for employment purposes".
http://www.goarmy.com/about/service-options/enlisted-soldiers-and-officers/enlisted-soldier.html
To become an Enlisted Soldier in the U.S. Army, you must be:
A U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien
17-35 years old
Healthy and in good physical condition
In good moral standing
Have a High School Diploma or equivalent
Some Army jobs may have additional qualifications.
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The Geopolitics of Immigration
December 25, 2012 | 1200 GMT
Editor's Note: Originally published Jan. 15, 2004, this has been re-featured due to its timeless content.
The United States came into being through mass movements of populations. The movements came in waves from all over the world and, depending upon the historical moment, they served differing purposes, but there were two constants. First, each wave served an indispensable economic, political, military or social function. The United States -- as a nation and regime -- would not have evolved as it did without them. Second, each wave of immigrants was viewed ambiguously by those who were already in-country. Depending upon the time or place, some saw the new immigrants as an indispensable boon; others saw them as a catastrophe. The debate currently under way in the United States is probably the oldest in the United States: Are new immigrants a blessing or catastrophe? So much for the obvious.
What is interesting about the discussion of immigration is the extent to which it is dominated by confusion, particularly about the nature of immigrants. When the term "immigrant" is used, it is frequently intended to mean one of two things: Sometimes it means non-U.S. citizens who have come to reside in the United States legally. Alternatively, it can mean a socially or linguistically distinct group that lives in the United States regardless of legal status. When you put these together in their various permutations, the discourse on immigration can become chaotic. It is necessary to simplify and clarify the concept of "immigrant."
Initial U.S. immigration took two basic forms. There were the voluntary migrants, ranging from the Europeans in the 17th century to Asians today. There were the involuntary migrants -- primarily Africans -- who were forced to come to the continent against their will. This is one of the critical fault lines running through U.S. history. An immigrant who came from China in 1995 has much more in common with the Puritans who arrived in New England more than 300 years ago than either has with the Africans. The former came by choice, seeking solutions to their personal or political problems. The latter came by force, brought here to solve the personal or political problems of others. This is one fault line.
The second fault line is between those who came to the United States and those to whom the United States came. The Native American tribes, for example, were conquered and subjugated by the immigrants who came to the United States before and after its founding. It should be noted that this is a process that has taken place many times in human history. Indeed, many Native American tribes that occupied the United States prior to the foreign invasion had supplanted other tribes -- many of which were obliterated in the process. Nevertheless, in a strictly social sense, Native American tribes were militarily defeated and subjugated, their legal status in the United States was sometimes ambiguous and their social status was frequently that of outsiders. They became immigrants because the occupants of the new United States moved and dislocated them.
There was a second group of people in this class: Mexicans. A substantial portion of the United States, running from California to Texas, was conquered territory, taken from Mexico in the first half of the 19th century. Mexico existed on terrain that Spain had seized from the Aztecs, who conquered it from prior inhabitants. Again, this should not be framed in moral terms. It should be framed in geopolitical terms.
When the United States conquered the southwest, the Mexican population that continued to inhabit the region was not an immigrant population, but a conquered one. As with the Native Americans, this was less a case of them moving to the United States than the United States moving to them.
The response of the Mexicans varied, as is always the case, and they developed a complex identity. Over time, they accepted the political dominance of the United States and became, for a host of reasons, U.S. citizens. Many assimilated into the dominant culture. Others accepted the legal status of U.S. citizens while maintaining a distinct cultural identity. Still others accepted legal status while maintaining intense cultural and economic relations across the border with Mexico. Others continued to regard themselves primarily as Mexican.
The U.S.-Mexican border is in some fundamental ways arbitrary. The line of demarcation defines political and military relationships, but does not define economic or cultural relationships. The borderlands -- and they run hundreds of miles deep into the United States at some points -- have extremely close cultural and economic links with Mexico. Where there are economic links, there always are movements of population. It is inherent.
The persistence of cross-border relations is inevitable in borderlands that have been politically and militarily subjugated, but in which the prior population has been neither annihilated nor expelled. Where the group on the conquered side of the border is sufficiently large, self-contained and self-aware, this condition can exist for generations. A glance at the Balkans offers an extreme example. In the case of the United States and its Mexican population, it also has continued to exist.
This never has developed into a secessionist movement, for a number of reasons. First, the preponderance of U.S. power when compared to Mexico made this a meaningless goal. Second, the strength of the U.S. economy compared to the Mexican economy did not make rejoining Mexico attractive. Finally, the culture in the occupied territories evolved over the past 150 years, yielding a complex culture that ranged from wholly assimilated to complex hybrids to predominantly Mexican. Secessionism has not been a viable consideration since the end of the U.S. Civil War. Nor will it become an issue unless a remarkable change in the balance between the United States and Mexico takes place.
It would be a mistake, however, to think of the cross-border movements along the Mexican-U.S. border in the same way we think of the migration of people to the United States from other places such as India or China, which are an entirely different phenomenon -- part of the long process of migrations to the United States that has taken place since before its founding. In these, individuals made decisions -- even if they were part of a mass movement from their countries -- to move to the United States and, in moving to the United States, to adopt the dominant American culture to facilitate assimilation. The Mexican migrations are the result of movements in a borderland that has been created through military conquest and the resulting political process.
The movement from Mexico is, from a legal standpoint, a cross-border migration. In reality, it is simply an internal migration within a territory whose boundaries were superimposed by history. Put differently, if the United States had lost the Mexican-American war, these migrations would be no more noteworthy than the mass migration to California from the rest of the United States in the middle of the 20th century. But the United States did not lose the war -- and the migration is across international borders.
It should be noted that this also distinguishes Mexican population movements from immigration from other Hispanic countries. The closest you can come to an equivalent is in Puerto Rico, whose inhabitants are U.S. citizens due to prior conquest. They neither pose the legal problems of Mexicans nor can they simply slip across the border.
The Mexican case is one-of-a-kind, and the difficulty of sealing the border is indicative of the real issue. There are those who call for sealing the border and, technically, it could be done although the cost would be formidable. More important, turning the politico-military frontier into an effective barrier to movement would generate social havoc. It would be a barrier running down the middle of an integrated social and economic reality. The costs for the region would be enormous, piled on top of the cost of walling off the frontier from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.
If the U.S. goal is to create an orderly migration process from Mexico, which fits into a broader immigration policy that includes the rest of the world, that probably cannot be done. Controlling immigration in general is difficult, but controlling the movement of an indigenous population in a borderland whose frontiers do not cohere to social or economic reality is impossible.
This is not intended to be a guide to social policy. Our general view is that social policies dealing with complex issues usually have such wildly unexpected consequences that it is more like rolling the dice than crafting strategy. We nevertheless understand that there will be a social policy, hotly debated by all sides that will wind up not doing what anyone expects, but actually will do something very different.
The point we are trying to make is simpler. First, the question of Mexican population movements has to be treated completely separately from other immigrations. These are apples and oranges. Second, placing controls along the U.S.-Mexican frontier is probably impossible. Unless we are prepared to hermetically seal the frontier, populations will flow endlessly around barriers, driven by economic and social factors. Mexico simply does not end at the Mexican border, and it hasn't since the United States defeated Mexico. Neither the United States nor Mexico can do anything about the situation.
The issue, from our point of view, cuts to the heart of geopolitics as a theory. Geopolitics argues that geographic reality creates political, social, economic and military realities. These can be shaped by policies and perhaps even controlled to some extent, but the driving realities of geopolitics can never simply be obliterated, except by overwhelming effort and difficulty. The United States is not prepared to do any of these things and, therefore, the things the United States is prepared to do are doomed to ineffectiveness.
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Read more: The Geopolitics of Immigration | Stratfor
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Marco Rubio—41-year-old son of working-class Cuban exiles—has lived the upwardly mobile immigrant experience. In his fast rise, the Florida Republican has also experienced the politics of immigration. That story isn't so inspirational.
During his successful Senate campaign two years ago, an attack leaflet picturing "the Real Rubio" alongside an image of Che Guevara was sent to GOP voters. The mailer noted that Mr. Rubio championed laws in the state legislature to give children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition and health benefits. After going to Washington, he was then criticized for not doing enough on immigration reform. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus branded him "a wolf in sheep's clothing" and a Miami-based Hispanic group called him "a Benedict Arnold."
That may be mild compared to what's coming. Florida's junior senator and one of America's most prominent Hispanic politicians wants to take the Republican lead on immigration reform. Getting out front of President Obama's campaign pledge to overhaul the system in his second term, Mr. Rubio is laying out his ideas for possible legislation.
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Terry Shoffner
.Whether Mr. Rubio is courageous or foolhardy, the outcome on Capitol Hill and the impact on his career will tell the story. Immigration has long been a profitable wedge issue for Democrats and Republicans. On Wednesday at the Biltmore Hotel near his home here, Mr. Rubio spells out a reform plan that charges up the middle.
His wholesale fix tries to square—triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right's obsession with closing the door. Mr. Rubio would ease the way for skilled engineers and seasonal farm workers while strengthening border enforcement and immigration laws. As for the undocumented migrants in America today—eight to 12 million or so—he proposes to let them "earn" a working permit and, one day, citizenship.
Those proposals amount to a collection of third rails for any number of lobbies. Organized labor has torpedoed guest-worker programs before. Anything that hints of leniency for illegals may offend the talk-radio wing of the GOP.
Mr. Rubio burst onto the national stage with his 2010 upset win amid the tea party surge. His conservative bona fides come with an appreciation for the realities of legislative politics. He starts by stressing that "legal immigration has been, for our country, one of the things that makes us vibrant and exceptional." But then, in a nod to GOP restrictionists: "Every country in the world has immigration laws and expects to enforce them and we should be no different."
Any overhaul, he says, needs to "modernize" legal immigration. America caps the number of visas for skilled workers and favors the relatives of people already here. "I'm a big believer in family-based immigration," he says. "But I don't think that in the 21st century we can continue to have an immigration system where only 6.5% of people who come here, come here based on labor and skill. We have to move toward merit and skill-based immigration."
He says the U.S. can either change the ratio of preferences for family-based immigration or raise the hard cap on people who bring investment or skills into the country. He prefers the latter, noting that the U.S. doesn't produce enough science, math and engineering graduates to fill the open posts in high-tech. He says this number can be adjusted to demand: "I don't think there's a lot of concern in this country that we'll somehow get overrun by Ph.D.s and entrepreneurs."
At the other end of the skill and wage scale, most of the 1.6 million agricultural laborers in America are Hispanics, the bulk of them illegal immigrants. American produce couldn't be picked without them. The number and type of visas provided through a guest-worker program would have to be sufficient to address this pressing need. From Georgia to Washington state in recent seasons, unpicked fruits and vegetables have rotted in the fields. He'd look to increase the number of visas for permanent or seasonal farm workers.
"The goal is to give American agriculture a reliable work force and to give protection to these workers as well," Mr. Rubio says. "When someone is [undocumented] they're vulnerable to being exploited."
Initially, the illegal migrants now in the U.S. would mostly "avail themselves" of the guest-worker system, says Mr. Rubio. "Just the process to come here to legally work in agriculture is very difficult and very expensive. It doesn't work well. So that alone encourages illegal immigration."
Lest anyone take Mr. Rubio for an immigration softy, he has co-sponsored Senate enforcement legislation championed by restrictionists. The E-Verify law, which has been adopted in several states, would if passed oblige employers to check the legal status of prospective workers against a federal database. Detractors say the database is faulty and error-prone, and the law turns workplace bosses into immigration agents and merely pushes illegal workers further into the shadows, making them more vulnerable to abuse.
Mr. Rubio stands by workplace enforcement as an essential component of any immigration reform. If the guest-worker and expanded high-tech visa programs are adopted, he says, "you want to protect those folks that are coming here . . . and the value of their visa and the decision they've made. You're not protecting them if you allow their wages and their status to be undermined by further illegal immigration in the future."
He says that modern technology—whether E-Verify or something else—ought to let employers easily check whether their hires are in the country legally. Enforcement is meant not to "punish" but to provide employers "safe haven," he says.
As for the border, "we know what we need to do to gain more operational control," which he says is to invest in people and infrastructure. Unlike many Republicans, Mr. Rubio doesn't say that improved enforcement is a precondition for immigration reform. Such reform would, by his argument, ensure that fewer people will need or want to risk an arduous border crossing.
Politically hardest is the question of the up to 12 million illegals currently here. Mr. Rubio's proposal allows for adults who overstayed their visa or sneaked in to come into the open.
"Here's how I envision it," he says. "They would have to come forward. They would have to undergo a background check." Anyone who committed a serious crime would be deported. "They would be fingerprinted," he continues. "They would have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, maybe even do community service. They would have to prove they've been here for an extended period of time. They understand some English and are assimilated. Then most of them would get legal status and be allowed to stay in this country."
The special regime he envisions is a form of temporary limbo. "Assuming they haven't violated any of the conditions of that status," he says, the newly legalized person could apply for permanent residency, possibly leading to citizenship, after some years—but Mr. Rubio doesn't specify how many years. He says he would also want to ensure that enforcement has improved before opening that gate.
The waiting time for a green card "would have to be long enough to ensure that it's not easier to do it this way than it would be the legal way," he says. "But it can't be indefinite either. I mean it can't be unrealistic, because then you're not really accomplishing anything. It's not good for our country to have people trapped in this status forever. It's been a disaster for Europe."
The staged process won't please either the blanket amnesty crowd or the Minutemen. Still others have tried to split the difference by arguing for a permanent noncitizen legal-resident status for illegal immigrants and their offspring, on the German and French model.
Mr. Rubio repeatedly says his plan "is not blanket amnesty or a special pathway to citizenship." The illegals wouldn't jump any lines, "they'd get behind everybody who came before them." No one would be asked to leave the country to qualify, but the requirements he sets out merely to get a working permit are "significant."
"In an ideal world we wouldn't have eight, 10 million people who are undocumented," he says. "We have to address this reality. But we have to do it in a way that's responsible."
Mr. Rubio makes an exception for the over one million younger illegals. Along the lines of the Dream Act that stalled in Congress last year, he says people who came here unlawfully with their parents should be accommodated "in a more expedited manner than the rest of the population" to gain a way to naturalize.
During last year's debate over the Dream Act, Mr. Rubio tried to gather support for a less "broad" alternative. Republicans didn't like its pathway to citizenship. His efforts caught the eye of the Obama campaign. President Obama pre-empted—or outmaneuvered—him. The president's executive order offered two-year reprieves from deportation and work permits for young immigrants, and helped him with Hispanics in the election.
It was a lesson for Mr. Rubio, who saw his compromise efforts die as a result. Mr. Obama "may have even set back the cause a bit. He's poisoned the well for people willing to take on this issue," Mr. Rubio says. But he's still ready to do so, though he claims—as hard as it is to believe—that he hasn't "done the political calculus on this." As he knows, politics is everything on immigration. Comprehensive efforts failed twice under the Bush administration. President Obama promised in both campaigns to act, but then he didn't, even when Democrats controlled Congress his first two years.
In terms of legislative strategy, Mr. Rubio says he would want to see "a comprehensive package of bills"—maybe four or five as opposed to one omnibus—move through Congress concurrently. He says other experience with "comprehensive" reform (ObamaCare, the recent debt deal) shows how bad policy easily sneaks into big bills. It would also offer a tempting big target for opponents. Other reformers think that only a comprehensive bill can address the toughest issues. "It's not a line in the sand for me," replies Mr. Rubio.
Not missing a chance to tweak the president, he says that Mr. Obama has "not done a thing" on reform and may prefer to keep it alive as an electoral winner for Democrats with Hispanics for years to come. But, then again, "maybe he's interested in his legacy," Mr. Rubio adds, and open to a deal. The president, he says, would need to bring over Big Labor and talk back the most ardent pro-immigration groups from "unrealistic" positions on citizenship for illegals.
On the right, nativist voices in last year's primary campaign gave birth to phrases such as "electric fence" (Herman Cain), "self-deportation" (Mitt Romney) and other nuggets that turned Hispanic voters off. Mr. Rubio counters that most conservatives understand that immigrants are entrepreneurial and assimilate easily. "Immigration is actually an important part of affirming a limited-government movement," he says.
Is immigration reform a magic bullet for the GOP's troubles with Hispanic voters?
"No," Mr. Rubio says, but "the immigration issue is a gateway issue for Hispanics, no doubt about it. No matter what your stance is on a number of other issues, if people somehow come to believe that you don't like them or want them here, it's difficult to get them to listen to anything else."
He adds: "I think it's the rhetoric by a handful of voices in the minority, but loud nonetheless, that have allowed the left to create an unfair perception that conservatives and Republicans are anti-Hispanic and anti-immigration, and we do have to overcome that."
After two relatively quiet years in the Senate, Mr. Rubio is taking his first significant risk. Often mentioned in talk about a 2016 presidential run, he has decided to make immigration a signature issue.
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
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Sen. Marco Rubio interviewed on Rush L show today. Excellent discussion IMO.
16 minute audio youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBNifWsECAU&feature=player_embedded
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Obama Tips His Hand: He Would Rather Have the Immigration Issue to Run on in 2014
Here's the immigration debate in a nutshell: Obama and most of the Democrats want 11 million new Democratic voters, and they want them now. This is why the "non-immigrant visa" and temporary working papers, with a potential path to citizenship that could take 15 years, aren't sufficient for them.
The most infuriating bits of Obama's campaign rally to demand the passage of immigration-reform legislation that he hasn't introduced yet:
I'm here today because the time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. Applause.) The time is now. Now is the time. Now is the time. Now is the time.
AUDIENCE: Sí se puede! Sí se puede!
THE PRESIDENT: Now is the time.
Gee, you think he had a slogan he wanted to make sure got in the coverage? Later:
We can't allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate. We've been debating this a very long time. So it's not as if we don't know technically what needs to get done.
Oh, really? Because the whole reason this is controversial is because there is genuine, passionate disagreement about "what needs to get done."
And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.
Oh, really? And what will that do? Hey, Mr. President, if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion in their own compromise put together by both parties, what are the odds that a GOP House will pass your bill? See, this is the indicator that you don't really want a bill passed; you want the issue to run on in 2014, telling Latino voters about how those mean, nasty Republicans blocked citizenship for cousin Luis.
Senator Rubio is underwhelmed:
"I am concerned by the president's unwillingness to accept significant enforcement triggers before current undocumented immigrants can apply for a green card. Without such triggers in place, enforcement systems will never be implemented and we will be back in just a few years dealing with millions of new undocumented people in our country. Furthermore, the president ignored the need for a modernized guest worker program that will ensure those who want to immigrate legally to meet our economy's needs can do so in the future. Finally, the President's speech left the impression that he believes reforming immigration quickly is more important than reforming immigration right. A reform of our immigration laws is a consequential undertaking that deserves to be subjected to scrutiny and input from all involved. I was encouraged by the president's explicit statement that people with temporary legal status won't be eligible for Obamacare. If in fact they were, the potential cost of reform would blow open another big, gaping hole in our federal budget and make the bill untenable."
Bryan Preston: "Obama is not proposing legislation, but the gruel he is offering is designed to pull the debate to the left and weaken the already weak push for real security on the border. The president is putting his cards on the table to undermine American sovereignty. In due time, he'll pull the rug out from under Sen. Marco Rubio and the Republicans involved in the Gang of Eight, and they can be expected to play the fool."
At Reason, Ed Krayewski notices, "While President Obama now assumes the role of advocate for immigration reform, the last time Washington attempted the endeavor, in 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama did his part to ensure its failure, the kind of partisan play Obama now laments in Congress and says he condemns."
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The Foundation
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson
Editorial Exegesis
"President Obama has never been known for getting his hands dirty with legislative details, and he certainly didn't with his remarks on Tuesday about immigration. ... One problem is the lack of any mention of a guest-worker program for new migrants, especially low-skilled workers of the kind who arrive in greater numbers when economic times are good. Mr. Obama sounded good when he talked about providing more visas for high-skilled workers, and we support his call to 'staple a green card' to the diplomas of foreign graduates with technical degrees from U.S. universities in engineering, mathematics and the sciences. But the U.S. also needs more legal ways for low-skilled immigrants to enter the country -- not merely to fill labor needs in the likes of agriculture and construction but also to reduce illegal immigration in the future. ... Another red flag is Mr. Obama's apparent refusal to accept enforcement triggers before illegal migrants currently in the country can apply for a green card. We don't think more border enforcement is the main reason illegal immigration is down. Mr. Obama bragged in his speech that 'illegal crossings are down nearly 80% from their peak in 2000.' But that has much less to do with enforcement than with the lousy U.S. economy, especially since 2008. The biggest barrier to more illegal immigration has been Obamanomics. However, the lack of an enforcement trigger is important politically because Republican reformers will need it to convince their conservative rank and file that the U.S. won't be back at the same old stand five years after reform passes. If Mr. Obama wants reform to fail so he can blame Republicans, the fastest way to do it is by pressing for easy green cards for current illegals with too few strings attached. ... t wouldn't hurt if, for once in his Presidency, he tried to understand what can pass with a bipartisan coalition instead of with liberals only."
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The context to the current lull in illegal immigration is that the unemployment rate in Mexico is under 5% (4.7%). In Canada, if measured by our metrics, is is around 6%, and in the U.S. according to BLS close to 8% (7.8%). Real unemployment/underemployment in the U.S. is closer to 20% by any honest measure.
Those leaving the workforce at the low end aren't hiring new workers and those scaling back their businesses and not starting new ones at the high end aren't hiring anyone new either.
It's a pretty good time, thank you Barack, to secure the border and set up a legal, worker tracking program - while business is down.
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some comments on Rubio's proposal:
http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/01/29/senator-rubios-immigration-enforcement-fantasy/?singlepage=true
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Rubio makes far more sense on this than McCarthy, to me. By getting out front on it, setting hard conditions, getting leaders of the other party to accept them, he is potentially putting the shoe on the foot, leaving Obama as the one who hasn't come to the table. Rubio will accept terms on the principles he laid out. I think he won't accept a deal where enforcement isn't in it or when amnesty replaces the long process he describes. OTOH, if Rubio can bring House Republicans along to accept the same tough deal that he and the Senators would and this deal lands on the President's desk, that is leadership and getting things done. If the President just jawbones and demands voting citizenship with no negotiations, debate, proving ground, process or waiting period and loses Rubio, nothing gets done. Sure the President might prefer to keep the issue, but for what? Reelection?? To win the House? But he doesn't for sure win that way, it is a gamble when everyone know his opponents were sitting at the table ready to deal.
The do-nothing idea of 2012 still works if you are a right wing pundit, but not for a major state or national politician. Enforce the law, round 'em up, send them all home. Sounds good and the far right keeps buying your publication. As Rubio said, conservatism means having some tie to reality. We aren't sending them home. They aren't self-deporting except to the extent that our economy sucks and we aren't competing for the entire nation in our elections.
Figure out what is the toughest deal you can get that satisfies all the conditions laid out and get it done. If it ends up with Democrats backing out of real enforcement or a good bill sits on the President's desk vetoed, fine. Take that to the next election.
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But why give citizenship instead of a green card? A key variable here is how many family members will get brought in via the new legal status; it's not just 11 million but a multiple thereof.
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Didn't it used to be a bad thing to reward criminal behavior?
Message to the rest of the world: Forget obeying America's laws. Do what you want and demand we accomodate you.
Let me make sure I get this right, state level law enforcement can't enforce immigration law because they don't have the constitutional authority, and there are too many illegals to deport, but local level law enforcement can disarm the public despite that pesky 2nd. Amendment.
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But why give citizenship instead of a green card? A key variable here is how many family members will get brought in via the new legal status; it's not just 11 million but a multiple thereof.
I think I heard Rubio say back of the line for citizenship and up to a 16 year process. Having some path to citizenship for people we all know are living here permanently I think has to do with the 3/5ths thing in our history, getting the right to vote at some point if America is your permanent home. It has to do with not being able to move forward politically on other things while they hold this over our head and we keep losing national elections. It follows from Tom Tancredo and Mitt Romney not winning the Presidency and it follows from George Bush as President and Gingrich, Hastert, Boehner as Speakers not closing the border. And obviously it follows from electing Democrats. There is some path, some penalty and some contract to be kept in the principles. That should be better than the status quo, having laws we don't respect.
"Didn't it used to be a bad thing to reward criminal behavior? " - Yes.
Maybe you mean jail the Feds, Census workers and LE who didn't report and send them home all these years. Joking, but what do you do when you encounter an illegal? Do you get a team out of Washington to track down the source and extent of it and prosecute to the full extent of the law.? Still joking.
The law breaking that is settled and plea bargained away might be seen in the context that other laws have statutes of limitations 3 years to 7 years except for murder. This is mostly about the fact that the status quo is a losing standoff. The law isn't enforced. The violators don't face a consequence. As Reagan believed, their wanting to come here (when it was the greatest nation in the world) is their fault?
What is the best deal that can put this behind us. Hardline conservatives like myself are not going to win enough elections to ever have the power or guts to send them all home. It isn't happening no matter how tough we talk. Taking no acceptance whatsoever on illegals is costing us the legals. I know they vote other factors, but this is a major standoff affecting legals and illegals. Meanwhile we are two-faced, house them, feed them, educate them, healthcare them all anyway and sue states that interfere with the current lawlessness. At some point in time there isn't home somewhere else to go back to. The undesirable terms in the deal are a cost of getting the the good terms. If border security or any other requirement going forward is a sham and its just an instant voter plan for Democrats, then Rubio, me, WSJ and all the other turncoats hopefully reject a bad deal and won't get fooled again.
Somebody with credibility (Rubio) has stepped forward and tried to hammer out the framework for a very tough deal. Reagan's mistake was that the deal was false, no problem was solved. More recently we've had no new net migration for quite a while now, the entire Pelosi-Obama depression, a chance to catch a breath. McCarthy attacks specifics in the proposal, but there isn't a bill, only a set of principles.
I have two Canadian buddies who live, work and raised their kids here for 20 years. Send them home. If you are Hispanic, you have at least one friend or family member affected every time a Republican says send them all home. There is no gain in saying it when it isn't being done. Obama sent back more than his predecessors, but thosse are felon-type, law enforcement situations.
If we adhered to other principles, like that you can't vote to have someone else pay your living expenses, I wouldn't worry so much about how other people were going to vote.
What BTW is the other solution, seriously? Have Republicans see who is the toughest again in the long primary season and then scratch our heads again the second week of November with still no one sent home?
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Don't think the immigrants will vote for Rubio.
Maybe some Vietnamese became Republican when they came over on boats but the majority of the rest are all Dems.
The majority of later immigrants and certainly illegals will vote Dem no matter what.
I have not seen any hope this will turn around. We are an entitlement country/society now.
Only a crash. Only when the pain is too much. Only hope.
O'Reilly is right and Krauthammer wrong. The country has shifted left of center.
IF one cable announcement today is Obama is at 60% approval there IS no other explanation.
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"Don't think the immigrants will vote for Rubio."
Good point. We are look for some kind of a bend in the curve, some kind a break in the 100% negative story line being taught to every generation, not total victory. Also as GM backs into, we are looking for some kind of a law we might actually enforce, instead of the farce that is federal law and (lack of) enforcement right now.
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I can't remember if Rubio had this note (Federal law) in his principles:
It is an explicit and unambiguous tenet in federal law that those granted entry into the U.S. must be able to support themselves financially.
Currently I think 36% of immigrant families get a check from the federal government, slightly below the U.S. average.(?) For those eventually getting citizenship, that number should be closer to zero structurally, except for the unexpected things they might run into down the road like any other one of us.
If the new citizens were by definition not government dependent and paying in their own fair share, their voting ratios might not be quite as statist as it is predicted right now.
"The Immigration and Nationality Act specifically states: “An alien who…is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.” "
http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1ca34204-a755-492d-9691-33603ab44301
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/03/How-Democrats-Understand-Immigration-Reform-A-Gigantic-Block-Sic-of-Progressive-Voters?utm_source=BreitbartNews&utm_medium=facebook
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The factions on the left or more mobilized than ever. Surely the illegals are a potential big boon for the Democrat party.
It is interesting how the union leadership has caved for the good of their the other half of their party machine - the democrat party.
Basically cave on immigration throwing all you union members into the garbage can making them have to compete with hungrier more motivated people just to pray you turn these new immigrants into new members thus keeping the union mobsters in charge keeping their power while the rank and file members now get pay cuts just trying to compete.
The Blacks are so in love with the Democrat party machine and so despised of the Republicans that they spite themselves the same way by giving it all away to newer kids on the block.
I guess they are too drunk with new power at the highest levels of a national party they can't see the forest for the trees.
Republicans ought to hit these two themes above very hard.
I say we teach, we preach, we spell it out front and center. So what do the republicans have to offer? A free country where anyone has a chance. Not one controlled by a politburo of cronies, corrupted politicians, smart aleck academics telling all of us what is good for us. Who the hell are they to keep shoving it down our throats.
Humanity is not as a whole a god damn machine. We are people. I don't want to be told what to do by progressives from birth to death.
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Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday found 83% of those surveyed support stricter border control while 55% favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Which should we do first?
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http://www.examiner.com/article/claim-ice-is-now-being-run-by-the-illegal-alien-lobby?CID=examiner_alerts_article
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The Economic Windfall of Immigration Reform
From 1990-2010, scientists and engineers admitted by the H-1B visa program added $615 billion to the economy..
By GIOVANNI PERI
After months of acrimony, it now appears that immigration reform, and a comprehensive one at that, is within reach. While most of the debates have been about the immediate consequences of any change in policy, the goal should be to promote economic growth over the next 40 years.
Immigration is a powerful engine for bringing skills, workers and ideas into the United States. Yet if history is any guide, this country gets a chance at substantial immigration reform only every four to five decades. Thus the economic gains from "getting the immigration system right" will be large and long-lasting.
Much of the reform debate has centered around granting legal status to undocumented immigrants, conditional upon payment of fees and back taxes. From an economic point of view, this will likely have only a modest impact, especially in the short run.
Most of the undocumented are already working. Probably with legal status they will be able to obtain somewhat higher wages, 5% to 10% higher, most studies say, and consume and spend more. The fees and back-taxes paid to achieve legal status also will be a welcome source of revenue for the government.
The really significant payoff will be when newly legal immigrants are more willing to invest in training, and to move between employers as they participate fully in the economy and feel more certain about their future. The younger among them will be more likely to pursue an education. These investments will increase their human capital, wages, productivity and taxpaying ability, with positive effects on the economy.
Yet the problem of undocumented immigrants is likely to come back unless we find better ways to legally accommodate new immigrants. Much larger economic gains are achievable if we reorganize the immigration system to do that, following three fundamental principles.
The first is simplification. The current visa system is the accumulation of many disconnected provisions. Some rules, set in the past—such as the 7% limit on permanent permits to any nationality—are arbitrary and produce delays, bottlenecks and inefficiencies. There are many different kinds of temporary visas, each with specific provisions, numeric limits, requirements and fees. The disconnect between temporary and permanent visas implies that people who have worked for years and are well integrated in the U.S. have no guarantee of obtaining permanent residence.
A more rational approach would have the government set overall targets and simple rules for temporary and permanent working permits, deciding the balance between permits in "skilled" and "unskilled" jobs. But the government should not micromanage permits, rules and limits in specific occupations. Employers compete to hire immigrants, and they are best suited at selecting the individuals who will be the most productive in the jobs that are needed.
The second important principle is that the number of temporary work visas should respond to the demand for labor. Currently the limited number of these visas is set with no consideration for economic conditions. Their number is rarely revised. In periods of high demand, the economic incentives to bypass the limits and hire undocumented workers are large.
Temporary work visas that are responsive to labor demand would make enforcement of the immigration laws easier. The government should concentrate on checking that the immigrants admitted are law-abiding citizens and that companies follow the rules. In a study for The Hamilton Project written with Pia Orrenius (of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank) and Madeline Zavodny (at Agnes Scott College), we propose that temporary permits to hire immigrants should be made tradable and sold by the government in auctions to employers. Such a "cap and trade" system would ensure efficiency. The auction price of permits would signal the demand for immigrants and guide the upward and downward adjustment of the permit numbers over years.
The third principle governing immigration reform is that scientists, engineers and innovators are the main drivers of productivity and of economic growth. A 2002 study in the American Economic Review by Stanford economist Charles I. Jones found that half of the productivity growth in the U.S. since 1950 was driven by the increase in the number of scientists and engineers doing research and development. Chad Sparber (Colgate University), Kevin Shih (University of California, Davis) and I have found in a study published in January that foreign scientists and engineers brought into this country under the H-1B visa program have contributed to 10%-20% of the yearly productivity growth in the U.S. during the period 1990-2010.
This allowed the GDP per capita to be 4% higher that it would have been without them—that's an aggregate increase of output of $615 billion as of 2010. Our study also found that these immigrants did not hurt but helped wage and employment perspectives of U.S.-born scientists and engineers. More scientists and more innovation in the U.S. mean more labs, universities and companies doing research and creating jobs for Americans too. There is abundant other research showing that foreign scientists and engineers contribute substantially to science, innovation and productivity growth in the U.S., with benefits spreading well beyond the lab and research facility where they work.
President Obama is right when saying, as he did in Las Vegas on Jan. 29, that allowing foreigners trained in science and technology to remain in the country "will create American businesses and American jobs. . . . help us grow our economy . . . and strengthen our middle class." If we can get our immigration system corrected, this will likely be true in the next 40 years as well.
Mr. Peri is a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of "Overhauling the Temporary Work Visa System," a publication of The Hamilton Project, an initiative of the Brookings Institution.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-immigration--the-lesser-of-two-evils/2013/02/21/d20213cc-7c63-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html
Immigration — the lesser of two evils
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: February 21
The president suggested he would hold off introducing his own immigration bill as long as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace — until his own immigration bill mysteriously leaked precisely as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace.
A naked political maneuver and a blunt warning to Republicans: Finish that immigration deal in Congress, or I’ll propose something I know you can’t accept — and flog the issue mercilessly next year to win back the House.
John McCain responded (correctly) that President Obama was creating a “cudgel” to gain “political advantage in the next election.” Marco Rubio, a chief architect of the Senate bill, called Obama’s alternative dead on arrival.
They doth protest quite a lot. Especially because on the single most important issue — instant amnesty — there is no real difference between the proposals.
Rubio calls it “probationary legal status.” Obama uses the term “lawful prospective immigrant.” But both would instantly legalize the 11 million illegal immigrants living here today. The moment either bill is signed, the 11 million become eligible for legal residence, the right to work and relief from the prospect of deportation.
Their life in the shadows is over, which is what matters to them above all. Call the status probationary or prospective but, in reality, it is permanent. There is no conceivable circumstance (short of criminality) under which the instant legalization would be revoked.
This is bad policy. It repeats the 1986 immigration reform that legalized (the then) 3 million while promising border enforcement — which was never carried out. Which opened the door to today’s 11 million. And to the next 11 million as soon as the ink is dry on this reform.
The better policy would be enforcement first, followed by amnesty. Yes, amnesty. But only when we have ensured that these 11 million constitute the last cohort.
How to ensure that? With three obvious enforcement measures: (a) a universal E-Verify system by which employers must check the legal status of all their hires; (b) an effective system for tracking those who have overstayed their visas; and (c) closure of the southern border, mainly with the kind of triple fence that has proved so successful near San Diego.
If legalization would go into effect only when these conditions are met, there would be overwhelming bipartisan pressure to get enforcement done as quickly as possible.
Regrettably, there appears to be zero political will to undertake this kind of definitive solution. Democrats have little real interest in border enforcement. They see a rising Hispanic population as the key to a permanent Democratic majority. And Republicans are so panicked by last year’s loss of the Hispanic vote by 44 points that they have conceded instant legalization. As in the Rubio proposal.
Hence Rubio’s fallback. He at least makes enforcement the trigger for any normalization beyond legalization. Specifically, enforcement is required before the 11 million can apply for a green card.
A green card is surely a much weaker enforcement incentive than is legalization. But it still is something. Obama’s proposal, on the other hand, obliterates any incentive for enforcement.
Obama makes virtually automatic the eventual acquisition of a green card and citizenship by today’s 11 million. The clock starts on the day the bill is signed: eight years for a green card, five more for citizenship. It doesn’t matter if the border is flooded with millions of new illegal immigrants (anticipating yet the next amnesty). The path to citizenship is irreversible, rendering enforcement irrelevant.
As for Obama’s enforcement measures themselves, they are largely mere gestures: increased funding for border control, more deportation judges, more indeterminate stretching of a system that has already demonstrably failed. (Hence today’s 11 million.) Except for the promise of an eventual universal E-Verify system, it is nothing but the appearance of motion.
And remember: Non-implementation of any of this has no effect on the path to full citizenship anyway. The Rubio proposal at least creates some pressure for real enforcement because green-card acquisition does not take place until the country finally verifies that its borders are under its control. True, a far weaker incentive than requiring enforcement before legalization. But that fight appears to be totally lost.
In the end, the only remaining vessel for enforcement is the Rubio proposal. It is deeply flawed and highly imperfect. But given that the Obama alternative effectively signs away America’s right to decide who enters the country, the choice between the two proposals on the table today is straightforward.
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As usual CK thinks clearly.
I would add that the 11 million will get to bring in their family members so the actual number over the coming years will be a multiple (3-4X?) of eleven million.
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As usual CK thinks clearly.
I would add that the 11 million will get to bring in their family members so the actual number over the coming years will be a multiple (3-4X?) of eleven million.
Until the next amnesty, right? What about the one after that?
Oh, this is the absolute last amnesty!
We really mean it!
Seriously!
Stop laughing!
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"It is highly important that the workmen should be assigned the noble status of citizenship in all our legislation."
Winston Churchill in a 1911 debate on British immigration reform.
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Senate Plan Sets High Bar On Border Security .
By SARA MURRAY
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally would not gain green cards under a bipartisan Senate bill until law-enforcement officials are monitoring the entire southern border and stopping 90% of people crossing illegally in certain areas, according to people familiar with the plan.
The border-security proposal, part of a broader immigration bill being written by eight senators, sets several goals that would have to be met before any of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally could apply for permanent legal residency, also known as a green card, according to the people familiar with the Senate talks. Meeting all the goals is expected to take 10 years.
In a major change for businesses, all employers would be required after a five-year phase-in period to use the government's E-Verify system, which screens for illegal workers. E-Verify now is largely voluntary, though some states require it. Some 409,000 employers had enrolled in the program as of last year, the federal government says, a tiny fraction of the estimated six million private U.S. employers, many of which have only a handful of employees.
Along the U.S.-Mexican border, 100% of the border would have to be under surveillance, and law enforcement would have to catch 90% of those who cross the border illegally at "high risk" sections—a term that people following the Senate talks did not define. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security reported that only 44% of the border was under operational control, meaning officials had the ability to detect and block illegal activity there.
In addition, the government would have to create an electronic system to monitor everyone who exits from the U.S. through airports or seaports, in an attempt to identify people overstaying their visas. People who overstay visas account for a large share of illegal immigrants, as much as 40% by some estimates.
Once all of those measures are met, immigrants could begin qualifying for green cards. In the meantime, the legislation would grant probationary status to illegal immigrants who passed a criminal-background check, paid a fine and met other conditions. The legislation, which would also set special rules for agricultural workers, is not fully drafted and has not yet been released publicly.
Setting tougher border-security measures as a prerequisite to offering legal status to illegal immigrants could ease the way for many lawmakers, particularly Republicans, to support the immigration-law overhaul. Many Republicans have said the border must be secure before they would consider any change in the status of illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, advocates for immigrants and some Democrats worry that stringent border-security requirements would create an indefinite delay for illegal immigrants seeking legal status. Frank Sharry, executive director of the group America's Voice, said the Senate plan seemed poised to include the "toughest border-security requirements ever."
"It raises the question of whether it's actually achievable, and whether it will end up thwarting the path to citizenship for 11 million people," he said. "I think there will be a lot of heartburn when the bill is released."
The measures laid out in the Senate plan are similar to a border-security bill unveiled Tuesday by Sen. John Cornyn and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, both Texas Republicans.
How to determine whether the border is secure is a contentious issue in the debate over overhauling the nation's immigration laws. President Barack Obama and other Democrats have argued that border security has already improved, but the Senate plan would push the Department of Homeland Security to go further.
Republicans say they want to prevent another wave of immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Many in the GOP cite a 1986 immigration law legalizing millions without, they say, adequately improving border security.
Mr. Cornyn, who has been skeptical of immigration-overhaul efforts, said he would be pleased if the eight senators writing the new legislation adopted security measures similar to ones he put forward. "I would be favorably impressed if they embraced this," Mr. Cornyn said. But his bill could also offer an alternative to GOP lawmakers who want to sign on to a measure boosting border security without offering legal status to illegal immigrants.
How tough the security measures prove to be will depend on the details of the legislation. Lawmakers will have to define, for instance, "high-risk" areas subject to the 90% apprehension requirement. The border-security targets will also depend on how lawmakers define requirements for surveillance, also known as border "awareness."
The standards could change over time or prove to be subjective. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with collecting the data.
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Barbed wire lines the top of the border fence at the San Ysidro port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego.
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The 90% apprehension rate, technically referred to as the effectiveness rate, includes people who turned back after entering the U.S., as well as people detained. The Border Patrol estimates the total number of illegal crossings based on agent sightings, camera monitoring and referrals from other credible sources.
It is hard to know if apprehension rates are tallied accurately, said Thad Bingel, partner at Command Consulting Group and a former Customs and Border Protection official. "You can detect something and not know for certain if it turned back or if it got past you. That's what makes it a really tough challenge." He said that even if the U.S. has full surveillance and control of the border one day, that may not hold true a month later.
"The bad guys are sophisticated, too," he said. "You may one day have 100% awareness, and then they'll figure out where your holes might be."
In recent years, illegal border crossings have fallen as a result of the tepid U.S. economy, stronger border enforcement and other factors, several studies have found. The federal Government Accountability Office said apprehensions fell in fiscal 2011, mirroring a decrease in estimated illegal entries.
The Senate plan lays out three steps aimed at meeting the security goals, people familiar with the proposal said. Homeland Security officials would be required to report to Congress within six months about what resources and technology are necessary to meet the 90% apprehension rate and where additional border fencing should be installed. After that report, the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. would become eligible for provisional legal status.
If border-security targets weren't met after five years, a commission of border-state officials—potentially governors or attorneys general—would make recommendations to meet the 90% apprehension goal. The legislation designates money to implement the commission's recommendations.
Illegal immigrants would be able to apply for green cards after 10 years only if the border-security targets had been met and the visa exit and full E-Verify systems have been implemented, according to the two people familiar with the plan.
"Twenty years could pass by, and if there's no E-Verify, not one person is going to get their green card," said one of the people familiar with the plan.
The price tag for the additional security measures is unclear, but it is likely to be costly. The U.S. government spent $18 billion in fiscal 2012 on federal immigration enforcement, more than all the other main federal law-enforcement agencies combined, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Senators are hoping to offset some security costs with additional revenue from fines and fees.
"We do not intend to have the proposals that we are enacting be additional costs to the taxpayers of America," said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), a member of the Senate group working on immigration.
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Soon things will heat up over immigration again. Two comments on writing an acceptable bill:
1) Borders secured first, everyone on the right says, but how will we measure that? It has been suggested that success will be when 90% of illegal crossings are stopped. In this day of known terrorists attempting to carry out planned missions, stopping the amateurs from crossing is not good enough. Stopping 90% still means hundreds of thousands are entering.
2) Not mentioned yet to my knowledge (except on the forum) is this concept in immigration law: Federal law requires that those granted entry into the U.S. must be able to support themselves financially. The Immigration and Nationality Act specifically states: “An alien who…is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.” How about if we make sure we honor this tradition in law in any new law!
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A look deep inside the Gang of Eight bill — and how they’ll sell immigration reform to conservatives
April 15, 2013 | 2:46 am
Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
The Washington Examiner
Republican members of the Gang of Eight know they’ll have a tough time selling comprehensive immigration reform to a significant number of conservatives. Of course some in the GOP are still panicked by last November’s election results and will be inclined to sign on to almost any deal. But many of the more conservative Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill will have to be convinced that the Gang’s proposal is an acceptable way to go. It won’t be easy.
Starting this week, with the release of the bill, the Gang will launch an extensive public information campaign — lots of press releases, frequently asked questions, and fact sheets specifically addressing the concerns about reform that conservatives have raised in recent months.
The short version of their case: The Gang proposal will be tough, tough, tough; it will be based on stringent requirements that security measures be in place before many of its provisions take effect; it will avoid the moral danger of rewarding those who entered the country illegally; and it will take care to protect the U.S. economy. And then there will be a final, mostly whispered, argument: If Congress doesn’t pass the Gang bill, Barack Obama might unilaterally legalize the millions of illegal immigrants in the country today in an adult version of his Dream Act decree, doing so without securing the border in an act that would be impossible for a future president to reverse.
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In sum, what the Gang is planning is a sales job followed by a nightmare scenario.
First the toughness. The bill will be based on a three-part enforcement scheme. First is a universal E-Verify system, which means that every business in America, even those that have one, two, or three employees, will be required to comply with the federal E-Verify law. Every person hired in every business will have to produce either a passport or a driver’s license from a state that requires proof of citizenship for a driver’s license.
Second is an entry and exit system at all airports and seaports that will track visa holders to ensure that they do not overstay their allotted time in the country.
Third is border security, which the Gang will define as 100 percent “situational awareness” — that is, surveillance of the entire border — plus the ability to catch 90 percent of the people who try to cross it illegally.
The GOP Gang members know full well that the federal government has promised all those measures and more over the years, and the border is still not secure and businesses still hire illegal immigrants. For example, Congress has passed multiple laws requiring entry-exit systems similar to what the Gang will propose, and the system has never been built. So Gang members know that conservatives, at least, will be skeptical.
The answer the Gang hopes will reassure those skeptics is the concept of triggers. They’ve set up three points at which the bill’s requirements will have to be met before the process can continue.
The first, and by far the weakest, trigger is for the legalization of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. In addition to requiring that immigrants pass a background check, be fingerprinted, pay taxes and a fine (which will be in the thousands of dollars), and prove they have been in the U.S. continuously at least since December 2011, the Gang bill will require that the Department of Homeland Security issue a “notice of commencement” confirming that it has prepared a plan for border security, including fencing and surveillance, that will meet the 100/90 percent requirements. In addition, the Department will have to confirm that it has the funding to begin implementing the plan. When that notice is made, then an illegal immigrant who has fulfilled the other requirements becomes what the bureaucracy will refer to as an RPI — a Restricted Provisional Immigrant.
Trigger number two will come five years after Homeland Security’s notice of commencement. If the Department has not met the 100/90 percent requirement by then, the border commission that was created in the original bill — made up of the governors and attorneys general of the four states bordering Mexico — will no longer be simply an advisory panel but will become a policy-making panel, charged with creating and implementing a border security plan that must meet the 100/90 percent requirement. The commission will have five more years to get the job done. How a commission of governors and state officials can be given the authority that constitutionally belongs to the Congress and the executive branch is not entirely clear, but that is what the bill will call for.
Once the 100/90 percent requirement is met, however it is done, then the Restricted Provisional Immigrants will be within sight, although a long sight, of a path to citizenship. The Gang plan calls for RPI status to last six years. After those six years, the RPI must re-apply for the same status, for an additional four years. To have his RPI status renewed, he must pay an application fee and an additional fine, on top of the one he paid six years earlier when he first became an RPI. He cannot have been convicted of any crime during those six years, or he will no longer be ineligible. And he will have to prove that he has been gainfully employed during those six years, earning at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level. (The figure will be higher for RPI’s with families to support.)
After an initial six-year term, and then four more years, the immigrant will have been in RPI status for ten years. That is when the final trigger comes in. After that decade-long period, the Gang plan will say, if E-Verify has been fully implemented, and if an entry-exit system has been fully implemented, and if the border security plan has been implemented, then the RPI will be eligible to apply — not receive, but just to apply — for a green card. The immigrant won’t be required to do so; he can remain an RPI for as long as he likes at that point. But if he does apply for a green card, then he will face another multi-year wait for eventual citizenship. The Gang stresses that green cards will be given out on a staggered basis, not all at one time, so no more than, say, two million immigrants will receive them in any single year. (That number is still under negotiation.) If any key part of the security requirements remain undone, the Gang says, then there will be no green cards.
In all, Gang members estimate the entire process, from illegal immigrant to citizen, could take at least 18, and as many as 22, years. At the same time, the Gang hopes to have wiped out the backlog of people waiting to enter the United States legally. Gang members want the RPI process to be slow in part to make sure that anyone who applied legally to enter the U.S. at roughly the same time as the new reform went into effect would be virtually guaranteed of receiving a green card before anyone who came here illegally.
During the long waiting period, the Gang stresses, the RPI will receive no need-based federal benefits, and specifically, no Obamacare coverage. Since Congress specifically made Obamacare available to anyone who is in the country legally — not just citizens — the Gang believes it must repeal that portion of the Affordable Care Act in order to exempt newly-legalized immigrants with RPI status. To do otherwise — to make the formerly illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare — would bust the federal budget, the Gang says.
As complicated as all that is, there is still much, much more to the Gang proposal; immigration reform is an enormously complex subject. But Gang members will argue that something has to be done, given the fact that so many illegal immigrants are already in the country. The Gang’s goal was to come up with a plan that deals with those illegal immigrants while not encouraging further immigration or punishing those who are trying to come here legally.
Even if lawmakers agreed with the proposals, or amended them to their liking, there will remain the fundamental, unavoidable question of whether the Obama administration, or the next presidential administration, will enforce the law. Gang members will try to convince skeptics that the provisions are iron-clad. The skeptics will likely remain skeptical. And that’s before considering the onslaught of lawsuits that pro-immigration activist groups will file to try to undo key provisions of the law.
But GOP gang members will have one final argument, one they will most likely use privately with fellow Republicans. If the Gang plan goes down in defeat, the argument goes, Barack Obama will be a lame-duck president who has promised key Democratic constituencies that he will take action on immigration reform. He has already used his executive power to unilaterally enact a version of the Dream Act. If Congress denies him immigration reform, according to the argument, he will essentially do for the entire illegal immigrant population what the Dream Act did for young illegal immigrants: legalize them by declining to enforce current law. With the stroke of Obama’s pen, millions of illegal immigrants will become legal.
And it could all happen, the Gang members will argue, without any of the strict enforcement measures — E-Verify, entry-exit, border security and more — that are in the Gang bill. And Obama’s unilateral legalization would be virtually impossible for a future president, Republican or Democrat, to reverse.
In other words, after all the provisions and requirements and triggers, the ultimate Gang argument to conservatives and Republicans will be: Pass our bill, or face utter disaster.
The debate begins this week.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/a-look-deep-inside-the-gang-of-eight-bill-and-how-theyll-sell-immigration-reform-to-conservatives/article/2527162
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Very good summary Doug.
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I'd just like to point out that there is a path to citizenship already in existence. Illegal aliens are free to return home and apply to legitimately return and pursue naturalization in compliance with federal law.
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One point made against 'do something', a.k.a. 'comprehensive reform', is that surrender on this won't win Republicans any votes. This is true. But it would potentially begin to allow them to compete for Hispanic votes based on other issues.
To GM's very valid point, some of the blame for illegal immigration goes to the U.S. for having unenforced laws. We even have a federal government that prevents states from enforcing these laws.
On the positive side, I will be amazed if all these people will be pay taxes and but not be eligible to receive any federal benefits for more than a decade. If true, that alone would put their votes on fiscal matters in play.
Beware of the slippery slope legislative strategy though. After a tough, tough, tough bill is passed, the panderers will still say how unfair it is that all these now-legal residents can't vote or receive benefits and will push for more 'reform'. I don't think you can protect against that in a bill. It is extremely hard to negotiate with weasels.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323820304578412561295471882.html?mod=WSJ_hps_RIGHTUnderAd
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The Strategic Implications of Immigration Reform
April 18, 2013 | 0650 GMT
A bipartisan group of eight leading U.S. senators on Wednesday officially filed the most comprehensive immigration reform bill since 1990, opening the door for the United States to address an issue that will help to shape the country's economic and demographic future. The bill links the issue of border security with that of immigration and will require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to significantly ramp up its monitoring of the U.S. border over the next 10 years. It would make it possible for illegal immigrants currently in the country to seek legal residency and eventually citizenship. Finally, and perhaps most important, the bill would shift the composition of the inflow of legal immigrants, increasing quotas for highly skilled individuals and constraining the number of visas available to people whose family members are U.S. citizens.
The history of U.S. immigration policy is necessarily long and controversial. Not only is the United States the biggest economy in the world, it is also the largest recipient of immigrants. Until the middle of the 20th century, Europeans accounted for the majority of emigrants to the United States. Since that time, immigrants from the rest of the Americas -- in particular from Mexico and Central America -- have come to form the largest demographic in illegal and legal immigration, followed by Chinese and Indian immigrants.
Immigration law has been used to control the legal entry of people based on a wide range of factors. These include placing quotas on nationalities and forbidding the entry of polygamists and political extremists. At the same time, U.S. immigration law has been used to encourage the entry of people with specific skill sets. These efforts include the Immigration Nurses Relief Act of 1989, which granted permanent residency to foreign-born nurses during a national nurse shortage in the United States. In 1942 the United States negotiated an agreement with Mexico during an agricultural labor shortage. This agreement, known as the Bracero program, allowed millions of Mexican workers to enter the United States between the time the program was implemented and when it ended in 1964. The program opened the door for significant Mexican migration based on family reunification. What appears to be a more contemporary version of that program -- a temporary worker permit specifically designed to integrate migrant agricultural workers -- was included in the bill introduced Wednesday.
Though each new wave of immigration brings with it political and social controversy, the United States' ability to integrate new populations gives it a distinct advantage over many other developed countries. In the first place, Latin American immigrant populations tend to have higher fertility rates than the national average. This allows the United States to maintain a population large enough to drive the world’s largest economy -- in stark comparison with Europe, which is set to experience a notable aging and shrinking of its population. Legal immigrants contribute to the country’s tax base. Even illegal immigrants help fill out and stabilize the labor market.
Immigration reform could also contribute to another U.S. advantage, namely its ability to attract talented and innovative individuals. Many students from around the world come to study in the United States, but legal restrictions prevent them from staying and working in the country. The proposed system appears designed to help keep more highly educated foreigners in the United States, a country that depends on technological innovation to create high-skilled, high-value jobs. The generation and protection of intellectual property is a strategic national objective amid rising international competition, and if the proposed law successfully increases high-skilled labor immigration, it will contribute significantly to U.S. competitiveness by attracting skilled workers and thinkers from around the world.
The international impact of this proposal will be felt most keenly in Mexico, where U.S. President Barack Obama is set to visit in May. Although immigration from Mexico has slowed in the wake of the financial crisis, Mexicans make up about two-thirds of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The Mexican government has long made it a priority to find a way to normalize immigrant status. It also has an interest in encouraging population flows that generate billions of dollars worth of remittances annually to Mexico.
The current bill highlights the tight relationship between the immigration issue and the challenge of border security. In recent years, violence in Mexico has worried U.S. policymakers, and although the border will never be sealed, efforts to strengthen border enforcement address land migration from Mexico. For this effort, the United States will have to continue to work closely with the Mexican government. The fact that immigration reform is attached to the new border security initiative will sweeten the deal for Mexico during negotiations with the United States.
Ultimately, no single immigration bill will end the issues tied to immigration in the United States. But each reform makes strategic changes to the body of immigration law -- changes that are tailored to the global circumstances of the times. For the United States, the big question now is about global competitiveness, and any reform to immigration will seek to address that question.
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Read more: The Strategic Implications of Immigration Reform | Stratfor
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My fear is that the US govt cannot keep its word, not just on the border security side. Once proponents get what they want from this bill, why wouldn't they open the issue again and demand basic 'human rights', like free health care, food and voting now? Will a court rule on these deprived 'rights' of the recently legalized with 'heightened scrutiny'. Will we again hear that anyone opposed shortening the wait, paying out benefits or giving instant voting privileges is a bigot, xenophobe, hater.
On the plus side according to Rubio today, working, paying taxes, and not receiving federal benefits through the whole process is a requirement. If true, that is a pretty good applicant group! Not every illegal is going to sign up for that.
Terrorism this week reminds us that 90% effective border security is not good enough. It is time to know who is coming and going.
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Immigration Reform Hits the Senate
April 19, 2013
But First, Breaking News Out of Boston
Two immigration issues are top of the fold this week.
First, two young Chechen immigrants bombed the Boston Marathon Monday. Due to the outstanding work of both the FBI and Massachusetts law enforcement, those perpetrators were identified and one apprehended.
It's no small irony that on this Patriots' Day, the Massachusetts governor has asked the entire city of Boston to "shelter in place" while searching for the remaining suspect -- an unprecedented action for any urban center conducting a manhunt.
The family of these perpetrators were Chechen Muslims, who came to the United States by way of Kyrgyzstan. It is likely that they acted alone, two disenfranchised young immigrants, but their belief system and tactics have all the DNA markers of Islamic fanaticism. As you recall, it was Chechen Islamists who stormed a school in Beslan, Russia, murdering more than 300 people, half of them children. And this is the same fanaticism that motivated other attacks against Americans since 9/11, particularly the bloodiest assault by Islamist Nidal Malik Hasan, who murdered 14 and wounded 29 others at Ft. Hood, while yelling "Allahu Akbar!" The Obama administration has yet to label that incident as anything other than "workplace violence."
We will not join the chorus of speculators about this attack or its motives. The facts will become clear in the coming weeks. But one thing is clear: The disgraceful media talkinghead coverage of this attack, which Mark Alexander covered yesterday in "The Good, Bad and Ugly."
On to the most pressing immigration issue today, dealing with illegal immigrants -- some of whom, by the way, form the bedrock of urban Hispanic gangs who murder more people in a week than all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, combined.
Immigration Reform Hits the Senate
"To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim." --James Wilson
Members of the 'Gang of Eight'
The Senate's immigration reform committee -- the "Gang of Eight," so-called because of its bipartisan composition of four Republican and four Democrat senators -- will hold hearings today and Monday over its proposal to reform U.S. immigration law. At stake is no less than the fate of U.S. border security and the legal disposition of millions of undocumented Democrats residing in the U.S. The primary thing to remember is that Democrats' objective is to co-opt Hispanics, just like they've done with blacks, all in service of their agenda to grow the State.
The 850-page bill was released at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, providing all of two days for review before debate begins. That's at least better than the review offered to the nation under ObamaCare -- no hearings, no debate and passage under cover of night. Then again, we're in the "new era of openness," so perhaps we judge too harshly. Why the rush? For starters, those who favor the bill know that the faster it's pushed through, the less time there is to learn more about its provisions or to rally opposition.
The bill has three main parts: 1) a so-called "pathway to citizenship" for illegals currently domiciled in the U.S. -- 11-20 million people, depending on who's doing the counting; 2) "improved" border security, complete with protective legislative "triggers" to ensure that goal is met; and 3) changes to immigration rules to grant a more favorable status to skilled workers, as opposed to the current system based on allowing relatives of existing families entrance, which values family ties over economic productivity. The first provision is the most controversial.
Though the bill does not contain the phrase "pathway to citizenship," the term lies at the heart of the proposed law. In exchange for promises of better border security, tighter control, better status-monitoring, and non-compliance- and retro-penalties, the current population illegally residing in the U.S. will be allowed to remain legally with the prospect of future citizenship. The legislation also imposes E-Verify on all employers. Each of these provisions, according to the bill, must occur before the "pathway" becomes operative.
After payment of a $500 penalty and any back-taxes owed, and provided they can show they haven't been convicted of a serious crime within the U.S., formerly illegal immigrants gain "probationary" (or "provisional") legal status after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) begins to implement: a) 100 percent border surveillance capability; and b) 90 percent enforcement capability (i.e., the ability to detain nine out of 10 of those illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border). DHS would have six months to propose a plan to accomplish these tasks, and then have five years following that to meet those goals. If the goals are not met during that time, a commission will mandate additional policies DHS must follow to ensure compliance.
Additionally, probationary residents must pass a background check and show proof of gainful employment. Moreover, they will not receive any federal benefits -- food stamps, welfare, ObamaCare, Social Security, etc. -- and they must renew their status periodically. After 10 years in this status, they could apply for a "green card," and up to an additional three years after that, become a U.S. citizen.
Bottom line: There's not much to like about this bill. First, we don't like its "omnibus" nature. Further, we don't like the fact that 11-20 million aliens living in America receive an essentially free pass on legal accountability for their wrongful acts. We also don't trust the same federal government that has been both unable and also unwilling to enforce existing immigration law to enforce the "reformed" law. Finally, we don't like the announcement that the Gang of Eight plans to block any amendments to the bill, attempting to curtail the deliberative process so that the bill has a better chance of passing. All of these issues leave us uneasy, at best, with the prospects for the long-term success of this legislation.
That said, there are worse solutions than that proposed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and the Gang of Eight. We believe Rubio is trying to remain true to conservative principles while also recognizing the reality that the Demo-gogues control the Senate. However, we also heartily agree with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who warns that we will be left with merely the promise of better border security tomorrow for what amounts to a blanket pass to those who are violating our laws. In other words, we're giving up something valuable and might get nothing in return.
In the end, the nation seems to be left with a Hobson's Choice. One choice involves attempting an immigration fix that no one is happy with, including a "gladly-pay-you-tomorrow-for-a-hamburger-today" shot at securing the borders, and a not-quite-amnesty/not-quite-not-amnesty program for current illegal immigrants. The other choice is an overwhelmingly unsatisfying status quo: Calling it a day and leaving things as they are, with the current laws on the books unenforced, a virtual sieve of a border, and federal benefits dished out to illegal aliens right and left. Either choice reeks.
On Cross-Examination
"I think it's incumbent on Republicans, Democrats, and every one of us to ask what is going to happen to working Americans whose wages have been falling since 2000, who are unemployed at a very high rate. [The Senate bill] will impact them adversely. We have to ask how the new flow of workers is going to maybe double the current flow of legal workers in the future, in addition to those who will be legalized, [which is] 11 million. The public interest is to figure out how we can deal with the crisis we face, how we can have a lawful system that serves the national interest without hammering ... the average low-income worker, the African-American and Hispanic worker that's here. It's logical that if you bring in a massive supply of low-wage workers, you're going to pull the workers down." --Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/22/995-of-illegal-immigrants-get-approval-for-legal-s/?page=all#pagebreak
The administration has approved 99.5 percent of applications of those who have applied for legal status under President Obama’s nondeportation policy for young adults, granting legal status to more than 250,000 formerly illegal immigrants.
Officials said they expect the approval rate to drop as more cases make their way through the system, as it takes longer to deny an application than to approve it. Indeed, the approval rate already has dropped from 99.8 percent just a month ago.
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SPECIAL COVERAGE: Immigration Reform
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But the high rate leaves others wondering whether the administration is doing all it can to weed out fraud or potentially dangerous illegal immigrants in DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as it’s formally known.
“You really have to wonder who they’re giving deferred action to, and what kind of risk they represent to us,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The screening process is much less for DACA than it would be for a green card, and so it’s all that much more susceptible to fraud.”
DACA is seen by many as a test-run should Congress pass a broad legalization for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
That means the pressure is on Homeland Security to get it right, and officials say they are taking steps to combat fraud, including warning that bogus applicants will be prosecuted and deported.
Mr. Obama created the program last summer to try to help illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.
His policy allows them to remain and work in the U.S. on tentative legal status with no fear of deportation, though they do not have a direct path to citizenship. That path could come, though, under the immigration bill senators are beginning to debate, which would give DACA-approved immigrants a speedier chance at citizenship.
On Monday, one of those legalized under DACA pleaded with Congress to give her that chance.
“Legalizing people like me, the 11 million of us, will make the United States stronger and will bring about significant economic gains,” said Gabriel Pacheco, who was brought to the U.S. from Ecuador at age 8 by her parents. “Doing nothing is no longer acceptable.”
Her situation captures the complexities of American immigration: One of her sisters is about to earn citizenship as the wife of a U.S. citizen, with two citizen children; another sister is here illegally and didn’t qualify for DACA because she was too old; and her younger brother, 27, who owns a carwashing business, did qualify. Ms. Pacheco’s husband, meanwhile, is a Venezuelan who has lived in the U.S. for 26 years and earned his green card last year after an 18-year wait.
Mr. Obama announced the DACA policy in June, and the government began taking applications in August.
It was a galvanizing moment for immigrant rights advocates, and Hispanic voters in particular rewarded the president by voting for his re-election in overwhelming numbers.
The policy applies to illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before age 16 and who were not yet 31 when the program was announced.
Illegal immigrants with serious criminal records aren’t supposed to qualify. To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from high school or earned an equivalency degree or served in the military.
Through the first 7 months of the program, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved 268,316 illegal immigrants for tentative legal status, while denying just 1,377 applications.
A Homeland Security official said the denials will tick up as time passes. Those whom the department plans to reject are given time to submit more evidence or appeal their denial, while approvals go through immediately.
For example, while USCIS approved 29,793 applications in the first six weeks of the program, it denied just six applications, or one out of every 5,000. But in March, the agency approved about 98.2 percent, meaning it denied nine out of every 500 applications.
“USCIS has issued some denials but expects denial rates to increase once requests for evidence and notice of intent to deny responses are received and reviewed by USCIS,” a Homeland Security official said.
Louis “Don” Crocetti Jr., who retired in 2011 after serving as the head of the USCIS fraud branch, also predicted his old agency’s denial rate will rise because of how it handles cases.
“It’s not uncommon, in fact it is more common than not, that the questionable cases are put on the back end in order to [make sure] the more deserving candidates get the benefit,” said Mr. Crocetti, who now runs the Immigration Integrity Group, a consultancy.
Cesar Vargas, one of those who has gained legal status under DACA and is executive political director of DRM Action Coalition, said the high approval rate makes sense given who is in this pool of immigrants.
“I am not surprised, just as most Americans and senators should not be not surprised, since many of the DACA applicants who applied were youth and students who were committed to their school and work,” Mr. Vargas said. “Dreamers have been in the U.S. for most of our lives such that it was not as difficult to put the paperwork proving our presence and moral character.”
Through the end of March, the department had received 472,004 completed applications and had settled nearly 270,000 of them. Mr. Crocetti said DACA is a chance for the administration to test its screening process as it prepares for the possibility of a broad legalization for all 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S.
“We are in a post-9/11 world, as most recently evinced by the events in Boston,” he said. “This is a pivotal time that we have to get this right. We have to screen these people accurately, and we really have to know what are the key indicators to look for when these people file.”
Unlike the 1986 amnesty, when every applicant was interviewed in person and there still was double-digit fraud Mr. Crocetti said that’s not likely to be an option this time around. But he said technology has become so advanced that the agency can come up with analytical tools that can predict applications most likely to be fraudulent. Ms. Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors a crackdown on immigration, said that in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings that should be a priority for any legalization program, including the ongoing DACA system.
“That’s very concerning in light of the most recent reminder namely this terror attack in Boston, near where I live,” she said, “that we simply are not taking enough care in screening the people we admit for legal status whether it’s this kind of deferred action or a green card or an asylum application.”
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I favored the attempt to put together a comprehensive bill that would meet all of the stated criteria. I oppose this one. I also oppose the mudslinging going on between conservatives on both sides of this.
The challenge for Rubio in negotiations was to come out with a bill so clean and so tough that it would pass the Republican House, not just be good enough for him or to get through the Democratic Senate. Anything short of that just leaves a divisive political issue on the table for 2014 campaign demagoguery.
My first objection is that this bill is loaded up with exceptions and special giveaways for votes like Obamacare. They wrote a bill so long that it looks like the sponsors haven't read it all, then start right in unprepared with press appearances and rushed hearings. Secondly, the border security enforcement mechanism looks to be a farce. If they didn't mind this bill reaching 900 pages, they had the space to spell out what a sealed, staffed and controlled border will look like and they didn't. The commission mechanism is not a solution. Perhaps this could be fixed in the amendment process but not when all the proponents think they already have it right.
Yes it looks like Rubio was taken to the cleaners. Still I think one can attack the bill without throwing the tea party Senator from Florida under the bus. He got some toughness on pathway into the bill that I like. He got some funding for border security, but I don't see how out-year funding is not contingent on appropriations by out-year congresses. Again the mess reminds me of Obamacare. I like that the pathway is only open to people who can pay their own way and not rely on government assistance. Again, I don't know where in the bill that is guaranteed.
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Most of the criticism of this bill comes from people who oppose all bills that include any "pathway". That is not a politically helpful position either IMHO unless you think mass deportation is realistic or the status quo is acceptable.
Here is the testimony of Kansas Sec of State, Kris Kobach, a big opponent of the bill that got an invitation to the committee:
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/04-22-13KobachTestimony.pdf
And here in its entirety is the testimony of the other opponent invited, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Stuidies:
There may be circumstances under which an amnesty for certain illegal aliens would make sense. Given the pervasive and deliberate non-enforcement of the immigration laws for so many years, and the resulting large population of illegal aliens, one could make a case for clearing the decks, as it were, and making a fresh start. This would be a distasteful proposition, to be sure, given that virtually all illegal aliens are guilty of multiple felonies, among them identity theft, document fraud, tax evasion, and perjury. Nonetheless, for practical reasons conferring legal status on established, non-violent illegal aliens may well, at some point, be a policy option worth discussing.
But only after the problem that allowed the mass settlement of illegal aliens has been addressed.
S 744 takes the opposite approach. It legalizes the illegal population before the necessary tools are in place to avoid the development of yet another large illegal population. As such, it paves the way for yet more demands for amnesty a decade or so in the future, as those who entered in, say 2015, are so well-established by 2023 that we will be told that we have to permit them to stay as well.
What’s more, the legalization provisions of the bill make widespread fraud very likely.
Much has been made of the so-called triggers in Sec. 3 that would permit the Registered Provisional Immigrants (RPI) to receive permanent residence. Tying the green card to achievement of these benchmarks – which include an employment authorization system for all employers, biographical exit tracking at airports and seaports, and substantial completion of two border strategies – is presented as a guarantee that this scenario of serial amnesties would not happen. Unfortunately, those triggers are, in a very real sense, beside the point.
The other triggers mentioned in Sec. 3 – those allowing the granting of the initial RPI status – are the submission by the Department of Homeland security of two plans: A “Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy” and a “Southern Border Fencing Strategy”. Since similar plans have been frequently offered over the years, this isn’t much of a hurdle.
And yet it’s the only hurdle that matters because receipt of Registered Provisional Immigrant status is the amnesty – that is to say, it represents the transformation of the illegal alien into a person who is lawfully admitted to the United States.
RPI status brings with it work authorization, a legitimate Social Security account, driver’s license, travel documents – in effect, Green Card Lite. It is only the upgrade of this status to that of lawful permanent resident – Green Card Premium, if you will – that is on hold until the enforcement benchmarks are satisfied. But the political and bureaucratic incentives to press for the achievement of those enforcement benchmarks are blunted by the fact that the amnesty has already happened. With people “out of the shadows” and no longer “undocumented”, the urgency to meet enforcement deadlines would evaporate, especially in the face of determined opposition to enforcement by business and civil liberties groups.
To use an analogy, if you’re flying to the West Coast, it doesn’t ultimately matter whether you’re in coach or first class – your destination is the same. By the same token, whether or not the beneficiary of the RPI amnesty is upgraded to a green card, the destination is the same – the ability to live and work in the United States. An upgrade from coach to first class may actually be more consequential than the upgrade from RPI to permanent residence; while the former results in wider seats and free drinks, all a green card offers that RPI status does not is the right to apply for citizenship, something most recipients of green cards from the IRCA amnesty had not done a quarter century after the enactment of the law.
And many of those who receive the RPI amnesty are likely to do so fraudulently. Reading Sec. 2101 harkens back to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act’s Special Agricultural Worker program, which the New York Times called “one of the most extensive immigration frauds ever perpetrated against the United States Government”. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General described it this way:
To be eligible for adjustment of status under the SAW provisions, the applicant had to prove with documentation that he or she had worked in an agricultural enterprise in the United States for 90 days in each calendar year from 1984 through 1986, or for 90 days between May 1985 and May 1986. The evidence of having engaged in such work, INS employees believed, was often forged and sold to undocumented individuals seeking U.S. residency. Given the crush of applications under the program and the relative fewer investigative resources, INS approved applications absent explicit proof that they were in fact fraudulent.
(“An Investigation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Citizenship USA Initiative”, USDoJ OIG, July 2000, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0007/listpdf.htm, p. 72; emphasis added)
When Sec. 2101 of S 744 is considered in this light, the sources of fraud become apparent:
• If IRCA created a “crush” of applications when only 3 million people applied, what should we call the workload that DHS will face when triple the number of people – at least – apply for the RPI amnesty? The administrative capacity does not exist to handle this properly, which all but guarantees that most applications will be rubber-stamped by overwhelmed DHS staff.
• The bill says DHS “may interview”, not “shall interview”, applicants for the RPI amnesty. Given the aforementioned crush, it is unlikely many will be interviewed. In fact, the current DACA amnesty (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is a good model for how the administration would manage S 744′s amnesty provisions. DACA processing is almost entirely paper-based, with few interviews, resulting in the approval of 99.5 percent of applications. And yet the number of cases so far decided amounts to perhaps one-fiftieth the number likely to apply for the RPI amnesty.
• S 744 allows affidavits by non-relatives regarding the work or education history of RPI amnesty applicants. Fraudulent affidavits were common among IRCA applicants, with some small farmers claiming to have employed hundreds of illegal-alien farmworkers. The temptation to fraud will be great in any program giving away something as valuable as the RPI amnesty, but the ability to investigate fraudulent affidavits will be extremely limited given the millions of applicants. And there is no realistic level of fees or penalties that could raise enough money to hire enough staff to follow up on questionable affidavits. They will be approved, as in the 1980s, absent specific proof that they’re fraudulent.

• The current bill also contains a confidentiality clause, prohibiting the use of any information provided by illegal alien applicants for other purposes. This means illegal aliens with little likelihood of approval are free to apply and try their luck, knowing that there’s no downside, and a significant upside.
• As a corollary to this, there is no requirement that rejected applicants be immediately taken into custody and deported. In fact, the bill specifically says that failure to qualify does not require DHS to commence removal proceedings. Again, unqualified applicants would have nothing to lose in applying, in the hope that they could fall through the cracks and get approved, something certain to happen to a significant number of people.
• As an additional incentive to fraudulent applicants, S 744 provides de facto work authorization to those merely applying for the RPI amnesty, pending the adjudication of the application. Application alone also forestalls removal, making a frivolous application an attractive option for illegal aliens with no chance at amnesty.
We don’t have to speculate about the consequences of such widespread fraud. Mahmoud “The Red” Abouhalima was an Egyptian illegal alien driving a cab in New York when he fraudulently – and successfully – applied for amnesty as a farmworker. This legal status allowed him to travel to Afghanistan for terrorist training, which he put to use in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.
A co-conspirator, Mohammed Salameh, also applied for the 1986 amnesty but was, remarkably, turned down. But since that amnesty, like the one in S 744, did not mandate the removal of failed applicants, Salameh was able to remain and assist in the 1993 bombing.
S 744 thus places amnesty before enforcement, and ensures an amnesty process that would reward fraud. A better approach would be to make the initial legalization dependent on the bill’s enforcement provisions, rather than a future upgrade in status. The enforcement provisions themselves would have to be strengthened by requiring, for instance, biometric exit-tracking at all ports of entry, not just airports and seaports – as it already required in current law and as was recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Another trigger for initial legalization would have to be an explicit statement by Congress that states and localities are not preempted from en forcing civil immigration law.
And any future amnesty would need to be constructed differently. Not only should all lies, however small, be punished with criminal prosecution, but the amnesty might best be conducted piecemeal, rather than addressing millions of people effectively all at once. That is to say, candidates might be considered as they are apprehended for traffic stops or factory raids or what have you, with those who fail to qualify be removed.
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Washington Republican insider Fred Barnes:
Fred Barnes: Immigration Reform Is Starting to Roll
Sen. Lindsey Graham predicts 70 votes for the 'Gang of Eight' bill with Marco Rubio on board..
by FRED BARNES
It is rare in Washington for the trend lines on a controversial issue to come together as favorably as they have for immigration reform.
Public support is roughly around 70%, according to various polls, with Gallup having it at 72%. Senate Republicans blocked an overhaul of immigration laws in 2007 but now a substantial bloc of Republicans, alarmed by the GOP's shrunken share of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election, are eager to enact "comprehensive" reform legislation.
For their part, Hispanic groups recognize that this is an opportune moment for achieving their goal of citizenship for illegal immigrants in America. They are willing to accept legislation with a protracted timetable—a minimum of 13 years—before citizenship can be attained.
And two backers of immigration reform have emerged as key players since Congress took up the issue last week with hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One is President Obama. In February, the leak of a White House bill—including provisions that would be anathema to Republicans—threatened to upset the pro-reform coalition. Since then, the president has promised to stay out of the congressional deliberations.
The other is Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. His role is as critical as the president's, but for a different reason. Mr. Obama can stymie legislation, but Mr. Rubio's leadership is essential to passing immigration reform in the first place. This is why Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, longtime advocates of reform, recruited him and created the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" with four Republicans and four Democrats.
Mr. Rubio is "a game-changer," says Mr. Graham. "He brings a lot to the table," with solid conservative credentials and a large following among Republicans. Mr. Rubio is ambitious and often mentioned as a presidential candidate in 2016. But as a Cuban-American, he has motives that are more personal and ideological than purely political. This enhances his credibility.
Yet the favorable climate for changing the U.S. immigration system doesn't mean it's a cinch to pass. There are formidable opponents. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, probably the most underrated Republican on Capitol Hill, is already a dogged critic of the legislation drafted by the Gang of Eight. So is Ted Cruz of Texas, the smart and outspoken Senate freshman.
In the House, "it's going to be a lift," says Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a member of a bipartisan group developing a bill expected to be similar to the Gang of Eight's. "It's super-emotional and technically very difficult."
Outside of Capitol Hill, a large chunk of the conservative media are aligned against immigration reform. National Review insists that "a great deal" of the bill is "deeply objectionable."
Then there is the Boston bombing. Its impact on the fate of immigration legislation is unclear, but it isn't likely to make passage any easier. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the bombing has exposed "a weakness in our current system." If the immigration debate isn't used "as an opportunity to fix flaws . . . made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs."
Mr. Rubio echoed Mr. Paul. "I disagree with those who say that the terrorist attack in Boston has no bearing on the immigration debate," he said in a statement on Monday. "The attack reinforces why immigration reform should be a lengthy, open, and transparent process." The current schedule calls for a final vote before the July 4 congressional recess.
That may be optimistic. The Gang of Eight's bill is 844 pages long and provides opponents with plenty of opportunities for objections. It would create two stages toward citizenship—first legal residency here, second a green card and permanent status. Border security would have to be bolstered in measurable ways before green cards are issued and a path to becoming citizens is opened.
The security aspects of the bill—which have prompted serious attacks, mostly from conservatives—are both complicated and open to different interpretations. For instance, if in five years from the bill's enactment all nine segments of the Southwest border aren't 100% secure, and if 90% of those crossing illegally aren't being apprehended, then a Southern Border Security Commission of four governors and six Washington appointees would draft a new security plan. Whether the commission would have the authority to impose its plan is in dispute.
To answer critics, Mr. Rubio's Gang of Eight allies have largely stood aside and let him respond. He is neither shy nor risk-averse. He volunteered to appear on the talk-radio show of Mark Levin, a conservative and opponent of the proposed reform bill. The senator told Rush Limbaugh that the four governors on the 10-member border commission "will take care of this problem and they'll be given the money to be able to take care of it." He didn't explain exactly how.
Mr. Rubio is best at touting the virtues of immigration reform and refuting the notion that Hispanics, once citizens, will overwhelmingly vote Democratic. "I think the future of conservatism and, in fact, the future of America depends on how effective we are at explaining to as many Americans as possible why the road we are on right now is such an economic disaster," he said on the Limbaugh show. "I just refuse to accept the notion that somehow we're not going to be able to make that argument successfully to Hispanics."
The Senate will be first to act this year, and the bill needs 60 votes to pass. With Mr. Rubio supporting it, Mr. Graham says it can get 70 votes, including half of the 45 Republicans. He suggests passage by 48 Democrats and 22 Republicans. That's optimistic but not impossible.
The House won't rubber-stamp the Senate bill. The guest-worker program is likely to be expanded in the House. But on immigration the House isn't an automatic barrier to Senate legislation. House Speaker John Boehner and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have spoken favorably about immigration reform.
Jeffrey Bell, a Republican consultant who works with Hispanic groups, says the momentum behind reforming the immigration system will make a bill "unstoppable" if the Senate and House pass bills and then confer to meld the two.
Will a new law help Republicans? Hispanic support for GOP presidential candidates fell from George W. Bush's 44% in 2004 to Mitt Romney's 27% last year. Mr. Rubio says that Republicans shouldn't expect a surge of Hispanic votes, but Hispanics will at least be willing to "listen to us."
Mr. Bell, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, goes further, arguing that Republicans shouldn't worry about who gets credit for successful reform. "If Democrats get 10 times more credit, it's still in Republicans' interest," he says. "It will free them" to compete for votes that, more often than not, were beyond their reach.
Mr. Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, is a Fox News commentator
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SUPERB article below by Ann Coulter from yesterday. Just read the list of dead Americans killed at the hands of LEGAL immigrants in the last three years:
THE PROBLEM ISN'T JUST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, IT'S LEGAL IMMIGRATION, TOO
Ann Coulter - April 24, 2013
The people of Boston are no longer being terrorized by the Marathon bombers, but amnesty supporters sure are.
On CNN's "State of the Union" last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham's response to the Boston Marathon bombers being worthless immigrants who hate America -- one of whom the FBI cleared even after being tipped off by Russia -- was to announce: "The fact that we could not track him has to be fixed."
Track him? How about not admitting him as an immigrant?
As if it's a defense, we're told Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (of the Back Bay Tsarnaevs) were disaffected "losers" -- the word used by their own uncle -- who couldn't make it in America. Their father had already returned to Russia. Tamerlan had dropped out of college, been arrested for domestic violence and said he had no American friends. Dzhokhar was failing most of his college courses. All of them were on welfare.
(Dzhokhar was given everything America had to offer, and now he only has one thing in his future to look forward to ... a tenured professorship.)
My thought is, maybe we should consider admitting immigrants who can succeed in America, rather than deadbeats.
But we're not allowed to "discriminate" in favor of immigrants who would be good for America. Instead of helping America, our immigration policies are designed to help other countries solve their internal problems by shipping their losers to us.
The problem isn't just illegal immigration. I would rather have doctors and engineers sneaking into the country than legally arriving ditch-diggers.
Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration act so dramatically altered the kinds of immigrants America admits that, since 1969, about 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from the Third World. They bring Third World levels of poverty, fertility, illegitimacy and domestic violence with them. When they can't make it in America, they simply go on welfare and sometimes strike out at Americans.
In addition to the four dead and more than 100 badly wounded victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, let's consider a few of the many other people who would be alive, but for Kennedy's immigration law:
-- The six Long Island railroad passengers murdered in 1993 by Jamaican immigrant Colin Ferguson. Before the shooting, Ferguson was unemployed, harassing women on subways, repeatedly bringing lawsuits against police and former employers, applying for workman's compensation for fake injuries and blaming all his problems on white people. Whom he then decided to murder.
-- The two people killed outside CIA headquarters in 1993 by Pakistani illegal immigrant Mir Qazi. He had been working as a driver for a courier company. (It's nearly impossible to find an American who can drive.)
-- Christoffer Burmeister, a 27 year-old musician killed in a mass shooting by Palestinian immigrant Ali Hassan Abu Kamal in 1997 at the Empire State Building. Hassan had immigrated to America with his family two months earlier at age 68. (It's a smart move to bring in immigrants just in time to pay them Social Security benefits!)
-- Bill Cosby's son, Ennis, killed in 1997 by 18-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Mikhail Markhasev, who had come to this country with his single mother eight years earlier -- because we were running short on single mothers.
Markhasev, who had a juvenile record, shot Cosby point-blank for taking too long to produce his wallet. He later bragged about killing a "n*gger."
-- The three people murdered at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002 by Nigerian immigrant Peter Odighizuwa, angry at America because he had failed out of law school. At least it's understandable why our immigration policies would favor a 43-year-old law student. It's so hard to get Americans to go to law school these days!
-- The stewardess and passenger murdered by Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet when he shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport in 2002. Hesham, a desperately needed limousine driver, received refugee status in the U.S. because he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently, that's a selling point if you want to immigrate to America.
-- The six men murdered by Mexican immigrant Salvador Tapia at the Windy City Core Supply warehouse in Chicago in 2003, from which he had been fired six months earlier. Tapia was still in this country despite having been arrested at least a dozen times on weapons and assault charges. Only foreign newspapers mentioned that Tapia was an immigrant. American newspapers blamed the gun.
-- The six people killed in northern Wisconsin in 2004 by Hmong immigrant Chai Soua Vang, who shot his victims in the back after being caught trespassing on their property. Minnesota Public Radio later explained that Hmong hunters don't understand American laws about private property, endangered species, or really any laws written in English. It was an unusual offense for a Hmong, whose preferred crime is raping 12- to 14-year-old girls -- as extensively covered in the Fresno Bee and Minneapolis Star Tribune.
-- The five people murdered at the Trolley Square Shopping Mall in Salt Lake City by Bosnian immigrant Sulejman Talovic in 2007. Talovic was a Muslim high school dropout with a juvenile record. No room for you, Swedish doctor. We need resentful Muslims!
-- The 32 people murdered at Virginia Tech in 2007 by Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean immigrant.
-- The 13 soldiers murdered at Fort Hood in 2009 by "accused" shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, son of Palestinian immigrants. Hasan's parents had operated a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., because where are we going to find Americans to do that?
-- The 13 people killed at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, N.Y., by Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong, who became a naturalized citizen two years after being convicted of fraud and forgery in California. Wong was angry that people disrespected him for his poor English skills.
-- Florence Donovan-Gunderson, who was shot along with her husband, and three National Guardsmen in a Carson City IHOP gunned down by Mexican immigrant Eduardo Sencion in 2011.
-- The three people, including a 15-year-old girl, murdered in their home in North Miami by Kesler Dufrene, a Haitian immigrant and convicted felon who had been arrested nine times, but was released when Obama halted deportations to Haiti after the earthquake. Dufrene chose the house at random.
-- The many African-Americans murdered by Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles in the last few years, including Jamiel Shaw Jr., a star football player being recruited by Stanford; Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old eighth-grade student chosen for murder solely because she was black; and Christopher Ash, who witnessed Green's murder.
During the three years from 2010 through 2012, immigrants have committed about a dozen mass murders in this country, not including the 9/11 attack.
The mass murderers were from Afghanistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Haiti, South Africa, Ethiopia and Mexico. None were from Canada or Western Europe.
I don't want to hear about the black crime rate or the Columbine killers. We're talking about immigrants here! There should be ZERO immigrants committing crimes.There should be ZERO immigrants accepting government assistance. There should be ZERO immigrants demanding that we speak their language.
We have no choice about native-born losers. We ought to be able to do something about the people we chose to bring here.
Meanwhile, our government officials just keep singing the praises of "diversity," while expressly excluding skilled immigrants who might be less inclined to become "disaffected" and lash out by killing Americans.
In response to the shooting at Fort Hood, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said: "As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
On "Fox News Sunday" this week, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said of the Boston bombing suspects, "We welcome these kinds of folks coming to the United States who want to be contributing American citizens."
Unless, that is, they have a college degree and bright prospects. Those immigrants are prohibited.
COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
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This story went by last week. Wonder if people saw it. I don't find the study credible but it sheds light on the fact that the 11 million number is also made up and it validates what Crafty has been saying about the flow of family members that will follow legalization.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/anti-immigration-group-immigration-bill-to-bring-in-at-least-33-million-people/
Immigration bill to bring in at least 33 million people, says group
"The majority of the inflow, or roughly 17 million people, would consist of family members of illegals, ..."
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"Numbers USA" is an anti-immigration group. At least someone is studying it.
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A modest proposal by John Hinderacker is that if we should take one fourth of Mexico's population, would it be too much to ask to include a little land with the deal?
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/04/a-modest-proposal-re-annexation.php
A Pew survey released today found that 35% of Mexicans say they would come to the United States, given the opportunity. With the unlimited chain migration provided by the Gang’s legislation, the choice will be theirs.
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According to U.S. Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the immigration bill introduced to the U.S. Senate a week and a half ago would, if passed, allow illegal immigrants to access state and local welfare benefits immediately.
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Separately I wonder why the need to grant citizenship instead of simply having a "statute of limitations" concept that would allow for legalization of status, but not citizenship.
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Two good points:
"... the immigration bill introduced to the U.S. Senate a week and a half ago would, if passed, allow illegal immigrants to access state and local welfare benefits immediately"
Yes, this seems implied by the constant reference to no receiving no federal benefits. But the receiving of state and local benefits should also make the applicant a 'charge' and therefore not eligible for citizenship. That loophole/exception is a perfect example of what ought to be tightened in order to win anyone's support.
"Separately I wonder why the need to grant citizenship instead of simply having a "statute of limitations" concept that would allow for legalization of status, but not citizenship."
Agree in concept and I think that statute of limitations thinking does figure in to why we are addressing this. Failure to prosecute and deport for such an extended period became de facto legalization. The 14 year time frame, or whatever it is, is also a reflection of this. But a big part of this problem is political. If you live here and work here permanently and don't ever have voting rights, it reminds people of injustices of the past, not of the new immigrant's original wrongful entry. If there is no path ever, the issue remains front and center forever.
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" If there is no path ever, the issue remains front and center forever."
mea culpa?
I see it differently. We "compromise" now only to continue having to go on defensive again.
The moderate Republican (rhino) keeps compromising thinking that will ease the relentless progressive march. Instead it allows their political movement to step forward plant there footing down from a new more strategically "forward" position from which they will continue their campaign to press towards the end game. One world government in charge and in control of the world. Until Republicans can get the low information voters to understand they are giving away our freedom I would have to agree with Marc Levin - we stand and hold our ground. I f I believed the Repubs present leaders truly believed we take a temporary defensive fall back position so we can come back and fight another day (perhaps many years from now) then I might reluctantly support them. I really don't have that kind of faith or confidence of the insightfulness of the Bushes, Roves and the Boehners. I used to be more moderate until it hit me like a sledgehammer during a Jeff Sachs speech at my nephews graduation at Lehigh some yrs ago about which I posted my experience here.
Just as shocking was the fact that my nephew and his two brothers didn't even think it was a political speech. ONe even worked for Romney. He now works for Bobby Jindal. It appears the young generation is being duped. They are too young and at this time perhaps too idealistic. Perhaps also bribed for loans and "free" health care to age 26. Wait till they get older and they themselves have to pay for this care Have to deal with high taxation, sit and watch benefits fly from their wallets to a larger and expanding segment of the population. Wait till the reality hits them the progressive movement wants to transfer their freedom and their money to the world. That is the end game. People on the board know it. But these youngsters appear ignorant of what is going on. History repeats itself because the generations over time forget. Humanity keeps reclycling.
We give in now to the "11" million illegals, then swallow up their families - I say the compromise has to come from eliminating almost all government benefits - not just to them but to us here.
We can't just keep giving out endless dollars. And yes the rest of us WILL have to work to 70 before expecting SS.
I am hopeful. The progressives cannot continue this forever before there is a huge wake up call. I don't know if it will take a crash. And in any case what arises from the rubble of such a crash is unclear. Certainly the Bushes and Roves and Boehners don't have a vision. They are detail men. I don't think they have a real plan for us. A back peddling defensive position on the Spanish vote won't work . The Democrats will just keep up the drive to buy them out with more benefits.
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CCP, you make good points. Still there is nothing acceptable about the status quo of our immigration policy, which is look the other way for people already here, run our economy in a way that attracts no new workers, and advertise unlimited free food for anyone not interested in work.
The GOP options are: 1) Put enforcement with a mass deport or 'self deport' platform on the ballot for 4 more years, 8 more years, 12, 16, or the rest of our lives even though we know it will never happen - and lose ground on all other issues in the meantime. 2) 'Compromise' which means surrender and sign on with a very bad bill. Or 3) Go where Rubio was before the rotten details of this bill were exposed. Pursue in good faith some kind of reasonable, acceptable, permanent solution.
All indications are that Obama, Schumer, Durbin, Pelosi et al want an issue for 2014, not a solution in 2013. That makes the GOP negotiating strategy harder, if not impossible. MHO.
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"All indications are that Obama, Schumer, Durbin, Pelosi et al want an issue for 2014, not a solution in 2013. That makes the GOP negotiating strategy harder, if not impossible. MHO."
Doug,
You could be right. I admit conservatives appear to be nearly surrounded on this issue. I don't here them making a good case that the issue is not racial though. Every time the issue is brought up it is all about the Spanish. It is not. We have I read estimates of 50 K Irish in NY here illegally. Does anyone in NJ think all these Asians many of whom work in the back of the thousands of Chinese restaurants are all legal? And to be politically correct (I am Jewish after all) perhaps some of the Israelis are not legal that I meet.
I don't hear enough people saying it is not about race or country of origin. It is about the right of the US citizens being able to decide how many people get here and their qualifications based on clean law enforcement records, demonstration ethical work behavior, or some work skill, maybe not ten dependent children ready to apply for food stamps and welfare etc.
Just wondering. If brock grants amnesty to the illegals will they have the right to vote? If yes, then I would shocked if he doesn't do it.
Listening to talk radio a lot on the right are outraged over Rubio. I am more forgiving. But one thing recent history has taught us - never ever trust a Democrat politician.
How in the world can one make a deal with any of the above four names? They have NO honor. They are all demonstrated serial pathologic liars. I don't understand why honesty is not a job requirement for Senators and Presidents. Everything I was taught growing up about this is turned inside out. Where did this get lost?
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With the most cynical view possible. However, I have posted I think the same thing. Obama WILL grant amnesty.
Based on this view he is probably correct. We have little choice. Again the readily apparent the precedent Ronald Reagan set was a disaster in the making. In a way he was/is overrated.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rubio-pitch-conservatives-immigration-reform-don-t-act-140103261.html
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This has been the Golden Fleece for the Dems for quite some time. Al Gore as VP did some very cynical stuff on this issue too.
It is simple. The Dems see 11 million new Democratic voters -- plus all their family members who can lever their way in. We are probably looking at 20-40 million new Democrat voters over the next 25 years. Admittedly these are definitely SWAG numbers, but probably about right IMHO.
The Reps have already lost a major point by not having amnesty/statute of limitations remedy be limited to legalization of presence in the US without citizenship.
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Crafty , I agree with you ; it is that simple. To clarify what I meant about Ronald Reagan in my last post;
The issues with Reagan are:
1) that spending also skyrocketed during his administration. He seemed to have no problem signing the Democrat big spending bills.
2) RR also apparently trusted (without verifying) that the borders would be sealed. Never trust a Democrat. They will always come back to squeeze more. OTOH perhaps many Republicans didn't push for border control either playing favor for their farmer constituents (cheap labor doing the back breaking field work).
3) RR said and did nothing while the savings and loan disaster hemorrhaged money. Then that amount of money seemed like an unbelievable amount . Today it is pocket change.
Fast forward to today.
I guess Rove et. al. believe the best course of action is to go along with amnesty then move forward trying to win the hearts and minds of these newly legal illegals. Fat chance they have of competing with cold hard taxpayer cash endlessly offered by the Dem party to buy these off these new voters.
I guess I don't have a better answer as Doug once asked on this thread.
Until a crash bangs people over the head that the party spending taxpayer money is over.
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Thread drift:
Where a goodly part of the spending increase under Reagan came from was that, thanks to Volcker's hard line at the Fed and thanks to the tremendous success of the tax RATE cuts in stimulating true growth, inflation dropped far faster than almost anyone predicted. Thus baseline nominal spending projections became real increases to the extent that decreases in inflation were unforeseen.
Reflect upon this.
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The Foundation
"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence." --Alexander Hamilton
Editorial Exegesis
"The Boston Marathon bombers hated America, but they loved the American dole. The suspects in the scheme to murder and maim innocent men, women and children were living off the generosity of the American taxpayers they hated. The Boston Herald reports that the 'brains' of the operation, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was on the Massachusetts dole with his wife, Katherine, and their 3-year-old daughter, Zahara. The parents of the Tsarnaev brothers received welfare and the accused brother, Dzhokhar, received benefits when he was a child. Taxpayer generosity to the Tsarnaev family did not end there. The city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar a $2,500 scholarship toward his education at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. ... Taxpayers are even paying for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyer. Congress turns now to immigration reform, and the Tsarnaev case raises important issues about the high price of certain public policies under consideration. ... [Republican Sen. Jeff] Sessions observes that the Department of Homeland Security has been ignoring a 100-year-old law that requires that the government consider, before admitting an immigrant, the likelihood that he will become a 'public charge,' who will eventually be permanently dependent on public welfare. Less than 1 percent of visa applications were denied on these grounds in 2011, despite a growing number of undocumented residents who live on food stamps and other welfare programs. The Tsarnaev brothers were granted political asylum because they were Muslims from Chechnya. ... The immigration debate gives Congress a chance to re-evaluate the wisdom of sacrificing Americans for political correctness by sending invitations to prospective citizens in parts of the world where nearly everybody hates America and all it stands for. This phenomenon illustrates the need for vigilance, to make sure immigrants will become productive, prosperous Americans. Sadly, it seems the primary motivation of the president and his party on immigration reform is to create 11 million new Democratic voters with an amnesty, and hang the cost." --The Washington Times
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/suit-cites-race-bias-in-farms-use-of-immigrants.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130507
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http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/050813-655394-amnesty-of-illegal-immigrants-to-cost-taxpayers.htm
"you cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state,"
- Milton Friedman, 1999
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Raul Labrador warns that Obamacare could kill immigration bill
(Doug: Let's do it the other way around, let immigration reform kill Obamacare.)
Also Labrador pledged that he would not support a bill that breaks the so-called Hastert Rule – meaning that for him, immigration reform legislation must have the backing of at least half of House Republicans.
By SEUNG MIN KIM | 5/22/13 2:13 PM EDT
A key House Republican negotiator on immigration is warning Democrats that the health care law – a favorite boogeyman of the GOP – could be the downfall of comprehensive immigration reform.
“What might be the story at the end of this year, at the end of this session, is that Obamacare killed immigration reform,” Rep. Raul Labrador said Wednesday. The Idaho Republican is one of eight House lawmakers who have engaged in private talks on immigration reform.
The health care law has flared up as a major problem in those talks; group members declared last week that they had struck a deal “in principle” but have yet to work out the fine print.
House Democratic leaders are uneasy with the idea of blocking undocumented immigrants from accessing publicly-subsidized care – such as health coverage if they have to be treated in an emergency room. That could have the effect of deporting the immigrants if they can’t afford those expenses, Democrats worry.
Republicans, however, are insisting that no public dollars – from federal to the local level – will fund the tab for health coverage for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Negotiators are looking at an end-of-the-week deadline to smooth out the differences on health care between the two sides.
While the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared a major hurdle Tuesday by passing the Gang of Eight legislation and sending it to the Senate floor, the House group is struggling to finalize its tentative agreement.
One of its members, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), floated the idea of releasing a plan in the first week of June, but this latest dispute over health care throws that timeline into doubt.
“I think [Democrats] just need to accept that the American people are not going to be responsible for the health care costs of the people that are here illegally,” Labrador said Wednesday. “That’s been a fundamental issue for me from day one, that it’s not going to come out of the pockets of the American people.”
Labrador also pledged that he would not support a bill that breaks the so-called Hastert Rule – meaning that for him, immigration reform legislation must have the backing of at least half of House Republicans.
On one issue – a new guest-worker program for lower-skilled immigrants – the two parties have already decided to go separate paths. The Democrats will present the plan in the Senate bill that was negotiated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major labor unions.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/raul-labrador-obamacare-immigration-bill-91748.html#ixzz2U5DigERf
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"We understand the notions of both ethnic pride and hyphenated Americanism, but many of us are still bewildered about contradictory impulses: the emotional need to display Mexican decals on cars and hang Mexican flags on houses and businesses — or boo an American team at a soccer match — coupled with equally heated expressions of outrage that anyone might suggest that those who broke American law in coming to the United States would ever have to return where their hearts would “always be.” That paradox is the most disturbing — and ignored — aspect of the immigration debate: the contradictory impulse to fault the United States for a litany of sins (exploitation, racism, xenophobia, nativism) without commensurate attention to why any newcomer would wish to reside in a place that is so clearly culpable. Has anyone ever heard an immigration activist, as part of his argument for amnesty, explain why so many Mexicans do not like living in Mexico and must leave their homeland, or, alternatively, why the United States is such an attractive alternative that it demands such existential risks to reach it? How strange that most of the elites who resent ideas like the melting pot and assimilation are often those who most successfully have abandoned the protocols of the way life is lived in Mexico."
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350034/fact-based-immigration-discussion-thomas-sowell
A Fact-Based Immigration Discussion
We shouldn’t base immigration policy on abstract notions about abstract people.
By Thomas Sowell
One of the many sad signs of our times is the way current immigration issues are discussed. A hundred years ago, immigration controversies were discussed in the context of innumerable facts about particular immigrant groups. Many of those facts were published in a huge, multi-volume 1911 study by a commission headed by Senator William P. Dillingham.
That and other studies of the time presented hard data on such things as which groups’ children were doing well in school and which were not, which groups had high crime rates or high rates of alcoholism, and which groups were over-represented among people living on the dole.
Such data and such differences still exist today. Immigrants from some countries are seldom on welfare, but immigrants from other countries often are. Immigrants from some countries are typically people with high levels of education and skills, while immigrants from other countries seldom have much schooling or skills.
Nevertheless, many of our current discussions of immigration issues focus on immigrants in general, as if they were abstract people in an abstract world. But the concrete differences among immigrants from different countries affect whether their coming here is good or bad for the American people.
The very thought of formulating immigration laws from the standpoint of what is best for the American people seems to have been forgotten by many who focus on how to solve the problems of illegal immigrants “living in the shadows.”
A recent column in the Wall Street Journal titled “What Would Milton Friedman Say?” tried to derive what the late Professor Friedman “would no doubt regard as the ideal outcome” as far as immigration laws are concerned.
Although I was once a student of Professor Friedman, I would never presume to speak for him. However, I will point out that he was a man with the rare combination of genius and common sense, and he published much empirical work in addition to the analytical work that won him a Nobel Prize. In short, concrete facts mattered to him.
It is hard to imagine Milton Friedman looking for “the ideal outcome” on immigration in the abstract. More than once he said, “The best is the enemy of the good,” which to me meant that attempts to achieve an unattainable ideal can prevent us from reaching good outcomes that are possible in practice.
Too much of our current immigration controversy is conducted in terms of abstract ideals, such as “We are a nation of immigrants.” Of course we are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of people who wear shoes. Does it follow that we should admit anybody who wears shoes?
The immigrants of today are very different in many ways from those who arrived here a hundred years ago. Moreover, the society in which they arrive is different. The Wall Street Journal column ends by quoting another economist who said, “Better to build a wall around the welfare state than the country.”
But the welfare state is already here — and, far from having a wall built around it, the welfare state is expanding in all directions by leaps and bounds. We do not have a choice between the welfare state and open borders. Anything we try to do regarding immigration laws has to be done in the context of a huge welfare state that is already a major, inescapable fact of life.
Among other facts of life utterly ignored by many advocates of de facto amnesty is that the free international movement of people is different from free international trade in goods.
Buying cars or cameras from other countries is not the same as admitting people from those countries. Unlike inanimate objects, people have cultures, and not all cultures are compatible with the culture in this country, which has produced so many benefits for the American people for so long.
Not only the United States, but the Western world in general, has been discovering the hard way that admitting people with incompatible cultures is an irreversible decision with incalculable consequences. If we do not see that after recent terrorist attacks on the streets of Boston and London, when will we see it?
“Comprehensive immigration reform” means doing everything all together in a rush, without time to look before we leap, and basing our policies on abstract notions about abstract people.
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Cruz: 'No Choice But to Oppose' Gang of Eight Legislation June 4, 2013
Ted Cruz (R., Texas) joined three Republican Senators on Monday in strongly denouncing the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill. In a letter to colleagues, Cruz, along with Senators Mike Lee (R., Utah), Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), and Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), wrote that the proposed legislation would “leave our borders unsecure and our immigration system deeply dysfunctional.”
The letter contains a detailed explaination of amendments offered during the bill’s markup in the Judiciary Committee that the senators argue would have significantly improved the legislation, but were rejected, as well as a number of amendments that were adopted, but simpy “exacerbated” the “already serious flaws” with the existing bill.
The letter criticizes the Gang of Eight directly, and the “deal” struck by its members to ensure that “the core provisions of the bill remain the same,” arguing that the legislation, like Obamacare, was “negotiated behind closed doors with special interests.”
The senators list the following reasons for their decision to oppose the bill:
It provides immediate legalization without securing the border.
It rewards criminal aliens, absconders, and deportees, and undermines law enforcement.
It contains extremely dangerous national-security loopholes.
It facilitates fraud in our immigraiton system.
It creates no real penalties for illegal immigrants and rewards them with entitlements.
It delays for years the implementation of E-Verify.
It does not fix our legal-immigration system.
It advanced through a process predicated on a deal struck before markup.
It rewards those who have broken our laws by offering a special path to citizenship.
The senators stress that they do not oppose the concept of immigration reform; they just cannot support the Gang’s proposal. ”We need immigration reform, but the American people deserve better than a 1,000-page bill that makes our immigration system more complex and less accountable without truly ensuring border security,” they write. “[The proposed bill] fails to deliver anything more than the same empty promises Washington has been making for 30 years.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350117/cruz-no-choice-oppose-gang-eight-legislation-andrew-stiles
Link to the letter:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=342980
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Senator Cruz was on Levin basically stating the proposed sell out bill gives Napolitano discretion on enforcement which means essentially no enforcement and a sell out to Democrats. Even Black groups are against it. They realize it hurts their workers.
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The bill should have been amended to address most of these objections. Now all we have is a bill that has no chance in the House, little chance in the Senate, wouldn't solve the problem if passed, and keeps the issue on the table for the Democrats. I hope Rubio votes against it and joins a different gang.
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You mean the Reps got outplayed , , , AGAIN?!? Who would have thought this could happen? :roll:
For me a shrewer compromise would be legal status with no hope of citizenship and no bootstrapping of relatives into the US.
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Check mate. We lose.
Rove and the other establishment Republicans to spend 100K promoting the immigration bill from the 8. More or less, if it is not approved Obama will simply grant amesty.
Rubio reported to speak to Latinos saying we need immigration "reform" first then we secure the border. That's it folks. All of here legally citizen or not have just been sold out.
Done deal:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/karl-rove-backed-crossroads-gps-runs-pro-immigration-145420109.html
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I can understand Michele Obama's "I am not proud of my county" comment. As a taxpaying citizen who tries to be honest and play by the rules I feel like my rights are unendingly trampled.
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$100,000 is not very much money in politics or national advertising. The Obama campaign just spent something approaching a billion on reelection. That is not a very impressive endorsement list IMHO. Someone has been running radio ads promoting a conservative pro-immigration agenda on conservative radio, Americans for a Conservative Direction. Wouldn't you know they are actually liberals who are paying for the message to divide conservatives: http://www.alipac.us/f12/mark-levin-exposes-liberal-front-group-americans-conservative-direction-277982/ Maybe I will start the group, Liberals calling on Obama and Biden to step down and go away or Liberals for a low, across the board, flat tax.
The current Senate Republican reform strategy of Rubio and others is to vote for the bad bill, shift the focus to a Republican bill in the House and hope to fix it in conference. I think the House will pass a pretty good bill. Can anyone imagine Schumer, Durbin and Harry Reid caving in conference? The issue ends somewhere near it started with nothing passed and both sides saying the other is blocking the road to reform. The point from the beginning was simply that is a slightly better visual for the election than refusing to deal with it at all.
In the 2014 elections, not in Washington but in places like Montana where the Max Baucus open seat will be contested, we will find out what the people think.
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And to put this in perspective this is only Mexicans. Include people from Central and South America, Caribbean, Africa, Asia....
Aren't there reports of 50K illegal Irish in NY?
It really is simple. Stop people from hiring them. They will stop coming. Is that in the 1000 page bill?
http://www.vdare.com/posts/pew-survey-of-mexico-40-million-more-mexicans-want-to-immigrate-to-us
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My second post on this thread today. I am an Ann Coulter fan again. This is the best piece I have read of hers. I
couldn't agree more.
My thoughts first:
1) Republican party is run by fools. Rove has got to go. The Bushes are done. Great Americans I like them all but H gave us Clinton and W gave us even worse.
2) The Latino vote after Reagan's pardon went DOWN! So why will it work now. It won't. Most are low wage and like most low wage workers Anglo or not they will vote for the party of government checks.
3) Polls show Latinos are more interested in jobs - not more competition. The very same argument I make to Blacks. Why the hell are Blacks voting for a party that wants to open the more borders for foreigners to compete with them and drive down wages?
4) I think Republicans should start making these points. Do we really want to flood the job market with more workers particularly low wage? Overflow our schools systems even more?
5) Get rid of this guy Rove - make Caddell chief if he will convert to our party. Where did this guy Rove come from anyway and why does he seem to have so much influence. Fox dumped Morris after his wrong call on the election yet we see Rove being asked about his opinion every time I turn on the tube. OK he got a guy who couldn't string two sentences together President twice. Good job. What have you done lately?
*****Ann Coulter - June 12, 2013 - IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE
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IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE
June 12, 2013
Democrats terrify Hispanics into thinking they'll be lynched if they vote for Republicans, and then turn around and taunt Republicans for not winning a majority of the Hispanic vote.
This line of attack has real resonance with our stupidest Republicans. (Proposed Republican primary targets: Sens. Kelly Ayotte, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio.) Which explains why Republicans are devoting all their energy to slightly increasing their share of the Hispanic vote while alienating everyone else in America.
It must be fun for liberals to manipulate Republicans into focusing on hopeless causes. Why don't Democrats waste their time trying to win the votes of gun owners?
As journalist Steve Sailer recently pointed out, the Hispanic vote terrifying Republicans isn't that big. It actually declined in 2012. The Census Bureau finally released the real voter turnout numbers from the last election, and the Hispanic vote came in at only 8.4 percent of the electorate -- not the 10 percent claimed by the pro-amnesty crowd.
The sleeping giant of the last election wasn't Hispanics; it was elderly black women, terrified of media claims that Republicans were trying to suppress the black vote and determined to keep the first African-American president in the White House.
Contrary to everyone's expectations, 10 percent more blacks voted in 2012 compared to 2008, even beating white voters, the usual turnout champions. Eligible black voters turned out at rate of 66.2 percent, compared to 64.1 percent of eligible white voters. Only 48 percent of all eligible Hispanic voters went to the polls.
No one saw this coming, which is probably why Gallup had Romney up by 5 points before Hurricane Sandy hit, and up by 1 point in its last pre-election poll after the hurricane.
Only two groups voted in larger numbers in 2012 compared to 2008: blacks aged 45-64, and blacks over the age of 65 -- mostly elderly black women.
In raw numbers, nearly twice as many blacks voted as Hispanics, and nine times as many whites voted as Hispanics. (Ninety-eight million whites, 18 million blacks and 11 million Hispanics.)
So, naturally, the Republican Party's entire battle plan going forward is to win slightly more votes from 8.4 percent of the electorate by giving them something they don't want.
As Byron York has shown, even if Mitt Romney had won 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, he still would have lost. No Republican presidential candidate in at least 50 years has won even half of the Hispanic vote.
In the presidential election immediately after Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote actually declined from 37 percent to 30 percent -- and that was in a landslide election for the GOP. Combined, the two Bush presidents averaged 32.5 percent of the Hispanic vote -- and they have Hispanics in their family Christmas cards.
John McCain, the nation's leading amnesty proponent, won only 31 percent of the Hispanic vote, not much more than anti-amnesty Romney's 27 percent.
Amnesty is a gift to employers, not employees.
The (pro-amnesty) Pew Research Hispanic Center has produced poll after poll showing that Hispanics don't care about amnesty. In a poll last fall, Hispanic voters said they cared more about education, jobs and health care than immigration. They even care more about the federal budget deficit than immigration! (To put that in perspective, the next item on their list of concerns was "scratchy towels.")
Also, note that Pew asked about "immigration," not "amnesty." Those Hispanics who said they cared about immigration might care about it the way I care about it -- by supporting a fence and E-Verify.
Who convinced Republicans that Hispanic wages aren't low enough and what they really need is an influx of low-wage workers competing for their jobs?
Maybe the greedy businessmen now running the Republican Party should talk with their Hispanic maids sometime. Ask Juanita if she'd like to have seven new immigrants competing with her for the opportunity to clean other people's houses, so that her wages can be dropped from $20 an hour to $10 an hour.
A wise Latina, A.J. Delgado, recently explained on Mediaite.com why amnesty won't win Republicans the Hispanic vote -- even if they get credit for it. Her very first argument was: "Latinos will resent the added competition for jobs."
But rich businessmen don't care. Big Republican donors -- and their campaign consultants -- just want to make money. They don't care about Hispanics, and they certainly don't care what happens to the country. If the country is hurt, I don't care, as long as I am doing better! This is the very definition of treason.
Hispanic voters are a small portion of the electorate. They don't want amnesty, and they're hopeless Democrats. So Republicans have decided the path to victory is to flood the country with lots more of them!
It's as if Republicans convinced Democrats to fixate on banning birth control to win more pro-life voters. This would be great for Republicans because Democrats will never win a majority of pro-life voters, and about as many pro-lifers care about birth control as Hispanics care about amnesty.
But that still wouldn't be as idiotic as what Republicans are doing because, according to Gallup, pro-lifers are nearly half of the electorate. Hispanics are only 8.4 percent of the electorate.
And it still wouldn't be as stupid as the GOP pushing amnesty, because banning birth control wouldn't create millions more voters who consistently vote against the Democrats.
Listening to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus burble a few weeks ago on "Fox News Sunday" about how amnesty is going to push the Republicans to new electoral heights, one is reminded of Democratic pollster Pat Caddell's reason for refusing to become a Republican: No matter how enraged he gets at Democratic corruption, he says he can't bear to join such a stupid party as the GOP.
COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
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Coulter makes good points, especially the one CCP points out, that amnesty last time did not increase vote share for Republicans and does not work for McCain. Other factors abound, but a very strong point. That said, the choice isn't court Hispanic versus court blacks who went 98% for Obama. It is more like, IMHO, do what is right and start messaging better to all of them.
Coulter and others, Mirengoff at Powerline who has become obsessed with ripping Marco Rubio, are great dividers. Yet the work of writing a good bill where the gang of 8 failed still remains. The House needs to write a good bill and let the Obama and Harry Reid be the obstructors. Take some of what gang of 8 came up with like a 14 year delay with no federal benefits and then cut out the BS and add border security, real border security. Answer the family ties question too, where the numbers seem to jump from 11 to 40 million. If half the 11 million take the pathway, work and don't take federal benefits (or state), we are in good shape as a country. If a third world country floods us, we are not.
Let a good bill from the House live or die on the obstruction or cooperation of Democrats, then move on with Hispanics and talk about empowering an entrepreneur economy and educate people on how economic freedom is world's only successful welfare system.
A successful Republican Presidential candidate in 2016 needs to gain ground in ALL these groups and will need to point how he was both fair and tough on immigration to both sides of the debate. To the extent that Rubio is wrong on details, I am not seeing the critics step forward with better plans, just do more of the same and expect a better result.
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An earlier point was stop the hiring and they will stop coming. My clarification would be to stop the compensation for not working and they will stop coming for the wrong reasons.
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Thomas Sowell addresses a question brought up here regarding hiring and immigration. My view, mentioned often, is that our worker 'shortage' is completely intertwined with the reality that we pay more than 100 million not to work.
Regarding getting tough on employers, simply require employers to inform the government who they are hiring along with copies of whatever documents one is required to present. Law enforcement is government's job. With notification of hiring, they will know where to find them. A similar question comes to landlords. Am I supposed to rent to illegals or discriminate against them and risk a far greater penalty from government? What I know is that I am not qualified to discern the difference between legal and false documents and should not and cannot ask Hispanics for documents that I don't require of Scandinavian-Americans.
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Economics vs. 'Need'
By Thomas Sowell - June 11, 2013
One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a "need" for foreign workers to do "jobs that Americans won't do," especially in agriculture.
One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an internationally renowned economist at UCLA, involved a lunch at which one of the younger members of the economics department got up to go get some more coffee. Being a considerate sort, the young man asked, "Does anyone else need more coffee?"
"Need?" Alchian said loudly, in a cutting tone that clearly conveyed his dismay and disgust at hearing an economist using such a word.
A recent editorial on immigration in the Wall Street Journal brought back the memory of Alchian's response, when I read the editorial's statement about "the needs of an industry in which labor shortages can run as high as 20 percent" -- namely agriculture.
Although "need" is a word often used in politics and in the media, from an economic standpoint there is no such thing as an objective and quantifiable "need."
You might think that we all obviously need food to live. But however urgent it may be to have some food, nevertheless beyond some point food becomes not only unnecessary but even counterproductive and dangerous. Widespread obesity among Americans shows that many have already gone too far with food.
This is not just a matter of semantics, but of economics. In the real world, employers compete for workers, just as they compete for customers for their output. And workers go where there is more demand for them, as expressed by what employers offer to pay.
Farmers may wish for more farm workers, just as any of us may wish for anything we would like to have. But that is wholly different from thinking that some third party should define what we desire as a "need," much less expect government policy to meet that "need."
In a market economy, when farmers are seeking more farm workers, the most obvious way to get them is to raise the wage rate until they attract enough people away from alternative occupations -- or from unemployment.
With the higher labor costs that this would entail, the number of workers that farmers "need" would undoubtedly be less than what it would have been if there were more workers available at lower wage rates, such as immigrants from Mexico.
It is no doubt more convenient and profitable to the farmers to import workers at lower pay than to pay American workers more. But bringing in more immigrants is not without costs to other Americans, including both financial costs in a welfare state and social costs, of which increased crime rates are just one.
Some advocates of increased immigration have raised the specter of higher food prices without foreign farm workers. But the price that farmers receive for their produce is usually a fraction of what the consumers pay at the supermarket. And what the farmers pay the farm workers is a fraction of what the farmer gets for the produce.
In other words, even if labor costs doubled, the rise in prices at the supermarket might be barely noticeable.
What are called "jobs that Americans will not do" are in fact jobs at which not enough Americans will work at the current wage rate that some employers are offering. This is not an uncommon situation. That is why labor "shortages" lead to higher wage rates. A "shortage" is no more quantifiable than a "need," when you ignore prices, which are crucial in a market economy. To discuss "need" and "shortage" while ignoring prices -- in this case, wages -- is especially remarkable in a usually market-savvy publication like the Wall Street Journal.
Often shortages have been predicted in various occupations -- and yet never materialized. Why? Because the pay in those occupations rose, causing more people to go into those occupations and causing employers to reduce how many people they "need" at the higher pay rates.
Virtually every kind of "work that Americans will not do" is in fact work that Americans have done for generations. In many cases, most of the people doing that work today are Americans. And there are certainly many unemployed Americans available today, without bringing in more foreign workers to meet farmers' "needs."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/11/economics_vs_need_118758.html#ixzz2W6Dn03Zj
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The 40 million is a number from surveys done of Mexicans who would like to come to the US.
Do we know how many from other countries would like to come here?
I agree not to bash Rubio. I don't agree with not bashing Rove who seems to have the power to run things HIS way or the highway. He is the guy who doesn't listen.
As for the Bushes they are misguided. They don't get we are in a ideological battle for the future of this country. They play they are so high minded and nice and compromising. Yet the Dems don't paly that way and they are slowly winning the battle. The Bush philosophy is a losing philosophy. So is Rove's it seems to me.
As for asking employers to as for an ID card before hiring someone doesn't seem like too much to ask. If an employer makes a reasonable effort to check ID that should be enough. He/SHe can't be blamed for being presented a false ID.
Doug do you let anyone rent from you without their name, maybe previous address, or their employer?
The government cannot do it alone when we are talking millions and millions of people here illegally. (Even if they wanted to; which they don't).
As for those already here and entrenched - ok hey can stay - but no family members being allowed in after them. They can never be citizens for breaking the law the second they walked in over the boarder.
As for the children there is really only one choice. They stay and are citizens. They were born here.
Now we can put this bill on a single page or two and burn in effigy the present 1000 page boondoggle of a bill with all sorts or payoffs hidden in it somewhere. And so confusing so only armies of lawyers can figure it out and the politicians don't even know what's in it. Let alone us.
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With regards to verifying who people are doctors offices do it all the time. Usually they ask for insurance card and SSN. I absolutely do not agree that it is our business what a person's SSN is. I really don't know how that got started and seems to have become a standard.
With the HIPPA laws being so strict about privacy it is probably reasonable we ask for some ID to ensure a person is who they say they are.
The 50%??? of us who pay taxes and work and who hire knowingly illegals for our gardens, our maids, our Kentucky Fried Chickens, our farms, our nannies. We are just as much to blame as the those who go on the dole.
Maybe some of all the above would be avoided if...
If government would simply make a simple and fair and lower across the board tax system, freaking simply enforce law already on the books and make them simpler and easier for everyone to understand maybe some of the stealing, the cheating, the graft, the skimming, the bribery, etc. Maybe just SOME of it would go away.
Does anyone follow what I am saying? And I don't mean that in a confrontational way. I am not sure if I am expressing my ideology my thoughts very well.
I would like a leader who wants a free and fair society with simple ethical and legal and clear cut boundaries. One in which people are not encourage to cheat , those who do are held accountable (including the 1%).
The private sector cannot be allowed to run rampant or we get robber barons. But government cannot operate on its own or we get tyranny.
Neither the left or the right seem to have the right balance. NOR does the misguided middle which is all about "compromise".
There is another path. Another way to get there. The Tea Party is closer to it, but not completely.
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CCP, good stuff.
The status quo combines complex laws with almost no enforcement. That and negotiating with weasels makes finding a solution next to impossible.
"we can put this bill on a single page or two and burn in effigy the present 1000 page boondoggle of a bill with all sorts or payoffs hidden in it"
When it started looking like Obamacare, I knew they had it wrong. All those pages and it doesn't include guaranteed border security? Back to the drawing board. Don't pretend you will negotiate better later after giving up all leverage.
"Doug do you let anyone rent from you without their name, maybe previous address, or their employer?"
If 50% don't work, isn't asking where you work discriminatory? :wink: By law, unlike the government, I have to treat everyone equally so I try to get a consistent and thorough amount of information from each person. We ask for a 5 year history of where they have lived and worked, or other information to back up who they are and verify income. I look to see if the landlord reference actually owns the property. (Unlike state voting law that requires nothing.) The worst people come in without putting their names on the application or lease. Then, laws that make eviction nearly impossible make enforcement of the lease nearly impossible too. In the case of non-citizens, will the same government who approves and pays non-citizens public assistance back me up when I deny them housing? I don't think so. Non-citizens easily get drivers licenses in MN, by either disclosing their status or by simply checking the citizen box and getting it on their license.
"The 40 million is a number from surveys done of Mexicans who would like to come to the US."
40 million is also within the range of what some predict is the total that would get in under reform, mostly by way of the friends and family plan. Reform must include a closing of that opening, starting perhaps with an amendment to clarify that no rights are created just by giving birth while visiting. If most of your family is in, uh, Canada, let's say, and uniting your family is the top priority, then go home and be with your family. If you left your family by choice then so be it. We didn't split your family and we don't owe you more tickets.
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"Non-citizens easily get drivers licenses in MN, by either disclosing their status or by simply checking the citizen box and getting it on their license."
What a joke! On us. :x
"If most of your family is in, uh, Canada, let's say, and uniting your family is the top priority, then go home and be with your family"
Exactly. People come here and have babies ok the baby is a citizen by having been born here but the parents never will be. Ok you can stay with your baby in this country but you will never have the privileges of citizenship and never be eligible for any government benefits. No one is forcing you to stay and no one forced you to come here.
I can hear it now - oh but your only hurting the children. What about the country we are leaving to our children and those who came here legally.
We don't even have leaders who are standing up to this. Only those who are appeasing.
BTW, what is this gay marriage amendment doing in an immigration bill? I want this abuse of us to stop.
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America's Assimilating Hispanics
The evidence shows they are following the path of earlier immigrants.
As immigration reform moves through Congress, one claim by opponents is that this time immigration is different because the country's latest arrivals aren't assimilating. On the contrary, however, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that today's immigrants are acculturating and moving up the economic ladder like previous generations.
The media's tendency to report "averages" in educational attainment, English-language skills, income and other traditional measures of assimilation can make it difficult to determine whether immigrants are making gains. Since Latino immigration continues, averaging together the poverty rates or homeownership levels of large numbers of people who arrived recently with those who have been here for decades can provide a skewed view of progress.
Measuring assimilation properly requires following the same immigrants over generations. And the good news is that longitudinal studies that take this approach show that Latino immigrants have made gains similar to other groups who preceded them.
Consider the claim that Hispanic immigrants are rejecting English in favor of a separate Spanish-speaking culture. Census data from 2005 show that only one-third of immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well, but that number climbs to nearly three-quarters for those here for 30 years or more.
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A 2007 Pew study of 14,000 Latino adults showed that while just 23% of immigrants report being able to speak English very well, "fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%."
All of this follows the traditional three-generation model of linguistic assimilation that characterized European immigrants in the last century. Typically, English is the dominant language of the second generation, and by the fourth generation fewer than a quarter can still speak the immigrant tongue.
Educational progress among Latino immigrants is also evident, and it too fits a pattern shown by previous ethnic newcomers. Nearly half (47%) of foreign-born Hispanics lack a high-school diploma, but that number falls to 17% among their offspring. And 21% of second-generation Hispanics are college graduates, compared with 11% of foreign-born Hispanics residing in the U.S.
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Latino immigrants who have been in the U.S. for three decades or more are also more likely than recent arrivals to own a home, live in a family with an income above the federal poverty line and marry outside of their ethnic group—all common measures of assimilation. According to 2012 Census data, the median household income for second-generation Hispanics is $48,400, versus $34,600 for Hispanic immigrants and $58,200 for all groups.
A Pew report from February on Hispanic and Asian immigrants—who comprise about 70% of foreign born adults in the U.S.—found that the second generation of both groups is more likely than immigrants to have friends outside of their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others and to think of themselves as a "typical American." Pew also noted that "second-generation Hispanics and Asians place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success."
Like many Mexicans today, Italian immigrants who came in large numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s valued work over education. Italy had one of the highest illiteracy rates in Europe at the time—62% in 1871—and illiteracy was especially pronounced in southern Italy, where most Italian-Americans trace their ancestry. In 1910, just 31% of Italian immigrants aged 14 to 18 were enrolled in school, compared to 48% of the Irish and 56% of the Jews. Today, Italian-Americans exceed national averages in educational attainment and income.
Fears that the newest arrivals are overrunning America and changing it for the worse have a long pedigree. "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.
Big Ben wasn't paranoid, but he was living with a flood of German immigrants into Philadelphia. Street signs were printed in German, and German-language newspapers proliferated. In 18th-century America, you could travel from Pennsylvania to Georgia and speak only German.
It's true that many on the left promote a separate Hispanic identity, but their impact is small compared to the great assimilating maelstrom of American culture and economic life. The stultifying attractions of the welfare state are also a barrier to upward mobility, but that is best addressed with reforms, not by limiting immigration. Despite fears and much bad data, immigrants continue to be the American asset they have always been.
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The key thing being LEGAL immigrants.
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Umm yes, there is that isn't there?
That said, I thought the piece added points of merit to our search for Truth.
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"The Alien bill proposed in the Senate is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents." --James Madison
Editorial Exegesis
"The Senate on Tuesday voted against tough border security measures that it promised to put in place years ago. Tell us again why we should trust them to secure the borders later after granting amnesty first. ... In 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act, requiring 700 miles of double-tiered fencing get built along the Mexican border. ... A year later, Congress quietly passed a law that largely neutered the fence requirement, and today, only 36 miles of it have been built. ... Since the Senate is desperate to get amnesty done as soon as possible, it can't let little inconveniences like securing the border or tracking people coming into the country get in the way. As we've said many times in this space, border security has to come before any effort is made to grant legal status to today's 11 million illegals. For good reason: Failure to do so will only encourage more to cross the border, in the justifiable belief that once here they, too, will get citizenship without having to wait in line. We're already seeing illegal crossings increase even before the law is passed. ... History already proves that putting the carrot ahead of the stick doesn't work. The 1986 immigration law also promised to close gaps in the border in exchange for amnesty. But as soon as soon as Democrats got amnesty on the books, they started putting roadblocks in the way of enforcement. The result was that just three years after the bill's passage, illegal border crossings had actually increased, and today the number in the country illegally has climbed fourfold. A few days ago, [Senator Marco] Rubio said immigration reform had to ensure 'that we will never have another wave of illegal immigration again.' But with the Senate turning down every meaningful border security measure, that's the only thing we can guarantee will happen again if this bill becomes law." --Investor's Business Daily
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We have to pass it to find out what's in it. What could go wrong?
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Coulter is right; The republicans are digging their own graves as a party.
Appeasement is not the way to go. There is another path. A party can reach out to minorities and women and all Americans without having to try to out-bribe aka the Democrats.
I admit, competing with the bribing voters with tax payer money strategy would be tough but I am convinced is another way.
Appeasement is simply slowing the demise of America not stopping it.
OTOH, I am certain the Bamster WILL grant the illegals amnesty before he leaves office anyway. So I guess one COULD argue the gang of fools folly is the lesser of two evils so to speak.
I keep coming back to the conclusion the only chance for a resurrection of the Republican party is a big crash. Of course if big enough there is no guarantee what will come up from the rubble. It could even be more fascist/socialist guising as populism.
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"The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family. The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity; and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?"
--Alexander Hamilton, From the New York Evening Post: an Examination of the President's Message, Continued, No. VIII, 1802
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****foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity; and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived;****
The immigrants to the US in the past did come here for freedom and opportunity. They didn't expect benefits. Some still don't. Hey but if one major party keeps offering them free money courtesy of taxpayers, why not vote for them?
The immigrants are not the same today as they were. But didn't they always usually vote Democrat?
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"Appeasement is not the way to go."
Appeasement is what we do - on everything - we are just arguing about where to draw those lines. (sad face) Purity on issues is how we lose. There is something in between that is good enough and we need to find it.
On immigration, the idea behind a comprehensive agreement is that both sides win. Undocumented Democrats get legalization and American citizens get security and sovereignty going forward. The bill as it stands does not address what went wrong on previous attempts.
The gang is taking legalization without security verification, and that is a move away from a comprehensive agreement, not toward it. Having McCain and his sidekick on the wrong side is annoying. Having Rubio on the wrong side is a major problem.
The Cornyn amendment failed, yet it only holds security to a 90% standard. http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/the-cornyn-con/ Ted Cruz seems to have this better: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r113:2:./temp/~r113EFEYMH::
I favor the concept of negotiating a tough deal. I favor security first, I favor a standard for border security that seeks to stop terror threats from crossing our borders, not just innocent workers. I favor the 10-14 year delay. I favor some resolution of the family member problem that does not add tens of millions to the numbers.
We are left where we started. Dems get credit for advancing the plight of the illegals, keep legal Hispanics in their fold, and keep the issue alive by failing to negotiate all the way to a comprehensive deal. Republicans get blamed for no deal. The truth should be the opposite. The Republicans should be out front advancing a fair and tough bill, and expose Dems as the ones who are moving away from a comprehensive solution by refusing to what went wrong when the 1986 and 2006 legislation passed, but required border security did not follow.
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Immigration Tests Political Borders
June 21, 2013
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson
Seven years ago, Congress mandated building 700 miles of fence along the border, though it watered down the requirement a year later. Today, according to The Washington Times, "The border now has 651 miles of barriers, but only 36 miles are at least double-tier fencing. Another 316 miles are single-tier pedestrian fencing, and the rest -- 299 miles -- are vehicle barriers that still allow wildlife, and people, to cross." No wonder John McCain ran a pandering 2010 senatorial ad growling that we need to "complete the danged fence."
The current Senate -- with faux border hawk McCain's help -- rejected several amendments to the Gang of Eight legislation aimed to tighten control of the border. Sen. Tom Cornyn (R-TX) proposed an amendment that failed last week, and two offered by Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Rand Paul (R-KY) likewise failed this week. All three amendments sought to re-establish the border fence or make other security measures preconditions to granting legal status to illegal aliens.
Another amendment by Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Bob Corker (R-TN) may gain enough support for passage by replacing enforcement "triggers" and benchmarks for legalization with 20,000 more Border Patrol agents (doubling the current number), more high-tech surveillance equipment, full implementation of E-Verify and completing the "danged fence." The bottom line, however, is that no serious enforcement benchmarks are going to fly in a Democrat-controlled Senate, and Gang members want to reach 70 votes -- a threshold that will necessitate watering down the bill or loading it with security provisions that won't be enforced. And after the bait-and-switch history of the 1986 immigration reform, why should we believe their promises now?
Then again, illegal immigration has slowed since the last time the issue boiled over -- the Border Patrol says illegal entry is at a 40-year low. Some of that is due to better (not satisfactory) enforcement, but most is a result of the abysmal Obama economy. No jobs means few immigrants. Don't complain that Obama never solved anything.
The House is another matter, too. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says he won't bring a bill to the floor that doesn't have majority Republican support. Whatever the Senate bill may be it doesn't meet that standard, so we'll see if Boehner is true to his word.
In related news, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the Senate bill will (a) reduce the flow of illegals by just 25 percent, (b) allow for 46 million legal immigrants in the next 20 years, (c) cause wages to decline and unemployment to rise in the next few years, (d) expand ObamaCare spending by $112 billion over the next decade, and yet (e) reduce the federal deficit by $197 billion in the first decade and $700 billion in the following decade. First, we proffer the disclaimer "garbage in, garbage out." In other words, CBO's analyses reflects only the information members of Congress give it. And this fantastic deficit reduction calls to mind similar projections for ObamaCare, which were nowhere close to reality.
It is plausible that more tax revenue from newly legalized workers would benefit deficit numbers in the short term, but expanding the bottom of the Ponzi pyramid is not a permanent solution to our fiscal problems. The bill for these workers' Social Security, for example, would erase any near-term gain. Furthermore, Congress is perfectly adept at spending new revenue quickly. It wasn't that long ago that the Heritage Foundation estimated the cost of the Senate bill could be $6.3 trillion, and -- call us crazy -- we're inclined to trust Heritage more than Congress.
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Depends on what the meaning of is is. Or 'fence' in this case...
Most often I agree with WSJ editorials, but must rip them here:
WSJ editorial, 6/19/2013:
"For some Republicans, border security has become a ruse to kill reform. The border could be defended by the 10th Mountain Division and Claymore antipersonnel mines and it wouldn't be secure enough."
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[Fewer crossings] "Some of this decline is surely due to the lousy U.S. job market"
- 'ya think?
"... but some results from the border security mobilization that began in the 1990s and really got going after 2006. Today more than 21,000 agents patrol the border. Enforcement spending is up more than 50% in a decade for everything from 650 miles of fencing to military aircraft, marine vessels, drones, surveillance equipment, infrared camera towers and detention centers."
- 650 miles of fencing? Is it a fence or a BARRIER?
Pres. Obama made a similar claim and PolitiFact judged it "Mostly False":
"The (border) fence is now basically complete."
Barack Obama on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 in a speech in El Paso
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/barack-obama/obama-says-border-fence-now-basically-complete/
Others maintain (accurately) that only 36.3 miles of the 700 miles called for in the 2006 law have been built.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/266899/speeches-and-summits-won-t-secure-border-jim-demint
"legislation was passed [2006] to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border. This is a promise that has not been kept. Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles."
This is true, but the law was amended after the change in congress to give DHS discretion on what fence to build and their discretion was to stop building the double layer fence that was called for in the 2006 law.
'We won't get fooled again.' - George W. Bush
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http://www.corker.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/82791a4a-4793-4513-b14c-4039d8cef578/Immigration_Bill_with_Hoeven-Corker_Amendment_Incorporated.pdf
Has every Senator read it and thought through all implications and consequences, intended and unintended, before they cast their vote?
I don't think so.
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We now live in the age of "pass it to find out what's in it".
We really are living in insane times.
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Amen.
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We now live in the age of "pass it to find out what's in it".
We really are living in insane times.
Amen.
That's right. This didn't need to turn into an Obamacare-style, tax code-style, Dodd-Frank-style, 1200 page attack on forests that no one will read, full of special treatment, provisions and exceptions for special groups, along with misprints and stupidity: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/21/Corker-Amendment-permanantly-gives-citizenship-to-those-overstaying-visas I hope the proponents of it will hold up the vote and allow debate and amendments before passing what they intend to be the law of the land.
The WSJ ran an editorial today again belittling the opponents for their petty concern over border security. As I pointed out previously, their own characterization of the security status was already quite misleading. They are entitled to their opinion, but mis-characterizing facts, cheapening the motives of the opponents, showing reverence to Chuck Schumer and dividing the conservative movement are not ways to build a coalition of any value.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324183204578563693070344464.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
"At least the Corker-Hoeven plan has the virtue of smoking out the politicians who have been using the "border security first" demand as cover for their real objection, which is to immigration per se."
Good grief. Did they forget about 1986 and 2006 or do they really not know the Lucy holding the ball for Charlie Brown history of this? They are confusing legal and illegal immigration, just as they accuse opponents of doing so. If the security is so certain, why not security first - just this once? If the bill is so good, why not let us read it before demanding support or calling us all anti-immigrant?
To WSJ: Taking cheap shots at your readership is not how you will get immigration reform or subscriptions renewed.
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Gay couples can immigrate under DOMA ruling
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/26/doma-ruling-means-gay-couples-can-immigrate/?cache
The Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional should immediately open up immigration benefits to same-sex partners in states where their unions are recognized as marriages.
The 5-4 decision ruled that federal benefits pertaining to marriage couples cannot be denied to same-sex couples who are married, and that states can recognize those marriages. The issue at hand was an inheritance case, but analysts said the ruling signals the same principle applies to all federal benefits such as Social Security and taxes.
“This is a huge day not only for the LGBT movement, but also for the immigrant rights’ movement,” said Jorge Gutierrez, who leads the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project for United We Dream, a group of young illegal immigrants. “This Supreme Court decision affirms that all [trespassers] should be treated fairly and with justice.”
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One strategy for immigration the House could use would be to pass the good parts of the Senate bill individually instead of passing any version of comprehensive reform. This would prevent the Senate from rolling over the House in conference committee for a bad deal. If the 'gang' and the Senate are serious about security first, pass security first. They aren't and they won't, so call the question. If they are serious about building 700 miles of double fence, build it. Same for e-verify and visa anti-over-stay enforcement. Then come back for legalization.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/28/kristol_to_house_gop_on_immigration_no_capitulation_no_comprehensive_bill_no_conference.html
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That makes tremendous sense to me.
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Kill the Bill - July 9, 2013
Passing any version of the Gang of Eight’s bill would be worse than passing nothing.
We are conservatives who have differed in the past on immigration reform, with Kristol favorably disposed toward it and Lowry skeptical. But the Gang of Eight has brought us into full agreement: Their bill, passed out of the Senate, is a comprehensive mistake. House Republicans should kill it without reservation.
There is no case for the bill, and certainly no urgency to pass it. During the debate over immigration in 2006–07, Republican rhetoric at times had a flavor that communicated a hostility to immigrants as such. That was a mistake, and it did political damage. This time has been different. The case against the bill has been as responsible as it has been damning.
It’s become clear that you can be pro-immigrant and pro-immigration, and even favor legalization of the 11 million illegal immigrants who are here and increases in some categories of legal immigration – and vigorously oppose this bill.
The bill’s first fatal deficiency is that it doesn’t solve the illegal-immigration problem. The enforcement provisions are riddled with exceptions, loopholes, and waivers. Every indication is that they are for show and will be disregarded, just as prior notional requirements to build a fence or an entry/exit visa system have been – and just as President Obama has recently announced he’s ignoring aspects of Obamacare that are inconvenient to enforce on schedule. Why won’t he waive a requirement for the use of E-Verify just as he’s unilaterally delayed the employer mandate? The fact that the legalization of illegal immigrants comes first makes it all the more likely that enforcement provisions will be ignored the same way they were after passage of the 1986 amnesty.
Marco Rubio says he doesn’t want to have to come back ten years from now and deal with the same illegal-immigration problem. But that’s exactly what the CBO says will happen under his own bill. According to the CBO analysis of the bill, it will reduce illegal immigration by as little as a third or by half at most. By one estimate, this means there will be about 7.5 million illegal immigrants here in ten years. And this is under the implausible assumption that the Obama administration would administer the law as written.
The bill’s changes in legal immigration are just as ill considered. Everyone professes to agree that our system should be tilted toward high-skilled immigration, but the Gang of Eight bill unleashes a flood of additional low-skilled immigration. The last thing low-skilled native and immigrant workers already here should have to deal with is wage-depressing competition from newly arriving workers. Nor is the new immigration under the bill a panacea for the long-term fiscal ills of entitlements, as often argued, because those programs are redistributive and most of the immigrants will be low-income workers.
Finally, there is the sheer size of the bill and the hasty manner in which it was amended and passed. Conservatives have eloquently and convincingly made the case against bills like this during the Obama years. Such bills reflect a mistaken belief in central planning and in practice become a stew of deals, payoffs, waivers, and special-interest breaks. Why would House Republicans now sign off on this kind of lawmaking? If you think Obamacare and Dodd-Frank are going swimmingly, you’ll love the Gang of Eight bill. It’s the opposite of conservative reform, which simplifies and limits government, strengthens the rule of law, and empowers citizens.
There’s no rush to act on immigration. The Democrats didn’t do anything when they controlled all of the elected branches in 2009 and 2010. The Gang of Eight tells us constantly that we have a de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants now. Fine. What’s the urgent need to act immediately, then?
The Republicans eager to back the bill are doing so out of political panic. “I think Republicans realize the implications for the future of the Republican party in America if we don’t get this issue behind us,” John McCain says. This is silly. Are we supposed to believe that Republican Senate candidates running in states such as Arkansas, North Carolina, Iowa, Virginia, and Montana will be hurt if the party doesn’t embrace Chuck Schumer’s immigration bill?
If Republicans take the Senate and hold the House in 2014, they will be in a much better position to pass a sensible immigration bill. At the presidential level in 2016, it would be better if Republicans won more Hispanic voters than they have in the past—but it’s most important that the party perform better among working-class and younger voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility. Passing this unworkable, ramshackle bill is counterproductive or irrelevant to that task.
House Republicans may wish to pass incremental changes to the system to show that they have their own solutions, even though such legislation is very unlikely to be taken up by the Senate. Or they might not even bother, since Senate Democrats say such legislation would be dead on arrival. In any case, House Republicans should make sure not to allow a conference with the Senate bill. House Republicans can’t find any true common ground with that legislation. Passing any version of the Gang of Eight’s bill would be worse public policy than passing nothing. House Republicans can do the country a service by putting a stake through its heart.
— William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard. Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.
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Most Latinos want border security before legalization of illegals already here. And why wouldn't they? Same for Blacks. Why would anyone in their right mind like having waves upon waves of people dragging down wages and competing with workers already here? Unless of course they were employers taking advantage of these "undocumented" workers, including those who knowingly hire them as nannies, housekeepers, etc. Or are Dem politicians who want more voters. Or are Repub politicians bribed by the business interests who exploit these workers and screw the rest of us over.
Republicans are too bribed, too stupid, or too timid to take advantage of this opportunity. Coulter is correct. No deal. Secure the border then we figure out the rest later. The Bushies need to go back to Texas and stay there. While you're at it take Rove with you. Rubio get your advice from Cruz, not the imperial DC crowd.
Check out these poll numbers. Laraza or whatever they are called don't speak for most Latinos.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/09/Poll-Hispanics-Enforce-the-law-first-then-deal-with-legalization-in-any-immigration-package
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/09/Poll-Hispanics-Enforce-the-law-first-then-deal-with-legalization-in-any-immigration-package
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Referring to Obamacare in the Constitutional Law thread: "what is the legality and constitutionality of the Obama administration unilaterally picking and choosing which laws to enforce and which programs to implement?"
Now over to immigration...
The point of comprehensive reform is that two sides want two different things, and both sides need to concede one to get the other. But in the context of Obama chutzpah and power to unilaterally pick and choose what parts of what laws to implement or enforce, hasn't the entire concept of 'comprehensive' reform been permanently destroyed?
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Referring to Obamacare in the Constitutional Law thread: "what is the legality and constitutionality of the Obama administration unilaterally picking and choosing which laws to enforce and which programs to implement?"
Now over to immigration...
The point of comprehensive reform is that two sides want two different things, and both sides need to concede one to get the other. But in the context of Obama chutzpah and power to unilaterally pick and choose what parts of what laws to implement or enforce, hasn't the entire concept of 'comprehensive' reform been permanently destroyed?
Yes.
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Tom Cotton: It's the House Bill or Nothing on Immigration
What's to stop President Obama from refusing to enforce the Senate bill's border-security promises?
America is a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws, and the U.S. immigration system should respect both traditions. Unfortunately, the Senate immigration bill undermines the rule of law without solving the country's illegal-immigration problem, and it will harm American workers. The House of Representatives will reject any proposal with the Senate bill's irreparably flawed structure, which is best described as: legalization first, enforcement later . . . maybe.
This basic design flaw repeats the mistake of the 1986 amnesty law, which, according to former Attorney General Edwin Meese, President Reagan considered the biggest mistake of his presidency. The Senate bill ensures, as did the 1986 law, that we'll have full legalization but little-to-no enforcement.
The Senate bill's advocates argue that its implementation of enforcement measures, such as extending the security fence on the border with Mexico, will precede and be a "trigger" for opening a path to citizenship. But these advocates are conflating legalization and citizenship. America has approximately 12 million illegal immigrants, who chiefly desire the right to live and work here legally. The Senate bill legalizes them a mere six months after enactment.
In the bill, legalization comes with trivial preconditions. Pay a "fine"? Yes, but it's less than $7 per month and can be waived. Pay back taxes? Only if a tax lien has already been filed, which will be rare for undocumented work. Pass a criminal-background check? Yes, with a gaping exception allowed for illegal immigrants with up to two misdemeanors—or more, if the convictions occurred on the same day—even if these were pleaded down from felony offenses and included serious offenses such as domestic violence and drunken driving.
This approach is unjust and counterproductive. We should welcome the many foreigners patiently obeying our laws and waiting overseas to immigrate legally. Instead, the Senate bill's instant, easy legalization rewards lawbreakers and thus encourages more illegal immigration.
What's worse, the bill's illusory enforcement mechanisms won't stop this illegal immigration. Effective enforcement requires a border fence, a visa-tracking system to catch visa overstayers, and a workable employment-verification system. The Senate bill fails on all three fronts.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated 700 miles of fencing, but the Senate bill merely restates this long-ignored requirement without mentioning specs or locations. It also doesn't prohibit delay-inducing lawsuits from fence opponents. Further, the bill explicitly lets the secretary of Homeland Security decline to build a fence in a specific location if she decides it's not "appropriate."
Instead, the bill throws billions of dollars at the border for new border-patrol agents (though not until 2017) and sensor technologies. These solutions are complements, not substitutes, for a fence. When I was a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan, my units relied on guards and technology to secure our bases, but the first line of defense was always a physical perimeter.
That's because fences work. The fence built in the San Diego border sector dramatically reduced border crossings there from 100,000 per year to just 5,000 per year when it was completed in 2006, a 95% drop. Earlier this year, Israel reduced illegal crossings at its Sinai border to two per month from 2,000 per month by completing a fence. Why doesn't the Senate bill mandate an effective fence? The answer, plainly, is that the intention is not to build one.
Similarly, the Senate bill restates a 17-year-old requirement in federal law that the government have a functioning visa-tracking system. But it delays implementation for six years and increases by millions the visas available for low-skill immigrants. This will lead to more illegal immigration by visa overstayers, while depressing wages for young and lower-skill Americans. The bill also delays implementation of the employment-verification system by at least five years and doesn't require mandatory effectiveness levels for the system.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recognizes that these enforcement measures will be largely ineffective. The CBO estimates that, even with them, annual illegal immigration will decline by only one-third to one-half compared with current projections. After 10 years, the CBO predicts, the illegal-immigrant population will have declined to only eight million from today's 12 million. So much for solving the problem. All we're doing is setting up the next amnesty.
But it's actually worse because even these modest enforcement measures likely won't happen. Any future Congress can defund these programs, as has happened too often. The bill grants enforcement discretion to the bureaucracy in hundreds of instances. Opponents can tie up the bill in court for years, which would block implementation of key enforcement measures but not the path to citizenship. This is exactly what happened with the 1986 law: legalization now and enforcement never.
And what's to stop President Obama from refusing to enforce this law? After all, he just announced he won't enforce ObamaCare's employer mandate because of complaints from big business. If that's his attitude toward his biggest legislative accomplishment, imagine what he'll do when big business complains about, say, an employment-verification system he never wanted to begin with.
If enforcement fails, what's more likely: that legalized persons won't become citizens or that future Congresses will simply relax or eliminate the required "triggers"? If past is prologue, we know the answer.
Given all this history, the American people rightly doubt that the government will finally enforce immigration laws. Thus the best solution is to abandon the Senate bill's flawed framework and proceed with an enforcement-first approach that assures Americans that the border is secure and immigration laws are being enforced. The House is already pursuing that goal with committee-approved bills such as the Legal Workforce Act, which expedites the employment-verification system, and the SAFE Act, which empowers local and state law-enforcement officers to enforce immigration laws.
If the full House approves such bills, they should be sent directly to the Senate for consideration. They should not be handed to a conference committee so that they can be reconciled with the Senate bill—the Senate and House measures are irreconcilable. Instead, the Senate must choose whether it wants common-sense, confidence-building immigration legislation this year.
If the Senate insists on the legalization-first approach, then no bill will be enacted. Meanwhile, the House will remain focused on addressing ObamaCare, the economy and the national debt—which, after all, Americans overwhelmingly regard as higher priorities than immigration reform.
Mr. Cotton is a Republican congressman from Arkansas.
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Rep. Tom Cotton is a rising star and has this about right. The House needs to pass a very good bill and stand by it. After borders are secured, legalization and new immigration policy can stand on its own merits and political will. The Senate should recognize that as a good bill but they won't. The standoff will no doubt go into the 2014 congressional races.
"what's to stop President Obama from refusing to enforce this law? After all, he just announced he won't enforce ObamaCare's employer mandate because of complaints from big business."
That is an inescapable point made here yesterday. [More famous people caught reading the forum?]
George Will: "the Obama administration’s approach to the rule of law is pertinent to the immigration bill, which at last count had 222 instances of a discretionary “may” and 153 of “waive.” Such language means that were the Senate bill to become law, the executive branch would be able to do pretty much as it pleases, even to the point of saying about almost anything"
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-05/opinions/40390063_1_senate-republicans-house-republicans-border-security
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Schumer OK with House piecemeal immigration approach
Sen. Chuck Schumer said he'd support the Republican-led House's piecemeal approach to U.S. immigration reform, provided it offered a path to citizenship. "We would much prefer a big comprehensive bill, but any way that the House can get there is OK by us," the New York Democrat told CNN. "I actually am optimistic that we will get this done."
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Some Democrats Waver on Immigration
In Republican-Controlled House, Certain Democrats Are Skeptical About Immigration Overhaul
By KRISTINA PETERSON
WASHINGTON—Every Democrat voted for the Senate's immigration bill when it passed the chamber in June. That unanimous party support isn't likely to be replicated if the House votes on its own immigration effort this fall.
In the GOP-controlled House, some Democrats, largely from conservative-leaning districts, are set to bolster the ranks of Republican lawmakers skeptical of the Senate's ideas on immigration. As a small faction within the minority party, they won't likely sway key votes, but amid signs that momentum behind the effort might be flagging, their concerns could put the finish line further out of reach.
Lawmakers Weigh Aggressive Tactic
Like many of their GOP counterparts, hesitant House Democrats worry about how to handle the 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the U.S.
"I'm opposed to granting amnesty," said Rep. Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, whose grandparents legally emigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon. Creating a separate way this group can gain citizenship "would siphon scarce resources away from our already-overwhelmed immigration system and would be unfair to those other immigrants, past and present, who have dutifully waited for their turn to legally enter our country," he said.
Some House Democrats fret that any new immigration laws could repeat what they consider the mistakes of a 1986 law that legalized many illegal immigrants and included measures to stop illegal crossings.
"I want to be certain that it's not 1986 all over again," said Rep. Daniel Lipinski, a Democrat from Illinois, who said he's concerned some lawmakers might be willing in future negotiations to roll back the provisions to beef up border security, which were added to the Senate bill in a bid to win GOP support. "I have concerns about if the federal government will be serious about enforcing immigration law in the future," he said.
The exact number of resistant or fence-sitting House Democrats on immigration is hard to determine. Like many Republicans, some centrist Democrats are reluctant to stake out a firm position before the House strategy is set. House leaders have yet to unveil a bill tackling the issue of legalization, though senior GOP lawmakers are expected to introduce legislation this fall that could include granting citizenship to at least a portion of the population.
"I'm going to wait and see what they come up with and then I'll decide,' said Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.), who said Congress needs to come up with a plan to "regularize" immigrants in some fashion. "We're not going to deport them."
The ranks of centrist Democrats in the House have thinned in recent years. The fiscally conservative coalition of Blue Dog Democrats, which played a major role in the health-care debate, has shrunk to just 15 lawmakers, compared with 54 before the 2010 election. Advocates of a broad immigration overhaul, including a new path to citizenship, are targeting the remaining Blue Dogs and the New Democrats, a House coalition of self-described moderate lawmakers.
Earlier this month, 39 of the New Democrats' 53 lawmakers wrote a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), urging him to introduce an immigration bill before the end of September that includes a pathway to citizenship. But some of the group's members, including Rep. John Barrow, a conservative Democrat from Georgia who didn't sign the letter, may still need convincing.
Any such discussion shouldn't begin until employer-verification programs and border security have been strengthened, Mr. Barrow said. "Like a preacher friend of mine once said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing," he said.
Advocates on both sides of the debate predict Democrats in swing districts will have a tough time embracing any immigration bill unless Republicans first come out in support. Some House Democrats have said their constituents are wary of broad immigration overhaul.
Centrist Democratic think tank Third Way recently targeted Democratic waverers in a memo offering suggestions for what to say if they shift on the issue, including emphasizing the economic effects of an immigration overhaul and the Senate bill's strengthening of border security.
Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, an organization favoring tough immigration curbs, sees a tougher road ahead. "Any Democrat in a district that Romney carried is going to really have a reason to vote against this," he said.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@dowjones.com
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCCVUot-hBo&noredirect=1
This is from 2006. IIRC most of the images therein are from a huge Cinco de Mayo (May 5) rally in Los Angeles. The reaction to the massive display of Mexican flags and accompanying anti-American attitudes enraged many and since the the rallies have made a point of waving American flags , , , as they continue to demand unlimited illegal and legal immigration and calling any one who opposes a racist, etc. There's no particular reason for my posting it now, it happened to cross my desk and I put it here as part of the record of this subject.
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True to form. Continue to spit on half the country:
****Obama plans immigration push after fiscal crisis ends
ReutersReuters – 2 hours 29 minutes ago..
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that stalled immigration reform would be a top priority once the fiscal crisis has been resolved.
"Once that's done, you know, the day after, I'm going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform," he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language television network Univision.
The president's domestic agenda has been sidetracked in his second term by one problem after another. As he coped with the revelation of domestic surveillance programs, chemical weapons in Syria, and a fiscal battle that has shut down the U.S. government and threatens a debt default, immigration has been relegated to the back burner.
But Obama, who won re-election with overwhelming Hispanic backing, had hoped to make reforms easing the plight of the 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.
In June, the Senate passed an immigration overhaul, but House of Representatives Republicans are divided over the granting of legal status to those in the country illegally, a step many see as rewarding lawbreakers.
Although the president had sought comprehensive reform, he said last month he would be open to the House taking a piece-by-piece approach if that would get the job done.
Obama on Tuesday blamed House Speaker John Boehner for preventing immigration from coming up for a vote.
"We had a very strong Democratic and Republican vote in the Senate," he said. "The only thing right now that's holding it back is, again, Speaker Boehner not willing to call the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives."
Boehner said the sweeping Senate bill would not pass the House and has said the lower chamber would tackle the issue in smaller sections that would include stricter provisions on border protection.
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Why do I have to supplement their education? I know a lot of New Jerseyens feel the same way. No one ever asks us. Just shoved down our throats by politicians bribing for votes and a Democrat party looking for power. Always at my expense. And how dare anyone use the phrase "anchor baby". How dare we? :?
N.J. bill to offer in-state tuition, financial aid to immigrants in the country illegally gains momentum
DREAM_act_photo.JPG
Giancarlo Tello, an undocumented immigrant who came to New Jersey from Peru with his parents at age 6, pays out-of-state tuition at Rutgers-Newark. Tello, the campaign chair for New Jersey United Students' Tuition Equity for DREAMers, today joined advocates to push for a bill to offer in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants who went to high school in New Jersey. (Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger) (Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger)
Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger By Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on November 14, 2013 at 4:40 PM, updated November 17, 2013 at 7:50 AM
TRENTON — After a decade-long effort by advocates, a bill that would charge in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who grew up in New Jersey appears well on its way to landing on the governor’s desk.
The state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee today voted eight to three with one abstention to approve the measure (S2479), which advocates say will affect tens of thousands of New Jersey residents.
“This community has waited long enough. Let’s not look for excuses to say no. Let’s look for reasons to say yes,” said Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who has lent his name to the bill as a prime sponsor.
The bill now heads for a vote in the full Senate on Monday, where it’s expected to pass. Assembly leaders say they expect to pass it soon as well.
Under the bill, undocumented immigrants who attended high school in New Jersey for three or more years, graduated, and filed an affidavit saying they plan to legalize their immigration status as soon as legally possible would be able to get lower in-state tuition rates at New Jersey’s public colleges and universities.
The undocumented immigrant students would also be eligible for state financial aid under the Senate version of the bill. Incoming Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson), a Cuban immigrant, said today that he expects the Assembly version will incorporate that aspect — which had been part of a separate bill —as well.
Advocates said it doesn’t make sense for the state to provide K-12 education to undocumented students — which federal law requires — and then refuse to treat them the same as citizens once they graduate.
“After having educated these students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, what purpose does it serve to penalize them by not allowing them to better themselves?” said Frank Argote-Freyre, president of the Latino Action Network.
In-state tuition is available to undocumented immigrants in 16 other states.
Giancarlo Tello, 23, immigrated to New Jersey from Peru when he was six years old. He didn’t find out he was undocumented until his sophomore year in high school, when his mother told him he could not apply for a driver’s license. Now, he attends Rutgers-Newark part-time and pays out-of-state tuition.
“If you consider me a fellow resident of New Jersey, if you believe I deserve an education, a chance at the future, then I urge you all to vote yes on this bill,” Tello told the committee.
Three elected officials from cities with large Hispanic populations — Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz and Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp — were also in Trenton to push for the bill.
“We all agree that in order to break that cycle of poverty that exists in this country and exists in places like Jersey City, it really starts with investing in education,” Fulop said at a press conference before the committee meeting. “To invest in a child’s education K through 12 and then turn your back on them is really foolish.”
All eight Democrats on the committee voted in favor of the legislation. And Gov. Chris Christie — while refusing to answer detailed questions about the bill — has indicated he supports the idea. Nevertheless, three out of the committee’s four Republicans voted no, while one abstained.
State Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) said she abstained because a loophole in the bill could allow out-of-state residents – regardless of their immigration status – to qualify for in-state tuition if they attend private high school in New Jersey. She also said New Jersey residents could move to other states for years, then return and qualify for in-state tuition because they went to high school here.
“I don’t want to vote against the bill. I’m just going to abstain today and hopefully by the time we get to the floor Monday we can find a resolution for those two issues,” Beck said.
But state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Morris), who voted no, said he didn’t think it would be fair that “a struggling family of American citizens in a neighboring state would pay more than an undocumented student.”
Only one member of the public testified against the bill. Pat DeFilippis, a New Jersey representative for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, read a letter from the organization’s state and local director, Dale Wilcox.
“Many New Jersey schools, colleges and universities are experiencing severe budget shortages as a result of the weakened economy and the state debt crisis,” read the letter, which was addressed to Christie. “Granting in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens would only serve to further damage and strain delicate budgets and impose additional burdens on New Jersey taxpayers.”
Christie's action on the bill is uncertain. He worked hard to appeal to Hispanic voters and won 51 percent of their votes in his re-election last week, according to exit polls.
State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), a prime sponsor of the bill, said the governor had not disclosed to her any decision on the measure.
This story has been edited to reflect the correct bill number. It's S2479, not S2468
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303531204579208162078007836?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303531204579208162078007836?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
Repubs should grant him the same access he gave them.
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303531204579208162078007836?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
"If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don't care what it looks like," Mr. Obama said. "What we don't want to do is simply carve out one piece of it…but leave behind some of the tougher stuff that still needs to get done."
Any chance that his lips are moving, but what is coming out isn't the whole truth?
Mr. President, how is that 'piecemeal' fence coming along?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr5124
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123370523066745559
http://www.humanevents.com/2010/05/17/finish-the-border-fence-now/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/27/94974/senate-defeats-demint-bid-to-finish.html
Senate defeats DeMint's bid to finish U.S.-Mexico border fence. May 27, 2010
DeMint said only 34 miles of a [700 mile] double-layer border fence authorized by Congress have been built.
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97.9% of DREAMers Approved
The Dept. of Homeland Security has approved 97.9% of illegal immigrants seeking work permits through DHS's deferred action program. This startling figure indicates that DREAMers aren't being carefully vetted. The Washington Free Beacon has more: "Of the cases reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), only 2.1 percent of young illegal aliens have been denied work permits through its deferred action program. Figures released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) show that of the 465,033 cases reviewed, only 9,578 have been denied." Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies notes, "The low denial rate suggests that applications are not being thoroughly screened. The program rules were designed to make it easy for people to claim eligibility. Applicants can submit un-provable affidavits or easily forged documents to establish eligibility." No doubt they return the favor at the ballot box.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/us/in-report-63-back-way-to-get-citizenship.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131125
In Report, 63% Back Way to Get Citizenship
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: November 25, 2013
A consistent and solid majority of Americans — 63 percent — crossing party and religious lines favors legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally, while only 14 percent support legal residency with no option for citizenship, according a report published Monday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.
Those surveyed expressed strong support for citizenship for 11.7 million immigrants in the country without documents just as Congress appears to be shifting away from that approach, with Republican leaders in the House working on measures that would offer legal status without a direct path to naturalization.
Sixty percent of Republicans, 57 percent of independents and 73 percent of Democrats favor a pathway to citizenship, according to the report. Majorities of Protestants, Catholics and Americans with no religious affiliation also support that plan.
The institute found that there is slightly less support for limiting the immigrants to legal residency than there is for a tough enforcement strategy of identifying and deporting them, a policy favored by 18 percent.
(cont.)
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http://publicreligion.org/about/partnerships/
Nonpartisan. Bull-shiite.
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This is what I want to hear from Republicans. This is what most of America wants. We don't need the bums in DC or the bums in academia who are the technocrat communists telling us who to let into OUR country. And the masses don't want to hear Freaking CEOS of big corporations running their political mouths off about how we need more immigrants to fill their coffers with low waged positions. We, the people decide who comes here God Damn it! Millions of Americans are unemployed and we have these big companies sending jobs overseas and demanding more immigrants come here to compete and drive down wages even more. How about we get rid of 50% disability and unemployment and these same big shots hire and train some of them.
We cannot keep bringing them on in. We are displacing our own.
Now finally a Republican speaks up for Americans and tells the Google Microsoft Facebook GE oligarchs to shut up. He is not their tool. He was elected by us, not them, to serve us, not them. That is the ticket for '16 folks. The very first time I hear a Repub say what I have been saying for months if not years.
If we don't want a country that is 50% on the dole - we cannot have a country controlled by 5%. The 5% cannot get special privileges. Those on the dole cannot get special benefits. They ALL, top and bottom must play by the same rules.
We lower taxes but they don't get all the breaks most cannot get. Fair and square from bottom to the very top.
The Republicans must shed the party of the rich image. They are the party for all Americans.
:-D :-D
Go Jeff, the MAN:
*****Sen. Sessions slams Obama, CEOs on immigration
3:51 PM 11/25/2013
Neil Munro
White House Correspondent
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions wants wealthy CEOs to butt out of immigration policy.
“America is not an oligarchy… A Republic must answer to the people,” Sessions said today, in a direct response to President Barack Obama’s latest effort to get wealthy California CEOs to increase their support for his unpopular push for increased immigration.
“Congressional leaders must forcefully reject the notion, evidently accepted by the president, that a small cadre of CEOs can tailor the nation’s entire immigration policy to suit their narrow interests,” Sessions declared in a populist statement that contradicts the media’s image of Republican coziness with CEOs.
Sessions’ statement was released shortly before Obama used a San Francisco speech to ask friendly high-tech CEOs in California to revive his failing effort to pass an immigration-boosting bill.
The bill has been blocked by top GOP leaders in the House, who are trying to balance donors’ demands for more workers with voters’ demands for more jobs.
Obama has been working with top CEOs since summer to push the Senate’s immigration expansion that would welcome 30 million immigrants, plus millions of temporary guest workers, over the next decade.
That influx would import roughly one immigrant or guest-worker for every American aged 11 to 21, or one immigrant for every American teenager in 2012. Current law allows 1 million immigrants and 700,000 guest workers to enter the country each year.
The push is being supported by numerous billionaires, including New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Since 2007, progressive and business groups have spent more than $1.5 billion on advocacy and lobbying to pass an immigration bill, despite massive unemployment, stalled salaries and negative polls. Other business groups have been pressured by the federal government and progressives to provide rhetorical support for the push.
Obama’s alliance with the wealthy CEOs is mutually beneficial. The CEOs would gain because high immigration will lower many Americans’ salaries and boost shareholders’ value. Progressives would gain a lock on political power once immigration boosts the number of government-dependent voters.
Sessions, however, is working alongside various U.S. groups to raise Americans’ wages by lowering immigration.
Polls shows Sessions’ populist low-immigration, high-wage pitch is popular, but his allies have far less less money or media coverage than Obama and his allies.
On Nov. 21, Sessions held a press conference in D.C. with Americans4Work, where he slammed CEOs who demand more immigrants.
“These business people do not get to set the [immigration] policy for the United States of America. They do not represent the United States of America, they represent their special interests… [and] I represent 4 million Alabamians and 300 million Americans,” Sessions said.
Sessions was backed up by Jan Ting, a law professor at Temple University, who told the conference that the current high-immigration, low-wage economy is “Blade Runner with food stamps.”
“Blade Runner” is a 1982 science-fiction movie in which most Americans are jobless and trapped in a violent, poverty-stricken nation.
After two decade of low-skill and high-skill immigration, California’s middle class is shrinking, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor is expanding.
The Americans4Work group has no “anger or animosity towards any immigrant,” said Thomas Broadwater, the group’s president. “Instead, we are fiercely and passionately pro-American.” The group gets no donations from business.
But Sessions acknowledged that many senators echo industry’s talking points when they’re asked by Americans about the issue.
“So many of my colleagues in the Senate, when they’re out campaigning, when they’re asked about immigration, without much thought, they say things like ‘I believe in immigrants, we’re a nation of immigrants, we’ve got to end this lawlessness, and I‘m for fixing the fence and the border, but really, we need more immigrants,’” Sessions said.
“They have not thought through the implications of the economic condition of America at this time,” Sessions told the press conference.
“The fundamental question we need to talk about is what would be the right [level] of immigrants.. [and] who it is we should give priority to,” he said.
“We’re a nation with an economy, not an economy with a nation… [and] we have a responsibility, a moral duty, to our citizens, to make their lives better, and we’re not doing a very good job,” Sessions said.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/25/sen-sessions-slams-obama-ceos-on-immigration/#ixzz2livunNrF*****
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Mark Levin actually discussed this same topic on his radio show yesterday 11/26/13. He agrees with me completely. It can be downloaded from his website.
There are many computer programmers here who cannot find jobs and whose wages have been stagnant. So we need endless immigrants to compete endlessly keeping wages low while cost of living keeps going up.
That said, the real point is FINALLY we have a prominent Republican speaking to the unfair power of the extreme wealthy. We are all for people to become wealthy. I am. I wish I was one. But when they then start getting benefits the rest of us don't that they use to tell the rest of us what to do and setting policy for their own ends, then we have a problem. That is what the phrase "1% ers" is about. Finally s few Repubs speaking about this. I believe if more did then we would win by a landslide.
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6b49c0fa-5d9d-11e3-b3e8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mu9SuCsC
"Saudi Arabia is the world’s second biggest source of [expatriate and illegal expatriate] remittances, only behind the US, with outflows of nearly $28bn last year, according to estimates by the World Bank. “Millions of dollars of Saudi flows will vanish. Riyadh has defended the expulsions, saying illegal expatriates have had months to legalise their status. The kingdom, which shares 1,800km of porous, mountainous borders with Yemen, had for years complained that the Yemeni government was not doing enough to stop illegal immigrants, drug dealers, armed militants or members of al-Qaeda from crossing to the kingdom."
"Riyadh has said it wants to forcibly expel as many as 2m of the foreign workers, including hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, Somalis, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who make up around a third of the country’s 30m population. "
Good luck doing that here.
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Despite the hyperventilating tone below, this sounds exactly like something Boener would do.
==============================
John Boehner ADMITS He Will Be Pushing AMNESTY for Illegals -- Select Here to DEMAND Congress SECURE the BORDER Now!
ALERT: We WARNED you that this was about to happen: Breitbart.com is reporting that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is planning to push AMNESTY legislation through Congress -- but he's waiting until after the primary filing deadline for candidates, in order to prevent Tea Party candidates from challenging GOP lawmakers who support amnesty in 2014:
"Scott Braddock reported on Tuesday that 'in recent weeks, various Texas business interests have told Quorum Report that Boehner has been telling them that he will start holding immigration votes not long after the filing deadline has passed... what was made clear was that Boehner felt the need to protect House Republican incumbents who are otherwise seen as conservative but have expressed an openness to immigration reform that includes a robust guest worker program.'"
This shouldn't surprise you -- as we already told you, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) let slip some VERY DISTURBING news this week. As reported in the Las Vegas Sun:
"Although a minority of Republicans would have to join with Democrats to pass immigration reform legislation containing a pathway to citizenship for people in the United States illegally, Reid said Boehner is 'going to cave in.'"
YOU READ THAT RIGHT: The Democrat leader of the Senate says that the Republican leader of the House is going to CAVE IN on AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS -- and now we see WHY he believes that!
This means there has to be MORE pressure from patriotic Americans like US to STOP that from happening -- so it's once again up to YOU AND I to KEEP PRESSURE on Congress to SAY NO TO AMNESTY!
SEND A MESSAGE TO EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS, DEMANDING THEY SAY NO TO ANY VOTE ON "IMMIGRATION REFORM" -- DEMAND A SECURE BORDER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS EVEN DISCUSSED:
SEND YOUR MESSAGE NOW!
Or Select Here to Send a Free Message to YOUR Congressmen!
You didn't think that the liberal push for AMNESTY for illegal aliens was over, did you?
It's NOT. Congress is preparing to push HARD for it, AGAIN. The only problem is that this time, it's REPUBLICANS who are leading the charge. As reported at The Right Scoop, Mark Levin opened his show this week explaining how Republican "leaders" are now pushing for amnesty again, DESPITE their rhetoric that "we should just focus on Obamacare."
Just as the Washington Times is reporting:
"House Speaker John A. Boehner announced Tuesday that he has hired a longtime advocate of legalizing illegal immigrants to be an adviser, signaling that the Republican is still intent on trying to pass an immigration bill during this congressional session.
Immigrant rights advocates cheered the move as a sign of Mr. Boehner's dedication to action. Those who want a crackdown on illegal immigration said the top Republican in the House has moved closer to embracing amnesty by hiring Rebecca Tallent, a former staffer for Sen. John McCain and fellow Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe."
DID YOU GET THAT? Boehner IS actually about to CAVE IN! The headline of that article says it all: "HOLA: Boehner prepares to push amnesty bill through House"! And Harry Reid himself said, "I think there's going to be so much pressure on the House that they'll have to pass it!"
Have you ever heard of a "Disinformation Campaign," to mislead people into thinking that one thing is true, when just the opposite is true?
That's what's happening right now, with Republicans in Congress.
The news headlines were everywhere recently: "House Majority Whip McCarthy Says No Immigration Reform In 2013"; "Immigration reform is dead for the year, top GOP reformer says"; "No immigration reform vote in the House this year"... article after article, insisting that we don't have to worry about Congress passing any bills this year that would give Amnesty to illegal aliens. "Relax, don't worry, we aren't going to do that, move along, nothing to see here!"
There's just one problem with reports that "Immigration Reform Is Dead": Apparently, it's NOT TRUE.
This is what was all over the news before Boehner's hiring announcement: "The third-ranking House Republican told immigration advocates that lawmakers won't vote this year on the issue, confirming what many had long assumed" (FoxNews)... "In what will be seen as another blow to immigration reform's chances, a top pro-reform Republican in the House concedes House Republicans are not going to act on immigration reform this year" (Washington Post)... "A top Republican lawmaker told protesters he met with in his home district in California this week that the House of Representatives would not have time this year to vote on any immigration measure" (New York Times)...
But there have been others items in the news already, too -- and they contradict all of these hopeful headlines:
"Don't count Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus among those who believe comprehensive immigration reform is dead this Congress. Despite exasperation among reform advocates that the House has refused to vote on any major immigration bill -- particularly the Senate-passed legislation -- Priebus said that his 'gut' feeling is that the House will indeed pass an immigration overhaul in the next 14 months." -- Politico
"With a year to go until the midterm elections, immigration reform advocates hoping to jump-start debate on Capitol Hill are planning to target a handful of Republican lawmakers most likely to suffer political consequences next year if Congress fails to act on immigration reform... Organizers said the goal of the campaign is to pressure the lawmakers to match their public statements by lobbying colleagues and House Republican leaders to permit votes on a series of immigration bills introduced in recent months." -- Washington Post
"Let me set the record straight: Comprehensive immigration reform is not dead in the House... We are seeing a lot of action and momentum around comprehensive immigration reform." -- Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, on NBCLatino
Even the liberal Washington Post is admitting, "GOP leaders have not scheduled a vote on reform this year, but they haven't ruled one out." IN OTHER WORDS, WE STILL HAVE WORK TO DO!"
And that's not all: did you hear what Barack Hussein Obama said about the possibility of passing AMNESTY for ILLEGAL ALIENS in Congress? CBS News reported:
"In a meeting with business leaders to discuss immigration reform, President Obama predicted that there are enough votes in the House to pass the contentious issue... 'what's been encouraging is that there are a number of House Republicans who have said we think this is the right thing to do as well,' Mr. Obama said Tuesday at the White House. 'It's my estimation that we actually have the votes to get comprehensive immigration reform done in the House right now.'"
YOU READ THAT RIGHT: as the story's headline said, Obama believes that the "House has votes to pass immigration reform" -- in other words, they're preparing to ram AMNESTY for illegals down our throats!
WE HAVE TO STOP THEM!
SEND A MESSAGE TO EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS, DEMANDING THEY SAY NO TO ANY VOTE ON "IMMIGRATION REFORM" -- DEMAND A SECURE BORDER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS EVEN DISCUSSED:
SEND YOUR MESSAGE NOW!
Or Select Here to Send a Free Message to YOUR Congressmen!
Pressure is building on Republicans to push through a vote in Congress on a bill giving AMNESTY to millions of illegal aliens -- which means it's up to AVERAGE AMERICAN CITIZENS to fight back and STOP THE AMNESTY!
New media reports say that the pressure is coming from the combined forces of the radical left (no surprise there) AND big business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, who are willing to sell America out to get cheaper labor... while millions of our citizens are already out of work! According to an article in the Daily Caller:
"Business and progressive groups rallied at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Oct. 29 to reassure Speaker of the House John Boehner that he'll get their political support if he schedules a major vote on immigration. 'He's said in the press that the House should take up immigration reform and he plans to do it,' said Randel Johnson, the chamber's vice president for immigration. 'I think he want to get this done, but it is our job to show that there is support in the business community and the evangelical community and in other conservative Republican groups that they'll be there to back him up when he makes his decisions... We've got his back,' said Johnson, a former congressional staffer, who has known Boehner for 20 years."
THAT'S RIGHT -- IT'S "POLITICS AS USUAL" FOR THE PRO-AMNESTY CROWD -- AND THEY'RE PUSHING HARD FOR CONGRESS TO PASS AMNESTY, UNLESS WE STOP THEM! WE MUST TAKE ACTION NOW!
So now we know: "big business" is teaming up with "big socialists" to push AMNESTY! And it's no secret that they think they can win; the "cat is out of the bag" -- House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has told the media that she believes "there is a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives ready to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul bill" -- in other words, she thinks they have enough votes to pass the AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS bill that the Senate already rammed through!
But wait -- the Democrats are in charge of the Senate, so that's how liberals were able to pass their AMNESTY bill. So how could they pass it in the GOP-controlled House? Simple, says Pelosi: with "Republicans having publicly expressed support for a path to citizenship, we believe the votes are there on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill," she wrote on Facebook.
SHE'S RIGHT -- now we have PROOF that Republicans are ready to help them do it. Our friends at ALIPAC have now provided a list of 32 GOP members of Congress who have indicated they are willing to support granting amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S. as part of a broader immigration "reform" package. Or, as ALIPAC put it, this is a "TRAITOR LIST with contact info and proof of amnesty stance"!
YOU READ THAT RIGHT -- REPUBLICANS ARE READY TO HELP PASS AMNESTY, UNLESS WE STOP THEM! THIS MAY BE OUR ONLY CHANCE, IF WE TAKE ACTION NOW!
SEND A MESSAGE TO EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS, DEMANDING THEY SAY NO TO ANY VOTE ON "IMMIGRATION REFORM" -- DEMAND A SECURE BORDER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS EVEN DISCUSSED:
SEND YOUR MESSAGE NOW!
Or Select Here to Send a Free Message to YOUR Congressmen!
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http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2013/12/19/
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/19/us-deportations-plummet-2013-report/
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I disagree with this piece. I find this to be an emminently reasonable compromise.
Immigration Compromise?
by Jason L. Riley
Dec. 23, 2013 2:01 p.m. ET
The immigration debate in Washington boils down to a debate over how to handle the country's 11 million or so illegal residents. A Washington Post editorial over the weekend suggested a compromise: Let them stay but don't give them citizenship.
It's not clear that President Obama would agree to such a deal, since it would effectively make 11 million people second-class citizens—able to live and work here legally but unable to vote or qualify for certain benefits. It's also not clear that restrictionist Republicans would be satisfied with this outcome, since many in that camp consider anything short of deportation to be amnesty.
"Republican hard-liners could still insist (and many no doubt would) that providing deportation relief to more than 11 million illegal immigrants amounts to amnesty, too, even without the hope of citizenship," says the Post. "They would prefer mass round-ups or, for the more politically correct, 'self-deportation'—a polite way of saying that local authorities should make life so miserable for undocumented immigrants, most of whom have lived and worked in this country for years, that they will simply pack up and leave."
What the paper is suggesting is a defensible position, and calling it something akin to South African apartheid or the Jim Crow era is off-base. Those systems punished people for who they were, not because they had done anything wrong. Denying people who want to live here certain rights because they came here illegally or over-stayed a visa is hardly out of bounds. In the U.S. we routinely deny people rights as a form of punishment for bad behavior. People in jail can't vote. People convicted of certain crimes can't legally purchase guns or hold certain jobs or be around young children.
The real question is whether cutting such a deal is in the long-term interest of the GOP. Many Republicans look at the illegal population and see simply 11 million new Democratic voters. They oppose citizenship mainly because they want to deny these foreign nationals access to the ballot box. But even if the parties (and the White House) could agreed to a compromise along the lines of what the Post is suggesting, the children of these illegal aliens would be full citizens and allowed to vote. How will they view the GOP's treatment of their parents?
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:-D Immigration humor, SA style
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bc1ATfrIcAA02jp.jpg)
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THis guy Priebus really sounds like a person who has been bribed [to say this stuff]. Bought off by business interests?
I'm with Coulter. I have no clue how any Republican can try to argue having tens of millions more immigrants who vote Democrat to attain benefits confiscated from people who have lived here longer and doled to them is good for the party, country or present day US citizens. I just have no clue.
*****RNC’s Priebus: ‘General consensus’ that something big has to happen on immigration
By David Sherfinski
The Washington Times
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said Wednesday that there’s a “general consensus” in his party that something big needs to happen on overhauling the country’s immigration laws and that more specifics would be unveiled this week at House Republicans’ annual retreat.
“I think politically speaking it’s a mixed bag, but the question is whether or not it’s something we have to do as a country, and I think that’s what’s trumping the political answer,” Mr. Priebus said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “You see in our party, whether it’s [Kentucky Senator] Rand Paul, who’s called for massive immigration reform, or [Florida Senator] Marco Rubio, I think you have general consensus that something big has to happen.”
Mr. Priebus said House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, has pledged to come up with a set of principles at the party retreat this week and the principles would be shared with the press “as soon as it was done.”
“So that’s a commitment from the Speaker of the House, and there’s a commitment among the most conservative members of our party and the most moderate members of our party that it’s something that we have to get serious about, and I think you’re seeing that,” he said.****
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From drudge but I think he is right. Immigration leniency is bad for American workers. Look we can always scour the world and find people who will do any work whatsoever for less than someone who is already here. Allow them in by the tens of millions and at the same time raise the minimum wage. It is all crazy.
****Sessions Warns House GOP: Immigration Bill Is Bad Politics, Bad Policy
Offers a better way forward.
11:18 AM, Jan 29, 2014 • By DANIEL HALPER
Yesterday afternoon, before President Obama's State of the Union Address, Senator Jeff Sessions' staff hand-delivered to each Republican member of the House an important memo on the so-called immigration reform bill being debated on Capital Hill. The 3-page document, written by Sessions, argues that pushing the current immigration legislation forward is bad politics, bad policy, and that there's a better way for Republicans.
Sessions believes House Republicans are at risk of falling into President Obama's trap. "[A]ccording to news reports, House Republican leaders are instead turning 2014 into a headlong rush towards Gang-of-Eight style 'immigration reform,'" writes Sessions. "They are reportedly drafting an immigration plan that is uncomfortably similar to a 'piecemeal' repackaging of the disastrous Senate plan—and even privately negotiating a final package with Democrat activists before consulting with their own members."
It's bad politics, Sessions writes. "In the rush to pass an immigration bill, there has been a near absence of any serious thought about the conditions facing American workers. The last 40 years has been a period of record immigration to the U.S., with the last 10 years seeing more new arrivals than any prior 10- year period in history. This trend has coincided with wage stagnation, enormous growth in welfare programs, and a shrinking workforce participation rate. A sensible, conservative approach would focus on lifting those living here today, both immigrant and native-born, out of poverty and into the middle class—before doubling or tripling the level of immigration into the U.S.
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Columnist Cal Thomas:
"Republicans have convinced themselves that Hispanics are a 'natural' constituency for their party because they are hard workers, religious and family-oriented. ... According to Pew, 53 percent of babies born to Hispanic immigrants are to single mothers, about twice the rate of whites. As for Republican 'family values,' Pew found a majority of Hispanics, 53 percent, support same-sex marriage. ... In a recent column, Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative political analyst, cited an American National Election Study that asked Hispanics their views about the free market vs. big government solutions to problems. Schlafly noted, 'Only 17.9 percent of Hispanics responded "the less government the better," and 85.3 percent said "a strong government involvement is required to handle economic problems."' This is not the profile of a future Republican voter."
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Columnist Cal Thomas:
"Republicans have convinced themselves that Hispanics are a 'natural' constituency for their party because they are hard workers, religious and family-oriented. ... According to Pew, 53 percent of babies born to Hispanic immigrants are to single mothers, about twice the rate of whites. As for Republican 'family values,' Pew found a majority of Hispanics, 53 percent, support same-sex marriage. ... In a recent column, Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative political analyst, cited an American National Election Study that asked Hispanics their views about the free market vs. big government solutions to problems. Schlafly noted, 'Only 17.9 percent of Hispanics responded "the less government the better," and 85.3 percent said "a strong government involvement is required to handle economic problems."' This is not the profile of a future Republican voter."
It is. The pubs aren't called the stupid party for nothing.
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"'Only 17.9 percent of Hispanics responded "the less government the better," and 85.3 percent said "a strong government involvement is required to handle economic problems."' This is not the profile of a future Republican voter."
This is the dilemma in a nutshell. The immigration thing is important but compared to above stated fact it is only a sideshow.
The Latinos who are here legally as well as the ones who are coming here illegally are overwhelming supporters of big social welfare programs. Why?
Simple. They receive these benefits by huge margins.
"Republicans have convinced themselves that Hispanics are a 'natural' constituency for their party because they are hard workers, religious and family-oriented"
I have been posting more or less this for years. Only an idiot can think ideology will trump cold hard cash.
It is not just the Latinos either. It is also Asians and Africans and Carribbeans. Even many western Europeans. Anyone do a poll of the 50,000 illegal Irish in the NY met area?
The Eastern Europeans may be the only group who might swing more towards Republicans.
One would think Chinese would also be Republicans but they are by majority not.
We will have to have a giant crash for these people to change their minds. No other way I see.
Jews are some sort of exception. They are and always have been different. They vote Dem not so much for benefits (IMO) but because of some warped ideology.
Their beloved Democratic party. As we can see these liberal Jews will even sell out Israel for their beloved party.
They also participate tooth and nail to give the country away to the world. The country that they as a group have done so well in. Despite discrimination. I read once only those of the Lutheran religion have done better.
What else is there to say?
It is nearly check mate.
Don't think Hillary will try to have it both ways. She will position herself as a champion to all these interest groups while trying to distance herself from the Brock as someone who is a champion for America.
I don't see anything other than a crash that might, might wake people up to the dangers of the expanding state.
I do give Cal credit for saying the obvious.
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"Don't think Hillary will try to have it both ways. She will position herself as a champion to all these interest groups while trying to distance herself from the Brock as someone who is a champion for America."
Allow me to clarify this on the 16 thread.
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Yep. Just when they are achieving success the African Americans are seemingly unwittingly giving their country away to the world. Some I know from personal talks do see this but....
******INVASION USA
Republicans to rescue Dems, betray the nation
Thomas Sowell likens illegal aliens to embezzlers or burglars 'living in the shadows'
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. He is the author of 28 books, including "Dismantling America" and "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy."
Some supporters of President Obama may be worried about how he and the Democrats are going to fare politically, as the problems of Obamacare continue to escalate and it looks like the Republicans have a chance to win a majority in the Senate.
But Democrats may not need to worry so much. Republicans may once again come to the rescue of the Democrats, by discrediting themselves and snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.
The latest bright idea among Republicans inside the Beltway is a new version of amnesty that is virtually certain to lose votes among the Republican base and is unlikely to gain many votes among the Hispanics the Republican leadership is courting.
One of the enduring political mysteries is how the Republicans can be so successful in winning governorships and control of state legislatures, while failing to make much headway in Washington. Maybe there are just too many clever GOP consultants inside the Beltway.
When it comes to national elections, just what principles do the Republicans stand for? It is hard to think of any, other than their hoping to win elections by converting themselves into Democrats lite. But voters who want what the Democrats offer can vote for the real thing, rather than Johnny-come-lately imitations.
Listening to discussions of immigration laws and proposals to reform them is like listening to something out of “Alice in Wonderland.”
Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. One of the big problems that those who are pushing “comprehensive immigration reform” want solved is how to help people who came here illegally and are now “living in the shadows” as a result.
Is liberty on life support for good? There is hope … read Manny Edwards’ book “The Truth About Liberty: How the Tea Party Can Save America”
What about embezzlers or burglars who are “living in the shadows” in fear that someone will discover their crimes? Why not “reform” the laws against embezzlement or burglary, so that such people can also come out of the shadows?
Almost everyone seems to think that we need to solve the problem of the children of illegal immigrants, because these children are here “through no fault of their own.” Do people who say that have any idea how many millions of children are living in dire poverty in India, Africa or other places “through no fault of their own,” and would be better off living in the United States?
Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children of illegal immigrants have such a right?
More fundamentally, why do the American people not have a right to the protection that immigration laws provide people in other countries around the world – including Mexico, where illegal immigrants from other countries get no such special treatment as Mexico and its American supporters are demanding for illegal immigrants in the United States?
The very phrase “comprehensive” immigration reform is part of the bad faith that has surrounded immigration issues for decades. What “comprehensive” reform means is that border control and amnesty should be voted on together in Congress.
Why? Because that would be politically convenient for members of Congress, who like to be on both sides of issues, so as to minimize the backlash from the voting public. But what “comprehensive” immigration reform has always meant in practice is amnesty up front and a promise to control the border later – promises that have never been kept.
The new Republican proposal is to have some border-control criteria whose fulfillment will automatically serve as a “trigger” to let the legalizing of illegal immigrants proceed. But why set up some automatic triggering device to signal that the borders are secure, when the Obama administration is virtually guaranteed to game the system, so that amnesty can proceed?
What in the world is wrong with Congress taking up border security first, as a separate issue, and later taking responsibility in a congressional vote on whether the border has become secure? Congress at least should come out of the shadows.
The Republican plan for granting legalization up front, while withholding citizenship, is too clever by half. It is like saying that you can slide halfway down a slippery slope.
Republicans may yet rescue the Democrats, while demoralizing their own supporters and utterly failing the country.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/republicans-to-rescue-dems-betray-the-nation/#s4jLsSpXbDdKLpGJ.99
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The battle within the conservative movement. We better find some common ground soon!
http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/09/laura-ingraham-battles-george-will-as-conservative-civil-war-over-immigration-intensifies-video/
Laura Ingraham battles George Will as conservative civil war over immigration intensifies [VIDEO]
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Ingraham asks why have borders?
Good question.
Why bother?
Why have a defined "country"?
Why bother?
Why not just an open source country?
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Ingraham asks why have borders?
Good question.
Why bother?
Why have a defined "country"?
Why bother?
Why not just an open source country?
Ingraham won this debate, but also she filibustered and cut off Will's points.
Both sides don't have an answer for their own blind spot. As you say, are we going to accept having a nation with no borders or sovereignty? The answer is No. For the other side, what are we going to do with these people who are here? Are we going to round them up and send them home as the law requires. The answer is No. We aren't and we won't. So, if not, we can either update our laws or let them remain meaningless and unenforced.
The status quo is amnesty. The 'reform' proposals all involve some form of amnesty. More illegals are still coming in at will, contributing little and burdening scarce resources.
. See VDH yesterday: http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/immigration-morality-tale/?singlepage=true
We need a legal immigration system so good that people will accept law enforcement on illegal immigration.
For Dems, the problem is best unsolved, making them undesirable negotiating partners. R's are divided and waffling, making them lousy negotiating partners. Public debate on this tears apart the party. R's didn't do anything about it when they controlled the House, Senate and White House, 2003-2006. Dems didn't do anything on it when they had control 2009-2010. No one trusts this President, administration or Justice Department to enforce an old law or a new law. Maybe Chuck Shumer stumbled close to the truth. Wait until we elect a functional government, hopefully after 2017, and if you have a solution, bring it forward then.
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There is just no political will. The rest of us get screwed. And I don't want to hear arguments how this benefits all of us. So my Burger King fries are 10 cents lower.
"Are we going to round them up and send them home as the law requires. The answer is No."
No. We simply don't allow people to be hired who are not here legally. They will never be able to be citizens. And they will never be able to get benefits.
As for their kids. They can start taking responsibility for splitting up their families.
They come here and have anchor babies. Because they are born here they are in. But those that brought them here are not or are never in unless they leave and get in line.
What is so hard about this?
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Look closely at the graph showing levels of deportation. The numbers rose for many years UNTIL 2008 or so. Then they level off. There is a slight uptick in 2012 just before the election (presumably so he can jaunt around claiming how he is defending the borders) then it starts to decline. The trend is down not up since he is in office. First time in decades.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21595892-barack-obama-has-presided-over-one-largest-peacetime-outflows-people-americas
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We know why. I guess if we make them legal they will be able to start their OWN businesses and drive this American employer out of business. Sorry but this twisted logic doesn't sit well with me.
****Immigration
Why I Hire Undocumented Workers
12, 2014 12:23 PM ET
By Francis Wilkinson
Using data from the U.S. Census, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there were eight million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. labor force in 2010. The Migration Policy Institute estimated the number a bit lower -- 6.4 million -- in 2011, with retail trade employing 920,000, construction 910,000, agriculture 540,000 and manufacturing 520,000. Even using the lower Institute number, that means there is more than one undocumented worker for every one of the six million employers in the U.S.
Who is employing them all?
Well, a guy I've known for years is one. He owns an east-coast landscaping and plant business with around 100 employees, at least half of whom are undocumented Mexican immigrants.
About a dozen years ago, one of his biggest competitors started using undocumented Mexican laborers. At the time, the landscaper’s firm suffered high turnover and low productivity, and finding employees to do the actual landscaping -- his company's bread and butter -- was difficult.
“We’ve never had anyone come in here looking for work,” he told me, on condition that I withhold his name. He found many of the Americans he has hired over the years to be unreliable and unwilling to work hard. Sometimes they quit; other times he has fired them.
Gradually, he started hiring Mexican laborers. All of them were able to provide Social Security numbers, though he understood they were bogus. “We have to have paperwork on these guys,” he said. “We just don’t have to have it be legitimate.”
The Mexican laborers live together in a poor neighborhood in a small city, drive to work together and take as many hours as the boss offers – seven days a week when possible. He pays them the same wages he pays Americans -- one top earner makes $25 per hour, well above the median U.S. wage. Because they're undocumented and most don't have their families with them, the men don't make much of a dent in the U.S. consumer economy. Instead, they send their savings home to their families in Mexico.
There are, of course, complications. The landscaper said he has paid thousands of dollars to coyotes and illegal services to secure passage back to the U.S. for workers who returned to Mexico to visit family. If his employees are stopped at the U.S. border and don't make it back to work, which is happening more frequently, he isn't charged. “I lost a key man," he said, "a skilled stone mason who couldn’t get back in the country.” If his employees do make it back to work, he said, they inevitably reimburse him for the coyote fees.
As the business grew, the landscaper's Mexican workforce also became his recruiting service. “The Mexicans are self-policing,” he said. “If a guy is not working hard, they get rid of him. I don’t even have to say anything. The only people I have to fire are Americans.”
(Francis Wilkinson is a member of the Bloomberg View editorial board. Follow him on Twitter.)*****
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Great idea - but why stop there. Reduce taxes to zero on employers, expand entitlements, and increase all taxes on those in the middle. Additionally simply open up the borders so all US jobs can be auctioned off to the world's lowest bidder:
****Gates: Tax consumption to fix unemployment caused by technology [VIDEO]
7:08 PM 03/17/2014
Billionaire software mogul Bill Gates has joined the growing chorus of tech experts who predict that low-skill Americans will face greater unemployment because more jobs are being done by software and robots.
The Microsoft founder, whose net worth is $76 billion, suggested the problem could be fixed by reducing taxes on employers and raising taxes on employees, via the reduction of payroll taxes and the addition of new federal consumption taxes.
The widening recognition of greater low-skill unemployment is also creating a problem for the many executives — including Gates — and lobbyists and legislators pushing for increased immigration. They back the Senate’s immigration bill, which would dramatically increase the supply of foreign labor, despite Americans’ high unemployment rates.
“Software substitution, you know, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses or even, you know, whatever it is you do … is progressing,” Gates told university-trained Washington professionals gathered at a March 13 talk hosted by the American Enterprise Institute.
The growing role of technology “will reduce demand for jobs particularly at the lower end of the skill set. … These things are coming fast,” he said.
“Twenty years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower, and I don’t think people have that in their mental model,” he added, echoing other predictions of low-skill unemployment.
A 2013 “study by Oxford University researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne … [predicted] that nearly half of American jobs are at ‘high risk’ of being taken over by robots in the next decade or two,” National Journal reported in March.
The automation is also impacting higher-skilled professionals. This reporter used the Internet, a cellphone and a laptop to write this and three other diverse stories in one day. More dramatically, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times has developed a software-robot that autonomously reports breaking news about earthquakes.
“Democrats concerned by poverty and inequality — and Republicans who resist the social welfare measures necessitated by poverty and inequality — need to think harder about this [immigration and technology trade-off] question,” said a February article in The Daily Beast.
“I think it’s [a] tough” task to protect the middle class from the impact of automation, billionaire investor and immigration-advocate Steve Case said in December.
“I do think tax structures will have to move away from taxing [companies'] payroll because society has a desire to have employment,” Gates said.
“That’s going to force us to rethink how these tax structures work in order to maximize employment,” he said. One alternative, he said, would be to create consumption taxes — such as a federal sales tax — to hit higher-income people, while also reducing taxes paid by employers for each employee.
“The idea that consumption should be progressively taxed, I think that makes a lot of sense,” he said.
That shift would allow companies to profit by importing low-skill immigrants, even though the immigrants would also have to be supported by taxpayers. For example, the Senate’s June 2013 immigration bill offers conditional amnesty to at least 11.7 million illegal immigrants, who would cost taxpayers roughly $6.3 trillion over the next several decades, according to the Heritage Foundation.
Despite accelerating automation, President Barack Obama and many Democrats are promoting the Senate’s immigration rewrite that would double legal immigration to 46 million over the next 20 years. The bill would also double the inflow of guest workers, to at least 20 million.
The 66 million immigrants and guest workers would compete for jobs against the four million Americans who turn 18 each year, and the 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees each year.
Currently, the nation accepts one million immigrants and 650,000 non-agriculture immigrants each year, to join the working population of 150 million.
So far, GOP leaders in the House have blocked the Senate’s immigration expansion.****
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I wish I had a definitive citation for this (perhaps our Google Fu Master GM can get one for us?) but during the morning chatter show this morning on FOX it was reported that (I'm shocked, absolutely shocked!) that the Obama administration has been misleading us with regard to its assertions about deportations being at an all time high.
Apparently what they are doing is counting a category that was not part of the data previously-- those turned back at the border. If I have it correctly, once this number is excluded from the calculation and it is done as it always has been done, the number is some 70+% less than reported i.e. pretty much a record low.
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Fake statistics to deceive the public? NFW!!!
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346043/cooking-books-deportation-stats
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Again GM comes through-- thank you.
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Again the news media does nothing. Just turns their head.
I think the Feds should have a website that lists the jobs of every American and offers them to anyone else in the world who is capable to bid on doing that job for less. Why not? As long as they promise to vote Democrat:
*****by Matthew Boyle 25 Mar 2014
Fully 98 percent of individuals deported from the United States in 2013 were either criminals, apprehended while illegally crossing the border, or had been previously deported, according to a new analysis from Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).
The three-page document, labeled a “Critical Alert” by the senator’s office, found three executive actions by President Barack Obama providing amnesty to groups of illegal aliens meant that virtually no one who did not meet other criteria beyond simply being in the country illegal was deported.
“The evidence reveals that the Administration has carried out a dramatic nullification of federal law,” Sessions said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Under the guise of setting ‘priorities’, the Administration has determined that almost anyone in the world who can enter the United States is free to illegally live, work and claim benefits here as long as they are not caught committing a felony or other serious crime.
Obama's well-known executive action granted virtual amnesty to so-called DREAMers – individuals who claim to have entered the country as minors under their parents' guidance.
Two are lesser known executive actions include an Aug. 23, 2013, DHS directive “expanding that [summer 2012 executive DREAM Act] amnesty to illegal immigrant relatives of DREAM Act beneficiaries” and a Dec. 21, 2012, DHS directive “reinforcing that almost all immigration offenses were unenforceable absent a separate criminal conviction.”
In 2013, Sessions’ staff found, 98 percent of ICE’s removals of illegal aliens fit the agency’s “enforcement criteria.” There are four such criteria for illegal aliens to be considered deportation-worthy by ICE: a conviction of committing a serious criminal offense, an apprehension made while an individual is crossing the border, the resurfacing of someone previously deported, or someone having been a fugitive from the law. “Remarkably, the first two categories—border apprehensions (which are not deportations as commonly understood) and convicted criminals—account for 94% of the 368,000 removals (235,000 and 110,000, respectively),” Sessions’ staff wrote in the memo.
Only 0.2 percent of an estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. who were actually placed into removal proceedings in 2013 in 2013 did not have a violent or otherwise serious criminal conviction on their record. Only .08 percent of the total number of illegal aliens placed into removal proceedings were neither repeat or serial immigration law violators nor convicted of a serious crime. Even with that .08 percent of removals who were not caught crossing the border or being a serial immigration law violator or being convicted of serious crimes, Sessions’ staff notes that ICE officers who communicate with his office say that there is likely some other serious security risk for allowing them to stay in the country that is cause for their removal.
The findings stand in stark contrast to liberal calls on Obama to reduce deportations. Top Hispanic Democrats recently met with Obama at the White House recently about the issue, prompting an announcement about a review at the Department of Homeland Security about how to deport illegal aliens in a more “humane” fashion.
The report was enough to prompt a chorus of outrage from Sessions' like-minded colleagues in the House, who slammed the Obama administration for enacting amnesty by fiat.
“This is another clear warning to anyone who thinks immigration reform is possible under President Obama,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-LA). “He has repeatedly shown a willingness to enforce the law selectively, while looking the other way when it doesn't fit his agenda.”
“We can add immigration enforcement to the long list of areas where President Obama is selectively enforcing the law,” Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) told Breitbart News in response to Sessions’ new report. “This is part of a repeated pattern of overreach on the part of the Administration and shows their unwillingness to follow the law as it is written—not the law as they want it to be. It’s impossible for Congress to have an open and honest debate on border security when we can’t trust the President to do his job.”
“At least 99.92% of illegal immigrants and visa overstays without known crimes on their records did not face removal,” Sessions’ staff wrote. “Those who do not facially meet the Administration’s select ‘priorities’ are free to illegally work in the United States and to receive taxpayer benefits, regardless of whether or not they come into contact with immigration enforcement.”
Sessions’ staff cites August 2013 reports from an ICE raid at Danny’s Car Wash in Phoenix, Arizona, where many workers suspected of being in the country illegally were taken into custody but released shortly thereafter. “Workers suspected of being in the country illegally were taken into custody, but [ICE spokeswoman Amber] Cargile said they would be released within a matter of hours as long as they had no outstanding criminal records,” the Associated Press wrote then.
In another incident in Brownsville, Texas, a dozen illegal aliens were set free at a bus station after being taken into ICE custody because the federal immigration law agency said it “doesn’t consider the group a major threat to our safety.”
Sessions’ staff also cites a 2011 instance where authorities at ICE warned one of their officers he would be subject to disciplinary action if he followed through with his intent to enforce the law by issuing a Notice to Appear in court to an illegal alien “driving the vehicle of a known fugitive without a license.”
“The suspect, who had multiple misdemeanor offenses on his record, was released while the ICE officer was threatened with suspension,” Sessions’ staff wrote.
“The Obama administration’s subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law make enforcement of our immigration laws virtually impossible,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said in an email. “The law-abiding and taxpaying Americans who oppose this executive amnesty policy are paying the price with lower wages and fewer job opportunities.”
“At the same time President Obama hypocritically tells people he is for income equality, he violates federal immigration law, floods the labor market with wage-suppressing illegal aliens, and destroys the chance millions of hard-working Americans have of attaining self-sufficiency and the American dream,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said. “It is clear that President Obama believes it is more important to pander to voters based on race than it is to enforce immigration laws that protect American workers’ ability to earn a living wage.”
Brooks and Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar said the findings raise grave questions of constitutional law.
”Perhaps the most important role of the President is defined in Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, which states that the President ‘shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’” Gosar said in reaction to Sessions’ new report. “From President Obama’s capricious ObamaCare delays to his arbitrary refusal to enforce current immigration laws, his transgressions against the Constitution are egregious and must stop. The first step in restoring the rule of law is holding Attorney General Eric Holder – our nation’s chief law enforcement officer – accountable for allowing and participating in the Administration’s blatant disregard for the Constitution.”
“The President should be ashamed of himself for violating his oath of office, violating his Constitutional duty to enforce America’s laws, and making illegal aliens a higher priority than the livelihoods of hard-working Americans,” Brooks said.
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It’s tornado season, the springtime tempest, which means the Big Empty of the United States will get another cameo on the nation’s stage. Prepare for the annual montage of heartbreak and houses tossed to the wind, of schools scalped of their roofs and trailer parks reduced to rubble.
What most of us know about the heartland barely extends beyond Dorothy’s house in Kansas, or Sarah Palin pablum about “real Americans.” That’s a shame, because there are two big stories shaping the Great Plains — one of steroidal growth and disruption in the energy boom, the other of the slow death of small-town life. Incongruent as it seems, both are going on at the same time, in the same states.
The oil and natural gas bonanza has made housing in places like Minot, N.D., as competitive as rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan. Of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing metro areas last year, six were in the greater Great Plains, according to the Census Bureau. That includes Fargo and Bismarck in North Dakota and Odessa and Midland in Texas, for those of you seeking full employment in the industrial flatlands.
For all of that, a record one in three of the nation’s counties are dying off — more deaths than births. The emptying of America is happening in Maine and West Virginia, in Michigan, western Pennsylvania and upstate New York. But the most depopulated area is right down the midsection of the United States. An hour’s drive from a boomtown with a spaghetti tangle of pipelines is a ghost town with a grade school that hasn’t seen a kid in 50 years.
If you follow the journey of the befuddled old coot played by Bruce Dern in the movie “Nebraska,” from Billings, Mont., to Madison County, Neb., you go through this landscape of the vanishing. It’s a place of lonely bars and empty diners, of crowded cemeteries and Main Streets where a dogs sleep away the afternoon. In Phelps, Frontier, Gosper or Gage counties, all in Nebraska, there are fewer people now than there were 110 years ago. Farther north and east, a majority of Michigan counties lost population last year.
No amount of homilies to a bygone age will bring people back to these little farm towns on the prairie. More than ever, we are an urban nation — at least three-fourths of the people reside in areas matching that designation — even in the Midwest.
The impulse is either to write off the dying counties as flyover country and a buffalo commons, or to further turn them into a vast oil- and gas-producing zone. But there are other ways to a livable (and that overused word “sustainable”) tomorrow. This future is just below ground level, and at the border’s edge: water and immigration.
The water is the Ogallala Aquifer, a great lake beneath parts of eight states, with enough volume to flood the entire United States in a foot of ancient liquid. And while that sounds like a lot of fresh water, it’s disappearing, because of heavy irrigation. At the current rate, 70 percent of the aquifer will be depleted by 2060, according to a study released last year by Kansas State University.
Oil may seem like the most valuable commodity of the American midsection, but it’s not. Take away water from the Ogallala and you take away life itself. Depopulation, slow now, would accelerate, even beyond the Dust Bowl exodus of the 1930s. This is not idle speculation. Even those in the fact-denial camp of climate change, people who get their science from Rush Limbaugh, know that the Ogallala is being sucked dry. Shallower parts of the aquifer are now empty in parts of the Texas Panhandle.
We can’t make water. But we can slow down the rate at which we use it. The solution would involve sacrifice, and resting croplands that are now saturated with water drawn through straws in the Ogallala. The mess of state and local laws makes a single remedy — say, from Congress — all but impossible. It will take the people who live in the area now and use its water — applying piecemeal conservation but on a broad scale, similar to what is now done with soil conservation districts — to make sure there is life for their grandchildren.
The other resource is people. Without immigrants, many of them illegal, huge parts of the prairie would be left with nothing but the old and dying. “Please come here,” said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, after the census report on depopulation was released last year. “Immigrants are innovators, entrepreneurs, they’re making things happen.”
In Snyder’s Republican Party, that kind of talk can get you in trouble if you don’t also follow it with a hateful blast at illegals. Look at what happened to Jeb Bush last week. He said many undocumented immigrants come to America as “an act of love” and “an act of commitment” to their families. His comments were thoughtful and truthful. But judging by the reaction among fellow Republicans, you would think he just said something nice about President Obama. Like it or not, immigrants are the only positive population dynamic at play in hundreds of dying counties.
In a year’s time or less, the men and women who want to be the next president will troop out to Iowa, for an inordinate amount of time. The press will parse every poll, deconstruct every gaffe. Seventy of Iowa’s 99 counties are losing people, but you won’t hear anything about that on cable’s news wasteland. So, which is worse: a heartland in trouble, or a system where the big issues — water, land and new blood — are not even part of a democracy’s most important contest?
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POTH reporting is like a bad dream where a bunch of scattered images are thrown together but make up no useful story.
"We can’t make water." Actually not true. Water is a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion. We are making it at twice the rate of carbon dioxide: CH4 +2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O. And we don't destroy water by 'using' it. We are moving it around in a closed system, by drinking, flushing, irrigating. Who is he calling fact-deniers? What does any of this have to do with immigration; immigrants could move there, not work, and collect food stamps?
Not mentioned, agriculture now uses larger machines and employs fewer people. Oops.
Where do you live that you see 36 states through tornado coverage on television? As (denier) Rush L said after a Republican election victory, the NY Times will have to send foreign correspondents out there to see what is happening. This is what they came up with.
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This title is remarkable.
""Immigration is a "GOP" problem.""
No its not! It is a problem for the entire country!
******Jeb Bush remarks expose GOP's immigration problem
Associated Press
By MICHAEL J. MISHAK 22 hours ago
MIAMI (AP) — With three little words, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush set off a fury this week that served as a potent reminder of how difficult the immigration issue remains for his possible presidential ambitions and the Republican Party.
Jeb Bush Remark Could Be 2016 Problem CBS Dallas Fort Worth (RSS)
Immigration reform 'love': Did Jeb Bush comment change shape of 2016 race? Christian Science Monitor
Jeb Bush says illegal immigration often 'an act of love' Reuters
Jeb Bush: Is GOP elite drafting him for 2016? Christian Science Monitor
[$$] William Galston: The Jeb Bush and Tea Party Divide The Wall Street Journal
An early GOP establishment favorite, Bush has long urged his fellow Republicans to show more compassion for those who enter the country illegally. But when he described illegal immigration in an interview as an "act of love" by people hoping to provide for their families, the backlash from his own party was swift and stinging.
Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho accused Bush of "pandering." Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and House Speaker John Boehner said the country should enforce the "rule of law." And conservative commentator Michelle Malkin created a new Twitter hashtag: #CancelJebBush.
In a speech Thursday night to an annual gathering of Connecticut Republicans, Bush noted the negative response to his remarks but said he sees no conflict between enforcing the law and "having some sensitivity to the immigrant experience."
Some of the party's most powerful insiders and financiers are concerned immigration could define the coming nominating contest in the way it did in 2012. Like Bush, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was jeered when he implied that his rivals were heartless if they opposed a law that lets some children of undocumented immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges.
The 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, took a hard line and advocated "self-deportation" for those here illegally. He won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, the lowest portion for a Republican in 16 years.
"The worst thing that can happen to a political party is not for voters to decide they don't like you," said Alex Castellanos, a GOP consultant and former Romney adviser. "It's for voters to decide you don't like them, and that's where the Republican Party is right now."
The Republican National Committee has urged the GOP to embrace an immigration overhaul, but comprehensive legislation remains stalled in Congress. Action is unlikely in an election year with high stakes. All 435 House seats, and 36 in the Senate, are on state ballots. Republicans need to gain only six Senate seats to win majority control from Democrats. The political calculus makes the GOP's core base of voters critical, so House Republicans want to avoid an immigration fight that could alienate them. But some establishment Republicans say the delay threatens the long-term future of the GOP.
"It's going to kill the Republican Party," said Al Hoffman, a Republican megadonor who chaired George W. Bush's presidential campaigns.
He and others argue the GOP needs a nominee with a "Nixon-goes-to-China mentality"— in which the party leader takes an audacious, if not popular, step— on issues such as immigration. They suggest that's necessary in part to peel away some Hispanic voters from Democrats in 2016.
For Bush, the debate is personal. His wife, Columba, was born and grew up in Mexico. The two met while Bush was an exchange student there; she is now an American citizen.
On Sunday, in an interview with Fox News before an audience at the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, Bush said immigrants who enter the country illegally should, in fact, pay a penalty. But he added that he viewed such a violation as "a different kind of crime."
"Yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony," he said. "It's an act of love."
Hispanics are a crucial voting bloc in an increasing number of swing-voting states, from Florida to Colorado to Nevada.
Some see a new opportunity for the GOP to appeal to Latinos, many of whom have soured on President Barack Obama because of his administration's record-setting number of deportations.
"Hispanics are eager to hear from a leader in the Republican Party talk about immigration in the way that Jeb Bush talked about it," said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Hispanic civil rights organization. "Some may argue that a bold country-first stance on immigration cannot win the nomination, but what is certain is that a divisive, anti-immigration stance does not win the presidency in a nation of immigrants."
In contrast to the 2012 nomination fight, most of the potential 2016 presidential contenders have signaled support for some kind of immigration overhaul. But they remain deeply divided over whether legislation should offer a pathway to citizenship for those living here illegally. After the Senate passed a bipartisan measure last year that would do just that, the barrage of conservative criticism virtually silenced the GOP's most outspoken immigration advocates, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The furor over Bush's remarks shows the potential perils of picking up the issue, especially in the early voting states that play an outsized role in choosing party nominees. Bush's "act of love" comment was pithy and provocative enough to stir deep discomfort in a party still searching for a single message on the subject. And it challenged GOP officials to disagree without further alienating a voter group they're trying to attract.
"We appreciate the compassion in the statement, but the best compassion you can show a people is to uphold justice," said Tamara Scott, a RNC committeewoman and prominent Christian conservative in Iowa.
Bush, the two-term, Spanish-speaking former governor of a state with a booming Hispanic population, has struggled to articulate his views in a party that has changed dramatically since the last time he ran for office in 2002.
Last year, Bush released a book that championed legal status — but not citizenship— for illegal immigrants, seemingly contradicting his past statements. But in recent months, he has been giving speeches around the country that often include a full-throated defense of an immigration overhaul. Speaking at a recent financial advisers' conference in Florida, Bush lauded immigrants as "the risk takers," arguing that they embody the entrepreneurial spirit of America and invigorate the country's economy.
Katon Dawson, a South Carolina Republican strategist and Perry adviser, said Bush is wise to detail his nuanced positions so that potential rivals can't easily define his immigration stance if he decides to run.
"Look, the word 'amnesty' is a killer" in a Republican primary, Dawson said. "So you've got to take every chance you get to explain yourself ahead of the campaign."
___
Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Susan Haigh in Stamford, Conn., contributed to this report*****
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BACK ANY CANDIDATE YOU WANT AS LONG AS IT'S ONE OF THESE THREE
April 16, 2014
As those of you who follow my hate mail know, I am opposed to running untested candidates against perfectly good incumbent Republican senators this election cycle. It will be a long time before Republicans have as good a year as this to win a Senate majority.
Unfortunately, we have idiots doing the idiot thing, pretending to be "tea partiers," while challenging sitting Republican senators over fairly minor ideological differences.
Anyone opposing an incumbent Republican for any reason other than amnesty is a fraud or an idiot. Right now, immigration and Obamacare are the only things that matter. Since every Republican voted against Obamacare, that leaves only immigration.
Conservatives who ignore amnesty while carping about the debt ceiling, TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the Internet tax bill or Benghazi are too stupid to help their country.
Suppose the Senate had passed a bill that would cut Texas out of the Union? Would that get your attention, fake tea partiers? Without Texas, Republicans would immediately lose 38 electoral votes, two senators and 24 members of Congress. (Democrats would lose only 12 House members.)
How would you rate the prospect of repealing Obamacare if Republicans could: never win another presidential election; never win another majority in the House; and never again win a Senate majority? Oh, and how does the expression "President Nancy Pelosi" grab you?
Would that bill be slightly more important to you than the Internet tax bill?
Well, guess what? Amnesty will produce the exact same result as losing the entire state of Texas. In fact, merely continuing our current immigration policies will achieve the same result; it will just take a little longer. (But wow, I'm sure glad we got "Octomom"! What a boon she's been to our American way of life.)
The population of Texas is about 27 million. With amnestied illegal aliens allowed to bring in their cousins and brothers-in-law under our insane "family reunification" policies, the 12 million illegal immigrants already here will quickly balloon to 30 million new voters -- who happen to break 8-to-2 for the Democrats.
Consequently, before running off and staging a primary fight against a sitting Republican, anyone who truly loved his country would ask himself the following three questions:
(1) Does the incumbent Republican support amnesty? And by the way, "Supports amnesty" includes anyone who says one of the following:
-- "We already have de facto amnesty"
-- "What are you going to do -- round up 12 million illegals?"
-- "They're doing jobs American just won't do," or
-- "Our housekeeper, Lupe, is like family."
(2) Is a primary challenge unlikely to flip a Republican seat to the Democrats?
(3) Am I fairly certain the challenger is smart enough to avoid the (apparently) rocky shoals of being asked about abortion in the case of rape?
There are at least three Republican primary candidates who pass this test with flying colors. They're smart, attractive, articulate and unlikely to ever use the phrase "legitimate rape."
No incumbent Republican senators are in jeopardy -- the one Senate race is for a seat currently held by a Democrat, and the other two races are for House seats in reasonably safe Republican districts.
Finally, all three races represent the battle at the heart of the Republican Party: Are we the party of soulless businessmen who care nothing about the country but only want higher profits for themselves? Or are we the party of middle-class and working-class Americans?
If you don't think the Republican Party should speak exclusively for Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the Chamber of Commerce, then you have to support:
-- Dr. Greg Brannon, running in the Republican primary against foreign-labor cheerleader Thom Tillis, to challenge the Democratic senator from North Carolina, Kay Hagan. (Primary: May 6)
-- Frank Roche, running against the lying, amnesty-supporting Renee Ellmers in North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District. (Primary: May 6)
-- Dave Brat, economics professor, challenging the amnesty-addled Eric Cantor in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. (Primary: June 10)
State legislator Tillis championed a bill making it easier for North Carolina employers to hire foreign workers. Instead of temporary guest workers coming in for a few months a year to do farm work, Tillis' bill expanded "farm labor" to "all industries," and expanded "seasonal" to "nine months."
This wasn't an idle vote cast thoughtlessly: After the Republican governor vetoed Tillis' job-killing bill, Tillis led the legislature to override his veto.
Tillis has been well repaid by business interests. North Carolinians can repay him for driving down their wages on May 6.
Frank Roche, who is challenging two-term incumbent Renee Ellmers, speaks more knowledgeably about immigration than almost any sitting member of Congress. (After two decades in international banking in New York, he moved to North Carolina and became an economics professor and talk-radio host -- so he can talk.)
Roche has this crazy idea that a nation's immigration policies should be good for the citizens of that country. (Somebody get this guy in leather restraints!)
By contrast, his opponent, Rep. Ellmers, has dedicated herself to supporting the needs of her rich donors by being strident, rude and utterly cliched on the subject of immigration.
Naturally, she is supported by Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg -- because who cares about the needs of North Carolina workers more than a Silicon Valley one-hit wonder seeking cheap foreign labor? (I'm sure Zuckerberg has the very best interests of the country at heart.)
Every exchange Ellmers has about immigration seems to end in a blizzard of shouts and insults. After failing to tear at the heartstrings of talk radio's Laura Ingraham with tales of rich farmers who need cheap foreign labor, Ellmers shouted that Ingraham was "ignorant" and "emotional."
About a week later, Ellmers denounced a constituent who criticized her on immigration, telling him that he didn't have "any damn facts" and was full of "hatred and vitriol."
(Zuckerberg apparently pays his politicians better than he pays his computer programmers.)
For the cherry on top, both Ellmers and Tillis go around claiming they're opposed to amnesty -- while doing everything they can to sneak foreign workers into North Carolina.
So at least they know amnesty is not popular with voters. Here's an idea! Instead of running candidates who have to lie about their position on immigration, let's run Republicans who actually agree with the voters!
Sucking up to businessmen may have brought Tillis and Ellmers a lot of campaign cash, but it's unlikely to help them with North Carolina's population, which, by the way, is 22 percent black. Recall that Mitt Romney won an astounding 20 percent of the young black male vote by being the toughest presidential candidate on immigration in 50 years. (I guess they do want the jobs "Americans just won't do.")
Dave Brat, an economics professor like Roche, is challenging Rep. Eric Cantor: Maniacal Amnesty Supporter. Cantor says "immigration reform could be an economic boon to this country."
You don't have to be an economics professor to know that bringing in millions of workers is not "an economic boon" to the workers already here. (If only we could bring in millions of workers to compete for Cantor's job.)
Brat responded to Cantor's baby-talk, saying immigration "lowers wages, adds to unemployment, and the taxpayer pays the tab for any benefits to folks coming in."
Republicans aren't at much risk of losing any of these seats, with or without primary fights. But we'll lose them all within a decade if Republicans like Tillis, Ellmers and Cantor aren't stopped.
Brannon, Roche and Brat are the candidates true patriots should support with everything they have.
COPYRIGHT 2014 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375919/true-opponents-immigration-reform-victor-davis-hanson
...
The two extreme positions of the Left and Right probably have little public support — on the one hand, blanket amnesties and open borders, and on the other, deportation of all foreign nationals who reside here without legal authorization.
Polls show that most Americans want something in between.
Close the border. Allow entry only to those who have legal permission. Ensure that employers hire only those foreign nationals who have valid green cards. Permit those who have resided here for a while, who are without criminal records and are employed, to apply inside the U.S. for either a pathway to citizenship or legal residence.
Require that those residing here unlawfully pay a fine for breaking the law and wait in line until immigrants who followed the law are first processed. Reform legal immigration to make it ethnically blind and predicated on skill sets and education rather than on proximity to our borders or on family connections to those residing here unlawfully.
...
The obstacles to reform are not bogeymen who want to deport everyone, but the disingenuous who prefer to deport no one. The culprits are not mustachioed villains who want to close the border, but the more sophisticated who want it to stay wide open. And the real reactionaries are not those seeking to make ethnicity incidental to legal immigration, but those who want to ensure that it remains absolutely essential.
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Who could have seen this coming?
The Texas-Mexico border is being overrun by a surge of young illegal immigrants who are traveling alone.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/05/17/Texas-Mexico-Border-Level-4-Alert-Declared-by-Homeland-Security
... The large influxes of unaccompanied minor children are coming primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador
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They know Obama will grant amnesty. Either next year after this Nov election or before he leaves office.
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They know Obama will grant amnesty. Either next year after this Nov election or before he leaves office.
Yes, ownership of a country that has both assets and liabilities.
Doug's Dream Act:
Welcome to America. At the signing of this agreement you now are a voting citizen of a country that owes US$18 trillion in debt among 318 million US citizens, equal to about $60,000 per man, woman and child. If your extended family here is (let's say) 17 people and you accept this offer, then you are all now jointly and severally liable for 17 x 60,000 with your first monthly installment due at signing. You are now part owner of Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon and the largest Navy in the world. We suggest you use your vote in a way that protects these assets, grows jobs, keeps your future tax liability low, and holds the other 318 million accountable for their share of the debt too. If you decline, we understand and will charge you only for the immediate cost of your return travel. Good luck.
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They aren't coming here to be American. They're here to feast on what's available.
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I think you're being too broad brushed there GM. LOTS of illegals come for the right reasons.
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I like Doug's dream act.
But most immigrants illegal or not vote Democrat. They want the benefits. Except for many Florida Cubans and some Eastern European who were enslaved under Communism.
The rest see they can game a system for benefits and don't see the forest for the quick cash. All is asked in return is their vote.
They duly comply.
In conclusion, Doug's well thought out and correct dream act is more of a "dream" for Doug, me, and those of us who really believed in America as exceptional.
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I haven't the time this AM to review this site. Looks like it might give us more info on illegal immigration. A colleague told me he heard illegals commit crimes way out of proportion to their numbers but when I did a very quick search this AM I find one review titled something to the effect that their crimes are blown way out of proportion and another that says their crimes are quite scary. So finding the truth among the agendas is not easy. And of course no one is really counting anyway. The Feds under this WH can not be counted on to tell us the truth about what they at least really think is going on.
This might be helpful.
http://www.illegalimmigrationstatistics.org/
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I think you're being too broad brushed there GM. LOTS of illegals come for the right reasons.
Someone breaks into your house because they want to live there, could they have a right reason that would make it OK?
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Of course not, but that is a separate point.
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Invaders are invaders. I have yet to see an illegal that has anything but contempt for America.
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Then you need to get out and about more.
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If they respected this country, they'd come here legally. I see the low level cartel employees and at least one convicted sex offender who only spoke Spanish but couldn't read or write it.
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I'm all for defending our borders and our laws, but given my extensive travels in and studies about Mexico and living in LA (where my first job was as a private PI who had to track down lots of illegals) combined with my comfort in the Spanish language I feel like I speak from a better-informed-than-average POV and from the POV I would say that lots of illegals are not leeches or thugs-- they come here because they are fg desperate and want to feed their families. They work hard, harder than most Americans are willing to work under tougher conditions than most Americans are willing to tolerate and dream of becoming Americans. Yes we have to defend our borders and our laws, but these are not bad people; typically quite the contrary.
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The problem with arguing this out is that both sides are right. There is the logical / rule of law side: We are nothing if we are not a nation of laws, with borders, rules, citizenship that means something and enforcement. And there is the emotional / compassionate side. Every person Hispanic or at all connected with Hispanic community knows someone whose family and lives as they know it would be upending by real enforcement of existing law.
It defies logic that you can have a nation without borders and enforced laws.
It defies compassion and will lose elections if you promise to make neighborhood sweeps, break up families and make mass deportations of people connected, established and well-known in the community.
From the conservative side, if you don't have a rule of law, you don't have a nation. But if you get real tough on immigration, you will lose all elections and lose your nation. If you appease and say just this once for the umpteenth time, you also will lose all future elections and lose your country.
On the liberal side, if you grant everyone citizenship, they will vote for you and will have eternal power. Then you can run this nation into the ground, same as where they came from and you will have no nation as you knew it. Who cares about that; they stopped reading at eternal power.
Without at least the perception of compassion, you will lose all elections. That is why I respected Marco Rubio's attempt to get involved with tough bargaining to make whatever comes through next a better deal for the country. It didn't work out for him or for the process but it was an attempt to acknowledge and work with both sides of the conundrum.
One of the political problems with immigration is the same with state to state migration - people come in for the benefits of economic freedom and then vote the failed belief system of the place they left.
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Doug,
Beautifully summarized dilemma Conservatives are in. We are really boxed in. The left knows it so it is putting the pressure on this issue.
I will be absolutely shocked if Obama doesn't simply pardon everyone in the end. We see every day how he doesn't believe in America.
He is happy to give it away for his liberal agenda.
I agree with you Rubio's heart was in the right place.
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Please note my comments were directed at this by GM:
"They aren't coming here to be American. They're here to feast on what's available."
This IS overbroad and IMO unfair AND serves as ammunition for progressive calumnies , , ,
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The only reason I post this if because of this line:
" That was David Brat’s (that’s the guy who won) whole campaign: Cantor was a liberal who supported a path to citizenship for the swarthy illegals. (He didn’t say that, of course, at least the swarthy part.) Immigration reform is D-E-A-D. There is no chance the House will touch it. That means it’s dead for this Congress, which means that next Congress, the Senate would have to take the lead in passing it again."
Again the GOP allows the left media to control the way immigration is presented. This is not about just Latinos coming in from south of the border although they of course are the great bulk of illegals. Sure they are easier to spot. But their are plenty from Europe, Middle East, Africa, Caribbean, Asia who are not here legally as well. No matter where you come from we expect you to respect our laws. That includes residence laws too. The GOP has to make this clear. Of course like nitwits they don't and of course the Dems can more easily turn this into a racial issue. Which it is not. Whether for or against amnesty for 15 million people and later many of their relatives and the millions more who will come again it is an economic issue. It is about the money as always.
******By Michael Tomasky 10 hours ago The Daily Beast
Eric Cantor Loss Is an Earthquake
Here’s the thing: Eric Cantor did not fall asleep in this race. He spent around $5 million. He ran lots of TV ads. He knew this was going to be a close one. He campaigned. And he still got creamed.
And here’s the other thing: Cantor was not an enemy of the Tea Party. He was in fact the Tea Party’s guy in the leadership for much of the Barack Obama era. He carried the tea into the speaker’s office. And still he got creamed.
Creamed! Has a party leader ever lost a primary like this? Stop and take this in. Like any political journalist, I’m a little bit of a historian of this sort of thing, although I readily admit my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic. But I sure can’t think of anything. Tom Foley, the Democratic House speaker in the early 1990s, lost reelection while he was speaker, but that was in the general, to a Republican, which is a whole different ballgame. And he was the first sitting speaker to lose an election since…get this…1862! But a primary? The No. 2 man in the House, losing a primary?
So what happened here? Obviously, first, it’s about immigration. That was David Brat’s (that’s the guy who won) whole campaign: Cantor was a liberal who supported a path to citizenship for the swarthy illegals. (He didn’t say that, of course, at least the swarthy part.) Immigration reform is D-E-A-D. There is no chance the House will touch it. That means it’s dead for this Congress, which means that next Congress, the Senate would have to take the lead in passing it again. (The Senate’s passage of the current bill expires when this Congress ends.) And the Senate isn’t going to touch it in the next Congress, even if the Democrats hold on to the majority. Those handful of Republicans who backed reform last year will be terrified to do so. And it’s difficult to say when immigration reform might have another shot. Maybe the first two years of President Clinton’s second term. Maybe.
Second, the reports of the Tea Party’s death are…well, you know. Cantor’s loss is a huge disruption of the narrative that the Republican establishment had taken control this year. And throw in the coming Chris McDaniel-Thad Cochran runoff in the Mississippi Senate race, which many now expect Tea Partier McDaniel to win, and you have a narrative in which the Tea Party can say, “We’re still calling the shots.” Cantor also has spent the past couple of years talking about education, which, any Tea Party person knows, is code for black, city, unions. Other Republicans in the House won’t miss that message, and they won’t try to carve out any “interesting” legislative profiles for themselves.
Third, what does it mean for the country? Hard to say yet, but bad, surely. The House GOP wasn’t exactly ready to start cutting deals with Obama even with Cantor in the leadership. Now that he’s been beaten by a right-winger…no one, not a single Republican in the House will take a chance on anything. The legislative process, already shut down, will only be more so.
And Brat himself, fourth, is a star overnight. I’d hate to be his booker or scheduler. His Wednesday is going to be a roller-coaster ride from Rush Limbaugh to Fox to Laura Ingraham to who knows what. He is a hero to these people. Remember how Scott Brown attained wattage in 2009 by beating Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts? Brown was a major star then. Brat is going to make Brown look like a nameless session guitar player.
I’m sure there’s ramification five, six, seven, and eight that I’m not even thinking of right now. We’ll see. But this is an earthquake. One of the most shocking electoral nights in American history. Did I really say that? I did. It’s true. And it’s bad.
Related from The Daily Beast**********
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In the aftermath of Cantor:
“What’s the difference between Elvis and immigration reform in Congress? Immigration reform is definitely dead.”
If reform / amnesty is dead in Congress, and if Republicans take the Senate, what will the Commander in CHief with a pen and a phone do? Grant a Presidential pardon to every illegal alien living in this country.
If he does, does that mean citizenship?
Steven Hayward at Powerline:
Therefore, a modest suggestion: every GOP candidate—especially for the Senate—should force Democratic candidates on the record before the campaign on the question of how they would respond if President Obama uses his pardon power to grant amnesty to every illegal alien currently in the country. Get them on record now, ahead of the election.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/06/after-cantor.php
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"Immigration reform is definitely dead". Maybe maybe not.
In any case Obama is encouraging the hoards of future Democrat voters to pour into the country. And how convenient. The Dems will point the finger at the GOP saying "they blocked reform. It is their fault."
Obama clearly is fully intent on doing as much as he can to do his progressive bidding.
When we even hear left leaning Jeff Tobin admit there is a constitutional crises then we know at least a few more people are waking up to what we on this board have said even before this guy was elected in '08.
The damage is severe and will be really bad by the time he leaves power. We will have 15 million new legal residents and they will bring in more hoards.
Even if the GOP takes the Senate they will not have 60. Obama cannot be stopped. The Framers certainly did not intend this. Except maybe in wartime as "Commander in Chief". But now every excuse possible to use that keeps this guy going.
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"Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor allowing immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought to the United States as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college."
Allowing people who come here illegally serve in the military for citizenship? Talk about immoral.
Go to college? We will pay for all that. :cry:
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"Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor allowing immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought to the United States as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college."
Allowing people who come here illegally serve in the military for citizenship? Talk about immoral.
Go to college? We will pay for all that. :cry:
Agree, agree. And what would we need them for in the military. We already ended all wars.
51% of republicans and 63% (?) overall favor some path to citizenship. A very carefully drafted and enforced agreement could settle this and unlike Obamacare get both sides on board. But Dems negotiate in bad faith - and keep upping the ante by allowing another new influx.
Hillary Clinton: Cantor Opponent 'Ran Against Immigrants'
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-cantor-opponent-ran-against-immigrants-n128556
(No he didn't. He ran as a 10th amendment constitutional conservative: Powers not granted to the federal government belong to the States and the people.)
How did the new influx of illegals get past the 2006 fence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006
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The future of the Republican party or a party of smaller government will be bleak.
Who do you think is watching soccer? It ain't me. I am not a huge sports fan but I still hate watching soccer and would rather watch football, basketball, or baseball, or UFC. Probably even bowling or billiards. It appears that except for some Eastern Europeans who know what it is like to live under statism the majority of the rest wherever they are from have no problem with centralized government control.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-match-in-world-cup-sets-a-tv-record-1403034850
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The current border crisis proves that the 2006 fence law was not followed. This ongoing tragedy is caused by the President and Congress announcing they would like to make all illegal minors into US citizens, and it is enabled by the fact our borders are still porous.
The decline previously in illegal immigration was caused by the lack of opportunity here compared with faster growth rates south of the border. A no-growth, high unemployment economy is not an acceptable substitute for border security.
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http://m.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/illegal-aliens-nyc-will-get-municipal-ids-free-legal-representation
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The current border crisis has sunk the President's and his party's scheme on immigration flooding. Here is a rare case of someone mainstream saying aloud what should be obvious:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-27/immigration-reform-is-dead-obama-is-in-trouble
Minors are being dumped in this country as a consequence of the current policies and the announced intentions of this administration. The crisis proves the border is not secure, which was a precondition for almost all of the amnesty negotiations that have now stalled. Secure the border first.
It is a little like hearing the argument that al Qaida and terror groups are on the run while they over-run us in Benghazi and a host of other countries. In this case, those in congress who argued the border is secure - enough, did so in bad faith. Those in the Executive Branch who say it failed to carry out the law.
The perpetual immigration deal offered to conservatives is much like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown and setting it up again and pulling it away again, over and over and over. Each time she says she won't pull it away this time. In this story, we are Charlie Brown and we didn't want to kick the ball in the first place, just trying to be good sports - while playing with lying weasels.
I favored pursuing a "comprehensive agreement". But that is not possible when key people do not negotiate in good faith.
The current crisis proves what everyone already knew. Our borders are not secure.
We already passed a recent law requiring the securing of the border. It was called the "Secure Fence Act of 2006". It passed the Senate by 80-19. That included a lot of Republicans. Like healthcare, it left discretion with the secretary of the department, homeland security in this case, to say the border is secure or not with or without a fence. Leaving discretion does not mean cabinet secretaries can lie to the American people or lie under oath in front of the congressional oversight committees.
Why should the next law be passed before the last law is implemented? Right now Republicans, especially in the House, are accused of doing nothing but that is not true. Republicans and responsible people everywhere are patiently waiting for the Executive Branch to do it's job.
Now that we know the 2006 law is being ignored, why not take appropriate actions. Assuming the President is too big to impeach, why not impeach each cabinet official who refuses to upholding and implement the law. Like Nixon's staff, one by one they can resign, tell the truth, or face impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate.
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Michael Ramirez illustrates what the mainstream media will not put into words:
(http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2014/07/RAMclr-070814-amnesty-IBD.gif.cms_.gif)
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?id=707625
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Since the administration is hiding information, working this behind the scenes, blocking congress and won't tell the truth about this crisis involving minors dumped inside our borders by the tens of thousands, we might as well assume the worst while we look for the evidence to prove it. They know these kids are coming and are linking them up with relatives here, illegals also. We may as well assume they are arranging this surge with the same level of thinking that brought us Fast and Furious.
They are uniting undocumented children with undocumented families with the "promise" that the illegals escort them faithfully to their deportation hearing. Who respects our deportation laws more than illegal aliens?
The circumstances indicate that the administration is a co-conspirator if not the designer of the operation, as they were with Fast and Furious.
This could be the scandal of all scandals, the one that actually offends Democrats and The Media (sorry for the redundancy), not just conservatives and Republicans.
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You've got to create the crisis so you can not let it go to waste.
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President Obama's Border Absurdity
Originally published at CNN.com
President Barack Obama is in Texas today.
Texas is the center of the current crisis at the border. From Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, thousands upon thousands of children are pouring into the United States.
This flood of foreign children is not a problem of border security. They are not sneaking across the border illegally. Under the Feinstein Amendment of 2008, unaccompanied minors from these countries can present themselves at a legal border crossing, claim to be political refugees and seek asylum.
The argument on the left is that these three countries have violent gangs and therefore we have a moral obligation to take in their children. One Democratic senator told me that the real key was to end violence in those three countries.
Given last weekend's 82 shot and 16 killed in Chicago, I wanted to ask that senator how he thought his policies would be more successful in Central America than they have been in our third-largest city.
It is in this context of the liberal fantasy -- that we owe the world everything, we can do nothing to protect ourselves and everyone else is innocent while we Americans somehow have an extra burden to take care of their problems -- that you have to view the President's current actions.
The President's trip highlights vividly the failure of Obama-ism.
It is clear he wants our money.
He is doing two big Democratic fundraisers in Texas this week to get political money.
He has just sent up a request to Congress for an additional $3.7 billion to address the immigration crisis on the southern border -- the majority of which would go toward caring for the unaccompanied minors crossing the border. Still, this request is larger than the entire U.S. Border Patrol budget in 2013.
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, on CNN's "Crossfire" Tuesday night, demolished the President's proposal.
"That's $60,000 per child that we're going to spend, in emergency money," he pointed out. (Parents and students trying to get through college should contemplate that number.) "That shows just how incompetent we [are] -- we can't do that for three or four thousand per child?...If we can't do that, the Border Patrol is as bad as the VA."
"For $8 million," he pointed out later in the show, "we can put them all on a first-class seat back to their homes."
Actually, he exaggerated a little bit. A business class flight from San Antonio to Guatemala City is about $450. Lowest economy ticket is $318. For the 60,000 young people entering the United States this year under the Feinstein Amendment, flying home commercially would be in the range of $18 to $26 million plus the cost of staffing etc. So the Coburn plan might cost (once staff, etc. is included) in the $40 million to $80 million range.
That means, of course, that the Coburn plan would save at least $3.62 billion over the Obama plan.
Why is the Obama plan so expensive? Simple. Left-wing Democrats wake up every morning knowing the answer is bigger government and more money. They just don't know what the question is.
The border crisis is a new opportunity for Obama to create even bigger government, spending even more of our children's money. In a rational world it would be an absurdity, but this is the world of Obama and Sen. Harry Reid, and nothing involving more spending and bigger government is absurd to them. Coburn also noted that the current scale of the border crisis would disappear if Congress would simply repeal the Feinstein Amendment.
Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the House Judiciary Committee also noted that there are a number of executive actions the President could take which would end the open borders for foreign children policy. The Obama administration policy of "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" was an executive decision to begin with (and one of questionable legality). The President certainly has the authority to enforce immigration law.
The Obama policy instead assumes the border will remain open and he wants to use taxpayer money to fund the lengthy process of getting children from Central America involved in the American legal system. It is a great excuse to have the government hire even more lawyers.
House Republicans should immediately repeal the Feinstein Amendment and call on the President to do everything within his power to stop this rush on our borders. Let's see how long Democratic senators up for reelection can allow Reid to bottle up a solution to the flood of foreign children coming into our country.
Three cheers for Senator Coburn and a loud "no" to President Obama is the right response to this mess.
Your Friend,
Newt
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http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44047.html
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/republicans-seek-to-pair-immigration-funding-with-changes-to-2008-law-1404937051?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/republicans-seek-to-pair-immigration-funding-with-changes-to-2008-law-1404937051?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
Like laws have any impact on what Obama does...
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/14/EXCLUSIVE-Sessions-Warns-All-Of-Congress-Obama-s-New-Immigration-Strategy-Threatens-Foundation-Of-Our-Constitutional-Republic?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+15%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20140715_m121344458_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+15%2C+2014&utm_term=More
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/14/EXCLUSIVE-Sessions-Warns-All-Of-Congress-Obama-s-New-Immigration-Strategy-Threatens-Foundation-Of-Our-Constitutional-Republic?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+15%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20140715_m121344458_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+15%2C+2014&utm_term=More
Fundamental transformation.
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Well of course he does. It's been obvious since almost day one. What does anyone think the conspiracy to allow as many to get here is all about. Bring in as many hordes as possible and then pardon the whole bunch.
Oh he just incompetent, he is really a good man, he is just taken by surprise, fools still proclaim............
He is not bored. He is just sitting back and letting events unfold and waiting for the best political moment where he can with his actions (pardon), and not words, say F*Y* to half of America.
Just like he did with his birth certificate.
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http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/07/15/
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/07/16/
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second post
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/Jose-Antonio-Vargas-immigrant-advocate-arrested.html?emc=edit_th_20140716&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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http://nj1015.com/tags/illegal-immigrants/
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/16/Ted-Cruz-No-Legislation-On-Border-Crisis-Unless-It-Ends-Obama-s-Lawless-Immigration-Executive-Orders?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+17%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20140717_m121376408_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+17%2C+2014&utm_term=More
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https://www.billwhittle.com/firewall/where-do-you-live-mark-zuckerberg
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I don't believe most illegals are coming here just because of the reason they are escaping drug gangs but....
What a racket for the drug cartels! Obviously all these people are not storming through Mexico without the help of drug cartels.
Think of it. They terrorize people in their countries then turn around and offer them asylum in the US, take 5 grand or God knows how much, then ship them up and dump them in the US while raping them along the way, enlisting some into their gangs, selling some of them, making some foot soldiers, maybe some work as drug mules and think of the money they make.
What is $5,000 times just 100,000? It comes to 500,000,000!!!!
And the Democrat party is complicit in this for the cynical reason of more Democrat votes.
How *f" disgusting this all is.
We are funding drug cartels. I mean we are already doing most of it already with all the *F* drug dealers and users in the US.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/382679/illiberal-immigration-reform-victor-davis-hanson
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second post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/18/two-third-illegal-immigrant-children-okd-asylum/
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I don't believe most illegals are coming here just because of the reason they are escaping drug gangs but....
What a racket for the drug cartels! Obviously all these people are not storming through Mexico without the help of drug cartels.
Think of it. They terrorize people in their countries then turn around and offer them asylum in the US, take 5 grand or God knows how much, then ship them up and dump them in the US while raping them along the way, enlisting some into their gangs, selling some of them, making some foot soldiers, maybe some work as drug mules and think of the money they make.
What is $5,000 times just 100,000? It comes to 500,000,000!!!!
And the Democrat party is complicit in this for the cynical reason of more Democrat votes.
How *f" disgusting this all is.
We are funding drug cartels. I mean we are already doing most of it already with all the *F* drug dealers and users in the US.
You're mistaken about that. When someone enters Mexico illegally and we're out on patrol, they have a dread fear of talking to anyone.
The cartels might be making some money off of them at the northern border (and they are), but the robberies, rapes, kidnappings, selling of body organs, and murders of people who don't even exist on paper, make a target for the cartels that's just too good to pass up.
I've been out on patrol and had them run in fear of what I or others would do, and we wanted nothing other than to talk to them.
The cartel knows who they are because they stand at intersections washing windows, and are easily picked out due to their appearance and accents, and are then forced to work as assassins for them, almost always meeting a gruesome end.
No... the cartel is not helping them so they can make $3,000 - $5,000, hopefully getting them across the border, so they can then store them 50 to a room, until they can wait for their family members to pay up.
You said "they"· (the cartels) terrorize them in their own country, shipping them up, and that simply isn't what happens. The people that I have seen going north with an intention to cross the border, are from here, some had jobs, and they just decided they wanted to make more.
Other's had no jobs and decided they wanted to eat.
Others from central America? I can't say. They lie so much when we talk to them that it's difficult to figure out what happened, and with the common knowledge of them being raped or being forced to serve in something that will get them killed, it isn't the cartels alluring them with a promise to ferry them across for 5000 dollars that they don't have.
Take a look across the bridge that enters Tijuana... all that dirt you see in the wash, all the crosses posted on the fence on the road to the airport...each one either broke or dead... no... the cartels aren't making their money there. They make it off of drugs and weapons and politicians on both sides of the fence.
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Thank you for your clarification from the front lines. So who is helping these people over the border?
Non cartel opportunists?
Or are most just hitching rides across the journey from Central America and Mexico?
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Thank you for your clarification from the front lines. So who is helping these people over the border?
Non cartel opportunists?
Or are most just hitching rides across the journey from Central America and Mexico?
You bet. They come across the border in the south on foot. I've been there and it's very easy to cross if you can get to it. The border on the Guatemalan side is crawling with Kabiles (very bad ass Guat. spec forces), due to the drugs from Columbia and weapons from here. On our side, we have Marines, Army and Feds everywhere, but as for the border and the jungle, crossing it isn't that hard. Traversing the length of Mexico on the other hand, is very difficult.
They get on board a train where several members of Mara Salva Trucha routinely rob, beat, and rape them, but some Mexican people give the sojourners water and food. They are literally dead broke, and have almost nothing.
I'm not illegal alien friendly at all, viewing it as leaving one's country in search of wealth and basically ditching your own people for an easier life.
I will say though, they are truly broke, and where they get 3 to 5 grand other than family members living on the other side is beyond me.
Even working here in Mexico as a member of a Mexican general's personal guard, I make exactly 11,600 pesos a month plus travel bonuses of up to 7000 pesos depending on what states we are working in, and I'm pretty well paid considering the norm of what Mexicans make, so someone coming here illegally, washing windows (and I've hit them up because many of them do work for the cartels, tracking our movements and drugs) make about 100 pesos a day.
Every single interrogation we've conducted, unless they were hitmen, the lookouts and drug dealers at street level make 5000 pesos every 15 days, which still is peanuts.
The cartel at the border runs everything because they'll flat out kill any competition, but the amount of people that actually have that type of cash when they get there, almost nonexistent... the cartels, gangs, or even authorities, have relieved them of any money they might have had.
If you have ever seen a Guatemalan or Salvadorenean woman in the States, pay close attention to them. You will find them to be very cold and silent in comparison to Mexican women that have gone to the states. It's because every single one of them from Guatemala or El Salvador has been raped while crossing Mexico, and I mean every single one of them...sometimes the men too.
Illegals aren't welcome here in Mexico, even less than the United States, and Mexico is racist as hell, much more so than the Black and White bickering in the States, but it isn't politically correct to report that there.
No non cartel opportunists.
Every one crossing Mexico going to the north is dead broke.
The hypocrisy between governments and Mexicans and others in the state in terms of national policy and racism is staggering.
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According to the Washington Post, “Nearly a year before President Obama declared a humanitarian crisis on the border, a team of experts arrived at the Fort Brown patrol station in Brownsville, Tex., and discovered a makeshift transportation depot for a deluge of foreign children. Thirty Border Patrol agents were assigned in August 2013 to drive the children to off-site showers, wash their clothes and make them sandwiches. As soon as those children were placed in temporary shelters, more arrived. An average of 66 were apprehended each day on the border and more than 24,000 cycled through Texas patrol stations in 2013.”
“In a 41-page report to the Department of Homeland Security, the team from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) raised alarms about the federal government’s capacity to manage a situation that was expected to grow worse. The researchers’ observations were among the warning signs conveyed to the Obama administration over the past two years as a surge of Central American minors has crossed into south Texas illegally.”
That means the administration was informed about the coming invasion as early as 2012 – of course at that time, there was an election to win.
So could it be that Barack Hussein Obama was deliberately and willfully negligent in the discharge of his duties to protect the American people and the sovereignty of our Constitutional Republic? Did Obama violate Article 4, Section 4 of the US Constitution; “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion?”
There's more disturbing evidence that this immigrant invasion was planned and anticipated by the Obama administration as early as 2012 http://allenbwest.com/2014/07/evidence-immigrant-invasion-planned-expected/
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DDF writes,
"Mexico is racist as hell, much more so than the Black and White bickering in the States, but it isn't politically correct to report that there."
What are the racial groups in Mexico? You mean light skin Mexicans vs darker Indians?
What is the reason so many are coming across now? This cannot be without complicit help from US amnesty groups and I don't believe for one second Bama didn't see this coming and is not encouraging on different levels.
Your take?
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Deportations Give Migrants (Marc: a.k.a. "illegal aliens") Cold Feet
Fewer Minors Are Apprehended at Border; Obama to Meet With Central American Leaders
By Laurence Iliff and Laura Meckler
July 23, 2014 7:55 p.m. ET
U.S. agents take undocumented immigrants (MARC: a.k.a. "illegal aliens") into custody on Tuesday near Falfurrias, Texas. Since October, a wave of unaccompanied minors has surged across the Rio Grande. Getty Images
ARRIAGA, Mexico—Esther Vasquez arrived in this dusty town in southern Mexico on a recent day to jump a freight train with her young son in hopes of eventually making it into the U.S. She said she hadn't been deterred by dangers, even after she and her 10-year-old son Oscar were briefly kidnapped by a Central American gang.
But now, Ms. Vazquez isn't sure the journey is worthwhile, thanks to the rapid spread of news that the U.S. is speedily deporting undocumented Central American families. A rise in deportations in the past two weeks anchor a broader international effort to stem the flood of child migrants across the Rio Grande that has spawned a humanitarian crisis and a U.S. political brawl over immigration.
"People are now telling me that things have changed," Ms. Vasquez said, leaving her uncertain whether to press ahead or return home to La Ceiba on Honduras's Atlantic coast.
Her cold feet come as the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the Rio Grande Valley, the most popular crossing point, has dropped sharply in recent weeks, U.S. officials say. In mid-June, an average of about 300 children were apprehended daily. Last week, fewer than 100 migrant minors were detained a day, the Department of Homeland Security said. Administration officials said it wasn't clear whether the trend would continue, and that factors such as weather could be at play.
President Barack Obama is meeting with the presidents of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala on Friday to discuss ways to stem the crisis, including the thorny question of how to repatriate tens of thousands of youngsters to their violence-torn countries without putting them in harm's way back home.
Meanwhile, House Republicans on Wednesday recommended changing a 2008 anti-human-trafficking law that limits deportations of minors, while saying they would back some of the $3.7 billion in emergency funding requested by the White House to deal with the child migrants. But Senate Democrats are opposed to changing the law. The standoff shows no sign of abating, putting the spending request in jeopardy.
For months, the administration has struggled to get on top of the crisis, which has seen more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors flooding in the U.S. since last October, possibly lured by a 2008 law that gives certain migrant children more legal rights than adults.
Children are typically reunited with relatives already in the U.S. while they await a ruling on their status, which can take years.
Smugglers, including drug gangs that run migrant routes through Central America and Mexico, have drummed up business by highlighting that leniency, according to migrants, aid groups and some Central American officials. Many suspect that has contributed to the surge in crossings.
Now, the U.S. government is busy sending the opposite message, including an ad campaign in Central America that warns would-be migrants of the dangers of their journey toward the American dream.
"We want to make sure that they understand and communicate to their citizenry that parents in their country should not entrust their children in the hands of criminals to make the dangerous journey to the border" with the U.S., White House press secretary Josh Earnest said this week. "The reason for that is quite simple…even if those children survive that long, dangerous journey, they will not be welcomed into this country with open arms."
Despite the very recent drop in the flow of migrants, there are still daunting issues to be tackled. The expedited deportations that began last week so far have been limited to children who arrived with adults. Congress would have to change the 2008 law, or significantly increase court resources, to speed deportations of Central American unaccompanied minors.
The White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans say they are reluctant to send children back to unsafe conditions at home, and they want assurances from the Central American countries that they will improve their repatriation processes.
"If we're going to return them, we want to be sure it's done humanely, that we're not just dropping them off at the border," said Rep. Kay Granger (R., Texas), who heads a GOP working group on the crisis. On a recent congressional visit to the region, she said she was impressed by a repatriation center in Honduras, but worried that it wasn't big enough to handle the expected volume of children.
Last month, the Obama administration funneled $9.6 million to the region to improve repatriation in all three countries, including expanding centers and providing the returned migrants with expanded services, and the White House has requested additional funding from Congress.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told Time magazine this week that he has been warned by U.S. officials to expect a big wave of deportations. "They have said they want to send them on a massive scale," Mr. Hernández is quoted as saying.
For its part, Honduras is expanding the capacity of its reception centers in San Pedro Sula, where most Hondurans are now being repatriated, and developing programs to monitor the minors once they return to their hometowns. The government also is planning to send money to local mayors to monitor the progress and well-being of returned children, and boost their long-term prospects.
The leaders of all three countries agreed last week to develop a regional strategy to ensure the returned minors' safety and to find educational and jobs strategies to keep them at home. But that is a far cry from tackling the difficult conditions the children will return to, including violence and scant economic opportunity.
"The returnees will face the same vulnerability as we all do," said Isis Miranda, who directs a Roman Catholic Church-linked community center and high school in Chamelecon, a San Pedro Sula suburb that is one of Honduras's most dangerous communities.
For now, a crackdown north of the U.S.-Mexico border seems to have bought officials some time. Word about stepped-up U.S. deportations has spread like wildfire along the migrant routes. Jose Rogelio Umaña, 27, who arrived in Arriaga from El Salvador late last week, said human smugglers had persuaded desperate parents to send their children away from gang violence and poverty on the premise that the Americans would give them special treatment.
Now, the risk of putting their children in harm's way from the journey only to have them sent back is just too much for many parents. "When they deported those children, the number leaving fell sharply," he said.
But Carlos Bartolo Solis, who runs the Catholic shelter for migrants in Arriaga, said he thought any decline in children leaving Central America would be temporary. "Until the conditions change in their countries, they will continue to leave. The alternative is to stay and be killed or recruited by a gang." On Tuesday, he said, the freight train known as "The Beast" headed north with around 400 migrants hanging on to boxcars, including young children and adolescents.
A Central American migrant with a young wife and an infant, who said he was too scared to give his name, said they planned to hop "The Beast," even though gang members had already tried to steal his child. "Am I scared? Very scared."
—Dudley Althaus and Dassaev Aguilar contributed to this article.
Write to Laurence Iliff at laurence.iliff@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/25/why-honduras-could-be-first-under-u-s-refugee-plan/
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DDF writes,
"Mexico is racist as hell, much more so than the Black and White bickering in the States, but it isn't politically correct to report that there."
What are the racial groups in Mexico? You mean light skin Mexicans vs darker Indians?
What is the reason so many are coming across now? This cannot be without complicit help from US amnesty groups and I don't believe for one second Bama didn't see this coming and is not encouraging on different levels.
Your take?
There are several groups and skin color is a common way of describing people. They even have product brands here such as "Negrito" (think Hostess bakery type deal), that uses a Black kid with an afro as their product moniker.
In fact, race is so commonly used here to describe people, I really have no idea where any Latino from here in Mexico, gets off saying anything about racism Whites or others.
A short and by no means exhaustive list would be (and each in common usage that I hear almost daily here (anyone disagreeing, please stop me and correct me where I'm wrong);
1. Gringo - A White person from an English-speaking country. (they say it just means that you come from the States and that you speak a different language 'hence the griego/gringo root,' but it's definitely derogatory...not a doubt at all, and to those that would argue it, ask them if they like being referred to as a spic/Hispanic...they don't... trust me on that). Gringo isn't cool either.
2. Spanish peninsula area + Spanish peninsula = Criollo
3. Criollo and Criollo = Criollo
4. Spanish and Indian (Native) = Mestizo
5. Spanish and Black = Mulato
6. Black and Indian = Zambo
7. Mestizo and Indian = Cholo
8. Mestizo and Spanish = Castizo
9. Mulato and Spanish = Morisco
10. Spanish and Morisca = Albino
11. Black and Zamba = Zambo Prieto
I could go on all day with things that are racist in nature, but I'd rather not. Here's a pretty good take on it if one cares to read it: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racismo_en_M%C3%A9xico
As to why people come across? Survival, a better life, running from the law here, and they know that they will be helped once they get there. In fact, to that last point, they even tell them here in the human rights organizations, what help they will recieve if they can just make it to the US side of the border. It was mentioned earlier that the cartels are behind this. If anything, it's the governments on both sides that are behind it.
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http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/whoops-congressman-accidentally-reveals-democrats-really-want-amnesty/
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http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/whoops-congressman-accidentally-reveals-democrats-really-want-amnesty/
Said here many times.
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https://www.numbersusa.com/news/not-my-backyard-feds-efforts-relocate-illegal-aliens-border
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I guess I am wrong. I thought he would wait till after the election. He probably figures why bother.
And the Republican response will be to just suck up and pander to illegals. 12 million. At least. I find it hard to believe there are really 370,000 deportations a year. "Funding" for only 400 K . Oh I like that argument.
"Bold" by one description. "Defining moment in a second term marred by gridlock" is another description.
Not in this article is outrageously ridiculous analogy to the "Emancipation Proclamation".
If these people were future Republicans could anyone imagine the difference. Your not going to win these uneducated poor people over with ideals. They want benefits. Dems are happy to oblige. With the middle classes money.
Worse this will ultimately lead to Texas going blue. The end of the Republican party and conservative America with regards at least to the electoral college.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-preparing-one-boldest-moves-173000149.html
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/11/new-video-james-okeefe-crosses-the-border-as-osama-bin-laden/
James O’Keefe Crosses The US-Mexico Border Dressed As Osama Bin Laden
Investigative filmmaker James O’Keefe exposes the U.S.-Mexico border’s vulnerability to terrorism in his latest undercover project, obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller.
O’Keefe’s Project Veritas video reminds viewers of recent statements by the president and Obama administration officials that the southern border is secure. O’Keefe then proceeds to Hudspeth County, Texas, to easily cross back and forth cross the Rio Grande wearing the costume of modern history’s most recognizable terrorist.
“I see no border patrol. I see no security,” O’Keefe said in the video before donning a bin Laden mask. “Thousands of people have stood in my footsteps right now. They’ve come from South America, Honduras, Guatemala, and they’ve all crossed the border. And if they can cross, anybody can cross.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/11/new-video-james-okeefe-crosses-the-border-as-osama-bin-laden/#ixzz3A6NcWPsO
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A second wave of some 30,000 unaccompanied illegal minors from violence-ravaged Central American nations is expected to swamp the U.S.-Mexico border in September and October, a crisis that could be worse than the one that has already pushed 62,000 children into the U.S., according to a top immigration group.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/official-second-illegal-immigrant-wave-of-30000-coming-in-september-october/article/2552029
(I disagree. This will not be the "second wave".)
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Doug writes:
"I disagree. This will not be the "second wave".
Me: We must be the most inhumane country in the world to force so many people to flock here from all over the world to be "terrorized".
Oh the inhumanity. We must do something. We must. We must. Now. Don't wait. People are suffering. The children. The families. The humanitarian crises of it all. We can't just sit by:
******5 Terrifying Facts About Undocumented Asian Americans
Posted: 08/15/2014 4:48 pm EDT Updated: 5 hours ago
Print Article
Why are these facts so terrifying? Because they illustrate an extreme injustice against basic human rights of people living in the United States. It is an injustice when people must live under constant fear or threat of being deported and separated from their families. It is an injustice when people do not have the opportunity to pursue their dreams and be an asset to this country. It is an injustice when people do not have the freedom to leave a country, travel and see their loved ones. America prides itself as being the "Land of Opportunity." It's about time we ensure that opportunity is a real possibility for all people living in this country.
1) According to the Department of Homeland Security, 1.3 million undocumented immigrants are from Asia.
While generally perceived as a Latino issue, 12 percent of all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are Asian Americans. While there is a fear of detainment and deportation if their status becomes known, the undocumented Asian American population is growing in its political presence and visibility in order to advocate for changes to enhance their standard of living. Organizations such as RAISE (Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast) strive to create safe spaces for undocumented youth to share their stories and fight for humane immigration policies.
2) Of the 11.2 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., 2 million are minors or young adults under 30; of this number, 10 percent or 40,000 are Asian.
Undocumented people cannot leave the country, cannot get a driver's license, cannot get minimum wage -- in addition to living with the threat of being deported at any time for their undocumented status. Thousands of children immigrated to the U.S. with their parents in search of a better future, only to grow up and discover that their undocumented status prohibits them from fulfilling their dreams and reaching their full potential. As an undocumented student, they are not eligible for federal grants and most scholarships, making college extremely unaffordable. Even as some students find a way to fund their college education, they cannot accept full time jobs after graduation. These legal limitations restrict young people from being an asset to our future economy. For example, the average DREAM Act student will make $1 million more over his or her lifetime by obtaining legal status, which results in tens of thousands of dollars for federal, state and local treasuries.
3) Undocumented status and deportation tears families apart. Almost 4.3 million close family members are waiting around the world to be reunited with a loved one in the United States.
According to Asian Americans Advancing Justice:
Asian Americans are the most likely to have family members caught up in visa backlogs. Approximately 60 percent of Asian Americans are foreign-born -- the highest percentage of any racial group. In 2012, 85 percent of visas issued for Asian countries were family based. Although Asian Americans comprise only 6 percent of the US pop, Asian immigrants received more than one third of the world wide family immigration visas.
Founder of RAISE Neriel David Ponce shares, "I've been away from the Philippines for 14 years now and missed weddings, births and passings of my relatives. Separation from my relatives has definitely been a challenge being undocumented."
4) Over 250,000 Asian American immigrants have been deported under the Obama Administration.
In total, there has been a record breaking 2 million deportations since Obama's presidency -- averaging about 1,000 people a day. Under current immigration laws, deported immigrants are not allowed to re-enter the country. Not only does this split up families and disrupt their economic stability, it becomes nearly impossible for families to visit each other if their children have undocumented status.
5) Undocumented people -- adults and children -- are more likely to be exploited in the workforce.
Due to their status, undocumented people get paid lower wages than other workers. They also face the threat of employers reporting them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they do not comply with the terms of exploitation. Undocumented people are subjected to extremely vulnerable and inhumane conditions; they can't even fight for basic human rights without the threat of being deported and separated from their families.
In addition to these facts and numbers, the award winning documentary, "Why We Rise," produced by the youth led organization RAISE tells the story of 3 brave New Yorkers living with undocumented status. With the courage to share their stories, they aim to humanize the immigration issue by demonstrating that the only difference between them and everyone else is a piece of paper.
In an effort to raise awareness and mobilize the community, there will be a theater performance by undocumented Asian youth in New York City this Wednesday, August 13th titled, "Letters from UndocuAsians." Exercising their voice and making their undocumented status known is already a huge feat in itself. "RAISE produced 'Letters from UndocuAsians' after seeing how powerful an impact our last show '#UndocuAsians' made," says organizer Neriel David Ponce. "We wanted a night where we can invite an audience we can be real to, where our stories can be told by us and our experiences shown by us. It's not just a performance but a night where we also want the audience to take action."
To learn more from these courageous and empowered youth, be sure to sign their petition and check out their event.
Follow Sahra Vang Nguyen on Twitter.
Follow Sahra Vang Nguyen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/oneouncegold
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Where Have the Immigrant Children and Students Gone?
Thomas Jefferson once said, “A country with no border is not a country.” It was true wisdom.
In the 1950s the United States had an immigration policy that maintained national security and unity in a country of peoples with hundreds of different nationalities, races and ethnicities. The system did largely favor immigrants of Western nations, but a nation has an absolute right to decide who immigrates within its borders. If citizens want to change immigration policy, so be it. But what citizens want and what they get are two very different things in Washington, DC.
In 1965 Ted Kennedy arose to do the Democrat thing and fundamentally transform America with his proposed immigration bill. He denied his intentions vigorously: “Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. ... [T]he bill will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area. ... [The] ethnic pattern of immigration is not expected to change as sharply as critics think.”
That bill became the first in a series of immigration “reform” bills that passed and gave us our present rancorous multicultural society.
Sixty-five years later, with a population far more than “substantially” changed, we face critical, urgent problems caused by unrestrained immigration that must be solved soon if we are to remain a nation. We offer two examples.
First, even after the lessons of 9/11, government has failed to sufficiently track student visas, and some recipients simply disappear before or after their visas expire. Last year alone 58,000 failed to leave when required, and of that group, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is trying to find 6,000 considered to be of “heightened concern.”
Between 2003 and 2012 the number of students on visas nearly doubled, climbing from 663,000 to 1.2 million. It now exceeds a million per year. And virtually any kind of school qualifies: beauty school, massage school and, yes, flight school, a third of which have no FAA certification.
One school with four campuses remains in operation even though five top executives have been indicted for visa fraud. The indictment charges that 80% of enrolled foreign students had delinquent attendance, which the school failed to report. The execs pled not guilty.
The ICE official in charge of investigating student visa violations said ICE has no choice but to allow the school to continue facilitating student visas, explaining, “[T]his is the United States of America and everyone has due process.”
Second, where are the thousands of illegal alien children who continue entering our country? Some in the government know, but ABC News could not get an answer. The Department of Health and Human Services website says, “We cannot release information about individual children that could compromise the child’s location or identity.”
Not compromising illegal aliens’ identity now takes precedence over not compromising national security. Remember, many of those “children” are in their late teens or early 20s. Some belong to either of the two most dangerous Latino gangs that have been recruiting heavily at detention centers. Plus there’s no way of knowing how many terrorists have infiltrated our nation after Barack Obama’s emasculation of the Border Patrol and the laughable performance of ICE.
Reportedly, more than 100 shelters are spread throughout the country to house children, and more are going up. Additionally, more than 37,000 children have been released to relatives or sponsors. How many of the relatives are here illegally themselves?
One private social welfare organization refused $50 million for housing children to avoid “negative backlash.” Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) did the math, and it comes to a cool $166,000 annually per child.
Even members of Congress can’t get information out of the administration, a typical Obama game.
Bottom line: Wherever these kids land, local costs rise immensely. By law they are entitled to health and social services as well as education, meaning bursting hospitals, welfare rolls and classrooms. Adding kids who can’t speak English, and are probably illiterate in their own language, will require more specialized teachers. It’s too bad the full costs won’t hit before November.
Finally, what’s going on at the border now? Certainly the influx of illegals hasn’t ended, but ISIL beheadings and Vladimir Putin’s adventures are front page now. The alien invasion is old news.
We’ve seen much of what Obama meant by “fundamentally transforming” America, but with almost two-and-a-half years remaining in his presidency, it looks like we ain’t seen nothing yet.
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Back on August 10th I posted this in response to the rumors he would grant amnesty very soon:
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"« Reply #788 on: August 10, 2014, 01:20:33 PM »
Reply with quote Modify message Remove message
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I guess I am wrong. I thought he would wait till after the election. He probably figures why bother. "
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Now just to prove me right all along he decides he will indeed wait till safely after the election than screw the rest of us over afterwards.
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Although I wish he would stop showing these guys how easy it is to get into the country... :-(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikV1906afbM
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Although I wish he would stop showing these guys how easy it is to get into the country... :-(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikV1906afbM
Sadly, they know all too well.
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Probably right, but I didn't like them showing the (entirely undefended) Freshwater intakes in the Great Lakes... the TX DPS report after his Mexico crossing was that supposedly that event generated a lot of chatter among ISIS chat boards to the effect of 'hey, look how easy this is'. :-( Personally, I'd rather not give them ideas.
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Probably right, but I didn't like them showing the (entirely undefended) Freshwater intakes in the Great Lakes... the TX DPS report after his Mexico crossing was that supposedly that event generated a lot of chatter among ISIS chat boards to the effect of 'hey, look how easy this is'. :-( Personally, I'd rather not give them ideas.
Just because there is chatter on some boards isn't really meaningful. The real bad actors know all too well our vulnerabilities.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/inside/cron.html
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/obama-illegal-immigrants-should-not-have-to-look-over-their-shoulder/
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Jobs Data Signal GOP Victory
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on September 9, 2014
Amid the media focus on the basic data in the August jobs report -- that the economy "added" 143,000 jobs -- is the figure that will underscore the Republican efforts to take the Senate.
During the month of August, the economy added about 659,000 jobs that went to foreign-born Americans (naturalized citizens, green card holders and illegal immigrants combined). At the same time, it lost about 643,000 jobs that had been held by native-born Americans.
Indeed, since President Obama took office, the number of foreign-born Americans who have jobs has risen by 2.9 million while the number of domestically born Americans who are employed has grown by only 1.2 million.
In other words, about three out of four jobs created during the Obama presidency went to immigrants.
When the president was inaugurated in 2009, 14.9 percent of all employed Americans had been born outside of the 50 states. At this point, the number has risen to 16.8 percent.
The average American worker might not know these numbers (they are not publicized by the liberal media), but he feels the data in his gut. He is coming to realize that there will be no income growth or real employment increase, unless the U.S. limits immigration.
The immigration issue has now morphed into the economic issue and the terror issue.
Our wide-open back border is encouraging both wage stagnation and joblessness in the United States and inviting terrorists to cross over and to create havoc in our country.
Reports indicate a difference of opinion between leaders in the United Kingdom and the United States on how to cope with nationals who have left to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. News accounts suggest the British want to keep them out of their country lest they commit acts of terrorism, while our government would rather admit them, track their movements and interrogate them. Is the difference because we cannot keep them out? Is it because we don't really have a southern border, and there is no way to close a door that has been effectively removed?
Historically, it was Republicans who favored open borders in their effort to accommodate their robber baron patrons with an ongoing supply of cheap labor. It was that propensity, in part, that encouraged the growth of urban labor unions and led to their affiliation with the Democratic Party.
Now it is the Democratic Party that is opening the gates to foreign workers. Their unions remain opposed to bringing in low-wage workers, fearful that the competition will lower the incomes of their members. But no matter. The honchos of the Democratic Party, led by the president, could care less. They want Latino voters, and they are willing to make their union supporters walk the plank in order to get them into the country.
Any analysis of income inequality has to focus on the two factors that lower working-class incomes: immigration and foreign trade. Even as Obama protests inequality and highlights marginal remedies like raising the minimum wage, he turns a blind eye to China's currency manipulation, permitting artificially low-priced imports to undercut the price of products made in the USA.
For how long will America's workers let Obama get away with this game? How long will they tolerate Democratic policies that encourage immigration, legal or not, and do nothing to stop illegal currency manipulation to get us to buy foreign products?
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BTW, the syllogism here is one that Dick Morris recommends for Rep electoral success:
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/09/14/
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http://www.tpnn.com/2014/09/15/democrats-show-allegiance-to-mexico-during-parade/
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Also see this:
Keeping Immigration Political
Another summer is over, and another Barack Obama pledge is broken. Remember when he vowed to address immigration reform by summer's end? Instead, the president announced last week that he will defer his action on deferred action for illegal immigrants until after the November election, hoping to stave off election losses for Democrat senators in difficult re-election fights. Since public perception on the issue is shifting in favor of the GOP, those desperate to hold the Senate prevailed on Obama to wait.
Of course, by playing to one side of the political arena, Obama has to soothe the bruised egos on the other side, the ones who believed he would follow through on their dream of allowing millions of undocumented Democrat voters across the border. So last week, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was dispatched to a meeting of members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to listen to their complaints and try and convince them whatever is up Obama's sleeve will be worth the wait, saying the president would “go as far as he could under existing law."
But at least one member was unconvinced. “I don’t want to go down this path come November and then for some other reason find that the immigrant community and the Latino community get thrown in the heap again,” grumbled Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ).
Signs abound that Obama is already placating the pro-amnesty side, though. For example, deportations continue to decline in part because the overwhelmed system cannot keep up with the demand of illegal immigrants for non-existent “permisos.” Out of an estimated 59,000 in the latest wave of border-crashers, just 319 have been returned to Central America, according to the Associated Press. There's no question word of this lax enforcement has spread to those countries.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department recently warned Yuma County, Arizona -- which has had a successful “get-tough” policy on illegals called Operation Streamline -- that it would no longer prosecute first-time border crossers. (Interestingly enough, Rep. Grijalva represents a portion of Yuma County, which is in the southwest corner of the state.) These actions further cement the pro-amnesty reputation Obama has earned thanks to his lack of action on securing the border.
Over the last half-century, multiple bipartisan attempts have been made to address the immigration issue, with the most radical being the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated quotas by nation in favor of the current family-based approach, and the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986 that granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants who could prove they had been here and otherwise law-abiding since 1982. Those changes led to the current situation.
Earlier this summer, immigration looked like the biggest issue for November, but ISIL's entry into the Long War, Russian aggression and a stagnant economy also will have an impact.
Yet as we look forward to 2016, pushing back any executive action on amnesty beyond this year's midterms will obviously affect the presidential race, and a number of Democrats may be seeing this political football as one worth keeping around. It's another example of how our government works: Solving problems only means your reason for existence disappears, so the best course of action is to perpetuate your justification.
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Here is a very interesting fact that is being almost wholly ignored by the establishment media - the billionaire leaders of Silicon Valley's high-tech companies are pushing for what is essentially amnesty because linked to this is the TRIPLING OF THE NUMBER OF H-1B VISAS - these allow foreign workers with advanced degrees to get green cards and work here in the U.S. - typically for MUCH LOWER wages than American workers. In fact - often times these companies (and I know because I work for a software company here in GA) require these foreign workers to sign NON-HIRE AGREEMENTS - which essentially state that the worker agrees to indefinite "contract worker" status - never to be hired as a regular employee - and by design - never to command native U.S. wages. I also agree that Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is an American hero. See below:
Jeff Sessions vs. the ‘Masters of the Universe’
Posted By Michael Cutler On September 16, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
On September 12, 2014 Breitbart posted an infuriating report, “Facebook’s Marc Andreessen: Jeff Sessions ‘Clinically Insane’ for Supporting U.S. Workers.”
The title of the report made it clear that at best, Andreessen lacks respect or compassion for his fellow Americans and those who support unfortunately all-too-rare politicians such as Senator Jeff Sessions, whose unwavering support of American citizens through effective enforcement of America’s already existent immigration laws have evoked such a vile and outrageous response from Andreessen.
If Andreessen believes that “supporting U.S. workers” is indicative of mental illness, it must be presumed that Andreessen believes that sanity involves betraying American workers.
It has been said that you can judge a person by his enemies and his friends. Anyone who is so hated by Andreessen should be seen as an American hero and, indeed, Senator Sessions is an American hero — a title that is far too uncommon among our members of Congress.
Here is an important excerpt from the Breitbart article that makes Senator Sessions’ position crystal clear and perhaps should cause Americans irrespective of political affiliation to seek to convince Sessions to run for President:
A Sessions aide told Breitbart News that “it’s clear that a few mega-millionaire and mega-billionaire activists are calling the shots for Democrats on immigration.”
“The question at hand is pretty straightforward: who should get preference for American IT work – the 11.4 million Americans with STEM degrees but no STEM jobs, or the citizens of foreign countries now living overseas?” the aide told Breitbart News. “It appears that Democrat politicos and their super-elite patrons believe the answer is the latter.”
After criticizing “young Mr. Zuckerberg” for blasting America’s laws in a foreign capital, Sessions singled out Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, largely because the pro-amnesty lobby has spent millions of dollars trying to ram through a comprehensive amnesty bill that would give the tech lobby massive increases in guest-worker visas at a time when there is a surplus of American high-tech workers and a record number of Americans out of work.
In fact, as Sessions noted, the comprehensive amnesty bill that the tech industry wants and pro-amnesty advocates have spent $1.5 billion over the last decade pushing would “double the supply of low-wage foreign workers brought into the United States.” Silicon Valley companies, which have even been notoriously accused of trying to keep wages down with “no-hire” agreements, believe they will get a good return on their investment if Congress grants them massive increases in guest-worker visas.
After pointing out that Microsoft is laying of 18,000 workers, Sessions posed “a question to Mr. Zuckerberg” if he wanted to expand Facebook’s workforce by 10 percent.
The harsh reality is that Andreessen is so driven by greed that he seeks to amass even greater wealth, than he already possesses, by robbing from struggling middle class families who are increasingly losing their tenuous grasp on their standing as members of the middle class.
Andreessen’s obvious goal — a goal clearly shared by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and the other self-proclaimed “Masters of the Universe” — is to not only loot American workers and their families by driving down their wages, but also looting the future of their children who are acquiring STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees at great financial expense and effort.
These American students have run up student loan payments that resemble mortgage payment, worked tirelessly to graduate with high averages and yet, as the saying goes, many are “all dressed up with nowhere to go.” For these hapless Americans, through no fault of their own, the “American Dream” will never come any closer to reality than an elusive dream.
On November 20, 2013 Fox News Latino published a report that must be considered, “The Billionaire And The Immigrant — Mark Zuckerberg And Carlos Vargas Join Forces In Silicon Valley For Immigration Reform.”
Here is how this report begins:
They were born one year apart, into vastly different worlds.
Carlos Vargas, 28, began life in poverty in Puebla, Mexico, where he shared one small bedroom with his widowed mother and three siblings. His mother, who crossed the U.S.-Mexican border illegally in 1990 with her four children, held multiple jobs here to make ends meet.
Mark Zuckerberg, 29, started his life in Dobbs Ferry, an affluent New York suburb of tree-lined streets and meticulously tended lawns rimming million-dollar homes. Zuckerberg, also one of four children, is the son of a dentist and a psychiatrist.
But if countless circumstances separated Vargas and Zuckerberg, a mastery of technology and a keen interest in seeing U.S. immigration laws overhauled created a bond.
On Wednesday, the two men will join forces in Silicon Valley, where Zuckerberg is hosting a hackathon in which the Facebook chief executive, as well as other kings of the Internet – Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Groupon founder Andrew Mason and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman – will work with undocumented high-tech wiz kids on building tools to help immigrants and the push for immigration reform.
(Hackathon is the term given to a marathon event in which programmers collaborate on software projects.)
Vargas is one of 20 people chosen from hundreds of applicants across the country to be part of the two-day event at LinkedIn headquarters. They are scheduled to work with some of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest coders to develop tech tools relating to immigration causes.
“It caught me by surprise to be chosen,” Vargas said in an interview with Fox News Latino days before his flight to California. “Here I am, and in just a few days, I’m going to be speaking with Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook and immigration. This moment, the hackathon, could be history, we could create something that helps the push for immigration reform.”
Why on earth is Zuckerberg not willing to offer this incredible opportunity to American students especially American children living in poverty to help lift them from poverty and potentially a life of crime by providing them with an incredible chance to excel? Why on earth is Zuckerberg not offering this opportunity to returning members of America’s armed forces — especially those who may have been injured in combat protecting our nation and, point of fact, protecting him?
In December 2011 “Dan Rather Reports” aired a disconcerting hour-long report, “Rather Reports: No thanks for everything,” on how highly educated and experienced American computer programmers are being replaced by programmers from India.
On May 15, 2007 a four-minute infuriating video was aired on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on CNN. It features an immigration lawyers’ conference in which lawyers were being coached to “not find qualified U.S. workers.” The lecturer is identified in the video as being Lawrence M. Lebowitz, the vice president of marketing for the firm of Cohen & Grigsby.
I have written about this outrageous betrayal of hard-working Americans and our nation itself by these greed-driven enemies of America in several recent articles. On July 22, 2014 FrontPage Magazine published my article, “Immigration ‘Reform’: Engineered Destruction of the Middle Class.”
On June 9, 2014 Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) posted my commentary, “Betrayal of the American Dream.”
The Winter 2014 Edition of “The Social Contract” published my paper, “American Dream Being Sold at Auction – America’s Middle Class to Be Put on Endangered Species List.”
Andreessen, Zuckerberg, Gates and their cohorts are in an ever-increasing feeding frenzy and the organism that they most closely resemble is a super-aggressive malignant cancerous tumor that seeks to bathe itself in nutrients. Such cancers generally secrete hormones that facilitate the growth of large numbers of blood vessels to deliver those nutrients to that tumor so that it can rapidly grow — generally starving the surrounding healthy tissue.
Andreessen and the others are societal cancers that seek to bathe themselves in wealth, literally and figuratively, at the expense of America and Americans. These foes of American workers are already billionaires, many times over, who are driven to acquire even greater wealth.
It is worth noting that Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin. Gates and Zuckerberg are also citizens of the United States who were born in the United States yet are quick to show abject contempt for their fellow Americans, pumping more than 1.5 billion dollars into pushing Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
Most people understand Comprehensive Immigration Reform as an ill-conceived legislative initiative that would provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status and identity documents — even though there would be no realistic way of determining the true identities and backgrounds of these aliens who evaded the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of, among other categories of aliens, terrorists and criminals.
What is not generally known, however, is that this legislation would also have tripled the number of H-1B visas for high tech workers. Additionally, it would have, for the very first time, provided dependent family members of H-1B visa holders with lawful authority to work in the United States on any job they are qualified to do, even if it placed them in direct competition of available and qualified American workers.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform would provide for a huge increase in foreign high tech workers and would no longer protect American workers from unfair foreign competition. This is precisely what Alan Greenspan called for when he testified before a 2009 hearing convened by the Senate Immigration Subcommittee chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, chief advocate for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and one of the “Gang of Eight” on the topic: Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do It and How?
During his prepared testimony Greenspan stated, in part:
“The second bonus (in accelerating the influx of skilled immigrant workers) would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.”
It is beyond belief that Greenspan would have the chutzpah to refer to American middle class workers who are highly skilled and educated as the “privileged elite” and that the goal should be to reduce “wage inequality.” This is not about enhancing the wages of hard working educated American workers but about lowering their wages to narrow the gap between the middle class and America’s growing number of citizens who now live below the poverty line.
On September 11, 2013 Newsmax published a report about a meeting scheduled to be conducted on September 19, 2013 by Zuckerberg and Republican Congressional leaders to persuade them to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The article was titled: “Facebook’s Zuckerberg to Meet With GOP House Leaders.”
Here is how this report began:
The meeting, scheduled for Sept. 19, will include House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the head of the Republican conference, according to two leadership aides who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Topics of discussion will include a range of issues such as Internet privacy, the economy, a revision of the tax system, and changes to immigration law, according to one of the aides.
Zuckerberg has joined other technology companies to create the pro-immigration advocacy group Fwd.us.
On August 30, 2013 “Business Insider” published a Reuters news article, “Poverty Stresses The Brain So Much That It’s Like Losing 13 IQ Points”
The title of that alarming report makes it clear that poverty often becomes self-perpetuating.
Notwithstanding these facts, Andreessen, Zuckerberg, Gates and the other “usual suspects continue to push for importing huge numbers of foreign high-tech workers to lower wages and increase corporate profits.
It is beyond belief that proponents for Comprehensive Immigration Reform talk about “compassion” as a justification for admitting ever greater numbers of aliens into the United States while blithely ignoring the obvious — that today Americans have never been in greater need some of that “compassion.”
What no one seems to have noticed is that they themselves are all native-born American citizens. Additionally, while Elon Musk, the founder of Pay-Pal, the Tesla car company and Space-X, was born in South Africa, he was provided with lawful status in the United States, providing clear evidence that this component of the immigration system already in place works for so-called “extraordinary” foreign professionals.
On May 7, 2014 ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a news release about the enrollment of foreign students in the United States, “SEVP report provides snapshot of international students studying in US international student enrollment up 2 percent at US schools, 75 percent of students from Asia.”
Here is the key paragraph from that press release:
As of April 1, almost 1.02 million international students were enrolled in nearly 9,000 U.S. schools using an F (academic) or M (vocational) visa. This marks a two percent increase from January. Seventy-five percent of all international students were from Asia, with 29 percent from China. Saudi Arabia and India had the greatest percentage increase of students studying in the United States at 10 and eight percent, respectively, when compared to January statistics. The top 10 countries of citizenship for international students included: China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil.
We need to be extremely concerned about the vetting process for these students and those 9,000 schools. Note that Saudi Arabia is among the top ten countries of citizenship for foreign students.
While it would be wrong-headed to blame all citizens of Saudi Arabia for the terror attacks of 9/11, it is worth noting that on December 20, 2-13 ABC News posted the report, “9/11 Families ‘Ecstatic’ They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia”
It is remarkable that the average American has been duped into believing the lies and rhetoric of the politicians who regularly chant the same false phrases repeatedly. Think about the (false) claim that we must import many more high-tech workers because American schools are incapable of providing effective education where the STEM courses are concerned. Consider that the very same politicians who make that claim have also stated that we must “Staple Green Cards onto the diplomas of the foreign students who acquire their educations in the United States.” If our schools are that inept and incapable, why in earth should we seek to employ those foreign students once they get their degrees?
In point of fact, on September 3rd, I was a guest on the NewsMax-TV news program, “America’s Forum” hosted by JD Hayworth to discuss yet another troubling story about yet another screwup by the DHS, an agency I have long referred to as the Department of Homeland Surrender.
The focus of my interview was that fact that the DHS conceded that some 6,000 foreign students had gone “missing” in the United States. ABC News reported on this in its report, “Lost in America: Visa Program Struggles to Track Missing Foreign Students.”
I urge you to read the entire fact-filled, hard-hitting report.
Here is how this truly disturbing report begins:
The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished — exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
“My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything,” said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. “Some of them could be here to do us harm.”
Homeland Security officials disclosed the breadth of the student visa problem in response to ABC News questions submitted as part of an investigation into persistent complaints about the nation’s entry program for students.
ABC News found that immigration officials have struggled to keep track of the rapidly increasing numbers of foreign students coming to the U.S. — now in excess of one million each year. The immigration agency’s own figures show that 58,000 students overstayed their visas in the past year. Of those, 6,000 were referred to agents for follow-up because they were determined to be of heightened concern.
“They just disappear,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “They get the visas and they disappear.”
Coburn said since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, 26 student visa holders have been arrested in the U.S. on terror-related charges
The infamous bank robber, Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks said simply, “That’s where the money is!” Today Andreessen and his playmates seek to find employees oversees in Third World countries because that is where the cheap labor is. When Sutton robbed a bank he stole from a relatively small number of people. Andreessen and company are stealing from an entire generation of their fellow Americans and do so with utter disregard to the future of their victims or the future of their own country.
America’s middle class has been at the heart of America’s strength and the “American Dream” and made America the role model for countries around the world. The success of our middle class encouraged countries to embrace democracy and free enterprise. As the saying goes, “Nothing succeeds like success!”
America’s middle class is in a very real sense in danger of becoming extinct. This would do serious harm to the United States.
There is a cautionary message to be considered. Cancers tend to be the most successful organisms in its victim’s body — right up until the day that the victim of that cancer stops breathing. The cancer dies when its victim dies. Weakening America, especially in this especially perilous era is an exceedingly dangerous course of action with potentially catastrophic consequences for Americans and, indeed, people around the world.
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Objectivist,
I agree with you. I see in health care what you see in IT. Not only from a state where half of doctors are born in another country but my many patients in IT most of whom are also born somewhere else.
Only when one gets squeezed by the competition does one wonder what is going on.
I don' think many on this board will agree with us.
The Cans are foolish if they don't see the great political opportunity this opens up in reaching out to new groups of voters. Jeff Sessions might. Even Marc Levin who is a promoter of capatilism sees this.
But the rest of the Republicans seem to be too timid or in bed with the likes of Andressen and are more concerned about promoting their business fortunes with cheap labor than the offering jobs to Americans.
I am not a union guy but this is about undercutting Americans - not about unions.
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AS I mentioned somewhere on the board here recently, I first ran across this analysis, and suggested line of attack, by Dick Morris. It makes sense to me. That said, the argument that we are competing with cheap labor elsewhere and thus need some here is not without force. For example, the Los Angeles region has a surprising amount of light manufacturing due to the abundance of cheap labor here-- some of which is illegal.
Can not a similar argument be made in the tech sector? That having some cheap hi-tech labor here, companies who otherwise might feel compelled to go offshore (and they face tremendous tax code driven reasons to do so as well!) stay?
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"Can not a similar argument be made in the tech sector? That having some cheap hi-tech labor here, companies who otherwise might feel compelled to go offshore (and they face tremendous tax code driven reasons to do so as well!) stay?"
No. The second assumption about tax codes does not make it ok to incessantly undermine the middle class by bringing in those from around the world who will work for less. What needs to be done is to make the tax code less rigorous.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/obamas-plan-change-america-immigration-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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Posted on behalf of Crafty Dog
In The Out Door
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Another Surge of Illegals Coming Our Way?
Just a few days ago, the Obama administration assured us the flood of illegal minors across the southern border was largely over. There are plenty of reasons to doubt this claim. The Weekly Standard's Jeryl Bier reports, "The Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) is looking to buy 40,000 emergency Mylar blankets. The silvery, polyester blankets are often used in detention facilities where those caught illegally crossing the border into the United States are held. ... The USBP seems anxious to have the blankets on hand relatively quickly." And National Review's Ryan Lovelace adds another wrinkle: "After the number of families arriving and being apprehended at the southern border surged this year to levels never seen before, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are opening a fourth detention facility for illegal-immigrant families apprehended in the area, and its capacity will dwarf the three existing family detention centers." It seems the administration expects another surge in border crossers.
===================================
Pentagon Gives Illegal Immigrants Opportunity to Serve in Military
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/25/policy-to-allow-undocumented-immigrants-in-military/16225135/
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/05/Report-62-Million-People-In-U-S-Now-Speak-Language-Other-Than-English-At-Home?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+October+6%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20141006_m122465071_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+October+6%2C+2014&utm_term=More
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#1 As pointed out today on Mark Levin that Mexico has for centuries had a white minority rule and indian majority subservient class has a lot of nerve calling us racist when millions of his people run here to escape HIS country and do not return. Where does this guy get off?
#2 If Fareed Hillaria would spend less time worrying about his racial insecurities and stop pointing out he is black maybe fewer people would notice, all the while he has his own show, his own column, hobnobs with many of the highest Harvard Echelons and certainly makes more money than 99 % of America
#3 I wish we had a President who would call out this Mexican. Hey how come they have the most strict immigration policy. How come most Latin countries are run by lighter skins while the darker skins get lower wage jobs or are in poverty?
How come your country was one of the 15 or so that was built on a system of white land ownership with squatters who were never able to own land while North of the border we have anyone who could own property and that is why we thrive more than you?
We need a leader who will stand up for us not stand up for those who are against us.
We won't get it with Hillary either.
Breitbart Mexican President: Anti-Immigration Americans Are Racist
on Breitbart TV 5 Oct 2014 1003 post a comment
Sunday on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto said the anti-immigration views of many Americans is racist.
Zakaria asked, "When you hear some of the anti-immigrant language, the rhetoric, do you think it's racist?"
Nieto answered, "I think it's discriminatory, yes, and I think it's unfortunate for a country whose formation and historic origin relies so much on the migration flows of many parts, Europe and Asia, for instance. I think this is a country whose origin to a great extent is one of migration and that's why it's unfortunate to hear this exclusionary and discriminatory tones regarding migration flows into the United States."
"Today we have to recognize that the migration that comes from Mexico to the United States has fallen. There is a lower number of migrants to balance between those who are coming to the United States and that's going back to Mexico is practically a zero balance today, and that reflects the fact that in Mexico we are opening greater opportunities for those who don't want to leave their country or those who have no need to go looking for a new opportunity of personal or professional growth," he added.
on Breitbart TV 5 Oct 2014 1003 post a comment
Sunday on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto said the anti-immigration views of many Americans is racist.
Zakaria asked, "When you hear some of the anti-immigrant language, the rhetoric, do you think it's racist?"
Nieto answered, "I think it's discriminatory, yes, and I think it's unfortunate for a country whose formation and historic origin relies so much on the migration flows of many parts, Europe and Asia, for instance. I think this is a country whose origin to a great extent is one of migration and that's why it's unfortunate to hear this exclusionary and discriminatory tones regarding migration flows into the United States."
"Today we have to recognize that the migration that comes from Mexico to the United States has fallen. There is a lower number of migrants to balance between those who are coming to the United States and that's going back to Mexico is practically a zero balance today, and that reflects the fact that in Mexico we are opening greater opportunities for those who don't want to leave their country or those who have no need to go looking for a new opportunity of personal or professional growth," he added.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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Just be ready for the howls of discrimination and racism in advance. Get the rest of us to stand up against this phony back lash. This is our country not yours.
And I mean all people of all races and languages who are here *legally*. Not difficult. Very straight forward. But we have to get rid of Reid.
******End Most Illegal immigrationStop Amnesty
Updated: Tue, August 5, 2014
On August 1, 2014, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 5272 introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) that would defund future executive amnesties issued by Pres. Obama and from granting work permits to illegal aliens. A large majority of House Republicans and a few Democrats voted to secure our border and end the executive amnesty known as DACA.
In September, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) motioned to bring the Blackburn bill to the Senate floor for a vote, but the motion was defeated 50-to-50. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia sided with all 45 GOP Senators in supporting the Sessions motion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed 4 other Democratic Senators who face tough re-election bids to also vote in favor of the motion.
Pres. Obama has announced that he will expand his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to an estimated 5-6 million illegal aliens after the mid-term elections. The DACA program granted amnesty and work permits to approximately 500,000 illegal aliens.
OCTOBER RECESS
Congress has formally adjourned for the weeks leading up to the November mid-term elections. See a comparison of all Congressional candidates on our Election Pages.
For the pre-midterm recess, we're asking all activists to pressure candidates to answer the following question:
WHO SHOULD GET THE NEXT JOB: AMERICANS AND LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ALREADY HERE, OR SOMEONE IN THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM AN EXECUTIVE AMNESTY?
KEY POINTS:
The Washington Post editorial board opposes an expanded executive amnesty: "Congress is a mess. But that doesn't grant the president license to tear up the constitution." LINK.
USA Today editorial board opposes executive amnesty: "That's too dramatic a policy change to be undertaken without Congress' involvement. ... Not before the election. And not after it." LINK.
74% of Americans support Pres. Obama working with Congress and not acting alone on immigration. LINK.
EARLIER THIS YEAR
On January 30, 2014, the House GOP Leadership presented a set of immigration principles during the party's annual retreat. The principles are not legislation and are vague and ambiguous, but the leaders are hoping that the House can pass bills that accomplish the principles. The principles clearly state that S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, will not be brought to the floor for a vote. However, there are countless similarities between the principles and S.744, including the concept of enforcement triggers that would begin an amnesty for most of the 11 million individuals residing illegally in the United States.
GOP Standards for Immigration Reform
PREAMBLE
Our nation’s immigration system is broken and our laws are not being enforced. Washington’s failure to fix them is hurting our economy and jeopardizing our national security. The overriding purpose of our immigration system is to promote and further America’s national interests and that is not the case today. The serious problems in our immigration system must be solved, and we are committed to working in a bipartisan manner to solve them. But they cannot be solved with a single, massive piece of legislation that few have read and even fewer understand, and therefore, we will not go to a conference with the Senate’s immigration bill. The problems in our immigration system must be solved through a step-by-step, common-sense approach that starts with securing our country’s borders, enforcing our laws, and implementing robust enforcement measures. These are the principals guiding us in that effort.
Border Security and Interior Enforcement Must Come First
It is the fundamental duty of any government to secure its borders, and the United States is failing in this mission. We must secure our borders now and verify that they are secure. In addition, we must ensure now that when immigration reform is enacted, there will be a zero tolerance policy for those who cross the border illegally or overstay their visas in the future. Faced with a consistent pattern of administrations of both parties only selectively enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, we must enact reform that ensures that a President cannot unilaterally stop immigration enforcement.
Implement Entry-Exit Visa Tracking System
A fully functioning Entry-Exit system has been mandated by eight separate statutes over the last 17 years. At least three of these laws call for this system to be biometric, using technology to verify identity and prevent fraud. We must implement this system so we can identify and track down visitors who abuse our laws.
Employment Verification and Workplace Enforcement
In the 21st century it is unacceptable that the majority of employees have their work eligibility verified through a paper based system wrought with fraud. It is past time for this country to fully implement a workable electronic employment verification system.
Reforms to the Legal Immigration System
For far too long, the United States has emphasized extended family members and pure luck over employment-based immigration. This is inconsistent with nearly every other developed country. Every year thousands of foreign nationals pursue degrees at America’s colleges and universities, particularly in high skilled fields. Many of them want to use their expertise in U.S. industries that will spur economic growth and create jobs for Americans. When visas aren’t available, we end up exporting this labor and ingenuity to other countries. Visa and green card allocations need to reflect the needs of employers and the desire for these exceptional individuals to help grow our economy.
The goal of any temporary worker program should be to address the economic needs of the country and to strengthen our national security by allowing for realistic, enforceable, usable, legal paths for entry into the United States. Of particular concern are the needs of the agricultural industry, among others. It is imperative that these temporary workers are able to meet the economic needs of the country and do not displace or disadvantage American workers.
Youth
One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, those who know no other place as home. For those who meet certain eligibility standards, and serve honorably in our military or attain a college degree, we will do just that.
Individuals Living Outside the Rule of Law
Our national and economic security depend on requiring people who are living and working here illegally to come forward and get right with the law. There will be no special path to citizenship for individuals who broke our nation’s immigration laws – that would be unfair to those immigrants who have played by the rules and harmful to promoting the rule of law. Rather, these persons could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to admit their culpability, pass rigorous background checks, pay significant fines and back taxes, develop proficiency in English and American civics, and be able to support themselves and their families (without access to public benefits). Criminal aliens, gang members, and sex offenders and those who do not meet the above requirements will not be eligible for this program. Finally, none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented to fulfill our promise to the American people that from here on, our immigration laws will indeed be enforced.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ACTION
The House Judiciary Committee has already marked up and passed four bills. These bills would require the mandatory use of E-Verify by all businesses, increase interior enforcement efforts, increase the number of high-skilled worker visas, and restructure the current agriculture guest-worker program. The Homeland Security Committee has also marked up and passed a bill that would "increase" border security.
The question going forward is how the House will define a "step-by-step" process. Does a "step-by-step" approach mean the House will pass enforcement bills and hold off on anything that deals with the illegal-alien population or legal immigration increases until they see the enforcement provisions faithfully executed? Or, does a "step-by-step" approach mean passing a series of bills and then combining them into one comprehensive bill that's filled with "triggers" and resembles the Schumer-Rubio-Obama amnesty bill before shipping it off to the Senate? The "step-by-step" comprehensive approach was first introduced by House Speaker John Boehner's immigration staffer Becky Tallent when she served as Director of Immigration Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Here are the five bills already passed by House Committees:
Mandatory E-Verify - H.R. 1772, the Legal Workforce Act
High-Skilled Visas - H.R. 2131, the SKILLS Act
Agriculture Guest Worker Reform - H.R. 1773
Interior Enforcement - H.R. 2278, the SAFE Act
Border Security - H.R. 1417, "Border Security" Results Act of 2013
S.744, The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act
S.744, as introduced
S.744, Schumer Substitute Amendment
Amendments considered by Senate Judiciary Committee
S.744 reported out of Senate Judiciary Committee
Schumer-Corker-Hoeven Amendment to S.744
Sponsor
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Cosponsors
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
The FACTS on S.744
33 Million Green Cards in First Decade
S.744 - Bad for America
S.744 -- 4 Big Problems
Heritage: Amnesty will cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion
National poll finds little support of Gang of Eight Bill
FAIR: Top Reasons to Oppose S.744
12 Reasons to Oppose S.744
Marco Rubio: "First comes the Legalization"
Gang of Eight opposes Enforcement First
CIS: S.744 doubles guest-worker flows
USCCR Commissioner Peter Kirsanow op-ed: S.744 hurts low-skilled workers
S.744: More than 400 waivers and exemptions
S.744: Gang of Eight's Broken Promises
State-by-state U-6 unemployment rates
Opposition to S.744
S.744 Dear Colleague Letter
Congressional Opposition to the Gang of Eight's bill
Law Enforcement Letter to Congress Opposing Gang of Eight Amnesty bill
USCIS Union opposes S.744
Law Enforcement Organizations Opposed to Gang of Eight's bill
Conservative Coalition Opposes Gang of Eight's bill
National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers statement on Schumer-Corker-Hoeven amendment
USCIS Letter of opposition to Corker-Hoeven amendment
Letter of opposition from Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration
Tags: amnesty
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If we had a backbone, we could have already de-funded operations tied to Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, Benghazi coverup, EPA over-reach and unlegislated amnesty. We could de-fund his golf trips too. The guy had his credit card declined in NYC, he hadn't used it in so long.
If he had faced serious and united opposition (and a watchdog media), it would have helped this President govern within his constitutional role as President.
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Guest Column: Going Dutch - The Psychometric Tool Against Jihadism in the West
by Esam Sohail
Special to IPT News
November 3, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4642/guest-column-going-dutch
The famed laissez faire liberalism of the Dutch is only matched by their flinty commonsense. Two years after the brutal 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh at the hand of Islamist jihadists in Amsterdam, the Dutch government quietly introduced a form of personality testing for immigrants from certain backgrounds who wished to make the Netherlands their permanent abode. By showing a set of short video clips highlighting the culture of diversity, secularism, free speech, and gender equality to potential migrants from very different cultures and then allowing responsible officers to evaluate reactions of the audience, the Dutch government made a very business-like decision to ensure a proper fit for a person to his/her new home. The government of the Netherlands continues to monitor this new screening tool which went into effect as a pilot project in 2006 and will likely be rolled out on a larger scale in the years ahead.
Immigration, especially of people with high education and in their prime working years, remains vital to the economic prowess and social welfare systems of most developed countries. That said, that necessity is better coupled with wisdom. With tens of thousands of people from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia moving to the Anglophone countries every year, the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia do not have the luxury of waiting to institute large scale and focused immigrant testing that small Holland does. While security safeguards have been heightened in all of these desired immigration destinations, the common flaw remains the same across the board in the English speaking democracies: all potential immigrants are treated to the same battery of standardized screening procedures which often evaluate the Christian fleeing victimization in Bangladesh and Pakistan along the same lines as an Islamist engineer wishing to plant the flag of Islam for himself and his children in Canada. Neither the standard questions of the type "have you ever been part of a terror group" nor the routine check of law enforcement agency reports is going to do much diagnostic good in this regard. The Dutch figured this out finally and, instead, decided to tentatively use the science of psychometrics to detect potential trouble before it becomes actual trouble.
Let us be brutally honest about immigration from countries where Muslims are in big majorities. Almost all of these countries have cultures where Salafi Islamism is ascendant, where free speech and gender equality are increasingly dismissed as parts of some Western plot, and anti-Semitism is a staple for the most popular conspiracy theories. Not all immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, Malaysia, or the Arab world adhere to such Islamist tendencies. But many, including quite a few professional and educated types, do. And these are the ones that can quickly become the transmitters, organizers, sympathizers, funders, and even purveyors of jihadism in the civilized world (remember Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian and would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad?). In the age of shadowy ISIS sympathizers in Chicago, jihadist murderers on London streets, and Muslims converts on rampage in Ottawa, it only make sense to quarantine the Islamist virus at the entry point whether it is dormant, passive, or active. The Dutch have shown the path to do so; the rest of the civilized world should improvise.
Psychometrics is not an exact science and no psychological evaluation or personality test is fool proof. On top of such uncertainty, these things cost time and money which are realistic constraints for visa evaluators and Customs agents. Yet, these tools are increasingly sophisticated and used in human resourcing decisions by growing number of major businesses and public entities; at the disposal of well-trained immigration professionals who have the flexibility of discretion and a relatively narrow focus, such psychometric instruments can be vital weapons against potential jihadist terror.
Potential long term immigrants from certain areas should be instructed – even provocatively so – on the fundamental importance of free speech, dissent, apostasy, equality before the law regardless of religion or gender, and basic personal liberties. They should be evaluated on their reactions through well developed and professionally benchmarked tests and such evaluations should be allowed to inform an immigration official's decision to about a residency application. Indeed this kind of approach could lead to the penalization of certain beliefs; but if such beliefs include the rectitude of killing apostates and punishing women for wearing short skirts, should we be shedding too many tears? And even if we were to shed some tears at such scrutiny of those desiring to live in a pluralist society, isn't it better than the shedding of blood that could happen otherwise?
Esam Sohail is an educational research analyst and college lecturer of social sciences. He writes from Kansas, USA
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We know Obama will grant amnesty for 5 million. Another ten million in the next two years. That added to the 50 million Spanish in the US now (half of California) will make 65 million. In another decade that could be 75 million.
We know the Republicans will not be able to do anything about it. Forget lawsuits. Forget them turning it back '16 even if they win. Forget impeachment. Too late for any of it.
So how do we win these people over when competing against "free" benefits paid for by taxpayers?
Winning their hearts and minds:
https://patriotpost.us/articles/28775/print
Not much detail. Vague as always, on everything I ever read about this. Truthfully there is no easy answer. Certainly Republicans have to start securing the border or lest we will have another even bigger flood of people. We have to make it clear it is NOT Spanish we are enforcing our laws against but protecting us from peoples coming in from all over the world and protecting the Spanish and the rest of us who are here.
Beyond that it is "check" against the Republicans with potential for check mate - until - of course the whole thing comes crashing down.
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A Dictatorial President Obama versus the American People's Congress
One of the great ironies of this administration is that President Obama, who ran promising to end wars in the Middle East and to usher in unity domestically, is now preparing to start a political war in America.
In this month’s elections, Republicans, independents and a few Democrats united to defeat Democrats at every level from state legislatures to the U.S. Senate. Many Democrats indicated their disappointment with the Obama Administration by staying home and refusing to vote.
As I wrote earlier this week, however, President Obama is behaving as if his side won the elections and he has a resounding mandate to impose his policies on the country by presidential fiat.
It is important to understand that President Obama is not taking on "the Republicans" as he and his allies want to describe it. He is declaring war on the Congress, the elected representatives of the American people, as an institution.
Both the language of the Constitution and the explanations in the Federalist Papers make clear the Founding Fathers intended Congress, not the President, to have the primary role in making laws and setting public policy. The president is supposed to execute laws rather than make them.
Article I, Section I of the Constitution begins: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress". The term "all legislative powers" is pretty definitive. Federalist 51 asserts that "legislative authority necessarily predominates." In Federalist 69, a series of distinctions are made between the absolute powers of the British King and the limited powers of the American president.
The Constitution gives the Congress a surprising range of tools to defend itself and to challenge a president who seeks to impose his will upon the country.
The ultimate power is impeachment, but as a political matter impeachment requires the American people to render absolute judgment against the president. It has been tried twice unsuccessfully (against Presidents Johnson and Clinton), although the threat of it drove President Nixon to resign. In this case it’s very clear that the country does not want an impeachment process against President Obama.
The second greatest power of Congress is the spending power, the power of the purse. Money can only be spent if the Congress permits it and either directly or indirectly appropriates it. Taxes, fees, etc. exist only at the sufferance of Congress and can be repealed or limited.
Some people are so furious at President Obama's various threats that they would like to attach a spending limitation provision to the continuing resolution necessary to keep the government open, thus forcing the President to shut the entire government to defend his right to take unilateral action.
There is no question that a spending limitation amendment is legitimate, Constitutional, and effective. It is the tool Speaker Tip O’Neill used to limit President Reagan on Nicaragua with the Boland Amendment in 1982.
The question is whether the first step in the effort to reassert Congress’s authority should provoke a full-on crisis.
I think it would be better to set up a series of limitations which cripple the President but don't hurt the American people.
The current “lame-duck” session should pass a relatively short-term Continuing Resolution which will preserve the new Congress’s ability to use spending provisions as a negotiating tool if the President does not change his behavior.
Then, Senator McConnell could announce that no presidential appointment will be considered by the new Senate until the President agrees to behave within the bounds of his Constitutional authority. Since this would include the new Attorney General and other important presidential appointments, the threat would be real and immediate.
Second, the Appropriations Committee should announce that it will block virtually all executive branch requests for reprogramming (the term for routine reshuffling and rejiggering of budget appropriations) except for on national security issues. The executive branch is constantly having to ask Congress for small adjustments to keep the bureaucracy functioning. Holding up these requests would rapidly increase the pain level to the executive branch.
Third, a spending limitation could be attached to every bill (with rare exceptions) that Congress sends the President. How many bills can he veto to defend his right to run over the vast majority of Americans and the Congress?
Fourth, once the Republicans are in control of the Senate, they can divide the next continuing resolution in two, fund everything the American people care about for the rest of the year in one resolution, and seperate the activities the President values most, attaching them to a spending limitation rider in a second, smaller resolution.
Let the President veto spending for his pet programs over an argument he can’t win. Such a selective spending limitation would be very difficult to arouse the American people against but would strike at the heart of the President's ability to achieve his goals.
Finally, the Appropriations Committee should start targeting individual presidential perks and limit his ability to function by methodically cutting out staff, travel funding, etc.
The Founding Fathers were vividly aware of the dangers of tyranny. They had rebelled against a British King who they felt was tyrannical. They fought a desperate war for eight years against almost hopeless odds to win their independence. They thought freedom was worth the cost.
They designed the Constitution to enable the American people to maintain their freedom. They sought a balance of power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches (defined in that order with the legislature first). They would be appalled at the arrogance and hubris of a president who thought he could impose his will against the Congress.
They would also stand up to the presidential power-grab at all costs, considering it a profound threat to our system of government. The precedent of such unrestrained executive cannot be allowed to stand.
If President Obama wants to declare war on the American people's Congress, he will presently find himself as isolated and defeated as King George III. This is the dangerous path he is on.
Your Friend,
Newt
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http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/11/13/right-wing-media-wrong-about-the-legality-of-th/201553#discretion
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http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/11/13/right-wing-media-wrong-about-the-legality-of-th/201553#discretion
Because media matters is just Soros funded lies.
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As Matthew Vadum points out here - the last government shutdown (caused by the President, not Republicans) led to the recent landslide victory of Republicans. HOW ON EARTH WAS THAT A DISASTER THAT MUST BE AVOIDED AGAIN AT ALL COSTS??? WHAT PLANET DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE ON?
Washington Braces for Amnesty
Posted By Matthew Vadum On November 17, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
Republicans in Congress are struggling to put together a strategy to combat President Obama’s expected unilateral immigration amnesty as the administration moves closer to pulling the amnesty trigger by year’s end.
Their deliberations came as Vice President Joe Biden met Saturday with Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. One of the topics was how to facilitate even more immigration from those poor Third World countries to the United States.
Biden said next month the U.S. would create what the White House called “an in-country refugee/parole program in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to allow certain parents who are lawfully present in the United States to request access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for their children still in one of these three countries.”
Although fighting President Obama’s unprecedented threatened power grab by allowing a shutdown of the federal government is a possibility, Republican lawmakers acknowledge they haven’t warmed to the idea.
“It doesn’t solve the problem,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“But look, we’re having those discussions… We’re going to continue to meet about this. I know the House leaders are talking about, the Senate leaders are talking about it,” he said. “Republicans are looking at different options about how best to respond to the president’s unilateral action, which many people believe is unconstitutional, unlawful action on this particular issue.”
On ABC’s “This Week” House Deputy Majority Whip Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was cool to the idea of a shutdown. “I think the president wants a fight. I think he’s actually trying to bait us into doing some of these extreme things that have been suggested. I don’t think we will.”
U.S. Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) is opposed to a shutdown. “There’s a wide diversity of thought as to how effective that would be,” he said. A shutdown “is not a good solution.”
One of the less appealing suggestions is to sue Obama. There is a huge problem with legal standing and is it by definition an abdication of the constitutionally-stipulated power of the purse held by Congress. Lawmakers don’t have to go to court to stop Obama.
Many House conservatives want Congress to ban the funding needed to implement Obama’s executive amnesty. Others would attempt to keep the agencies implementing the amnesty on a short leash by appropriating funding for them on a short-term basis, theoretically allowing them to withhold immigration funds without shutting down the government.
“The power of the purse is what’s given to the House,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.). “That’s the check that we have against the White House. To the extent that that’s the lever we have, that’s the lever we’ll use.”
Most elected Republicans still seem blissfully unaware that the the last shutdown in October 2013 was an unmitigated public relations success for Republicans even though it might not have felt that way at the time. Setting aside the relentless media propaganda that falsely painted the shutdown as a massive Democratic tactical victory, the episode sent the unmistakable message that GOPers were champions of freedom of choice in health care.
The shutdown boosted GOP public approval numbers all the way through the election this month, helped to revive the fight against Obamacare as millions of Americans were having their health insurance policies abruptly canceled, and helped to set the stage for the Republicans’ historic trouncing of the Democrats in congressional elections. The shutdown was an extended, cost-free infomercial for the GOP that reminded Americans that Republicans were on their side on an issue that mattered to them. In other words, it derailed what had seemed like an unstoppable leftist narrative that the always-unpopular Obamacare was a done deal and that resistance to it was futile.
Those gun-shy Republicans who oppose a government shutdown at all costs are never quite able to explain why, if the shutdown was so bad for the GOP, Republicans are now on the march.
On Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning at least 53 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 244 out of 435 seats. In the new year Republicans will control at least 31 state governors’ mansions and at least 68 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska’s legislature has only one chamber). In at least 23 states Republicans will control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature. Democrats can make the same claim about only 7 states.
Republican leaders have been talking out of both sides of their mouths on the amnesty issue for months.
Acting unilaterally on immigration would be “a big mistake” akin to “waving a red flag in front of a bull,” McConnell said. Such action “poisons the well for an opportunity to address a very important domestic issue.”
But McConnell also said he’s not willing to use Congress’s spending power to stop amnesty. Right after the election he seemed adamant that he would not abide a government shutdown.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), whose speakership is likely to be challenged by conservative lawmakers in January, also said unilateral action would “poison the well.” Boehner warned Obama, “when you play with matches, then you take the risk of burning yourself, and he’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.
On the weekend Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson confirmed that planning for Obama’s executive amnesty, along with other changes to the immigration system, is almost complete.
“We’re in the final stages of developing some executive actions,” Johnson said. “We have a broken immigration system. The more I delve into it, the more problems I see.”
Of course, it is a leftist lie to say that the immigration system is broken. When progressives say the system is broken, they mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to capture every single prospective illegal alien welfare case available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation’s largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America’s borders altogether.
The system is doing what it was designed to do: Flood America with people who don’t share Americans’ traditional philosophical commitment to the rule of law, limited government, and markets, in order to force changes in society. The radicals’ goal today is to use immigration to subvert the American system, just as it was in the 1960s when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) shepherded leftist reforms of that era’s immigration laws through Congress.
The current immigration system is congested, overwhelmed, and under attack by the sheer volume of illegal aliens that Democratic policies have been bringing to the U.S. The problem isn’t so much the legal regime governing immigration but the years of non-enforcement at the border, coupled with Obama’s brazen attempts to recruit illegals from Latin America, luring them with promises of government largesse such as food stamps.
Most analysts haven’t noted that if Obama acts unilaterally on immigration, he is likely to do long-term damage to the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party. The voters of Oregon, a longtime Democrat stronghold, delivered a stark warning on illegal immigration to the president’s party in the election a fortnight ago.
Even as Oregonians easily approved Measure 91, a ballot proposition legalizing possession, cultivation, and recreational use of marijuana, and added to Democrat majorities at the state level, they overwhelmingly rejected Measure 88 which would have sustained a state law giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
The vote to legalize pot was 55.6 percent in favor to 44.4 percent against but the vote to overturn the statute providing driver’s licenses was a lopsided 66.4 percent to repeal compared to just 33.6 percent to uphold the law. The statute was approved last year without much opposition by state lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat.
As of a month ago, the illegal alien lobby had outspent the other side by a 10-to-1 margin.
“It was really the epitome of a grassroots effort,” Cynthia Kendoll, an activist for the successful “No” side told reporters. “There’s such a disconnect between what people really want and what’s happening.”
Mark Krikorian of the respected nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies said the thumping voters gave Measure 88 was proof that the groups supporting endless accommodations for the illegal aliens invading this country are hopelessly out of touch. “It really highlights how this issue is not a Republican-liberal issue like, say, taxes and abortion, but an up-down issue, elites versus the public.”
As if on cue, left-wing elitist Marshall Fitz of the Center for American Progress (CAP), dropped by to smear those who voted against Measure 88 as racist, monobrowed, dimwits.
“Is there an instinct toward security, hunkering down and against welcoming the other?” Fitz said. “That’s part of human nature. But that doesn’t mean instincts can’t be overcome by reason.”
Decent, patriotic Americans are infuriated by the kind of smugness and condescension exuded by open-borders radicals like Fitz and Obama who glibly equate opposition to illegal immigration to xenophobia and racism. They are intensely angered when they are told by the leftists of the media day in and day out that if you support enforcement of immigration laws you’re a bad person. The accusation grates because Americans are among the most tolerant and generous in the world, and beyond any doubt the most accepting of immigrants.
People like Fitz and his former boss CAP founder John Podesta, who is now a senior advisor in the Obama White House, seem unable to fathom just how disgusted law-abiding Americans, including legal U.S. immigrants, are by illegal immigration and the coddling and granting of special privileges to illegals.
The issue of illegal immigration isn’t a powder keg ready to blow both major political parties to bits. It’s more like a stage coach in an old Western movie loaded with liquid nitroglycerin. One bad bump on the road and — kaboom! — those guiding it across the frontier are vaporized. Obama’s hugely unpopular executive amnesty threatens to render Democrats a spent force for decades. Whether Republicans will be smart enough to stay clear of the Obama-created debacle-in-waiting remains to be seen.
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Obj, You have two points in there that I also wanted to bring forward. One is that, "the last government shutdown (caused by the President, not Republicans) led to the recent landslide victory of Republicans." - Obj "The episode sent the unmistakable message that GOPers were champions of freedom of choice in health care." - FrontPage
Yes. Republicans like Lee and Cruz and the House majority took a hard stance in defense of principles. The immediate reaction was outrage and false blame, but the lasting effect was that, for a moment, we ended the blurred lines and lit up a clear distinction between our votes and their failed policies. Unlike Republicans supporting federal mortgage agencies, Republicans writing Romneycare, Republicans expanding the federal Department of Education and increasing spending overall, we drew a clear line for the public to see on a crucially important matter and gained immensely from it.
Secondly, this is an amazing shift in public opinion on immigration reform brought on by the over-reaches of power by Pres. Obama:
"Oregon, a longtime Democrat stronghold, delivered a stark warning on illegal immigration to the president’s party ... the vote to overturn the statute providing driver’s licenses [to illegals] was a lopsided 66.4 percent to repeal compared to just 33.6 percent to uphold the law."
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All of that said, I don't see why an opinion piece about Democrats ready to obliterate the constitution for political gain has to be written as a hit piece on Republicans.
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Doug,
Matthew's piece is not a hit piece on Republicans - far from it. He's simply saying the Republicans need to stand their ground and let the blame fall where it belongs - on the Democrats and Obama. The American people are vastly in favor of stopping Obama in his tracks - despite the fact that the media - even most pundits at Fox News - don't freakin' get it! These idiot Republicans are so afraid of the media that they can't see this landslide victory right in front of their faces for what it is: an unmistakable, unequivocal mandate to STOP THE OBAMA AGENDA NOW!!!
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The mainstream/party structure of the GOP sucks.
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Here is my understanding:
58% of Americans oppose how Obama apparently is going to go about this. 58% of the American people are sympathetic to something like he is proposing getting done.
The class in question (illegals with American children) is chosen with politics in mind. The question I anticipate being presented to Republicans is this: When you deport these illegals, what happens to the children? Do you tear families apart? Do you deport these American citizens?
Again I ask for help on the legal/Constitutional aspect of Obama's threatened course of action. Apparently there is a more plausible case for it being legal than I had realized. http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/11/13/right-wing-media-wrong-about-the-legality-of-th/201553#discretion
In addition to the general argument it makes about prosecutorial discretion (please address) to not pursue deportation, as best as I can tell there is the additional matter of the DACA "Program" giving work papers? Where the hell did/does DACA come from. Does "Program" mean it is of bureaucratic origin, or is it of statutory origin? Perhaps our GM can help us out here with his wondrous google fu skills?
PS: IMHO the Reps got their collective ass kicked on the last shut down. That this was due to dishonest reporting from the Pravdas I don't dispute, but let us not kid ourselves on the political consequence. If the same dynamics were to occur again (Reps fund everything except the matter in question and Obama chooses to let govt shut down occur instead and Pravdas blame Reps) what do you think will happen politically when Obama says
"When you deport these illegals, what happens to the children? Do you tear families apart? Do you deport these American citizens?"
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Doug,
Matthew's piece is not a hit piece on Republicans - far from it. He's simply saying the Republicans need to stand their ground and let the blame fall where it belongs - on the Democrats and Obama. The American people are vastly in favor of stopping Obama in his tracks - despite the fact that the media - even most pundits at Fox News - don't freakin' get it! These idiot Republicans are so afraid of the media that they can't see this landslide victory right in front of their faces for what it is: an unmistakable, unequivocal mandate to STOP THE OBAMA AGENDA NOW!!!
Thanks. I get it that 'lilly-livered wimps' wasn't his characterization. :wink:
It is certainly time to discuss the options available to stop the Obama agenda. But in public and on these shows, Republicans don't need to overstate their recent win or over-reach their own new power. That was the error made by Bush after reelection in 2004, by Obama after reelection in 2012, and by the Democratic congress when they seated their 60th Senator, all causing the pendulum of power to keep swinging back and forth. When Obama makes his next over-reach, the story should be about Obama's over-reach, not about Republicans making scary, empty threats. Our job is to govern soberly and responsibly, whatever that entails, and to stop his agenda mostly by winning the public and winning the next election. Cutting back on unforced errors is part of that. Moving forward on own positive agenda is the biggest part of that. Investigating, answering and thwarting Obama and the Democrats is the least pleasant part of the job of governing.
We can take unconstitutional acts by the President to the courts and to the people. The power of the purse is a fact that does not need to be accompanied with talk of a total shutdown.
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Crafty asks: "When you deport these illegals, what happens to the children? Do you tear families apart? Do you deport these American citizens?"
In the first place, we are deporting nearly no one before or after this coming action so the point seems hypothetical if not moot. If you did send adults back home and THEY want their families intact, presumably they would take their children with them. We, who support some kind of border control and rule of law, are NOT the ones splitting up families. It would take some level of credibility and compassion on the issue to make a reasonable case of that. To just shout, send them all home, or, to hell with their families, is to lose all Hispanic- and Asian-American votes.
Obama spells it out with a clearer incentive than a welfare application. Father a child while you are here and you are in forever. And as this wave looks at getting legalization, the next wave starts rolling in. Very hard to stop. That's why we look for comprehensive reform. If it doesn't end with a rule we would enforce, why change any rules?
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And furthermore - I must disagree with Crafty that the Republicans "got their asses kicked" with the last shutdown. According to WHOM? Yes - obviously the establishment media did and always will blame the Republicans, but what of it? Did Republicans not just kick the Democrats' asses soundly? I fail to see the horrible consequence that followed their half-hearted shutdown. Someone please show me how that devastated the Republican Party. If they had stuck to their guns, as they need to do now, and present this as STOPPING the President from IGNORING the Constitution - fund everything else - they can make that case quite well. Taking the most important weapon in their arsenal off the table - the power of the purse - is simply moronic and ensures their defeat. Obama knows they won't impeach him - if he also knows they will back down and fund his lawlessness, there are no limits to what he can get away with. What is so damn hard to understand about this???
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When people break laws and go to jail/prison, they don't take their children with them. Why do those who violate immigration laws deserve special consideration?
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http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca
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Thank you GM.
So, this is what I have mentally so far:
"DACA was designed to exercise prosecutorial discretion for law-abiding immigrants who came to this country as children, and it "did not provide an across-the-board change in legal status. , , , You may request DACA if you:
"1.Were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012;
"2.Came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday , , ,"
"UCLA Law Professor Motomura: DACA Was "Clearly Within [The President's] Discretionary Power." As The Washington Post's Wonkblog reported, professor Hiroshi Motomura was the principal author of the 2012 memo that outlined the legal rationale for temporary administrative relief like DACA. According to Wonkblog, Motomura explained that the president could build upon the program as is being reported, which is essentially "a list to prioritize who should be deported first. Nevertheless, conservatives have falsely characterized as "amnesty" this deferred action and similar relief, which seeks to continue to prioritize the deportation of those "who had committed felonies or were seen as safety or security risks":"
Question that occurs to me:
Is Team Obama arguing the the 4.5 million in question meet the criteria of DACA? and thus get work papers while their status is pending?
Please help me read this closely.
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The President does not have the power to grant citizenship without a change in the law.
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But, unless I am mistaken, that is not what he is doing here , , ,
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The Missing Immigration Memo
Has Obama asked the Office of Legal Counsel for its legal opinion?
Attorney General Eric Holder European Pressphoto Agency
Nov. 16, 2014 6:31 p.m. ET
If the White House press corps wants to keep government honest, here’s a question to ask as President Obama prepares to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants by executive order: Has he sought, and does he have, any written legal justification from the Attorney General and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for his actions?
This would be standard operating procedure in any normal Presidency. Attorney General Eric Holder is the executive branch’s chief legal officer, and Administrations of both parties typically ask OLC for advice on the parameters of presidential legal authority.
The Obama Administration has asked OLC for its legal opinions on such controversial national security questions as drone strikes and targeting U.S. citizens abroad. It was right do so even though the Constitution gives Presidents enormous authority on war powers and foreign policy.
But a Justice-OLC opinion is all the more necessary on domestic issues because the President’s authority is far more limited. He is obliged to execute the laws that Congress writes. A President should always seek legal justification for controversial actions to ensure that he is on solid constitutional ground as well as to inspire public confidence in government.
Yet as far as we have seen, Mr. Obama sought no such legal justification in 2012 when he legalized hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. The only document we’ve found in justification is a letter from the Secretary of Homeland Security at the time, Janet Napolitano, to law enforcement agencies citing “the exercise of our prosecutorial discretion.” Judging by recent White House leaks, that same flimsy argument will be the basis for legalizing millions more adults.
It’s possible Messrs. Obama and Holder haven’t sought an immigration opinion because they suspect there’s little chance that even a pliant Office of Legal Counsel could find a legal justification. Prosecutorial discretion is a vital legal concept, but it is supposed to be exercised in individual cases, not to justify a refusal to follow the law against entire classes of people.
White House leakers are also whispering as a legal excuse that Congress has provided money to deport only 400,000 illegal migrants a year. But a President cannot use lack of funds to justify a wholesale refusal to enforce a statute. There is never enough money to enforce every federal law at any given time, and lack of funds could by used in the future by any President to refuse to enforce any statute. Imagine a Republican President who decided not to enforce the Clean Air Act.
We support more liberal immigration but not Mr. Obama’s means of doing it on his own whim because he’s tired of working with Congress. His first obligation is to follow the law, which begins by asking the opinion of the government’s own lawyers.
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second post
Why Dems Lack Working Class Appeal: It's Immigration, Stupid
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on November 17, 2014
After their massive defeats in the midterm elections, many Democrats are calling for the party to move away from its emphasis on social issues and embrace a call for higher wages and an end to stagnant working class incomes. But they miss the point. Both in fact and in perception, their pro-immigration stance puts them on the wrong side of the issue.
AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka called on Hillary to "run on a raising-wages agenda and not cater to Wall Street but to everyday people."
The New York Times notes that as Democrats sift through the returns, they see that "lower-income voters either supported Republicans or did not vote." The paper said that "liberals argue that without a more robust message about economic fairness, the party will continue to suffer among working-class voters, particularly in the South and Midwest."
But both Trumka and the Times miss the key point: You can't be for raising downscale wages and opening the doors of our nation to millions of low income immigrants at the same time. They are mutually contradictory both economically and politically.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, an ultra-leftist, came closer to the mark when he said that "Too many Democrats are too close to Wall Street" and that "too many Democrats support trade agreements that outsource jobs, and too many Democrats are too willing to cut Social Security -- and that's why we lose elections."
But Brown's argument collapses when he leaves immigration off his list.
Under Obama, three out of every four newly created jobs went to people not born in the United States according to the Census Bureau. The resultant downward pressure on wages makes income inequality worse. Proposals to raise the minimum wage are largely beside the point -- only ten percent of those at this wage level are in poverty, the rest are second and third incomes in their families.
To raise the wages of the heads of households, the left cannot continue to force them to compete with newly arrived immigrants who are willing to work for next to nothing.
The liberal agenda of tougher regulation of banks, student loan forgiveness, and even revisions in trade policy simply won't address the problem sufficiently.
In one stroke of the pen, President Obama will justify working class angst about the Administration's economic policy when he ends deportations of illegal immigrants.
Message to Obama and the left: Immigration is the economic issue of our time.
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The labor leaders have to be selling out their members (again). Allow millions and millions of potential new labor union members in the country and then lock in a stronger Democratic party majority and then push for more union benefits.
That has to be their strategy. They may not have the choice with Obama they thought they would now. So play for the long game. They are not going to become Republicans.
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Many if not most of the illegals are incapable of doing much but manual labor, crime and voting democratic.
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I forget on which thread, but we discussed this matter a few years ago:
http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/11/17/ingraham-urges-gop-to-enforce-immigration-laws/201587
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"[T]he people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, 1787
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An Obama supporter with integrity:
Barack Obama claims to be a "professor of constitutional law," but a genuine constitutional scholar, George Washington University's Jonathan Turley, a self-acknowledged liberal Obama supporter, has offered severe criticism of Obama's "über presidency," his abuse of executive orders and regulations to bypass Congress.
When asked by Fox News host Megyn Kelly how he would respond "to those who say many presidents have issued executive orders on immigration," Turley responded, "This would be unprecedented, and I think it would be an unprecedented threat to the balance of powers."
In July, Turley gave congressional testimony concerning Obama's abuse of executive orders: "When the president went to Congress and said he would go it alone, it obviously raises a concern. There's no license for going it alone in our system, and what he's done is very problematic. He's told agencies not to enforce some laws [and] has effectively rewritten laws through active interpretation that I find very problematic."
He continued: "Our system is changing in a dangerous and destabilizing way. What's emerging is an imperial presidency, an über presidency. ... The president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming but what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger that the Framers sought to avoid in the establishment of our tripartite system of government. ... Obama has repeatedly violated this [separation of powers] doctrine in the circumvention of Congress in areas ranging from health care to immigration law to environmental law. ... What we are witnessing today is one of the greatest challenges to our constitutional system in the history of this country. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty. I think the framers would be horrified. ... We are now at the constitutional tipping point for our system. ... No one in our system can 'go it alone' -- not Congress, not the courts, and not the president."
Turley reiterated this week: "[Obama has] become a government of one. ... It's becoming a particularly dangerous moment if the president is going to go forward, particularly after this election, to defy the will of Congress yet again. ... What the president is suggesting is tearing at the very fabric of the Constitution. We have a separation of powers ... to protect Liberty, to keep any branch from assuming so much authority that they become a threat to Liberty. ... The Democrats are creating something very, very dangerous. They're creating a president who can go it alone -- the very danger that are framers sought to avoid in our Constitution. ... I hope he does not get away with it."
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/16/shock-flashback-obama-says-illegal-immigration-hurts-blue-collar-americans-strains-welfare-video/?advD=1248%2C657950#!
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Immigration Executive Order -- All Smoke and Mirrors
The Demos' REAL "Immigration Reform" Strategy
By Mark Alexander • November 19, 2014
"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." --George Washington (1783)
So, the Imperial President claims that, because Republicans are not passing the immigration "reform" legislation that best suits the Democratic Party's political agenda, he is going to bypass Congress and issue an executive order (EO).
Don't believe it.
Oh, Barack Obama is going to center stage Thursday night to set up his EO play, and sign that diktat Friday in Las Vegas -- a fitting venue for a gutless gamble by a "big hat, no cattle" dude rancher. But what is the Demos' real strategy?
In leftist parlance, "immigration reform" means providing a jackpot to illegal aliens -- giving them official status so they can work and receive all associated taxpayer-subsidized services like housing, schooling and medical care. Once integrated, the second step is to provide a fast-track to citizenship. In other words, for Democrats, immigration reform means, first and foremost, seeding a large constituency.
But is Obama really attempting to give millions of illegal immigrants worker status?
In 2008, then President-elect Obama declared, "I can guarantee that we will have, in the first year, an immigration bill that I strongly support." In 2009 and 2010, Obama had the benefit of Democrat Party control of both the House and Senate, however, his congressional Demos never passed an amnesty bill and thus he did not sign one.
Why?
Because he and his fellow Democrats were just pandering to Latinos; they had no intention of passing legislation to provide worker permits for five to 10 million illegal immigrants.
Why?
Because another larger and more critical Democrat voter constituency is composed of low-income Americans, whom the Left baits with class warfare rhetoric centered on issues like "living wages" and increasing the minimum wage.
As my daughter, a university student working toward a business degree, framed this issue, "Labor inflation results in wage deflation." In other words, the Democrats really don't want to dump millions of immigrant laborers, who are willing to take low wages, onto their dependable American low-income constituency, because that will, in effect, drive wages even lower.
This is a fundamental supply-and-demand equation.
Just before Democrats were shellacked during the midterm "Republican wave," Obama borrowed a line from The Gipper for a national campaign interview: "Ronald Reagan used to ask the question, 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' In this case, are you better off than you were in six? And the answer is, the country is definitely better off than we were when I came into office." But according to BO, the problem is the American people "don't feel it," and he insisted, "The reason they don't feel it is because incomes and wages are not going up."
Of course, the reason for wage stagnation is that Obama's economic "recovery" policies have been a colossal failure. On top of that, the influx of cheap illegal immigrant labor effectively caps any increase in wages for unskilled workers.
Democrats argue raising the minimum wage will protect their low-wage constituents, but that is a fabrication. As the Congressional Budget Office made clear, artificially increasing wages will decrease employment.
The issue of immigrant labor undermining the ability of low-income earners to achieve a "living wage" is nothing new. A primary reason Abraham Lincoln did not emancipate slaves at the onset of the War Between the States is that the influx of black labor into northern markets competing for jobs held by white laborers would have undermined Lincoln's political support from the latter.
The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass was so angry with Lincoln for delaying the liberation of some slaves that he scarcely contacted him before 1863, noting that Lincoln was loyal only "to the welfare of the white race." Apparently, more than a few Latino politicos are equally disenchanted with Obama's failure to provide immigrant work permits.
So what of Obama's EO?
The Demo strategy is to craft that EO in such a way that Republicans can successfully chip away at it, primarily by defunding and de-authorizing key components of its implementation, as well as by issuing legal challenges. Thus, Democrats will receive credit from both their legal and illegal Latino constituencies for, ostensibly, attempting to provide them with nine million Permanent Residency or Employment Authorization cards. Then they can blame those "obstructionist" Republicans for blocking them.
This week, Senate Democrats, in a letter to Obama supporting his EO plan, made clear their intent to share in the political fruits of this charade.
Obama, as we've often noted, is a master of the BIG Lie, and, just like the litany of lies that he and his party used to deceive Americans into supporting ObamaCare, they are
also deceiving millions of Americans into believing Democrats support both "living wages" and "immigration reform."
Apparently, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) got it right when he interrupted Obama's 2009 introduction of ObamaCare to a joint session of Congress and the nation. "You lie! You lie!" Wilson memorably yelled.
Indeed, "lack of transparency" and "the stupidity of the American voter," in the words of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, are also applicable to Obama's low-wage and Latino constituencies in regard to amnesty by EO. Of course, there is plenty of evidence that Obama constituents are too ignorant to know they're being duped -- after all, they elected him. Twice.
Not only do Democrats assume their constituents are too stupid to understand Obama's amnesty EO subterfuge, but Obama is willing to, once again, turn constitutional Rule of Law on end to accomplish this deceit.
Last week, Obama declared his intent to issue the immigration EO: "I indicated to Speaker Boehner several months ago that if in fact Congress failed to act I would use all the lawful authority that I possess to try to make the system work better."
Of course, "lawful authority" is whatever Obama defines it to be at a given time. He was against unlawful executive orders before he was for them.
On March 31, 2008, candidate Obama said, "I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we are facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America."
But having failed to pass immigration reform in his first two years in office when he owned the House and Senate, and then having lost control of the House in the 2010 midterm election, Obama repeatedly pleaded in Latino forums that he had no power to implement the changes he'd promised. Rebuffing calls that he legislate by executive order, Obama insisted, "I am not a dictator. I'm the president. ... If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress then I would do so. ... I'm not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed."
Obama may not have implemented his immigration policies by EO, but he certainly suspended enforcement of immigration laws with an executive order.
But by 2014, with his singular centerpiece legislation -- ObamaCare -- falling apart, and Democrats putting as much distance between him and them as possible, Obama believed the only way his party could stave off a resounding defeat in the midterm election was if he delivered Latino votes.
He began the year promising, "Where Congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own. ... I've got a pen ... and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward." In other words, when Republicans don't give Obama what he wants on immigration, he will pull an executive order end run.
Obama has broadly demonstrated his willingness to end-run our Constitution via EO, most notably his so-called "climate change" policies and his repeated rewrites of ObamaCare.
Asked about his revised position to implement amnesty by executive order, Obama regurgitated this spin: "Well, actually, my position hasn't changed. When I was talking to the advocates, their interest was in me, through executive action, duplicating the legislation that was stalled in Congress. ... There are certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing immigration laws."
Of course, that is just more constitutional obfuscation.
Despite his faux devotion to our Constitution, Obama has wantonly violated his oath to "to Support and Defend" it.
Though Obama claims to be a "professor of constitutional law," a genuine constitutional scholar, George Washington University's Jonathan Turley, a self-acknowledged liberal Obama supporter, has issued severe criticism of Obama's "über presidency," his abuse of executive orders and regulations to bypass Congress.
According to Turley, "When the president went to Congress and said he would go it alone, it obviously raises a concern. There's no license for going it alone in our system, and what he's done, is very problematic. He's told agencies not to enforce some laws [and] has effectively rewritten laws through active interpretation that I find very problematic."
He continued: "What's emerging is an imperial presidency, an über presidency. ... When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger that the Framers sought to avoid in the establishment of our tripartite system of government. ... Obama has repeatedly violated this [separation of powers] doctrine in the circumvention of Congress in areas ranging from health care to immigration law to environmental law. ... What we are witnessing today is one of the greatest challenges to our constitutional system in the history of this country. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government. ... We are now at the constitutional tipping point for our system. ... No one in our system can 'go it alone' -- not Congress, not the courts, and not the president."
When asked by Fox News host Megyn Kelly how he would respond "to those who say many presidents have issued executive orders on immigration," Turley responded, "This would be unprecedented, and I think it would be an unprecedented threat to the balance of powers. ... I hope he does not get away with it."
Over on Obama's MSNBC network, even leftist commentator Lawrence O'Donnell finds the prospect of Obama's executive amnesty diktat daunting. He asked Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) about Obama's authority to issue an EO giving work permits to millions of illegal immigrants: "No one at the White House has been able to give me the legal justification for the following component of the president's plan. ... Has the White House told you -- what is the legal justification for the president to create a new category of beneficiaries for work documents? How can that be done without legislation?"
Of course, Welch could not answer O'Donnell, because there is no such authority.
Before the midterm election, Obama declared, "Make no mistake, [my] policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them." Make no mistake: The American people resoundingly rejected his policies on November 4.
That notwithstanding, Obama has dismissed the election results. Perhaps he believes his immigration EO artifice will deliver enough Latino voters to Democrat candidates in 2016 to hold the presidency and regain the Senate, and somehow that will restore his "Dear Leader" status. After all, more than a million illegal immigrants were unlawfully registered to vote in the midterm election, particularly in states where Democrats have thwarted efforts to require voter IDs.
The bottom line for Republicans is that they need to drive home four points.
First, the "immigration reform" pledges by Obama and his Democrats are disingenuous because they would undermine the Left's entire "living wage" platform. But Democrats believe their low-income and Latino constituencies are too stupid to understand this ruse. Remember: "Labor inflation results in wage deflation."
Second, as Dr. Turley noted, Obama is willing to trash the Constitution in order to advance his ruinous policies. Republicans need to use his abject abuse of power and the threat it poses to Liberty as a constitutional teachable moment.
Third, any debate about immigration is useless unless it begins with a commitment to securing our borders first. As Ronald Reagan declared, "A nation without borders is not a nation." Likewise, it must address the issue of so-called "birthright citizenship," which is a gross misinterpretation of our Constitution's 14th Amendment.
And last, Republicans need to embrace the fact that Liberty is colorblind. It's not a "white thing." Essential Liberty is timeless. And because it transcends all racial, ethnic, gender and class distinctions, it will appeal to all freedom-loving people when properly presented.
Time to see what the incoming House and Senate Republican majorities are made of!
Pro Deo et Constitutione -- Libertas aut Mors
Semper Fortis Vigilate Paratus et Fidelis
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Obama Is Not a Monarch
The president cannot act alone; the Constitution requires compromise.
By SEN. TED CRUZ November 19, 2014
The Constitution designs a system of checks and balances for our nation, and executive amnesty for immigrants here illegally unilaterally decreed from the White House would seriously undermine the rule of law.
Our founders repeatedly warned about the dangers of unlimited power within the executive branch; Congress should heed those words as the President threatens to grant amnesty to millions of people who have come to our country illegally.
To be clear, the dispute over executive amnesty is not between President Obama and Republicans in Congress; it is a dispute between President Obama and the American People. The Democrats suffered historic losses in the midterm elections largely over the prospect of the President’s executive amnesty.
President Obama was correct: His policies were on the ballot across the nation in 2014. The elections were a referendum on amnesty, and the voters soundly rejected it. There was no ambiguity.
Undeterred, President Obama appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Obama will not be acting as a president, he will be acting as a monarch.
Thankfully, the framers of our Constitution, wary of the dangers of monarchy, gave the Congress tools to rein in abuses of power. They believed if the President wants to change the law, he cannot act alone; he must work with Congress.
He may not get everything he wants, but the Constitution requires compromise between the branches.
A monarch, however, does not compromise. As Alexander Hamilton explains in Federalist 69, a monarch decrees, dictates, and rules through fiat power, which is what President Obama is attempting.
When the President embraces the tactics of a monarch, it becomes incumbent on Congress to wield the constitutional power it has to stop it.
Congress, representing the voice of the People, should use every tool available to prevent the President from subverting the rule of law.
When the President usurps the legislative power and defies the limits of his authority, it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act. And Congress should use those powers given to it by the Constitution to counter a lawless executive branch—or it will lose its authority.
If the President announces executive amnesty, the new Senate Majority Leader who takes over in January should announce that the 114th Congress will not confirm a single nominee—executive or judicial—outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists.
This is a potent tool given to Congress by the Constitution explicitly to act as a check on executive power. It is a constitutional power of the Majority Leader alone, and it would serve as a significant deterrent to a lawless President.
Additionally, the new Congress should exercise the power of the purse by passing individual appropriations bills authorizing critical functions of government and attaching riders to strip the authority from the president to grant amnesty.
President Obama will no doubt threaten a shutdown—that seems to be the one card he repeatedly plays—but Congress can authorize funding for agencies of government one at a time. If the President is unwilling to accept funding for, say, the Department of Homeland Security without his being able to unilaterally defy the law, he alone will be responsible for the consequences.
A presidential temper tantrum is not an acceptable means of discourse.
Of course, these confrontations are not desirable, and it is unbecoming for an American president to show such condescension towards the voters.
The American people, however, are not powerless. They have elected a new Congress full of members who have promised in their campaigns to stand up to this lawless President and stop the amnesty. We must honor our commitments.
If the President will not respect the people, Congress must.
Ted Cruz is a U.S. senator from Texas.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/president-obama-is-not-a-monarch-113028.html#ixzz3JYAlJtAM
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http://goodlatte.house.gov/pages/Top-10-Concerns-With-The-Senate-Immigration-Bill
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second post-- good content here to shoot down the latest bullexcrement progressive meme about Reagan and Bush:
Sorry, liberals: Reagan and Bush 41 did not defy Congress with executive amnesty
Published by: Dan Calabrese
Nice try.
Every time President Obama does something, or is about to do something, that has conservatives up in arms - especially if the protest is based on abuse of his constitutional authority - you can count on the left doing one thing: Finding a supposed example of a past Republican president or presidents doing the exact same thing.
Oh, I guess it was OK when a Republican did it!
They've been all over that argument the last couple of days with Obama's soon-to-be-announced executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, claiming that both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did the exact same thing. This argument is just clever enough that people who don't really understand the issue or don't really know the history might buy it.
But when you really look into it, as Hans von Spakovsky did today for the Daily Signal, you'll find that the liberals' claim here is a complete load of crap:
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), which provided a general amnesty to almost three million illegal immigrants. According to the Associated Press, Reagan acted unilaterally when his Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner “announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by [IRCA] would get protection from deportation.” In fact, in 1987 former Attorney General Ed Meese issued a memorandum allowing the INS to defer deportation where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” for children of illegal immigrants who had been granted amnesty and, in essence, given green cards and put on a path towards being “naturalized” as citizens. In announcing this policy, Reagan was not defying Congress, but rather carrying out the general intent of Congress which had just passed a blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.
As the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website itself explains, the children of individuals who become citizens through naturalization have a relatively easy process for also becoming naturalized citizens to avoid breaking up families. And as Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies points out, the INS was, as a practical matter, going to “look the other way under certain circumstances with regard to minor children both of whose parents received amnesty.” This was well within the authority delegated to the executive branch and a “legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
The Bush administration relaxed these technical requirements under a “Family Fairness” policy to defer deportation of the spouses and children of illegal immigrants who were allowed to stay in this country and seek naturalization through the IRCA amnesty. Shortly thereafter, Bush worked with Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1990, which made these protections permanent. Significantly, the Bush policy and the 1990 Act affected only a small number of immigrants–about 180,000 people –in comparison to Obama’s past (his 2012 implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program) and anticipated unilateral actions that will affect millions of immigrants.
Some supporters of Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration have also pointed to other actions by past presidents that allowed immigrants such as Afghans and Nicaraguans to stay in the U.S. But those limited actions were based on very special circumstances such as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Communist-driven civil war in Nicaragua or the Chinese massacre of students in Tiananmen Square that led Bush to granted deferred departure to threatened Chinese nationals.
What Obama is getting ready to do has nothing at all in common with what Reagan or Bush did. Both of these past Republican presidents made fairly run-of-the-mill administrative decisions on the implementation of bills Congress had passed, and that they had signed. That is entirely uncontroversial, and would be so if Obama did it too.
What Obama is proposing to do here is to act action on his own specifically because Congress has not given him authorization to act. That is about as unconstitutional as a thing can be, and it bears no similarity to the examples liberals are trying to put forward as its equivalent.
Nice job on von Spakovsky's part doing the work to expose the fraud that is this argument.
Of course, the most galling thing about all this is that, if Obama really wants immigration reform, he could wait until the new Congress is sworn in and then work with them on it. But he doesn't want that because the new Republican Congress is not going to pass a bill that's designed solely to serve the electoral objectives of Democrats. So suddenly, after getting nothing out of Congress on this score for six years, he suddenly has to act now because it's a huge emergency.
No wonder the left has to go to such ridiculous lengths to construct a rationalization. When you actually take an honest look at what he's about to do, you realize it's completely indefensible.
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http://goodlatte.house.gov/pages/Top-10-Concerns-With-The-Senate-Immigration-Bill
Is there a "comprehensive" bill out there that does satisfy these concerns?
It is unfortunate that when America elected a constitutional law lecturer, they got a guy that would govern within the cracks and crevasses between the articles of the constitution instead of following its words, meaning and and intent.
Kids used to be taught in school that for a bill to become law it must first pass with majority votes in both the House and Senate, and then go to the President to be signed signed or vetoed, etc.
The president has discretion to prioritize enforcement based on limited personnel and resources, but not to unilaterally make or change laws passed by congress.
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The President is not required to take care that the laws be completely executed. That would be impossible given finite resources. The President does have power to make enforcement choices. However, he must make them faithfully.
- Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg85762/html/CHRG-113hhrg85762.htm
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:
Anyone who intends to sue the president over his anticipated executive action on immigration will have to overcome "two significant hurdles." The plaintiffs will have to show that the president has abused his discretion; and the plaintiff must have standing to bring a legal challenge.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/alberto-gonzales-obama-doesnt-have-authority-amend-repeal-suspend-law
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SCHLAFLY: OBAMA COULD LAUNCH ANOTHER CIVIL WAR
Describes president's amnesty plan as modern-day 'Fort Sumter'
By Paul Bremmer
President Obama’s looming executive action on immigration reform represents a Fort Sumter-type moment, according to conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.
Schlafly at first considered comparing the Obama amnesty to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but decided that Obama’s plan is much more subtle.
“With Pearl Harbor, the American people knew what was happening,” she said.
But Fort Sumter, where the opening shots of the Civil War were fired, represented the beginning of a ruinous conflict, and Schlafly, like fellow conservative luminary Richard Viguerie, speculates that an executive amnesty might touch off a sort of modern-day conflagration.
Obama plans to announce his unilateral immigration reform proposal in a televised address Thursday night. While no details are being released by the White House until then, analysts widely expect it to include delaying deportation and issuing work permits to up to 5 million people currently in the U.S. illegally.
However, it could be just the beginning. Last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began searching for a contractor capable of producing up to 34 million blank green cards over the next five years.
Obama’s executive order is expected to include some parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The Washington Post reported the plan will broaden visa programs for highly skilled technology workers.
Two components of the plan would seem to appease immigration-control advocates. At the National Press Club Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson claimed the president’s order would include steps to secure the southern border of the United States. And “an official familiar with the administration’s deliberations” told the New York Times the newly authorized illegal aliens would not be eligible for subsidized health insurance plans under Obamacare.
Schlafly, whose recently published book “Who Killed the American Family?” came out just days before she turned 90, is not at all reassured by the latter two parts of the plan.
Asked whether she trusts Obama to secure the nation’s southern border, she replied: “No. I don’t trust him.”
She pointed out that politicians have been promising to secure the border for years, but it remains wide open. She remembers when Obama’s predecessor failed to deliver on a promised border fence.
“I remember seeing George W. Bush’s photo-op,” Schlafly said. “He was signing the law to build the fence. And they never built it.”
She is also skeptical of the idea that beneficiaries of Obama’s amnesty will be barred from receiving health-care subsidies.
“No, I don’t think he will deny them Obamacare,” she said.
So is the president lying?
“I think he lies about everything,” Schlafly said.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/schlafly-obama-could-launch-another-civil-war/#VhPrOIz5dfULc291.99
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And I would add figure a way to stop Obama from finishing his goal of legalizing millions more:
immiigration
Republicans Can Trump Obama on Immigration
Lanhee Chen
comments icon61 time iconNov 20, 2014 12:36 PM EST
By Lanhee Chen
Let's be clear: The executive action President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce tonight isn’t a real fix for the broken U.S. immigration system.
It is a naked political maneuver that he hopes will shore up support for Democrats among Latino voters and re-energize the party's base after its beating in the elections this month.
Obama might not be wrong to think that this is good politics. Whether he’s right depends on how Republicans respond to his announcement. So, they should tread carefully.
First, Republicans should remind Americans that the president's executive action is nothing more than another short-term patch that arguably makes it less, not more, likely that Congress will ever pass permanent reforms.
In accounts of Obama’s proposed executive action, there has been no clear plan for truly boosting border security; no effort to hold employers who hire illegal immigrants accountable; no repair of our broken visa system for these seeking to come here legally; and, perhaps most significant, no permanent resolution of the legal status of the 11 million people who came to the U.S. unlawfully. In fact, the next president could easily wipe away whatever relief illegal immigrants may receive through any Obama executive action.
Second, Republicans should do everything they can to avoid a government shutdown in response to the president’s announcement. They are right to express, through the legislative process, their concerns over the legal issues and policies in the president’s action. But they shouldn’t hand him a political victory by failing to finance the government.
A more targeted effort -- such as the alternative floated this week by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky -- would be the better approach. Rogers suggested that Congress could first pass an omnibus funding bill that would ensure the government remains open, and then pass “rescissions” bills in the next Congress that would defund specific agencies or government operations directly related to carrying out the president’s plan.
Another option, which my Bloomberg View colleague Ramesh Ponnuru discussed in a recent column, would be to pass two separate funding bills -- omnibus legislation to finance the vast majority of the federal government's operations and a measure focused only on the few offices responsible for carrying out the president's order. The narrower bill would include an explicit prohibition on implementing Obama’s executive action. This division would force Democrats into a corner: either accept the prohibitions on carrying out the president’s executive order, or get blamed for a government shutdown.
Regardless of the approach, Republicans should see to it that spending levels specified in any omnibus legislation are responsible ones. But either of these options enables Republicans to avoid a shutdown while also undercutting Obama's efforts.
Finally, Republicans shouldn't abandon the idea of passing some immigration legislation early in the 114th Congress next year. There is disagreement within their ranks on how to handle the immigrants who are here illegally. But on policies where agreement exists, Republicans should act. By putting permanent changes in place, they would be offering a welcome contrast to the president’s temporary action.
If border security is a prerequisite, Republicans can start there, putting stricter measures in place. They can then move to further increase the number of visas for high-skilled workers and improve the current guest-worker laws. There is also likely agreement on granting legal status to some of the “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
While I continue to believe it is in Republicans’ best long-term interest to reach consensus on the status of illegal immigrants currently in the U.S., the party's leaders shouldn't allow disagreement on this issue to derail legislation on other important policies. Obama has made his move, and Republicans should respond by enacting reforms. By doing this, they place the onus on Obama, daring him to use his veto power to reject sensible measures that rationalize the process of coming here legally, protect the U.S. economy and preserve the rule of law.
By deciding to move ahead with executive action on immigration, the president is jeopardizing the possibility of bipartisan cooperation in the next Congress. But Republicans have the opportunity to demonstrate that they can and will govern, regardless of what Obama does.
The accomplishments that result from their efforts could cause the president’s cynical, go-it-alone maneuver to backfire -- and help Republicans win back the White House in 2016.
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Here's my suggestion for the Reps:
The underlying hold up is that the border is not protected , , , so PROTECT THE BORDER.
Pass a bill that genuinely closes the border. Make Obama face signing or vetoing it.
This seems to me a good tip of the spear for everything else.
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Crafty,
Such legislation has been signed multiple times and has been consistently ignored - first by the Bush administration, then by this one. Obama will NEVER enforce a sealing of the border or completion of the fence. He's ignored it for these first 6 years.
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I saw Geraldo's rant on how Republicans "deserve" this. This guy can sit there all he wants and call himself a Republican (which I saw him do twice) to impress Fox News viewers and probably management. He ain't no Republican.
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Here's my suggestion for the Reps:
The underlying hold up is that the border is not protected , , , so PROTECT THE BORDER.
Pass a bill that genuinely closes the border. Make Obama face signing or vetoing it.
This seems to me a good tip of the spear for everything else.
Proposing to add to Crafty's proposal.
1. "Pass a bill that genuinely closes the border."
2. People also come here legally and then overstay their temporarily legal status. Add genuine enforcement of that to the bill.
3. The 14th amendment begins:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
That does not mean foreigners can drop in for an anchor baby, but it needs to be clarified which can only be done through the constitutional amendment process. Pass that separately.
4. (Updating my post, there is no need for Republicans to make any deal with those who are here until the constitutional crisis of the President's orders is resolved.)
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Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reacts to last night's speech by Obama:
USA Today - Friday, November 21, 2014
Americans defeated President Obama's disastrous amnesty plans both in Congressand at the voting booth. Tonight, President Obama defied an entire nation and declared that he will impose his rejected amnesty through the brute force of executive order.
President Obama's executive amnesty will provide an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants with the exact benefits Congress rejected, in violation of federal law. His order will grant them social security numbers, government-issued ID's, legal status and work permits. Illegal immigrants will now be able to take jobs and benefits directly from struggling Americans in a time of high unemployment and low wages. They will be able to take jobs from Americans in all occupations, ranging from truck drivers to power company workers to jobs with city government. Many illegal immigrants will also be able to obtain green cards and become permanent residents, allowing them access to almost all federal programs, to receive citizenship and sponsor foreign relatives to join them in the U.S.
In addition to providing formal amnesty benefits for 5 million illegal immigrants, President Obama has also eliminated virtually all enforcement with respect to the other nearly 7 million illegal immigrantsin the United States. As the president's own former ICE Director, John Sandweg said: "if you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero."
All you have to do is get into the country from anywhere on globe — whether through the border or by overstaying a visa — and you are free to remain, take jobs and receive benefits. This year alone, the White House has released into the United States more than 100,000 illegal immigrants who simply showed up at the border and demanded entry.
And now, with a single pen stroke, President Obama is obliterating what little remains of Americans' immigration protections. Not only will millions of low-wage illegal immigrants rush into the labor market, but they will collect billions in taxpayer dollars as well. These costly government benefits range from child tax credits, to public housing to the likelihood that amnestied immigrants will rely on taxpayers for medical and retirement benefits.
Only a short time ago, President Obama himself admitted this action would be illegal and unconstitutional: "I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own" he explained, adding "that's not how our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written." President Obama also said that: "The problem is that I'm the president of the United States, I'm not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed."
Apparently, America now has its first emperor.
And he has issued an imperial order to dissolve America's borders. Millions more will enter and demand the same amnesty benefits as those who came before. The entire moral foundation and consistency of our laws will have been eviscerated. Law enforcement officials have repeatedly warned that the president's new amnesty will unleash a "tidal wave" of illegal immigration. The impact on our jobs, wages, hospitals, schools, police departments and neighborhoods will be crushing.
A second hammer blow will be dealt by the president's unilateral increase in foreign worker programs for large corporations, including technology corporations. Currently, two-thirds of all new jobs in the IT industry are being filled by foreign workers — and yet the president wants to dramatically surge foreign worker admissions even further. This at a time when the Census Bureau tells us more than 11 million Americanswith science, technology, engineering and math degrees don't have jobs in those fields.
President Obama is auctioning off America's middle class to the highest bidders.
Immigration already stands at record levels and is rising quickly. Between 2000 and 2014 — a period during which the government issued nearly 30 million lawful visas to foreign workers and permanent immigrants — all net employment gains among the working-age went to imported labor. Now the president is planning to unilaterally increase immigration even further — all to placate a few billionaire lobbyists and open border extremists.
The great task before the nation now is to resist this imperial decree and return control of this nation to its own citizens — as our Constitution established.
That task begins with Congress refusing to allow a dime of money to be spent executing this unlawful amnesty. This a routine, constitutional and crucial application of congressional power.
If Democrat lawmakers join Republicans in blocking funds for his unlawful plan, the president will be stopped. Americans must ask their representatives this one question: do you serve the citizens of this country and their Constitution — or not?
Sen. Jeff Sessions is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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"That task begins with Congress refusing to allow a dime of money to be spent executing this unlawful amnesty. This a routine, constitutional and crucial application of congressional power."
I agree with Sen. Sessions.
From National Review:
House Republicans should consider a bill to fund the government except for Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), the agency in the Department of Homeland Security responsible for implementing the president’s order, and perhaps a few other selected portions of the administration. They could then propose a bill funding these agencies, including in it a prohibition against executing the president’s amnesty. Democrats would have little excuse not to pass the former bill, and, were the president to sign it, both sides could proceed to a focused argument on immigration funding. If the president were to veto the larger bill, or Democrats to block it, a shutdown might occur — but the White House, or congressional Democrats, might end up shouldering the blame.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393114/constitutional-crisis-editors
I have been reading and listening to the Republican side play defense on this issue the whole time Obama has floated and then delivered it. The Republicans should stay focused on their own issues. When the new congress convenes, pass these budget measures without fanfare and put the spotlight back on the issues on which they just ran and won, and the issues they want to win on in 2016.
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If I am not mistaken, the permits are going to be paid for by the fees charged the illegals.
IMO this self-funding thing (also see Elizabeth Warren's work on self funding the Consumer Agency) is a deeply unC'l evasion of Congress's power of the purse.
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If I am not mistaken, the permits are going to be paid for by the fees charged the illegals.
IMO this self-funding thing (also see Elizabeth Warren's work on self funding the Consumer Agency) is a deeply unC'l evasion of Congress's power of the purse.
From what I have read, this is true, at least in part. Still there are parts of it that can be de-funded, and for him to run his government outside of constitutional framework is to drive his approvals numbers down even worse.
If he is deferring deportation on only 5 million of 11 million (I don't believe those numbers), then will he be deporting the other 6 million? Or is he lying and deceiving again? I think we all know.
He needs to be called out on his hypocritical incrementalism. When he says no healthcare for illegals, he means healthcare next, but not in the CBO numbers required for passage. When he says work legally but not vote, he means, how dare you let them work but not vote! When he says only those who have been here 5 years, he means that in 5 more years we'll have all of them, and a much bigger round to follow. If he says any one thing and not the other, you can bet he is going for the latter.
Barack Obama makes Bernie Madoff look like an harmless, well-intentioned salesman.
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"He needs to be called out on his hypocritical incrementalism"
Yeah sure that will happen. :roll:
WE need 200 more Jeff Sessions.
I don't know. Many Republicans will tell us how lots of immigration is good for us.
Blah blah blah.
I am fed up. We will be watching him do this again and again for two years while the party who vaguely represents me sits on their hands the whole time. We will get fools like Chris Christy and Jebster Bush calling for compromise.
Neither one of them should even think of running. If they do I will sit out. May as well have Hillary. Little difference.
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If the Republican leadership does not defend our republic against this lawless tyrant, we are finished. Sitting out elections is not going to achieve anything. This may very well devolve into a civil war, with the country splintering into conservative and progressive countries. However it plays out - it will not be pretty. It shocks me that so many people STILL refuse to see Obama for the despot he so clearly is. He has ZERO regard for the rule of law, and believe me - he has every intention of making himself dictator if he has the chance - just as his late buddy Hugo Chavez did. Mark my words.
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"It shocks me that so many people STILL refuse to see Obama for the despot he so clearly is."
Amen.
I guess that shows us the power of bribery with taxpayer money.
As long as much of the population keeps getting showered with gifts what do they care?
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To Amnesty 5 Million
Posted By Matthew Vadum On November 21, 2014
Ignoring the brutal, historic slap-down angry American voters gave his party this month, President Obama unveiled plans for a unilaterally imposed amnesty that will shield an estimated 5 million illegal aliens from deportation.
Whether Republicans, now in possession of a thunderous mandate to fight Obama tooth and nail, will fight this despotic usurpation of the lawmaking powers of Congress remains to be seen.
Obama doesn’t care. He is pressing on, hoping to fill America with millions of new Democrat voters. And he’s going to kill American jobs in the process.
“We expect people who live in this country to play by the rules,” said the president. The address from the White House came yesterday, which just so happened to be Revolution Day (also known as Civil War Day) in Mexico.
“We expect those who cut the line will not be unfairly rewarded,” the president continued. Yet Obama went on to propose just such a reward in the form of a special “deal” for unlawful immigrants:
So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve with been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens or illegal residents. If you register, pass a criminal background check and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is.
Strangely, Obama, who routinely flouts the Constitution, still acknowledges some limits to his power. The deal, he said, does not apply to recently arrived illegal aliens or illegals who have yet to sneak into the country.
“It does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive,” Obama said. “Only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.”
Whether the benefits illegal aliens receive are as generous as benefits that citizens receive is beside the point. Illegal aliens are already eligible for extensive benefits from the government and Obama is a big believer in getting poor people addicted to welfare. No serious person believes illegals won’t have access to social programs.
In the address Obama played semantic games. What he’s doing is not an amnesty, he said:
Amnesty is the immigration system we have today. Millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty, leaving this broken system the way it is. Mass amnesty would be unfair.
The former part-time adjunct constitutional law lecturer has it wrong. A failure to enforce a law isn’t tantamount to amnesty. Amnesty is an official governmental act of forgiveness that excuses a violation of the law. Being in a state of legal limbo in which law enforcement hasn’t yet called your number isn’t the same as amnesty.
Nor is the immigration system broken, at least not in the way Obama means.
When progressives say the system is broken, they mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to capture every single prospective illegal alien available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation’s largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America’s borders altogether. Obama’s new amnesty plan is a step in this direction.
It is also a profoundly cynical move that rewards lawbreaking and begets future immigration amnesties. It will spell electoral death for the Republican Party in coming years because Latinos, who are believed to comprise the bulk of the illegals, have traditionally shown a strong preference for the Democratic Party and its left-of-center public policies. The amnesty for 5 million illegals is likely just the beginning. The government recently issued a procurement order seeking a contractor to make as many as 34 million immigration documents over the coming five years.
During his address, Obama quoted the Book of Exodus, saying:
Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.
But the immigrants in question are not the legal immigrants of the past who followed the rules when they came to this country. They are invaders who broke the law and who continue to break the law by being here. America is not, nor has it ever been, a nation of illegal immigrants.
To qualify for relief from deportation, individuals will have to register with the government, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay their taxes, and pay a processing fee, according to a White House handout. Applications can’t be filed until early next year.
Parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents as of the date of the announcement are eligible, provided that they are not “enforcement priorities” and have been present in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2010. Also eligible are individuals who arrived in this country before Jan. 1, 2010 and before turning 16 years old, regardless of how old they are now. Processing times for certain categories of green card applicants will be accelerated. Recent arrivals who entered the country after Jan. 1 of this year will not be eligible to apply.
Obama lapdogs were ecstatic about the planned amnesty.
Echoing Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) who absurdly compared Obama’s executive order to the Emancipation Proclamation, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked, “Does the public know that the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order?”
Except that the Emancipation Proclamation freed categories of slaves, innocent people victimized by an abhorrent institution, not illegal aliens who took it upon themselves to invade the country and abuse the goodwill of Americans. The only thing the two executive orders have in common is that a president signed them.
Republicans are deeply split on the amnesty issue so anyone expecting Republican lawmakers to give Obama a well-deserved rhetorical mauling two weeks after the GOP crushed Democrats in midterm elections will be disappointed in coming days. That’s not what the emasculated party of Lincoln does because it is terrified of being called racist for opposing the nation’s first (half) black president.
Despite running a virtually content-free campaign, on Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning at least 53 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 244 out of 435 seats. In the new year Republicans will control at least 31 state governors’ mansions and at least 68 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska’s legislature has only one chamber). In at least 23 states Republicans will control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature. Democrats can make the same claim about only 7 states.
The election was arguably, depending on the psephological metrics used, the worst showing for the Democratic Party in its history.
Despite the newly enfeebled status of the Democrats, the House GOP’s response was predictably weak. Instead of righteously inveighing against the grave threat that Obama’s actions pose to the republic, on Twitter the official House Republican feed meekly exhorted the president to cooperate with them.
“We need a real fix, not a quick fix. Let’s fix our broken immigration system together,” read one GOP tweet. Another said, “Mr. President, stop acting alone. Let’s work together.” Maybe the GOP’s communications professionals would like to roast some s’mores and sing Kumbaya with the president.
And Obama must be quaking in his jackboots. Even after six years of getting beaten to a pulp, constantly sucker-punched by the nation’s Alinskyite president, congressional Republicans still aren’t anywhere close to grasping what he really is. They continue to treat Obama as if he’s a legitimate, sincere president who actually wants to do what’s best for America. They foolishly believe Obama cares about his falling public approval numbers and his presidential legacy. They refuse to acknowledge that he is a radical revolutionary figure hellbent on destroying, or in his own words, fundamentally transforming, the U.S. They actually seem to think Obama is interested in negotiating with them to find policy solutions that benefit the country. Many elected GOPers appear not to have an inkling that embracing amnesty is the same as signing a death warrant for the Republican Party.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who supports amnesty in principle but is under intense pressure from conservative lawmakers, is trying to put down a rebellion in his own House GOP conference. Although Obama has previously protested that he is not a king or an emperor, “he’s sure acting like one,” Boehner, who may face a challenge to his speakership in January, said yesterday.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was characteristically vague.
“If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act,” he said.
Retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told USA Today earlier this week that Obama’s amnesty could spark civil unrest. “The country’s going to go nuts, because they’re going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it’s going to be a very serious situation.”
“You’re going to see — hopefully not — but you could see instances of anarchy … You could see violence,” Coburn said. Obama will be behaving like “an autocratic leader that’s going to disregard what the Constitution says and make law anyway.”
“Instead of having the rule of law handling in our country today, now we’re starting to have the rule of rulers, and that’s the total antithesis of what this country was founded on,” he said. “Here’s how people think: Well, if the law doesn’t apply to the president … then why should it apply to me?”
House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) appears to have taken the wrong lesson from the electoral bloodbath this month that set Democrats back 150 years. Although voters delivered the message that they want Obama stopped, Rogers interprets the election as a mandate for surrender.
“I believe a major consequence of this election is a loud and clear mandate from the American people for Washington to stop the gridlock, work together across ideological lines and start producing real accomplishments on their behalf,” Rogers wrote in an op-ed.
Rogers wants Congress to pass a long-term funding bill called an omnibus appropriations bill before the government’s authority to spend money expires on Dec. 11. It would keep the government operating for the rest of the federal fiscal year which runs to Sept. 30, 2015.
There will be “an extraordinary amount of work to do when the new Congress convenes in January … but there simply won’t be the political bandwidth available to address these pressing issues if Congress is bogged down in old battles and protracted to-do lists.”
Some Republicans have proposed defunding the parts of the government that would process amnesty-related paperwork.
Separately, Rogers has made the absurd suggestion that Congress approve a big, all-encompassing spending bill now and then rescind amnesty-relating funding next year. Rescissions happen but they’re relatively rare. Why bother giving Obama a green light to proceed with the amnesty now in the hope of slamming on the brakes in the new year?
The real problem with enacting an omnibus spending bill, according to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, is that such a funding measure “would enable Obama to complete his lawless amnesty scheme.”
Rogers insists that the amnesty cannot be stopped through the appropriations process.
It would be “impossible to defund President Obama’s executive order through a government spending bill,” House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing said yesterday, explaining that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is funded by user fees.
It is a facile, easily disproved argument. USCIS, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is part of the federal government. It was created by Congress and Congress can do anything it wants to it. It can give it money, take money away from it, give it a spanking, or order it to stand on one leg and bark like a dog.
In a development overshadowed by the unveiling of the amnesty, DHS announced yesterday that it will grant “temporary protected status” to up to 8,000 people from the Ebola-afflicted African countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. These visitors may apply for work permits for 18 months. Unlike ordinary recipients of temporary protected status, these Ebola refugees will not be allowed to travel to their home countries and then return to the U.S., in order to prevent the spread of Ebola.
Or so the story goes. If Obama can find a way to let them stay in the U.S., he’ll do it.
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Obama's Immigration Amnesty Speech - Top 10 Lies
Daniel Horowitz - Conservativereview.com - November 21, 2014
“The one [a president] can confer no privileges whatever; the other [the king] can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies.”
– Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 69
Make no mistake about it. Obama’s illegal amnesty will not just apply to 5 million individuals. It will apply by default to all 12-20 million illegals in the country as well as the millions more who will now come here to enjoy the permanent cessation of borders and sovereignty.
Lie #1: Every President has Taken Executive Action on Immigration: No other president has ever issued an amnesty of anywhere near this scope, created it out of thin air, or built it upon a prior executive action instead of a statute. And in the case of President Eisenhower, his executive action was to deport 80,000 illegal immigrants.
Lie #2: Illegal Immigrant Crossings are Down: Actually, this is the third straight year that border crossings have gone up, not to mention the entirely new wave from Central America.
Lie #3: It does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently: Under the royal edict, the work permits can be renewed every three years, and most likely, they will be renewed at the same 99.5% acceptance rate as DACA applications. And once they get Social Security cards, they are going nowhere. So yes, this is permanent. And yes, they will be able to get green cards, which puts them on an automatic path to citizenship: “we are reducing the time that families are separated while obtaining their green cards. Undocumented immigrants who are immediate relatives of lawful permanent residents or sons or daughters of US citizens can apply to get a waiver if a visa is available.”
Lie #4: Only 5 Million: Make no mistake about it. Obama’s illegal amnesty will not just apply to 5 million individuals. It will apply by default to all 12-20 million illegals in the country as well as the millions more who will now come here to enjoy the permanent cessation of borders and sovereignty. Given the numerous options for people to become eligible for amnesty, ICE and CPB will be restricted from enforcing the law against anyone because each individual has to be afforded the opportunity to present themselves and apply for status. There is no way those who were here for less than 5 years will be deported and there’s no way the new people rushing the border and overstaying their visas will be repatriated.
Lie #5: Deport Felons: Obama claims he is going to focus on deporting felons. Yet, he has done the opposite. 36,000 convicted criminal aliens were released last year, 80,000 criminal aliens encountered by ICE weren’t even placed into deportation proceedings, 167,000 criminal aliens who were ordered deported are still at large, 341,000 criminal aliens released by ICE without deportation orders are known to be free and at large in the US. Again, this is cessation of deportations for everyone. They are leaving no illegal behind.
Lie #6: Don’t deport families: Obama is playing the family card. It works like this: people are encouraged to come here illegally, Obama grants them amnesty, then their relatives all get to come, even though they would otherwise be ineligible under public charge laws. Yet, at the same time, because the bureaucracy will be flooded with applications of illegals, and those are the applications that will be prioritized, those families who came here legally will have to wait longer to be united. There is no longer an incentive to enter the legal immigration process.
Lie #7: They have to pay taxes to stay: Aside from the absurd notion that they would turn someone away for not paying taxes, almost every one of these illegal immigrants lacks a high enough income to incur a net positive tax liability. Hence, by paying taxes, he actually means they will collect refundable tax credits!
Lie #8: Background Checks: Just the thought of a criminal background check of people coming from the third world on a lawless program is a joke. But the reality is that Obama has already done this with DACA, and 99.5% of applications were approved, including those of criminals.
Lie #9: Cracking Down on Illegal Immigration at the Border: Obama promises to beef up resources at the border. But as we’ve seen over the past few years, what good are more agents if they are explicitly intimidated into turning a blind eye. Moreover, there is no promise to build a fence or implement a visa tracking system, so any talk of enforcement is an insult to our intelligence. Moreover, he is unilaterally abolishing the Secure Communities program, the only successful interior enforcement program left after he abolished 287g state-federal cooperation in 2012. At a time when we are facing threats from Islamic terror and deadly diseases, this invitation to the world will present a security nightmare.
Lie #10: Scripture tells us, we shall not oppress a stranger: It’s great to see him quoting the Bible for once, but nice try. There are different variations of this verse throughout the Bible, but each one uses the Hebrew word “Ger” to describe what Obama translates as “stranger.” A Ger is a convert to Judaism. The commandment was not referring to people who illegally migrate to a nation state. And more importantly, it is downright offensive to Americans to insinuate that not granting them benefits is tantamount to oppression, especially given the fact that they have been the biggest recipients of our generous legal system. Moreover, if there is oppression taking place it is to the American taxpayer and worker and those who suffer from gangs like MS-13.
Daniel Horowitz is Senior Editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on twitter @RMConservative.
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2014/11/top-10-lies-from-obamas-nullification-speech#sthash.987Hhrqh.dpuf
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The tenth lie is even more annoying coming from this guy. For him to suddenly find convenient [misuse] of scripture after he and his leftists are doing everything they can to disassemble religion in this country (except of course for the benefit of Muslims) is just beyond the pale.
Yet not a peep from MSM. They are mostly Democrats so they just don't care and by their silence reveal their delight.
After reading a biography of Stalin I find the only difference between Obama and the other tyrant is the lack of 'physical' violence. I have no doubt this guy would be using that too if it could further his goals. Otherwise, no difference between the two men.
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The parallels with other tyrants and Obama have been evident now for 6 years. It's shocking and disgusting to witness the media and probably the majority of Americans clueless about this, or simply in denial and willfully looking the other way. As I've said here before - this is exactly how the Holocaust was allowed to happen in Europe. Wonder no longer - look around you at current world events.
Further - don't think for a moment Obama won't impose martial law and fire on American citizens when he feels the time is right. He is an Alinskyite through and through, and as such - the ends justify the means. He doesn't deserve the benefit to the doubt at this point - he's a proven liar and fraud.
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Obama answers constitutional question with a 3 word misdirection:
If you have children, you understand the rhetorical value of misdirection.
When I was a boy, two of my brothers and I were in the kitchen downstairs with Nan, when we heard a loud crash upstairs.
Nan hollered up the staircase at our other brother, “What are you doing up there?”
His answer was immediate, in just two words: “Coming down.”
And so he did.
We all agreed it was a masterful answer, in that it was both true, and it deflected any real truth-telling. We never did find out what caused the crash.
President Obama is less skilled than my little brother. After all, Obama’s deflection during last night’s immigration speech took three words — 50 percent more.
Here are those three words: “Pass a bill.”
Here’s the context…
Obama: “And to those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill. I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution. And the day I sign that bill into law, the actions I take will no longer be necessary.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/21/with-3-words-obama-admits-his-just-announced-immigration-actions-are-illegal/
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The President's Gruber Speech
Originally published at CNN.com.
President Barack Obama's speech Thursday night was technically a fine speech. It sounded good. It was rhetorically impressive. Its problem – or perhaps to the President its virtue – is that very little of it was true.
President Obama described what sounded like a reasonable plan to prioritize the deportation of felons, criminals, and gang members over the deportation of other people in the United States illegally. "We'll prioritize," he said, "just like law enforcement does every day." The whole proposal was entirely within his authority, he argued, because it amounted to a kind of prosecutorial discretion: "All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you."
But the policy the White House actually announced, as opposed to the policy the President described in his speech, was not merely a directive to emphasize enforcement against those who have committed crimes, or even a simple pause on deportations for millions of people here illegally. The policy the White House actually announced, in a memo from its Office of Legislative Affairs hours before the President's speech, was a 17 point plan including several new programs without Congressional approval, budget appropriation or spending authorization, and many of which the President either didn't mention or which bore only a faint resemblance to what he described in his speech.
The President, according to the White House, has directed the Department of Homeland Security to "create" a "new deferred action program" which will give millions of people here illegally "work authorizations" for at least three years. It establishes extensive new criteria by which people can register to be exempt from deportation. DHS will have to employ thousands of bureaucrats to process those who "come forward and register, submit biometric data, pass background checks, pay fees, and show that their child was born before the date of this announcement." Applicants supposedly will also have to prove they’ve been in the U.S. for at least five years and will have to pay taxes.
Well, a brand new program that hands out three-year work authorizations and processes more paperwork than many state DMVs is not merely saying, as the President put it in his speech, that "we're not going to deport you," and it is certainly not simple "prioritization" or "prosecutorial discretion," as many administration officials have been calling it before and after the announcement.
It is new law, created by the executive without Constitutional authority.
The President said in his speech that the new program will allow people here illegally to "come out of the shadows and get right with the law." Meanwhile administration officials explained on the record that he wasn't really legalizing anyone, since he couldn't technically do that.
The President also said in his speech that his actions would offer relief only to people who met certain criteria he described, including being in the country for at least five years and having child dependents in the U.S. But the actual policy memo makes clear that "DHS will direct all of its enforcement resources at pursuing" people who are "national security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers."
In other words, there will be one group, estimated at 4 million or so, who are eligible for the new work authorization program. But at the same time, there will be no resources directed at enforcing immigration law against the other 7 million people here illegally as long as they do not fall into a few narrow categories, according to the President's Office of Legislative Affairs. And indeed, a "senior administration official" told Roll Call that the administration "will order immigration agents to prioritize deportations of criminals and recent arrivals — and let people who are not on that priority list go free." This is not at all the program the president described in his speech.
President Obama said his plan would "stem the flow of illegal crossings" in the future. Yet every time the government has pledged to stop deporting certain classes of people in the past, there has been a huge surge in the number of illegal border crossings, including most recently the humanitarian crisis of unaccompanied minors on our southern border, which President Obama created with DACA, his last unauthorized executive action on immigration.
The President assured us his actions "are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century." Except the primary examples his administration cites are cases of presidents implementing Congressionally-approved amnesties, narrowly expanding them to include cases Congress didn't anticipate, with no objection from Congress. The President has no such Congressional sanction, and his actions are an order of magnitude larger.
This was a Gruber speech. It was designed to sound acceptable to the American people, even if it was largely a lie.
For those not familiar with Jonathan Gruber, he is the now infamous co-architect of Obamacare who was recently revealed on video bragging about the administration's deceitful approach to passing that law. Gruber described how Obamacare was written "in a tortured way to make sure" the CBO did not "score the mandate as taxes," even though the administration knew it was a tax. He described how the administration won support for the tax on "Cadillac" health plans "by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people, when we know it’s a tax on people who hold these insurance plans"--a deception he thought to be a "very clever...exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter." Gruber described how the President "is not a stupid man" and understood Americans cared about cost control over coverage--so even though the bill was "90 percent health insurance coverage and 10 percent about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control."
With Obamacare, Gruber concluded, “the lack of transparency" was "a huge political advantage” and “the stupidity of the American voter" was "really, really critical for the thing to pass."
Listening to a speech in which the President lied about what he was proposing and lied about his authority to implement it, it was hard not to think of the Gruber model – which is really the Obama model, after all. He said what he needed to say to do what he wants to do.
Immigrants will "get right with the law," but not be "legalized," just as Obamacare's taxes weren't taxes, until they were taxes before the Supreme Court, but after which they weren't taxes again. Only immigrants who meet certain specific criteria will be eligible for relief, except for the millions of other people he doesn't mention for whom he will also stop enforcing the law.
In the past few years, President Obama has described 22 times on video how he doesn't have the legal and Constitutional authority to take many of the actions he announced Thursday night.
"With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed," he said in 2011. "…[W]e’ve got three branches of government. Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws...There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President."
President Obama made a good case back then. It's a shame he apparently thinks, like Gruber, that Americans are all so stupid we won't figure out he's not telling us the truth today.
Your Friend,
Newt
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second post
http://www.dailynews.com/20100522/doug-mcintyre-ten-steps-to-solve-the-immigration-problem
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/amnestied-illegal-aliens-in-california-to-get-free-healthcare/
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:x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
What about the rights of us taxpayers?
NO ONE except Tea Party people are representing us.
Not Boehner, not McConnell not Bushes not Christy.
:x :x :x :x
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What of Romney's strategy here to put a good bill on Obama's desk?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/26/Mitt-Romney-Republicans-Should-Swallow-Hard-Pass-Permanent-Amnesty-Bill?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+November+27%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20141127_m123307895_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+November+27%2C+2014&utm_term=More
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NO immigration changes ought to be made unless and until the border is secured - which will never happen under Obama. Romney is a fool.
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Not sure if I agree here. Taking the other side for sake of conversation:
Reps have ducked answering the tough questions here-- which is why and how Baraq is making his play. Until they confront this fact, things will get vituperative and the Reps usually lose when it comes to that.
First pass a stern, clear enforcement bill that neuters his BS claims of limited resources and takes away bureaucratic leeway identified by the SCOTUS decisions proffered by the OLC.
Whether he signs or not, the Reps should have the advantage-- yes?
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Agreeing with Obj on this point, this President isn't going to do any more enforcement over the rest of his term than what they were doing the first 6 years. I can't see how any bill with any language changes that. What are we going to do if he ignores the next law, sue him, de-fund him, impeach him, just like we aren't doing now?
One thing Republicans could pass is the 14th Amendment fix to end the misinterpretation of anchor babies. That does not go to Obama desk. If passed by the House and Senate, it goes the the state legislatures.
To give an 'anchor baby' citizenship is to break up a family, assuming we intend to enforce laws in the future. Let them apply as a family in the normal line.
Obama is approaching this piecemeal; so can the Republicans.
If certain actions and results must come before amnesty, such as the amendment, a fence, an airtight visa system, an employer verification system, then get started on those first.
If we don't favor full, unconditional amnesty, then require the President to rescind his executive order before negotiations begin on a comprehensive bill. He won't do it.
Other things Republicans can do: accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things. Pass the economic agenda now that we should run on in 2016. Let him veto, and then run on it. Fry the administration on IRS targeting, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Obamacare, and every other lie. Hold hearings on the results of previous programs, cash for clunkers, crony solyndra governmentism, shovel ready jobs, dismantling of the workforce, epidemic of disability and food assistance claims, dual mission Fed, government's role in mortgages, etc.
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Another strategy suggested by Rush Limbaugh (with which I agree fully) is for the Republicans to pass a bill legalizing all the aliens Obama has done with his amnesty action, BUT with two addenda: 1) Fully secure the Mexican/U.S. border, and 2) A stipulation that none of these people under ANY circumstances will have the right to vote for 20 years hence.
Brilliant suggestion in my opinion - because it will expose the Democrats' ACTUAL reason for wanting this amnesty. Obama will NEVER sign such a bill.
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" accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things"
None starter for me.
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" accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things"
Non starter for me.
To clarify, nothing positive is going to happen in the next two years on immigration. The President proved himself unable to negotiate in good faith.
On November 4th Republicans won a wave election. The President and his party were shellacked, or whatever term people want to use. Ever since, we have been on defense, because that is his strategy.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? He is governing this country into an economic, cultural and strategic ash-heap. We should be on offense and he should be on defense, IMHO.
What about holding hearings on the enforcement and implementation of the last immigration law passed by congress? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006 He says the fence is built, yet infants and children are walking through?
Moving on would also follow passage in congress of the constitutional amendment. Move that debate to the states for action.
A debate that centers on the plight of the people already here, when no one is sending them home anyway, favors him.
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I need Gomer Pyle's accent to properly say: Well surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
Who saw this coming?
Washington Post, Nov 25, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/illegal-immigrants-could-receive-social-security-medicare-under-obama-action/2014/11/25/571caefe-74d4-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html
Illegal immigrants could receive Social Security, Medicare [and everything else] under Obama action
Under President Obama’s new program to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, many of those affected will be eligible to receive Social Security, Medicare and a wide array of other federal benefits, a White House official said Tuesday.
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Gents:
I am still waiting for a response to the OLC's arguments justifying the EO. Right now the Reps are getting maneuvered into supporting breaking up families with American children and illegal alien parents. With a plausible patina from the OLC (and if we have no telling response that is what will be the case) this becomes yet another case where the Reps are seen as meanies.
All of us here are making good points, but the actual Reps in Congress are bumbling along , , ,
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Crafty poses a tough challenge.
"I am still waiting for a response to the OLC's arguments justifying the EO."
Previously: "The standard he cites is not FDR, but the APA and SCOTUS decisions."
From the piece: "Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which has served ever since as the legal charter of the modern administrative state."
- There isn't an act of a congress, from 80 years ago or any other time, that changes the constitution and the relationship between the branches of government contained in it.
"the Supreme Court ... Heckler v. Chaney,... In a decision joined by seven other justices, Justice William Rehnquist noted that, “This Court has recognized on several occasions over many years that an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion.” "
- Generally? Absolute?? Really??!? My guess is that he referring to enforcement of individual cases, not to changing the entire immigration system or things like the EPA writing new laws or changing existing ones.
Eric Holder's OLC: "This discretion is rooted in the President’s constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”
- Yes it is! This isn't a case of an executive not having the resources to enforce the law, in spite of the numbers you cite, 11 million illegals and only funding to allow deportation of 400,000 per year. That was the limitation BEFORE this executive order. The point of the executive order is described in the President's own statement, "I changed the law". He is declaring his intent to NOT faithfully execute the law. This was NOT a mis-speak. The speech in question had 91 1st person references in it, I, me, my, while the relevant articles of the constitution refer to specific roles for the House, Senate, and President, and back to the House and Senate for super-majorities when the different branches are not in agreement. The constitution gives the Legislative branch power to over-ride the Executive to make law, but not vice versa!
I know you are looking for a technical argument to explain how this is different from all other executive orders and over-reaches, and the related Supreme Court cases, but one more incremental expansion of these encroachments becomes unconstitutional whenever a challenge makes it to the Court and 5 Justices deem what the President already admitted, he [effectively] changed the law.
In the meantime, this is a political matter to be tried in the court of public opinion. People see this for what it is, one person making or changing law in defiance of the constitutional process. See the SNL skit, and see the Obama statement mentioned.
"Right now the Reps are getting maneuvered into supporting breaking up families with American children and illegal alien parents."
- Republicans were not deporting more illegals than Obama. And if they returned minors crossing the border to their families, and/or made the proposal to "fix" the 14th amendment right now, they would be on record as opposing the further breakup of families caused by our broken system. How about taking positive actions rather than always reacting to the Ayers and Pliven agenda?
"... this becomes yet another case where the Reps are seen as meanies."
- There isn't really a way around that without abandoning the rule of law. I admired Marco Rubio's attempt to engage the other side and solve this, but no one liked the results that came out of that. I also asked here, just before the executive order, what would comprise a good comprehensive bill from our point of view. Now the ball is in the President's court because he took it. We can box him in but we don't have a simple way to solve this IMHO.
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Thank you for your effort to engage on the merits.
In that our side is vociferously howling UNCONSTITUIONAL!!! we damn well be well prepared to answer the specific assertions of the OLC.
Said with my lawyer's hat on-- so far I am not hearing a very good job of it.
Yes it is fair to say that the exception here is swallowing the rule, yes we MAY have an valid point with the work papers being issued (and not necessarily-- I have see stuff, I forget where, asserting this can be done under the DACA) and we can point out that these people are not eligible for Obamacare and as such have a tremendous cost advantage now over Americans, whom per Obamacare employers must provide Obamacare, but none of this is really going to cut through the noise. Decent political hay can be made with pointing out Baraq's 25 or so statements that he can't do this, but when push comes to shove the other side will point to the OLC opinion and we will have to answer these questions.
What we are seeing here is that the Reps are reaping the seeds of not articulating alternatives. There needs to be an analog of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" here.
Some random thoughts:
a) Pass a bill with enough funding to fg deport all eleven million. Specify that all 11M are to be deported, period. If not, specify who not-- e.g. do we really want to deport someone who came here as a baby and has lived here essentially all his life and thinks of himself as an American?
b) Specify criteria to define if/when the border is secure.
c) Have a think tank do some serious work on drafting and alternative to birth babies bootstrapping their parents into America.
d) As a political matter and a human kindness matter I suspect there will be some people for whom amnesty is a fair call. Newt Gingrich, tried making this point during the FL debates with his comments about not deporting Grandma after 20 years, but Romney mugged him from the right. The point remains, at some point it will be a good call to apply some sort of statute of limitations concept.
e) keep alive the distinction between work papers and citizenship.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/us/white-house-tested-limits-of-powers-before-action-on-immigration.html?emc=edit_th_20141129&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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Well we should be making a better case how this is NOT about those from Latino countries. It is about all peoples who come and stay here illegally from all over the world. We already have multiple programs to help people come here and study and work etc. We should make a case it does hurt people here though I recognize the MSM wave of talking points that somehow we all just do so much better by having millions more to compete with.
Yes I know would it be better to compete with them overseas or here. No one in their right mind cannot see how the increased competition hurts those here more than it helps. Most people I know agree with me except die hard liberals who while they would never admit it want more future Democrats. And no one who is sane would think the Dems would be doing this if these people were going to be predominantly Rep voters. Why cannot not this simple fact stand up for itself?
"I need Gomer Pyle's accent to properly say: Well surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"
One of the my favorite shows of all time. I still remember the one when the Sarge's car gets smashed by a recking ball at the end. It was one of those belly laughs that adds a year to your life.
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ccp: "we should be making a better case how this is NOT about those from Latino countries."
That's right. But Democrats are winning 71% of the Asian American vote by keeping this issue on the front burner as well: http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/poll-obama-won-71-of-asian-vote-85013.html
"the increased competition hurts those here more than it helps"
The increased supply of low skill, low wage workers lowers the wage and raises the unemployment for the existing workers, all other things held constant. Working class whites get that. Working class minorities should be persuadable on this point.
A sane and logical immigration policy would bring in a manageable flow of workers with a balance of different skills and different places of origin. America by design is a melting pot, E pluribus unum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum America under Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Jarret and the gang is something entirely different, politically warring groups fighting to divide up the spoils of the all-powerful, crony, redistributive system.
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I look forward to Crafty's legal answer as to why this executive order is different, why it is unconstitutional. In the meantime, suffice it to say that Obama's actions are ANTI-constitutional, clearly designed to work against the intentions and written meanings of the constitution. Crafty also has written about how people learn in different ways other than simple logic. The SNL skit (already posted) reaches more persuadable voters than the technical points sought: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/23/snl-skit-suggests-obamas-immigration-executive-action-is-unconstitutional/
From the constitution:
"Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization ….” And it is the president’s constitutional duty, under Article II, Section 3, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed ….”
http://dailysignal.com/2014/11/19/obamas-unilateral-amnesty-really-will-unprecedented-unconstitutional/
- If people see wiggle room in that, it is because they want to see wiggle room in that, not because the articles and laws were written unworkably ambiguous.
"Worse than Nixon." - George Will (before this action)
journalists did not ask the pertinent question: “Where does the Constitution confer upon presidents the ‘executive authority’ to ignore the separation of powers by revising laws?” The question could have elicited an Obama rarity: brevity. Because there is no such authority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-obamas-unconstitutional-steps-worse-than-nixons/2013/08/14/e0bd6cb2-044a-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html
"a monarch decrees, dictates, and rules through fiat power"
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 69 http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_69.html
26 Violations of Law by the Obama Administration ( overlaps the issues of immigration and unconstitutional as well as failing to faithfully enforce the laws, such as the 2006 Security Fence Act): This law requires that "at least two layers of reinforced fencing" be built along America's 650-mile border with Mexico. So far, just 40 miles of this fence have been built – most of it during the Bush Administration. http://www.committeeforjustice.org/content/25-violations-law-president-obama-and-his-administration - Anyone, please point out the wiggle room in that Congressional Act.
President Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/23/president-obamas-top-10-constitutional-violations-of-2013/
We are SHOUTING this because it keeps happening!
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Crafty: Some random thoughts, (not in his order)
"c) Have a think tank do some serious work on drafting and alternative to birth babies bootstrapping their parents into America."
- Hard to believe this isn't done and ready to go. One example below, I see that Harry Reid proposed exactly that in 1993! http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/aug/12/1993-flip-flop-senreid-introduced-bill-clarifying-/ https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/s1351/text
TITLE X--CITIZENSHIP
SEC. 1001. BASIS OF CITIZENSHIP CLARIFIED.
In the exercise of its powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, and which person is a national or citizen of another country of which either of his or her natural parents is a national or citizen, or is entitled upon application to become a national or citizen of such country, shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States within the meaning of section 1 of such Article and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth.
"b) Specify criteria to define if/when the border is secure."
- Yes, and then require something like a 3 year delay to follow compliance, ensuring the criteria is truly and permanently met, before changing any of the legal status sought for millions.
"d) As a political matter and a human kindness matter I suspect there will be some people for whom amnesty is a fair call. Newt Gingrich, tried making this point during the FL debates with his comments about not deporting Grandma after 20 years, but Romney mugged him from the right. The point remains, at some point it will be a good call to apply some sort of statute of limitations concept."
- Yes, there needs to be some concession on this from Republicans, with a delay after the other requirements are met. (BTW, this is a reason to not take Romney fully at his word. His positions are politically strategic more than principled. This is one too many flip flops for my taste, and still needs to make one more on government mandated healthcare insurance.)
"e) keep alive the distinction between work papers and citizenship."
- This is part of the trap that is set. Dems are deeming legalization without citizenship, while they compare legal and not eligible to vote - with slavery. The only distinction being that I think it was Democrats who supported slavery!
"a) Pass a bill with enough funding to fg deport all eleven million. Specify that all 11M are to be deported, period. If not, specify who not-- e.g. do we really want to deport someone who came here as a baby and has lived here essentially all his life and thinks of himself as an American?"
- This is more of the trap set for Republicans by the Dems. If you don't do this, then his action is justified, it is argued. If you do, then you lose the votes of Hispanics, Asian Americans, etc. forever.
Ask Marco Rubio, you don't just step forward honestly and negotiate in good faith with these people. Instead, you set your own traps along the way for them. Call votes that put them on the spot, such as fixing birthright misinterpretation, funding the fence, setting up employment verification, etc. How about holding hearings on the economic effect on low age Americans of having all these people entering? And reach these people on other issues at the same time.
You cannot have a real solution while the Gruberized President is in charge of the enforcement apparatus. JMHO
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Eastman answers Crafty's challenge:
"...would give lawful status to the millions of people who are beneficiaries of the new policy, and afford to them work authorization and other benefits that are specifically prohibited by U.S. law."
"there are few areas of constitutional authority that are more clearly vested in the Congress than determinations of immigration and naturalization policy. The Supreme Court has routinely described Congress’s power in this area as “plenary,” that is, an unqualified and absolute power."
"...lawfully authorized workers displaced by those to whom Obama has unlawfully extended work authorization have the kind of particularized injury that would give them legal standing to challenge the new policy. Workers compensation insurance carriers, too, might be able to challenge the policy, which forces them to extend coverage to those not legally able to work. "
Funny(?) that the previous action applies to CHILDREN up to the age of 35!
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http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/225412-congress-has-options-to-answer-obamas-dishonest-executive
Congress has options to answer Obama’s dishonest executive amnesty
By John C. Eastman
The president’s statement on November 20, 2014 contained several outright falsehoods. More significantly, masked behind the discussion over prosecutorial discretion is a flagrant violation of the Constitution’s core separation of powers principle that Congress, not the president, makes the law.
First the lies, damn lies, and statistics. President Obama said that deportations are up over 80 percent. Truth be told, his administration has manipulated the definition of “deportation” in order to make that claim. Those caught and turned away at the border are now included in the total, whereas before they were not. Comparing apples to apples, the Los Angeles Times reported last April that deportations are down by more than 40 percent since Obama first took office, and the New York Times reported that there was a 26 percent drop in deportations in fiscal year 2013 alone.
Obama also claimed that “The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic President for the past half century.” False again.
Presidents routinely exercise prosecutorial discretion in individual cases because they seldom have the resources to enforce every minor violation of the law. But rarely has a President engaged in such a wholesale, categorical non-enforcement of the law as Obama did two years ago with the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program (which was available to anyone up to the age of 35!), and now the massively expanded program announced on November 20.
The president’s largest whopper was this: “Now, let’s be clear about what [the new program] isn’t. . . . It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive—only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.”
Not true by a long shot. Non-deportation alone would be an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, even if wholesale, categorical non-enforcement pushes the limits of that doctrine beyond the breaking point. But Obama’s new directive (which was not even issued as an executive order, but merely a “memo” from the Secretary of Homeland Security) would give lawful status to the millions of people who are beneficiaries of the new policy, and afford to them work authorization and other benefits that are specifically prohibited by U.S. law.
As the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service announced with respect to the predecessor DACA program, “An individual who has received deferred action is authorized by DHS to be present in the United States, and is therefore considered by DHS to be lawfully present during the period of deferred action is in effect.” That’s why hundreds of thousands of DACA applicants were deemed to have “legal status,” obtain work authorization, and also obtain driver’s licenses (which were then used to open the door to a host of other benefits available only to citizens and those with lawful permanent residence). The new program will expand that number to millions, perhaps tens of millions.
Obama was right about one thing: “Only Congress can do that.” Indeed, there are few areas of constitutional authority that are more clearly vested in the Congress than determinations of immigration and naturalization policy. The Supreme Court has routinely described Congress’s power in this area as “plenary,” that is, an unqualified and absolute power.
But Obama went ahead and did it anyway. Contradicting even his own express statements over the past four years that he did not have the constitutional authority to do this.
Congress is not without constitutional checks on a president who abuses the powers of his office. It has the power of the purse, and it can use that power to prohibit the expenditure of funds for carrying out the president’s dictate to extend work authorization to those not lawfully authorized to work.
And there may be litigation strategies that can be employed, as well. For example, lawfully authorized workers displaced by those to whom Obama has unlawfully extended work authorization have the kind of particularized injury that would give them legal standing to challenge the new policy. Workers compensation insurance carriers, too, might be able to challenge the policy, which forces them to extend coverage to those not legally able to work.
Whatever path is pursued, it is critical that this constitutional crisis not go unanswered; the rule of law itself is at stake.
Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, the director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and the chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group.
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This is an excellent exchange between a Republican congressman and the Obama Secretary who issued the new rules.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjG65YFnsR0
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Conservatives Should Accept Boehner Immigration Plan
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on December 4, 2014
Speaker John Boehner's plan to fund the government operations for a year, but excepting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from the bill is a great deal that conservatives should accept and celebrate. If Boehner can get the Democratic Senate -- while it lasts -- to agree to his proposed formula for avoiding a government shutdown, it will be a massive victory for Republicans and pose big problems ahead for President Obama.
Republicans have always sought to use government funding as a kind of surgical strike aimed at programs they dislike. In the October, 2013 government shutdown, conservatives wanted to fund the entire government except for those that were to implement ObamaCare. But Senate Democrats and the White House held the rest of the government hostage saying that the House Republicans had either to fund the entire government or shut it all down. Even Republican attempts to exempt military pay and Social Security processing were rejected or received with a jaundiced eye.
Now, however, Boehner is trying to set the stage for just such a surgical operation when the Republicans take over the Senate next year. By funding the entire government for a year but appropriating only a few months of money for the ICE, Boehner makes it possible for a fully Republican Congress to defund the ICE without closing down the entire government.
President Obama is relying on the finding of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) that much of the ICE processing is funded by administrative levies which are not dependent on government appropriations. But this is not the whole story. Much of ICE funding is, indeed, dependent on government appropriations and a creative conservative majority can use its power to craft a spending bill that would have real teeth.
But it needs a majority of the Senate. We don't have one now and won't until next year.
Conservatives should seize on a victory when Boehner hands it to them. Go along with keeping the government open but stop Obama's ability to force a general shutdown next year if Republicans withhold ICE appropriations. It's a very good deal.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/us/homeland-security-chief-opens-largest-immigration-detention-center-in-us.html?emc=edit_th_20141216&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/21/obama-oversees-steep-drop-in-deportations-of-illeg/
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http://pamelageller.com/2015/01/obama-imported-300000-muslims-into-the-us-in-2013.html/
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/12/jeff-sessions-defines-republican-position-on-immigration-in-25-page-roadmap-document/?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+January+13%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20150113_m123972284_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+January+13%2C+2014&utm_term=More
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/19/republicans-have-an-immigration-plan-and-its-a-little-different-from-obamas/
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/19/republicans-have-an-immigration-plan-and-its-a-little-different-from-obamas/
Better than nothing.
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Obama’s Immigration Trap
Republicans fell into it months ago. Here’s how they can get out.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Jan. 22, 2015 6:50 p.m. ET
WSJ
President Obama hardly mentioned immigration in his State of the Union address. And why should he have? He’d already watched Republicans march into his carefully laid immigration trap, where they’ve been flailing ever since.
The president’s bombshell immigration order—delivered directly after the midterm—was a calculated political document. It was never aimed at helping immigrants. It was, rather, designed to divide Republicans, setting them up to lose a very public battle with the White House, themselves and the voters. It worked beautifully.
The GOP held it together (barely) in the weeks following the order, responding by funding the Department of Homeland Security only through February. The idea was that Republicans would use the deadline for a showdown over the president’s unconstitutional legalization of five million undocumented immigrants.
They might have won that battle, at least in the messaging realm. House Republicans could have unanimously passed a simple resolution condemning the order as unconstitutional. Red-state Democrats who criticized the president’s order would have felt pressure to vote with Republicans. This, and a spotlight on the lawsuit now joined by 24 states against the order, would have focused voters on the president’s lawbreaking, after which Republicans could have moved to outmaneuver Mr. Obama with their own proposals for immigration reform.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The party’s hard-line immigration caucus instead demanded the House bill overturn Obama immigration actions stretching back to 2011—including his order deferring action against undocumented kids. This expansiveness not only gave every Democrat a perfect excuse to vote against the bill, it caused dozens of Republicans to object to specific provisions, and 10 to peel off in final passage. The headlines, as a result, were all about Republican infighting, and how the party was hellbent on breaking up immigrant families.
The bill is meanwhile dead-before-arrival in the Senate. Not a single Democrat has felt compelled to endorse it, and even Republicans are critical. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will now fail to get the 60 votes needed to even start on the bill, thanks to joint Democratic-Republican opposition. And that’s if he’s lucky. If Democrats are crafty, they will vote to proceed, and use the amendment process to further expose Republican rifts before killing the bill. And no, Democrats will not be accused—as Republicans would be, were the situation reversed—of filibustering. The press will portray them as valiantly protecting immigrant families. This is Washington.
The best course here would be a quick—if painful—cut and run. Instead, party hard-liners are demanding that Republicans drag this out, escalate, and use their funding “leverage” to “force” Mr. Obama and Democrats to capitulate. If this sounds like the funky echo of last year’s shutdown, it is.
The question then and now is: What leverage? The White House can’t wait for the Republican Party—currently lambasting the president on terrorism—to shut down Homeland Security in the face of Islamic State threats and Ebola. It would love even more the following headline: “GOP Responds to Illegal Immigration by Unmanning Border.”
This isn’t a question, as some conservative radio hosts might suggest, of Republicans having principles or showing resolve. This is a question of Republicans taking a pool noodle to a gunfight.
And it gets better. Some Republicans are now arguing that since Mr. Obama is only making the immigration system worse, it is up to them to fix it. This is a smart approach. Then again, their “fix” is to go all-in on yet another border-security bill. House Republicans last week introduced “The Secure Our Borders First Act,” with its full complement of double-fencing, drones, surveillance flights, towers, radar, maritime assets and forward-operating bases.
While this looks tough, even advocates of greater border security are pointing out that the House bill does nothing to tackle the real source of undocumented immigrants—those who overstay visas. And there is zero sign that Republicans intend to build on border security with bills that address a lack of legal pathways, a shortage of high-tech visas, etc.
What the bill does do is send the message that Republicans are in favor of walling off the country, and—let’s not forget—deporting small children.
Obviously, this isn’t a fair assessment. The immigration problem is real, and a majority of GOP lawmakers truly want to solve it. Yet by allowing Mr. Obama to stoke the flames and divisions on this heated subject, and giving the absolutists the lead, it’s the message the press will run with and the voters will hear. Mitt Romney ’s 27% of the Hispanic vote might prove a high-water mark.
This isn’t irrecoverable. The way for Republicans to outflank Mr. Obama on immigration is to send him a series of bills that do fix the problems, that are done on their own pro-growth terms, and that supersede his executive orders. Dare him to say no, and blame him for obstruction if he does. But before it can do that, the GOP first has to decide if it’s tired of walking into traps.
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"The way for Republicans to outflank Mr. Obama on immigration is to send him a series of bills that do fix the problems, that are done on their own pro-growth terms, and that supersede his executive orders. Dare him to say no, and blame him for obstruction if he does. "
I wish he would have elaborated more.
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Actually the author is a woman. KS has been writing quality stuff for the WSJ for several years now.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/30/illegal-immigrants-released-custody-committed-1000/
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/30/illegal-immigrants-released-custody-committed-1000/
Illegal aliens committing crimes?GTFO! :-o
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http://www.gopusa.com/news/2015/02/02/doj-dilemma-so-many-illegal-aliens-the-courts-cant-handle-them/
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This is not amnesty, but a penalty and payment proposal for converting people from illegal to legal status.
1) Secure the borders first. Must be proven over time. No new inflow. No overstaying visas. No hesitation by the government to deport any new entrants.
2) The plea bargain, penalty settlement should look something like this: Pay your share of our accumulated debt before you share in our privileges. That would be roughly 18 trillion divided by 330+ million people, or $55,000 for every man, woman and child who wants to live here and be a voting, American citizen, 220k for a family of four. Come on in! (That is not unreasonable, about what a private college charges for one person over 4 years.) There is an incentive to come out of the shadows and agree quickly before national debt goes up more! Then, before they vote, the new citizens will have a stake in the ownership and sensitivity to the high cost of government and entitlement programs. Deportation only for those who do not agree to a schedule or do not keep up with their payments.
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ACLU Searching Mexico for 200,000 Illegal Aliens to Import (Not a Joke)
March 8, 2015 By Stephen Frank 2 Comments
Text Size:
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Last year Barack the First imported about 70,000 illegal aliens from Central America. As of the beginning of January, 2015, 93% of those who had hearings failed to show up and disappeared—as expected. Over the past few years 200,000 illegal aliens have been caught at the border, signed voluntary deportation papers and were shipped back to Mexico. This is a good thing.
But, the ACLU claimed the illegal aliens did not know their “rights”, signed the papers without benefit of attorneys and should be given a second chance to break our laws. A court agreed, and now the ACLU is searching Mexico for 200,000 illegal aliens to illegally bring into this country
The worse news is that YOU the taxpayer are going to pay for their transportation back to this country, their housing, food, attorneys and maybe even given jobs! Think any of them will go to their deportation hearing? The world has gone crazy—and we get to pay for the corruption of the government and courts.
ICE-Immigration-Agents
ACLU Searches For Deportees Denied Immigration Hearing
By Jean Guerrero,KPBS, 3/7/15
The American Civil Liberties Union has started searching for deportees in Mexico who may be eligible to return to the United States as part of a class-action lawsuit against the federal government.
The campaign was launched after U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt gave the ACLU a green light to broaden its class of plaintiffs.
Isidora Lopez-Venegas, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the federal government, discusses why she signed the voluntary return form that resulted in her expulsion from the U.S., March 6, 2015.
Eleven plaintiffs and three Southern California immigrant-rights groups accused the federal government of coercing the plaintiffs, all Mexican immigrants, into signing voluntary return forms. By signing the forms, the plaintiffs forfeited their rights to an immigration hearing and, in some cases, were subject to a 10-year prohibition of legal re-entry.
The lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration Customs and Enforcement in 2013.
The lawsuit was settled last year, allowing plaintiffs like Isidora Lopez-Venegas to return to the U.S. A single mother and elementary school teacher, Lopez-Venegas spent three years exiled in Mexico with her U.S.-citizen son.
“I felt paralyzed,” she said in an interview.
Lopez-Venegas said she signed a voluntary return form because immigration officials threatened to take away her son if she didn’t.
Jean Guerrero
The American Civil Liberties Union held a meeting to distribute information about a class action lawsuit against the federal government in search of deportees who may be eligible to return to the U.S., March 4, 2015.
“I became afraid. I became so nervous,” said Lopez-Venegas, who now lives in San Diego. “They were intimidating me, threatening me, and that’s why I got scared and said, ‘OK, I’ll sign it.’”
Deportees qualify to join the ACLU’s class-action lawsuit if they signed the voluntary return form between June 1, 2009, and August 28, 2014. They must have been deported to Mexico from the San Diego or Los Angeles field offices, and they had to have reasonable claims to reside in the U.S. at the time of signing.
Reasonable claims include having qualified for the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or having paperwork in process for an immigration status change. They could additionally claim that they had a citizen spouse, that they they had lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years or had family members with citizenship or green cards.
“We are working with a lot of different organizations across California and throughout Mexico in order to diffuse this information as widely as possible,” said Gabriela Rivera, a staff attorney for ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.
As part of the 2014 settlement, the federal government agreed to provide immigrants with detailed information about the consequences of signing a voluntary return form in the future. Immigration officials will also allow ACLU attorneys to monitor their compliance with the settlement for a period of three years.
The ACLU has four months to find possible additional plaintiffs for its class-action lawsuit. It will then file applications on their behalf through Dec. 22.
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Judge Blocking Plan for Immigrants Is Praised as Fair in Texas
By JULIA PRESTONMARCH 10, 2015
Photo
Judge Andrew S. Hanen, left, at a 2005 ceremony at the federal courthouse in Brownsville, Tex. Judge Hanen has been on the bench for almost 13 years. Credit Brad Doherty/Brownsville Herald, via Associated Press
BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — From his bench in a federal courthouse barely a mile from the Rio Grande, Judge Andrew S. Hanen looked over a procession of small-time drug dealers and thieves, each representing a lapse of border enforcement.
In a familiar routine for the judge, he handed out sentences at a hearing last week to convicted criminals who had been deported to Mexico and then sneaked back into the United States. For returning illegally, he sent them to prison for a year or so, and most likely to another deportation. Judge Hanen warned them that their time behind bars would be even longer if they ever came back again.
“I want to be sure you understand that,” he said, looking each man in the eye.
Judge Hanen is now in the middle of a much bigger legal fight, after his Feb. 16 ruling that temporarily halted President Obama’s executive actions to shield millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation. Among officials from the 26 states bringing the lawsuit, the decision was hailed as a triumph of law over a reckless president. Mr. Obama said he was confident that the administration would eventually prevail.
Judge Hanen came to the Federal District Court here almost 13 years ago from a strait-laced law practice in Houston. His 123-page injunction against the executive actions was informed by a starkly negative view of the Obama administration’s border security efforts. He began to express that perspective after seeing the traffic through his courtroom in this borderland city, where migrants illegally cross every day despite a buildup of fences and agents, while bloody feuds rage among Mexican drug cartels just across the river.
“The court finds that the government’s failure to secure the border has exacerbated illegal immigration into this country,” Judge Hanen said in the February ruling. The states’ coffers were “being drained by the constant influx of illegal immigrants,” he wrote.
Advocates for immigrants who want to see the president’s initiatives go forward have portrayed Judge Hanen, 61, as a right-wing crank. But in Texas he is known as a conservative but fair-minded jurist with keen analytical intelligence — and a jovial sense of humor, even when he is in black robes.
“He is the complete package,” said David Kent, a lawyer in Dallas who was with Judge Hanen in Baylor University’s law school class of 1978; Judge Hanen graduated first in the class. “Absolutely as sharp as could be,” said Mr. Kent, who also clerked at the Texas Supreme Court with him, “and on the personal side so funny, so good-hearted.”
The Obama administration is seeking an emergency stay of Judge Hanen’s injunction. The judge on Monday declined to rule yet on that request, and administration officials said they would probably move their motion to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans this week. Judge Hanen still has to rule on the larger constitutional questions in the states’ challenge. He declined to be interviewed for this article.
Continue reading the main story
Judge Hanen’s decisions gained new importance to Republicans in Congress who are determined to stop the president’s actions, after they failed last week to eliminate funding for the initiatives in the Homeland Security spending bill. Republicans are now looking to the courts to keep Mr. Obama’s programs from taking effect.
Before moving to Brownsville in 2002, Judge Hanen had a comfortable law practice, serving at one time as president of the bar association in Houston. But friends said his upbringing was modest. John Eddie Williams Jr., a high-profile trial lawyer in Houston and another Baylor classmate, said Mr. Hanen had been raised in a bare-bones household in Waco by a single mother.
“In law school, he would wear jeans with holes at the knees, and not because it was fashionable,” Mr. Williams said.
He recalled that the two of them had been in a study group with a classmate named Priscilla Owen. Mr. Hanen was always looking to lighten the studious mood with jokes. Without telling Ms. Owen, he once enrolled her in a Cotton Queen beauty pageant, Mr. Williams said. She was startled to receive several mailings asking for information about her physical endowments, before Mr. Hanen disclosed his prank.
Today Ms. Owen is a federal appeals judge for the Fifth Circuit, the court that will hear the administration’s appeals of Judge Hanen’s decisions in the states’ lawsuit.
Mr. Williams said he differed with Judge Hanen on immigration, supporting Mr. Obama “100 percent.” But he said, “I would disagree with anyone who would say Andy Hanen has any prejudice. His decisions will always be based on sound legal grounds.”
Judge Hanen is one of the few judges ever to be nominated twice to the same court by two presidents: by the first President George Bush in 1992, a nomination never voted on by the Senate, and by President George W. Bush in 2002.
During his years in Brownsville, Judge Hanen has sent a corrupt judge to prison and slogged through dozens of lawsuits over the federal government’s seizure of land to build border fences, leaving his courtroom to visit the boundary so he could see the disputed properties for himself.
But in recent years, Judge Hanen has raised increasingly vivid alarms about what he sees as a porous border and lax enforcement. In December 2013, after sentencing a migrant smuggler, he issued a broadside when he learned that the authorities had delivered a child, the smuggler’s cargo, to the child’s mother, an unauthorized immigrant in Virginia. Judge Hanen accused the administration of “successfully completing the mission of the criminal conspiracy.”
Photo
Performers in Brownsville's Charro Days festival, which celebrates the unity of cultures straddling the border. Credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times
In August, he held forth when a gang member from El Salvador whom he had previously sent to prison turned up in California after deportation and was granted a form of asylum. The administration, he said, “has pulled the pin on a hand grenade and lobbed it into the streets of Los Angeles, with the faint hope it will not go off.”
Judge Hanen supplemented that opinion with charts of the leadership of Mexican drug cartels. “Rewarding gang or cartel members for their own antisocial activities endangers everyone in the United States,” he wrote.
Mr. Obama has suggested that officials in Texas, which is leading the states’ lawsuit, shopped for a sympathetic judge before filing in the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville. In this court, there is no one other than Judge Hanen in a position to hear the case.
Speaking at a town-hall-style meeting in Miami last month, Mr. Obama said he was not surprised by the injunction. “We saw the judge who was rendering the opinion,” the president said.
Michael A. Olivas, a law professor at the University of Houston, said the move by Texas officials was fair play. But he said Judge Hanen was often out of line with his rebukes of Mr. Obama’s policies. “He goes further than he needs to, with intemperate, nonjudicious and nongermane elaborations,” he said.
In South Texas, some leaders said the judge was just responding to the conditions around him.
“That gentleman is constantly hearing the prosecution of drug cartel violence in his courtroom,” said State Representative Eddie Lucio III, a Mexican-American Democrat who lives in Brownsville. “When he says we need to have proper border enforcement, it’s because he sees the worst of it.”
But Brownsville’s mayor, Tony Martinez, also a Democrat, said Judge Hanen had overlooked another side of immigration. It was on full display last month, the mayor said, just around the corner from the courthouse, as the city held its annual festival known as Charro Days, celebrating the unity of cultures straddling the border. Mr. Martinez and Mr. Lucio joined the parade down the main street, dressed in their Mexican cowboy finest.
Mr. Martinez filed papers to the court supporting Mr. Obama’s actions, saying they would improve enforcement by focusing agents on deporting criminals, not peaceable workers.
“We may be two countries,” the mayor said, “but on the border we’re one family.”
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/02/map_illegal_immigrant_population_by_state.html
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Of course they are comparing them with the lowest level of male workforce participation in our history. For women, the opposite is true. Our social spending complex is working to break up these families next.
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http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/03/28/hold-think-tank-illegal-immigrant-males-more-likely-to-be-in-workforce-than-legal-immigrants-us-born-men/
PEW RESEARCHER: RATE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MALES IN WORKFORCE 12 PERCENT HIGHER THAN U.S.-BORN MALES
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Meanwhile Democrats are working hard to get fewer of these people to work and more of them to vote.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/13/immigration-chief-sanctuary-cities-influx-kids/
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It is amazing how people use statistics in a way that distorts reality to conform with whatever their agenda is. Take this news item today obviously being used as evidence of the great benefits of illegals to all of us:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-finds-illegal-immigrants-pay-221800279.html
Then go here and one can easily erase these supposed benefits to the legal residents of America. The revolving doors of OB wards are spinning as fast as illegals can walk through them with anchor babies. Who pays for this? What about them going to our schools? I suppose sales taxes is covering this?
http://www.nysenate.gov/report/what-benefits-can-illegal-aliens-receive
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TPP = Mass Immigration
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on April 21, 2015
Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free-trade agreement, Congress could lose the power to control immigration policy. We could find ourselves back in the era before there were restrictions on immigration and anyone from anywhere could come to our shores. And Republicans, from leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner on down, are unwittingly helping President Obama achieve this goal.
The TPP, generally supported by pro-free-trade Republicans but opposed by labor-union Democrats, reportedly contains a barely noticed provision that allows for the free migration of labor among the signatory nations. Patterned after similar provisions in the treaties establishing the European Union, it would override national immigration restrictions in the name of facilitating the free flow of labor.
The draft treaty, now under discussion among 12 Pacific Rim nations, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Vietnam and Japan, makes provision for needed labor to move across national boundaries without restraint. While much of the commentary on the deal has been focused on high-skill, white-collar migration, it could easily be interpreted as allowing farm workers and others to flow back and forth without legal regulation.
In seeking approval of the TPP, the Obama administration has proposed giving it fast-track authority to conclude trade deals -- a power that would restrict Congress's ability to amend the deal, allowing only an up-or-down vote. Led by Republicans, the Senate is moving toward passage of the fast-track authority as a precursor to ratification of the TPP treaty, immigration provisions and all.
Democrats are staging a last-ditch stand against the bill, which their labor allies condemn as the worst trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement of the 1990s, pointing to the potential loss of jobs. But Republicans are using their majorities to grant Obama fast-track authority.
It is odd, indeed, to see Republicans falling all over themselves to reward this president with more power while voluntarily reducing congressional oversight. At the very least, one would assume the TPP would give the GOP-led Congress bargaining power to force Obama to backtrack on amnesty for illegals and possibly on ObamaCare. But far from forcing concessions, Republicans are lining up in support of fast-track and, by implication, the TPP.
Because foreign treaties are the "law of the land," according to the U.S. Constitution, any provision governing our borders and the flow of immigrants could not be overridden or even modified by Congress. A new president would be able to reverse Obama's amnesty plan but not the open-border provisions of the TPP. The treaty could lead to the effective repeal of the specifically enumerated power granted to Congress in Article I of the Constitution to regulate immigration and naturalization.
While the treaty is still being negotiated, the current focus on white-collar immigration would be sufficiently elastic to allow open borders. For instance, what is white collar compared to blue collar? Are we going to set an income limit on immigration?
Curtis Ellis, executive director of the American Jobs Alliance, calls the trade deal "a Trojan horse for Obama's immigration agenda" on The Hill's Contributor's blog. He notes that "one corporate trade association says bluntly that 'The TPP should remove restrictions on nationality or residency requirements for the selection of personnel.' "
In his seventh and eighth year, every president worries about his legacy and tries to control events in the future. But here Obama is enshrining in a treaty -- that cannot be repealed or amended -- an open-border immigration policy for all time.
Those who say he would never carry the treaty's provisions that far have only to ask themselves this question: Would Obama extend his powers to their maximum limit? Of course he would. Don't give him the power.
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"It is odd, indeed, to see Republicans falling all over themselves to reward this president with more power while voluntarily reducing congressional oversight. At the very least, one would assume the TPP would give the GOP-led Congress bargaining power to force Obama to backtrack on amnesty for illegals and possibly on ObamaCare. But far from forcing concessions, Republicans are lining up in support of fast-track and, by implication, the TPP."
Not odd at all. Jeb is no different.
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“Although prosecutorial discretion is broad, it is not ‘unfettered.’” Declining to prosecute does not convert an act deemed unlawful by Congress into a lawful one and confer eligibility for benefits based on that new classification."
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/Texas%205th%20Circuit%20deny%20stay%20NLJ.pdf
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Our ccp is proven right - again.
I have been on the WSJ side of this, believing LEGAL immigration is mostly good - good for the country, good for the economy, and completely unrelated to illegal immigration. Not so, according to this new bool.
Ann Coulter is often a flame thrower, but when she gets things right, she can do that with amazing wit, persuasion and clarity.
Only one chapter of this book is on illegal immigration, but the main point is to examine and expose what is happening on the legal side.
"You know I am a ferocious researcher", she said in an interview, and then went on to tell how the federal government with all its demographics, data and record keeping will not give out any information that ties statistics like crime or welfare to immigration. So she relentlessly went through local crime stories from across the country looking for keywords like "translator" as it applied to criminal charges and other things and found out things that are not otherwise reported.
Here is a link: http://www.anncoulter.com/ I haven't read the book but her point is that these immigrants are not like those immigrants. Generalizing, they are not coming here for the same reasons as the immigrants of the past.
Legal immigration SHOULD be a good thing because we have needs and should decide who comes in - the right people from the right places for the right reasons. In this politically correct world, that type of analysis is never going to happen
The Pamela Geller piece posted today in 'Islam in America' about Somali immigration is relevant here too. I went to school there on the west bank of the Univ. of Minnesota and knew that neighborhood that is now called "Little Mogadishu". Arguably we took in refugees from a region with brutal civil war and we have done that before with other people from other regions. But why are these people here - legally - if they don't accept basic foundations of our society like free speech. Besides the right to remain silent, to an attorney, etc., in Minneapolis you also have the right to a free, competent and "culturally sensitive" interpreter, no matter your language and not just for criminal matters. http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@clerk/documents/webcontent/convert_280287.pdf
More later when people have time to read the book and cite her facts, but her main point in my words is that these people, Hispanic and others, are coming from failed cultures and bringing their failed ways with them causing more problems and societal costs here. Liberals and Democrats are conspiring to get them here, all set up on welfare programs and dependent on government from the moment they arrive and lock them in as reliable voters. If true (and it IS true) that should drive every remaining, hard working, blue collar Democrat out of the party.
Signing up for free everything isn't how it worked when other groups in the past came here and successfully assimilated over time and contributed greatly to our country. Don't confuse the greatness of these people with the results of what is happening now. Critics of course call that line of inquiry racist, but what are the facts? No one else will say.
Whatever comes out of this, there should be a serious discussion about what legal immigration should be, in addition to solving the illegal problem. You can look at Sweden for another example, but you can't mix open borders with a massive entitlement system and then be surprised to learn people are coming for the wrong reasons and causing problems.
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I know of a small city in my region where Somali gangs are going head to head against Mexican gangs with cartel affiliations.
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The Somali gangs are seeking to enter the drug biz?
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The Somali gangs are seeking to enter the drug biz?
They are in it. Human trafficking as well.
http://www.businessinsider.com/12-gangs-on-the-fbis-radar-2014-3?op=1
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html?_r=1
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"They said that over all, the company had a net gain of 70 tech jobs."
Sure. Just all to people not born here.
Hey this is good for us were told.
Only those that say that aren't the ones who wind up being hurt by this.
Or, they are the ones hiring the cheap labor and benefiting screwing Americans.
As a doctor in NJ where more than half the doctors are born elsewhere I have first hand experience with this.
Hey so what? It is good for all. We have a doctor shortage don't we?
No main stream Republican will care about this. You know what?
We should start importing our politicians from other countries. Start replacing the goons we have now. I would love to see this and hear how much they like it.
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My only disagreement is she tends to focus on Latinos a bit too much. Surely they make up a large portion of the illegals, but what about those coming here from other countries? From the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia?
*****IMMIGRATION ADVOCATES FRIGHTENED BY 99-POUND BLONDE
June 3, 2015
Third World immigration advocates Frank Sharry, Ali Noorani and Marc Andreessen aren't shy about rushing to the press with pabulum quotes about how wonderful immigration is, but they don't want to debate me, even to lie about all those benefits.
They don't want you to think about immigration at all.
Although you will miss the lush analytical context of the full case made in my smash new book, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole, here are some more startling facts from my book that the anti-American crowd doesn't want you to know:
-- If an illegal alien drops a baby on American soil, the entire family can access welfare programs that were supposed to be for U.S. citizens -- in addition to the government assistance illegal aliens can collect right away, such as food stamps and housing subsidies, free medical care and free schooling.
-- The Constitution did not make U.S. citizenship a game of "Red Rover" with the Border Patrol. Haha! Too late -- I had the baby! The 14th Amendment confirmed the citizenship rights of former American slaves -- not 21st-century freeloaders from China.
-- Our ludicrous "anchor baby" policy was invented out of whole cloth by Justice William Brennan and slipped into a footnote in a Supreme Court opinion in 1982.
-- On average, college graduates in the United States pay about $30,000 more in taxes each year than they get back in government services, while those without a high school degree get back about $35,000 more in government services than they pay in taxes.
-- Only about 7 percent of Americans do not have a high school diploma, but more than a third of legal immigrants under the post-Kennedy immigration act and about 75 percent of illegal aliens do not have a high school diploma.
-- Mexican immigrants send $20 billion back to Mexico every year -- more than the U.S. sends to that country in direct foreign aid.
-- The New York Times was saved from bankruptcy by one of the richest men in the world, Mexican Carlos Slim, whose fortune comes from illegal aliens' sending money -- most of it from the U.S. taxpayer -- back to Mexico.
-- Anything the Times says on immigration ought to be treated like a press release from a tobacco company about the low risk of disease from smoking.
-- Contrary to repeated assertions that fences don't work (by the Times, as well as a slew of Republicans, such as former Texas governor Rick Perry), after Israel completed a fence along its border in 2013, the number of illegal aliens entering the country dropped to zero.
-- The country that put men on the moon can't seem to build a wall like the one the Chinese built 700 years before Christ.
-- Fully half of the fires on federal or tribal land investigated by the Government Accountability Office, where a cause could be determined, were set by illegal immigrants. (For suggesting as much, Sen. John McCain was denounced as a racist on MSNBC and in The Washington Post.)
-- Illegal immigrants from Mexico planted a huge pot farm right in the middle of Sequoia National Forest, dumping pesticides and refuse within a few miles of the world's tallest tree.
-- The Sierra Club, which took a $100 million donation from hedge fund billionaire David Gelbaum to be pro-illegal immigration, never said a word about it. Nothing the Sierra Club says about immigration -- or the environment -- can be believed.
-- The government refuses to say how many foreign-born residents have been sentenced to prison in America. There is no attempt to count naturalized citizens at all, or legal immigrants in state prisons. Even illegal immigrants are counted only if the states have requested reimbursement from the federal government for those inmates.
-- Instead, the government issues reports with its wild guesses about the number of aliens who are imprisoned in America. The Department of Justice relies on immigrants' self-reports. The GAO goes by Bureau of Prisons data. The U.S. census simply guesses the immigration status of inmates.
-- In 2010, New York state prisons held more than 4,000 inmates from 10 Latin American and Caribbean nations, and fewer than 150 inmates from all of Western Europe (most of whom were probably Muslims).
-- There are already more Hispanics than whites in two states, New Mexico and California, and Hispanics are the largest minority group in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
How about letting these facts "come out of the shadows"?
COPYRIGHT 2015 ANN COULTER****
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I know of a small city in my region where Somali gangs are going head to head against Mexican gangs with cartel affiliations.
Big difference between going against someone affiliated and the real deal.
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http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062215-758485-mexican-flag-waving-illegal-has-had-a-cushy-ride.htm
Education: An illegal immigrant who graduated from UC San Diego thanked taxpayers for her free ride by waving the Mexican flag at commencement. Seems that illegals get a better deal in education than citizens. Why else would she flaunt it?
The shameless ingratitude provoked public outrage. Indira Esparza, an illegal alien who took a coveted slot at the taxpayer-funded University of California, milked the system for aid and then marched up to the podium waving the flag of the country she would do anything to avoid being sent back to, couldn't have been surprised by the angry reaction.
After all, activist groups have cautioned illegals since the illegal immigrant marches of 2006 to wave the U.S., not the Mexican, flag. Esparza was clearly confident that she could get away with it despite the offense it caused to the public.
It stands in stark contrast to the criticism that the Confederate flag is drawing following a terrible massacre of black churchgoers by a white supremacist in South Carolina. The Confederate flag will come down, but the Mexican flag still waves, despite the offense.
People with Esparza's chutzpah don't float in out of nowhere. As we suspected, there was a massive support network behind this poster child for arrogant, over-rewarded illegals, putting the lie to her victimhood claims of living in the shadows.
First, she won a coveted place at UCSD's cushy La Jolla-based Preuss charter school, displacing a legal resident in an elite, taxpayer-funded school. After that, she was showered with resources for illegals.
"She received a scholarship from the Patricia and Christopher Weil Family Foundation to help support her undergraduate studies at U.C. San Diego," the UCSD public relations website reads. Still better, she got $10,000 cash from the Chancellor's Associate Scholars program launched in 2013.
"The program essentially provides a full-ride and loan-free UC San Diego financial aid package to eligible students from several underserved high schools," UCSD said.
Esparza called it "ridiculously awesome" in a 2013 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I don't have to worry so much about my finances. I always have money for books. I have money to buy my parking pass. I have gas money."
Unusual? Not really. Just this month, Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg donated $5 million for college tuition for 400 illegals through the TheDream.US foundation.
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles gives illegals free rides, too. Students like Esparza are free to take gut majors like political science and even minors like educational studies because it costs them zero.
The Union-Tribune reports that Esparza helped found UCSD's Undocumented Student Services Center, part of a $5 million plan by President Janet Napolitano to "help students in the country illegally obtain access to taxpayer-funded financial aid and other benefits," The College Fix reports.
With U.S. students paying tens of thousands for student loans and being unable to find jobs, why are illegals handed tuition, living expenses and more on a silver platter? And they show their gratitude for that largesse by waving the Mexican flag at their graduations.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062215-758485-mexican-flag-waving-illegal-has-had-a-cushy-ride.htm#ixzz3e5RVmJJo
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This could go under housing... I rented a house yesterday to a nice Spanish speaking couple with 3 adorable children.
We hear about better identification and stronger employer sanctions as being part of the solution. I haven't had to deal with the question of legal status much in housing; most of the influx of people to north Minneapolis come from the southside of Chicago, Detroit, Gary, IN, etc. I am not clear whether it is illegal to rent to an illegal. I am pretty sure it is illegal not to.
In this case, the man who doesn't speak a word of English showed his Driver's License - I don't know if illegals get those here. He also has a good bank account; I don't know the rules there either, but good enough for me. The wife speaks English as a second language but didn't want her name on the lease. I told her it has to go on the lease. The kids were great translators and pretty soon I had them talking on the phone with my daughter in Spanish to sharpen her language skills.
I went with 'don't ask, don't tell' on legal status and made a business decision that I liked this family and had no reason to turn down their application.
Whether they are legal or illegal, I'm sure they know people affected by the words used (cf. Donald Trump) and issues negotiated in "immigration reform".
But what if both parents are illegal and their children are legal, and that we want to make new law going forward that emphasizes control over our border? We should be able to argue that anyone who came here some time ago illegally, who has set up a life, a residence, a family, a job here, can stay but will not ever vote, and that by making ours a sovereign nation (e pluribus unum) with good, enforceable laws in the best interests of our nation is what is in the best interest of their children's interests also, and that policies that grow our economy are best for their family and their children - all without permanently driving away everyone of their heritage from our side of politics.
It is a very delicate argument to say that we don't want to become the place they left without insulting the people and losing them forever politically.
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/barack-obama-is-a-liar-he-deports-900000-illegal-aliens-they-never-leave-the-u-s/
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/trump-is-right-illegal-alien-crime-is-staggering-in-scope-and-savagery?f=must_reads
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-silence-on-kathryn-steinle-killing-is-deafening/2015/07/13/06f5730e-2959-11e5-a5ea-cf74396e59ec_story.html
I'm sure the credentialed journalists will be sure to ask Obama about this, right bigdog?
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http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/illegal_aliens_murder_at_a_much_higher_rate_than_us_citizens_do.html
Reliable.
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https://www.facebook.com/CSPAN/videos/10153686119710579/
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I don't see how winning 40% of the vote is a big win for Republicans when they are coming here by the tens of millions and 60% or more will vote for the Democrats. Good luck ever winning California again.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2958571/posts
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If I am not mistaken if Romney had matched Bush's 40% he would have won.
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If I am not mistaken if Romney had matched Bush's 40% he would have won.
Winning an even slightly greater share of any and all of these demographic groups matters. Black, Hispanic, gay, Jew, Catholic, single mom, soccer mom, urban dwellers, media people, academia, (martial artists?), etc. etc., we have to convince them that there are other viewpoints and it is okay to choose one that is not what everyone else you know is choosing. Each time they see one more person slip over to the other side they face the possibility of being curious about what they are not seeing.
We have former liberals right here on the board...
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Roughly 23 million "Latinos" voted in 2012. So if we take 13 % of that and add that to Romney's total and subtract from Brock's maybe that would have made up the 5% overall difference. Not enough time right now to figure it out. That said it is only 40% of a population that is expanding exponentially - by design.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/06/03/inside-the-2012-latino-electorate/
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+31%2C+2015&utm_campaign=20150731_m126776469_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+July+31%2C+2015&utm_term=Big+Government
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I know the immigrants are good for us.... I know if the Republicans just win their hearts and minds....we can win them over.... (just look at all the immigrants who vote for Republicans now) The Asians the Middle Easterners, the South of the border ones, the Africans, the Caribbean ones etc.....
I know they help industry which helps us all...
I know the mow our lawns and fix our sidewalks....
I know they all do jobs US born Americans won't do....
I know they are just hard working wonderful people who "dream"...
Yet JEB wants to let them know we all love them..... while they walk all over us:
*******Exclusive — USA to Issue More Green Cards Than Populations of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina Combined
by Breitbart News2 Aug 20155,123
Breitbart News has exclusively obtained text and a chart from the Senate’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
concerning America’s ongoing policy of massive legal immigration:
The overwhelming majority of immigration to the United States is the result of our visa policies. Each year, millions of visas are issued to temporary workers, foreign students, refugees, asylees, and permanent immigrants for admission into the United States. The lion’s share of these visas are for lesser-skilled and lower-paid workers and their dependents who, because they are here on work-authorized visas, are added directly to the same labor pool occupied by current unemployed jobseekers. Expressly because they arrive on legal immigrant visas, most will be able to draw a wide range of taxpayer-funded benefits, and corporations will be allowed to directly substitute these workers for Americans. Improved border security would have no effect on the continued arrival of these foreign workers, refugees, and permanent immigrants—because they are all invited
The most significant of all immigration documents issued by the U.S. is, by far, the “green card.” When a foreign citizen is issued a green card it guarantees them the following benefits inside the United States: lifetime work authorization, access to federal welfare, access to Social Security and Medicare, the ability to obtain citizenship and voting privileges, and the immigration of their family members and elderly relatives.
Under current federal policy, the U.S. issues green cards to approximately 1 million new Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) every single year. For instance, Department of Homeland Security statistics show that the U.S. issued 5.25 million green cards in the last five years, for an average of 1.05 million new legal permanent immigrants annually.
These ongoing visa issuances are the result of federal law, and their number can be adjusted at any time. However, unlike other autopilot policies—such as tax rates or spending programs—there is virtually no national discussion or media coverage over how many visas we issue, to whom we issue them and on what basis, or how the issuance of these visas to individuals living in foreign countries impacts the interests of people already living in this country.
If Congress does not pass legislation to reduce the number of green cards issued each year, the U.S. will legally add 10 million or more new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years—a bloc of new permanent residents larger than populations of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina combined.
This has substantial economic implications.
The post-World War II boom decades of the 1950s and 1960s averaged together less than 3 million green cards per decade—or about 285,000 annually. Due to lower immigration rates, the total foreign-born population in the United States dropped from about 10.8 million in 1945 to 9.7 million in 1960 and 9.6 million in 1970.
These lower midcentury immigration levels were the product of a federal policy change: after the last period of large-scale immigration that had begun in roughly 1880, immigration rates were lowered to reduce admissions. The foreign-born share of the U.S. population fell for six consecutive decades, from 1910 through 1960.
Legislation enacted in 1965, among other factors, substantially increased low-skilled immigration. Since 1970, the foreign-born population in the United States has increased more than four-fold—to a record 42.1 million today. The foreign-born share of the population has risen from fewer than 1 in 21 in 1970, to presently approaching 1 in 7. As the supply of available labor has increased, so too has downward pressure on wages.
Georgetown and Hebrew University economics professor Eric Gould has observed that “the last four decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the wage and employment structure in the United States… The overall evidence suggests that the manufacturing and immigration trends have hollowed-out the overall demand for middle-skilled workers in all sectors, while increasing the supply of workers in lower skilled jobs. Both phenomena are producing downward pressure on the relative wages of workers at the low end of the income distribution.”
During the low-immigration period from 1948-1973, real median compensation for U.S. workers increased more than 90 percent. By contrast, real average hourly wages were lower in 2014 than they were in 1973, four decades earlier. Harvard Economist George Borjas also documented the effects of high immigration rates on African-American workers, writing that “a 10 percent immigration-induced increase in the supply of workers in a particular skill group reduced the black wage of that group by 2.5 percent.” Past immigrants are additionally among those most economically impacted by the arrival of large numbers of new workers brought in to compete for the same jobs. In Los Angeles County, for example, 1 in 3 recent immigrants are living below the poverty line. And this federal policy of new large-scale admissions continues unaltered at a time when automation is reducing hiring, and when a record share of our own workers here in America are not employed.
President Coolidge articulated how a slowing of immigration would benefit both U.S.-born and immigrant-workers: “We want to keep wages and living conditions good for everyone who is now here or who may come here. As a nation, our first duty must be to those who are already our inhabitants, whether native or immigrants. To them we owe an especial and a weighty obligation.”
It is worth observing that the 10 million grants of new permanent residency under current law is not an estimate of total immigration. In fact, the increased distribution of legal immigrant visas tend to correlate with increased flows of immigration illegally: the former helps provide networks and pull factors for the latter. Most of the countries who send the largest numbers of citizens with green cards are also the countries who send the most citizens illegally. The Census Bureau estimates 13 million new immigrants will arrive, on net, between now and 2024—hurtling the U.S. past all recorded figures in terms of the foreign-born share of total population, quickly eclipsing the watermark recorded 105 years ago during the 1880–1920 immigration wave before immigration rates were lowered. Absent new legislation to reduce unprecedented levels of future immigration, the Census Bureau projects immigration as a share of population will continue setting new records each year, for all time.
Yet the immigration “reform” considered by Congress most recently—the 2013 Senate “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration bill—would have tripled the number of green cards issued over the next 10 years. Instead of issuing 10 million green cards, the Gang of Eight proposal would have issued at least 30 million green cards during the next decade (or more than 11 times the population of the City of Chicago).
Polling from Gallup and Fox shows that Americans want lawmakers to reduce, not increase, immigration rates by a stark 2:1 margin. Reuters puts it at a 3:1 margin. And polling from GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway shows that by the huge margin of nearly 10:1 people of all backgrounds are united in their belief that U.S. companies seeking workers should raise wages for those already living here—instead of bringing in new labor from abroad.*****
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" since the recession hit in December of 2007, 100% of all employment gains among women workers were netted by foreign workers, while the number of American women with jobs actually declined. Specifically, 9.041 million foreign-born women held jobs in December of 2007 compared to 10.028 million today – or a gain of roughly 1 million jobs. By contrast, 59.322 million US-born women held jobs in December of 2007 compared to 59.258 million today – or a loss of nearly 64 thousand jobs (even as the population of US-born women 16+ increased by more than 600,000). Overall, nearly 25 million foreign workers, men and women, hold jobs inside the United States."
Source: BLS
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/08/another-aspect-of-the-democrats-war-on-women-jobs.php
(http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2015-08-07-at-6.43.27-PM.png?resize=508%2C683)
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An interesting thought piece:
http://openborders.info/blog/billion-immigrants-change-american-polity/
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An interesting thought piece:
http://openborders.info/blog/billion-immigrants-change-american-polity/
Mix a gallon of dog sh*t with a gallon of chocolate ice cream, it's going to be as unpalatable as the unmixed dogsh*t.
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I don't like to hear that the WSJ Editorialists got this wrong. Or is John Eastman wrong here? I don't think so. This is the only interpretation that makes sense to me.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422960/birthright-citizenship-reform-it-without-repealing-14th-amendment
We Can Apply the 14th Amendment While Also Reforming Birthright Citizenship
by JOHN C. EASTMAN August 24, 2015 4:00 AM
Birthright citizenship has exploded into the national discourse. The issue is generating a lot of heat on the Republican side of the aisle in particular, because it threatens to expose the long-standing rift between the party’s base and its pro-crony-capitalism establishment.
Unfortunately, in arguing that the 14th Amendment requires citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, some of the more prominent interlocutors are promoting an incorrect understanding of history. The Wall Street Journal’s recent editorial on the matter is a case in point, and my good friend John Yoo’s NR essay repeats one of the same basic flaws.
The first clause of the 14th Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The Journal thinks the meaning is “straightforward”: “Subject to the jurisdiction” covers everyone born on U.S. soil (except the children of diplomats and invading armies), because “‘jurisdiction’ defines the territory where the force of law applies and to whom — and this principle is well settled to include almost everyone within U.S. borders, regardless of their home country or the circumstances of their birth.” It then states: “By the circular restrictionist logic, illegal immigrants could not be prosecuted for committing crimes because they are not U.S. citizens.”
Professor Yoo makes the same claim (absent the ad hominem word “restrictionist”): “Almost all aliens in the United States, even citizens of other nations, still fall within our jurisdiction while they are in our territory: Otherwise they could commit crimes of all sorts without fear of punishment.”
This claim plays off a widespread ignorance about the meaning of the word “jurisdiction.” It fails to recognize that the same word covers two distinctly different ideas: 1) complete, political jurisdiction; and 2) partial, territorial jurisdiction.
Think of it this way. When a British tourist visits the United States, he subjects himself to our laws as long as he remains within our borders. He must drive on the right side of the road, for example. He is subject to our partial, territorial jurisdiction, but he does not thereby subject himself to our complete, political jurisdiction. He does not get to vote, or serve on a jury; he cannot be drafted into our armed forces; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason if he takes up arms against us, because he owes us no allegiance. He is merely a “temporary sojourner,” to use the language employed by those who wrote the 14th Amendment, and not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the full and complete sense intended by that language in the 14th Amendment.
The same is true for those who are in this country illegally. They are subject to our laws by their presence within our borders, but they are not subject to the more complete jurisdiction envisioned by the 14th Amendment as a precondition for automatic citizenship. It is just silliness to contend, as the Journal does, that this is “circular restrictionist logic” that would prevent illegal immigrants from being “prosecuted for committing crimes because they are not U.S. citizens.”
Moreover, contrary to Professor Yoo’s contention, the text elsewhere in the 14th Amendment supports this distinction. Unlike the Citizenship Clause, which uses the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction,” the Equal Protection Clause bars a state from “deny[ing] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (Emphasis added.) The phrase “within its jurisdiction” is territorial, whereas the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” is political.
There were no restrictions on immigration in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was being drafted and ratified, so there was no debate on whether the Citizenship Clause confers automatic citizenship on the children of illegal immigrants. But we do have debate on the analogous circumstance of Native Americans who continued to owe allegiance to their tribes. One senator — exhibiting the same confusion today exhibited by the Journal — asked Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the 14th Amendment, whether Indians living on reservations would be covered by the clause, since they were “most clearly subject to our jurisdiction, both civil and military.”
Trumbull responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” jurisdiction, “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now” — that is, under the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which the 14th Amendment was intended to codify. That act made the point even more clearly: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” (Emphasis added.) As the debate over the 14th Amendment makes clear, the shift in language from the 1866 Civil Rights Act to what became the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment was not intended to provide citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, but rather to shift away from the “not subject to any foreign power” language out of recognition that the Indian tribes were not foreign powers but domestic (albeit dependent) powers. As Senator Howard explained, the Citizenship Clause excludes not only Indians but “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”
The leading treatise writer of the day, Thomas Cooley, confirmed this was the understanding of the 14th Amendment. As he wrote in his treatise, The General Principles of Constitutional Law in America, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “meant full and complete jurisdiction to which citizens are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction, such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.”
When the Supreme Court first addressed the Citizenship Clause in the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases, both the majority and dissenting opinions recognized this same understanding. The majority in that case correctly noted that the “main purpose” of the clause “was to establish the citizenship of the negro” and that “the phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” (Emphasis added).
That language in Slaughterhouse was dicta (a comment not strictly relevant to the decision), but it became holding a decade later in the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins. The Supreme Court held in that case that the claimant — a Native American born on a tribal reservation — was not a citizen because he was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at birth, which required that he be “not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.” Elk did not meet the jurisdictional test because, as a member of an Indian tribe at his birth, he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States. Although “Indian tribes, being within the territorial limits of the United States, were not, strictly speaking, foreign states,” “they were alien nations, distinct political communities,” according to the Court, thereby making clear that its holding was about allegiance and not the reservation’s geographic territory. Then, drawing explicitly on the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act from which the 14th Amendment was drawn, the Court continued: “Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of, and owing immediate allegiance to, one of the Indian tribes (an alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more ‘born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ within the meaning of the first section of the fourteenth amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations.”
Professor Yoo is therefore simply mistaken in his claim that “the Supreme Court has consistently read Section One as granting birthright citizenship to the children of aliens on U.S. territory.” In fact, it has never held that the children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in this country illegally are citizens. In the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, the Court simply held that a child born of Chinese immigrants who were lawfully and permanently in the United States — “domiciled” here, to use the Court’s phrase — was a citizen. Language in the opinion that can be read as suggesting that birth on U.S. soil alone, no matter what the circumstances, confers automatic citizenship is pure dicta, because no claim was at issue in the case other than whether the child of lawful, permanent residents was a citizen.
Professor Yoo’s contention to the contrary overlooks the Court’s use of the word “domiciled” in describing the nature of Wong Kim Ark’s relationship to the United States. “Domicile” is a legal term of art; it means “a person’s legal home,” according to Black’s law dictionary, and is often used synonymously with “citizenship.” Wong Kim Ark’s parents were not allowed to become citizens because the U.S. had entered into a nefarious treaty with the Emperor of China that refused to recognize their natural right to emigrate, but they were “domiciled” in the United States, which is to say, lawfully present in the United States. The holding of the case, as opposed to its broader dicta, does not mandate citizenship for children born to those who are unlawfully present in the United States, and it does not even mandate citizenship for those who are visiting the United States temporarily but lawfully. In both cases, the children, through their parents, retain allegiance to their parents’ home country — to a “foreign power,” to return to the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act. They are therefore not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the way intended by the 14th Amendment, and therefore not automatic citizens.
As I said, no Supreme Court case has held otherwise. Wong Kim Ark did not so hold. Neither did Plyler v. Doe in 1982, contrary to the Journal’s assertion; the relevant language in that case is simply a footnote for comparison with the Equal Protection Clause, and pure dicta.
Professor Yoo’s description of the debate between Senators Cowan and Conness likewise misses the point. Cowan asked whether the Citizenship Clause would confer citizenship upon the children of Chinese parents who were living in California, or the children of Gypsies living in Pennsylvania. “Have they any more rights than a sojourner in the United States?” he asked. He was attempting to draw a distinction based on race or ethnic background, not on lawful versus unlawful presence in the United States, or even on permanent versus temporary presence. It was for that reason that Conness began his reply by stating that he failed to see what relation Cowan’s question had to do with the Citizenship Clause. The 14th Amendment did not do away with sovereignty.
Conness then responded that automatic citizenship would be available to the “children begotten of Chinese parents in California” just as existed under existing law — that is, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which extended citizenship to “all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power.” That guarantee was available no matter the ethnic background of the parents — we were not extending citizenship only to the descendants of white Europeans — but his response did not suggest that the children of those who were not lawfully present in the United States, or who were mere temporary visitors, would be automatic citizens. Indeed, Cowan’s own question — “Have [the children of Chinese or Gypsies domiciled in the United States] any more rights than a sojourner?” — demonstrates that he was also aware of the distinction between territorial and political jurisdiction. For the debate to support Professor Yoo’s position, Conness would have had to respond that even the children of sojourners would be entitled to automatic citizenship. There is not a hint in his response to suggest such an answer, nor in any other part of the entire debate.
So, truth be told, the 14th Amendment does not need to be repealed in order to fix the problem of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. It just needs to be understood and applied correctly. The Journal’s contention that conservatives who insist upon this understanding of the law “are promising a GOP version of President Obama’s ‘illegal amnesty order’” could therefore not be further from the truth. Constitutional originalism requires that we give effect to the public meaning of the words actually used, even if the Wall Street Journal would wish the meaning were otherwise. And the Journal’s further contention that anyone who wishes to see the 14th Amendment faithfully applied is claiming “that some people are not real Americans and have no right to be,” is simply another ad hominem attack and mischaracterization not worthy of an otherwise great newspaper.
Finally, let me close with some agreement with Professor Yoo’s soaring rhetoric at the end of his piece, much of which is entirely true. Yes, “rather than being a misguided act of generosity, the 14th Amendment marks one of the great achievements of the Republican party.” And yes, “It was the Republican party that opposed Dred Scott.” And yes, “It was the Republican Party that fought and won the Civil War.” And definitely yes, “it was the Republican party that drafted and ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which did away with slavery and any distinction between Americans based on race.”
But the 14th Amendment did not do away with sovereignty. It did not do away with the importance of citizenship, or with the idea, rooted in the Declaration of Independence, that legitimate governments are grounded on the consent of the governed. Birthright citizenship, as currently practiced, allows those who continue to owe allegiance to a foreign power to demand American citizenship for their children, unilaterally and as a result of their illegal conduct. Those who oppose such an abuse do not support Dred Scott. They are drawing distinctions based not on race, but on the rule of law. Professor Yoo need not worry, therefore, that applying the 14th Amendment faithfully would “discard one of the greatest attributes of American exceptionalism.” The welcome mat to American citizenship is open to anyone in the world regardless of race or ethnic background, as long as they adhere to the legal rules set out by Congress for immigration to this country.
— John C. Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former dean at Chapman University School of Law. He also serves as the director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.
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Doug,
Good post; logical and obviously consistent with the intent of the 14th amendment.
The Repub candidates should memorize many of the lines and thought process in this piece and make them the party's mantra.
Just like the Dems try to do but with their illogical deceptive propaganda.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/birthright-citizenship-not-mandated-by-constitution?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20Best%20of%208/22&utm_term=VDHM%20Reader
by Edward J. Erler August 19, 2015 4:00 AM Donald Trump continues to bewilder political experts. He unabashedly wades into politically dangerous territory and yet continues to be rewarded by favorable poll results. He has clearly tapped into a reserve of public resentment for inside-the-Beltway politics. How far this resentment will carry him is anyone’s guess, but the Republican establishment is worried. His latest proposal to end birthright citizenship has set off alarm bells in the Republican party. The leadership worries that Trump will derail the party’s plans to appeal to the Latino vote. Establishment Republicans believe that the future of the party depends on being able to capture a larger share of this rapidly expanding electorate. Trump’s plan, however, may appeal to the most rapidly expanding electorate, senior citizens, and may have an even greater appeal to the millions of Republicans who stayed away from the polls in 2012 as well as the ethnic and blue-collar Democrats who crossed party lines to vote Republican in the congressional elections of 2014. All of these voters outnumber any increase in the Latino vote that Republicans could possibly hope to gain from a population that has consistently voted Democratic by a two-thirds majority and shows little inclination to change. RELATED: Not Hard to Read the 14th Amendment As Not Requiring Birthright Citizenship — And Nothing Odd About Supporting Such a Reading Critics say that Trump’s plan is unrealistic, that it would require a constitutional amendment because the 14th Amendment mandates birthright citizenship and that the Supreme Court has upheld this requirement ever since its passage in 1868. The critics are wrong. A correct understanding of the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment and legislation passed by Congress in the late 19th century and in 1923 extending citizenship to American Indians provide ample proof that Congress has constitutional power to define who is within the “jurisdiction of the United States” and therefore eligible for citizenship. Simple legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president would be constitutional under the 14th Amendment. Birthright citizenship is the policy whereby the children of illegal aliens born within the geographical limits of the U.S. are entitled to American citizenship — and, as Trump says, it is a great magnet for illegal immigration. Many of Trump’s critics believe that this policy is an explicit command of the Constitution, consistent with the British common-law system. This is simply not true. Congress has constitutional power to define who is within the “jurisdiction of the United States” and therefore eligible for citizenship. Although the Constitution of 1787 mentioned citizens, it did not define citizenship. It was in 1868 that a definition of citizenship entered the Constitution with the ratification of the 14th Amendment. Here is the familiar language: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Thus there are two components to American citizenship: birth or naturalization in the U.S. and being subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Today, we somehow have come to believe that anyone born within the geographical limits of the U.S. is automatically subject to its jurisdiction; but this renders the jurisdiction clause utterly superfluous. If this had been the intention of the framers of the 14th Amendment, presumably they would have said simply that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are thereby citizens. Indeed, during debate over the amendment, Senator Jacob Howard, the author of the citizenship clause, attempted to assure skeptical colleagues that the language was not intended to make Indians citizens of the United States. Indians, Howard conceded, were born within the nation’s geographical limits, but he steadfastly maintained that they were not subject to its jurisdiction because they owed allegiance to their tribes and not to the U.S. Senator Lyman Trumbull, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, supported this view, arguing that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else and being subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.” RELATED: End Birthright Citizenship Now: Barack Obama Makes the Case Jurisdiction understood as allegiance, Senator Howard explained, excludes not only Indians but “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” Thus, “subject to the jurisdiction” does not simply mean, as is commonly thought today, subject to American laws or courts. It means owing exclusive political allegiance to the U.S. Furthermore, there has never been an explicit holding by the Supreme Court that the children of illegal aliens are automatically accorded birthright citizenship. In the case of Wong Kim Ark (1898) the Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. of legal aliens was entitled to “birthright citizenship” under the 14th Amendment. This was a 5–4 opinion which provoked the dissent of Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who argued that, contrary to the reasoning of the majority’s holding, the 14th Amendment did not in fact adopt the common-law understanding of birthright citizenship. Get Free Exclusive NR Content
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/birthright-citizenship-not-mandated-by-constitution?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20Best%20of%208/22&utm_term=VDHM%20Reader
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"He has clearly tapped into a reserve of public resentment for inside-the-Beltway politics. How far this resentment will carry him is anyone’s guess, but the Republican establishment is worried. His latest proposal to end birthright citizenship has set off alarm bells in the Republican party. The leadership worries that Trump will derail the party’s plans to appeal to the Latino vote"
I keep hearing on MSLSD and the Feminist controlled CNN that 70% of Latins are against Trump.
So what. 70% are against any Republican. And who is the establishment catering to? Illegals and new immigrants who overstay their Visas. They should be catering to those who come here legally as well as US citizens.
And the darn CANS still can't get it that it is not about Latinos. It is about anyone from anywhere that comes here illegally.
Does anyone think the Puerto Ricans are thrilled to have Mexicans flooding here by the millions having babies at our expense and then turning around and demanding benefits and the same rights they have?
I will not vote for a pro amnesty candidate. I will sit the next election out.
I am not saying Trump is my ideal choice but he is the only standing up to this leftist intimidation. The rest of the bunch are cowards and are signing their own demise.
Thank you. I feel better now.
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"He has clearly tapped into a reserve of public resentment for inside-the-Beltway politics. How far this resentment will carry him is anyone’s guess, but the Republican establishment is worried. His latest proposal to end birthright citizenship has set off alarm bells in the Republican party. The leadership worries that Trump will derail the party’s plans to appeal to the Latino vote"
I keep hearing on MSLSD and the Feminist controlled CNN that 70% of Latins are against Trump.
So what. 70% are against any Republican. And who is the establishment catering to? Illegals and new immigrants who overstay their Visas. They should be catering to those who come here legally as well as US citizens.
And the darn CANS still can't get it that it is not about Latinos. It is about anyone from anywhere that comes here illegally.
Does anyone think the Puerto Ricans are thrilled to have Mexicans flooding here by the millions having babies at our expense and then turning around and demanding benefits and the same rights they have?
I will not vote for a pro amnesty candidate. I will sit the next election out.
I am not saying Trump is my ideal choice but he is the only standing up to this leftist intimidation. The rest of the bunch are cowards and are signing their own demise.
Thank you. I feel better now.
CCP has been right on the immigration problem for quite a while. Assuming it is not going to be Trump, we will need a candidate who will assimilate the Trump voters with the rest of us - and win - and then DO SOMETHING about it.
Immigration SHOULD be a very positive thing for this country. On the current course, it will never be a positive force with our safety net running wild and our private economy stalled.
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A report by the Center for Immigration Studies found that over half of the households led by an immigrant relied on some sort of welfare program in 2012. While 30% of the Americans who are native to the country rely on services such as school lunch programs, Medicaid and housing assistance, 51% of immigrant-led households were dependent on the same welfare. The author of the study, Steven Camarota, told USA Today, “This should not be understood as some kind of defect or moral failing on the part of immigrants. Rather, what it represents is a system that allows a lot of less-educated immigrants to settle in the country, who then earn modest wages and are eligible for a very generous welfare system.” It could also indicate an opportunity for lovers of Liberty. Many countries that immigrants leave employ some level of socialism with large welfare programs. A welfare system is familiar to the new arrivals to America, not a system of self-government. And that’s where Patriots can come along side and demonstrate how to live in a society infused with Liberty.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3223828/PETER-HITCHENS-won-t-save-refugees-destroying-country.html
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http://www.clarionproject.org/videos/why-gulf-states-cannot-accept-syrian-refugees
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y
Nour Malas and
Joe Parkinson
Updated Sept. 7, 2015 8:18 p.m. ET
252 COMMENTS
Stories and images of migrants pouring into Europe are inspiring thousands more, from Iraq to Nigeria, to rush out on their own risky journeys, posing a burgeoning problem for policy makers who are focused mainly on easing the plight of Syrian refugees.
Inspired by phone calls and Facebook posts from friends hiking through the Balkans, crossing into Germany or simply touching dry land in Greece, people from countries long plagued by war and instability say they are seizing a pivotal moment.
“This is a golden opportunity,” said Osama Ahmed, 27 years old, who lined up Sunday at Baghdad International Airport, heading for Greece via Turkey with five friends. “It’s totally nonsense to stay in Iraq when there is a chance to go.”
The prospect of a secondary wave comes as the European Union tries to hammer out a common response to the crisis already on its shores. Germany, which has taken in the most asylum seekers, wants other EU countries to absorb more. France and the U.K. announced Monday they would do so. But other governments have resisted, fearing a political backlash.
Syrians still make up the bulk of the outflow. In Turkey, which hosts almost two million Syrian refugees, officials spoke of a rush for the border, sparked by Berlin’s decision last month to waive EU rules, on humanitarian grounds, and allow Syrian refugees to stay however they arrived in Germany.
“A number of Syrians who didn’t want to risk what they had until now, decided that the potential benefits are outweighing the risks,” said one government official in Ankara.
Many Syrians who arrived in Germany months ago are urging elderly parents left behind to follow their path, once thought too dangerous.
Iraqis, long inured to the violence in their own country, are also lured by reports that the route across the Aegean Sea to Greece is easier and cheaper than an older smuggling stream through North Africa and across the Mediterranean.
Baghdad travel agents report surging demand for plane tickets, prompting airlines to add three more daily flights to Istanbul—on top of five packed flights a day already. Some Iraqis are forgoing resettlement applications for the U.S., a process that takes years.
“We got many phone calls and emails from friends already abroad telling us to leave Iraq now—immediately—since the European authorities are being easy on migrants,” said Mr. Ahmed, who said his plan is to reach Belgium.
Officials in countries hosting Syrian refugees, and organizations tracking broader inflows to Europe through Greece, said they hadn’t yet seen tangible signs of a new mass migration. Last month’s surge was the culmination of overlapping waves of planned and spontaneous migration from several countries, field workers from the United Nations refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration said.
“It’s too early to say what the impact of the Germany move will be,” said Ariane Rummery, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Geneva. “We would argue that the push factors are driving this.”
The migrant wave is still predominantly spurred by continued violence, instability and deteriorating prospects in host nations like Turkey, where the economy has slowed sharply and jobs are hard to secure. But the additional pull of Germany’s policy shift is also reverberating across the region.
The six young men at the Baghdad airport, all dressed in track suits and open-toed slippers, said they asked their families not to come for a final goodbye, so as not to risk changing their minds. They have been taking swimming lessons and running for weeks to train for their trek, Mr. Ahmed said.
Last week, they saw television images of the human flood marching through Hungary and arriving in Germany and immediately bought plane tickets to Turkey and packed a duffle bag each, Mr. Ahmed said.
The Iraqi outflow is most visible on one Greek island, Samos, where local officials have noted a significant influx of Iraqis in recent days, according to early field reporting from the IOM.
Nearly 6,000 Iraqis arrived in Greece and Italy this year, a fivefold increase from last year, reflecting frustration and hopelessness as the war against Islamic State drags on, the economy tanks, and young Iraqis see more reasons to leave than stay.
“We are heading to Turkey. Then Greece, then Holland, then freedom,” said 24-year-old Raad Ahmed, a political-science student who was part of another group of Iraqis about to embark on a European journey. “Don’t ask me why I’m leaving. Let me ask you in return—for what should I stay?”
As far away as Nigeria, people driven out of their homes by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency are following EU discussions on the radio to consider their escape. “Most of us who are aware of the migration trend across the world are still unsure on what exactly to do, but most of us would rather damn the consequences and make our way to Europe for better opportunities in life,” said Salisu Sanusi, one of some 800,000 people at a camp in northern Nigeria.
The flow of migrants across Europe showed no sign of easing, part of the largest wave since World War II, according to the U.N. Policy makers are considering how to respond to asylum seekers from other nations that have joined the predominantly Syrian inflow, even as Germany’s decision to ease the path for Syrians comes under fire from right-wing groups across Europe.
“This will get complicated: Europe hasn’t seen anything yet in terms of the numbers or the backlash,” said Judy Dempsey, a senior associate in Berlin at Carnegie Europe, a policy think tank. Ms. Dempsey said migrants are being driven by a fear “they will miss their chance because this influx won’t be sustained.”
The choices are weighing heavily on people like a 29-year-old Syrian opposition activist who fled his hometown in Aleppo province in Syria for Turkey last year, taking on Syrian opposition activities but never finding a long-term job.
He has decided three times since then to migrate to Europe, only to abandon his plans. He remains undecided, in anguish, even as he watches others making it to Europe. If he goes, he says he would test the path alone first before sending for his wife and baby.
Syrians scattered across the region are increasingly making this calculation, as prospects for returning home dim and life in exile becomes more permanent. “Now leaving to Europe has become the topic of discussion at every gathering,” instead of the usual talk about war, girls, and soccer, he said.
In Iraq, many people who can’t afford the flight to Turkey fly domestically to Erbil, capital of the northern Kurdistan region, and take a 36-hour overland route instead. Some are scrambling to sell their most expensive belongings, such as jewelry or used laptops, to scrape up a few hundred dollars to get them through at least the first leg of their travel.
On the way, Iraqis trade notes on offers from smugglers and whether it is safe to take an inflatable dingy, rather than a boat, to save money—despite the risks, and promises to parents to only consider a safe boat ride.
Syrians and Iraqis also swap this advice on dozens of Facebook groups set up in recent months as how-to guides, often turning strangers into travel partners for the nerve-racking journey ahead.
They offer Google Map-guided route options, video testimonies from people in Europe, and endless dark humor. Iraqis—divided along several ethnic and sectarian lines—come in just two categories these days, one such joke goes: those with the means for the journey out, and the “newfound patriots”—those without the means and stuck behind.
— Ghassan Adnan in Baghdad; Raja Abdulrahim in Reyhanli, Turkey; Ayla Albayrak in Istanbul; and Gbenga Akingbule in Maiduguri, Nigeria contributed to this article.
—Deborah Ball, The Wall Street Journal’s Italy bureau chief, will be answering questions on the refugee crisis at 9 a.m. ET Tuesday. Follow this link to ask a question.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@wsj.com and Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com
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Reliability unknown
Refugee crisis in Europe: ‘Something fishy’ among migrant flood as
discarded ID papers appear
SEPTEMBER 07, 2015 1
A PAKISTANI identity card in the bushes, a Bangladeshi one in a cornfield.
A torn Iraqi driver’s license bearing the photo of a man with a
Saddam-style moustache, another one with a scarfed woman displaying a shy smile.
Documents scattered only metres from Serbia’s border with Hungary provide
evidence that many of the migrants flooding Europe to escape war or poverty
are scrapping their true nationalities and likely assuming new ones, just
as they enter the European Union.
Many of those travellers believe that using a fake document — or having
none at all — gives them a better of chance of receiving asylum in Germany and
other western European states. That’s because the surest route to asylum
is to be a refugee from war and not an economic migrant fleeing poverty.
That fact has led to a huge influx of people claiming to be Syrian.
Serbian border police say that 90 per cent of those arriving from
Macedonia, some 3,000 a day, claim they are Syrian, although they have no documents
to prove it. The so-called Balkan corridor for the migrant flight starts
in Turkey, then goes through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the
European Union in Hungary.
“You can see that something is fishy when most of those who cross into
Serbia enter January first as the date of their birth,” said border police
officer Miroslav Jovic. “Guess that’s the first date that comes to their mind.
”
The chief of the European Union border agency Frontex said that
trafficking in fake Syrian passports has increased.
“A lot of people enter Turkey with fake Syrian papers, because they know
that they’ll get asylum in the EU more easily,” Fabrice Leggeri said.
In Germany, customs authorities have intercepted packages mailed to
Germany containing Syrian passports, both genuine and counterfeit, the finance
ministry said.
Syrians transiting through Serbia are concerned about the trend.
“Everyone says they are Syrian, even those who are obviously not,” said
Kamal Saleh, pointing toward a group of people camping in a Belgrade park. “
That is not good for us Syrians because of limited number of people who will
get the asylum.”
Saleh left everyone he loves back in Syria — his wife, a baby boy and a
shattered home in a Damascus suburb.
But, unlike many other migrants surging into Europe, he feels fortunate:
he has a Syrian passport that he keeps carefully wrapped in a plastic folder
and tucked inside his secret trouser pocket. The document, if genuine,
should prove that he is a refugee fleeing war, and not a migrant fleeing
poverty or economic hardship. A huge difference when asylum applications are
considered.
His countryman, who identified himself only as Yemen, added: “There are
too many people saying we are from Syria, but he is not from Syria. He is
black and he said ‘I am from Syria.’ Unbelievable. “
International aid agencies estimate that nearly 340,000 people have sought
to cross EU borders since January. Two-thirds of the latest European
arrivals are believed to be from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Eritrea —
countries considered by international aid groups to be “refugee producing
states,” due to ongoing war or records of human rights abuses.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, those fleeing violence and
persecution are entitled to basic rights under international law, including the
right not to be immediately deported and sent back into harm’s way. A
migrant could be someone who chooses to resettle to another country in search of
a better life and is eligible for deportation.
EU rules say the country where a migrant first arrives must process the
asylum claim. But Germany last week abolished this obligation for Syrians,
triggering a surge of people trying to travel through the EU to get there,
adding that only refugees fleeing for their life, and not those fleeing
poverty, will be allowed to stay.
Aware of the potential asylum rejection, many migrants fleeing poverty are
getting rid of their identity documents altogether.
Among those who had no second thoughts about ditching their true identity
was Rafik from Pakistan.
“I’m leaving my old life behind,” said Rafik, who gave only his first
name because he feared repercussions when applying for asylum in Germany. “I’
m starting a new one.”
“I don’t have a passport, nor any other identity paper,” he said, as he
dashed under the fence into Hungary. “Let’s see which country they will
choose to kick me back to.”
http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/refugee-crisis-in-europe-something-fishy
-among-migrant-flood-as-discarded-id-papers-appear/story-fnh81p7g-1227515922
792?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=News.com.au&u
tm_medium=Facebook
*****
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The rather warm reception awaiting at the borders of many of the countries will just encourage many millions more to flood over.
The end of the West as we know it. Sovereignty is "medieval".
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ccp,
Now we have O'Malley calling for the US to bring in 75k Syrian refugees, and even worse, the Obama Admin is considering what actions to take.
Reports are that large numbers of the refugees are young men, 75%, and many are actually ISIS supporters/fighters. And notice, they all want to go to countries with good Welfare State attributes. Greece or Italy, forget it. We want Germany.
Watch how the German people respond. That will be a critical indicator, especially if Germany allows 500k in per year.
If the US does take in refugees, can you imagine the support that Trump will gain? Especially if even one commits a violent crime.
The Chinese Curse.....to live in interesting times.
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ccp and others have been right on this for a long time.
Agents say just 40 percent of U.S.-Mexico border under control
20 percent of illegals caught at border have criminal records
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/9/20-pct-illegals-caught-border-have-criminal-record/
It doesn't require electing Trump to solve it. But it does require electing SOMEONE committed to fixing it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I favor legal immigration, but that has gotten completely out of control also. Back to the drawing board.
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"ccp and others have been right on this for a long time."
I cannot seem to get to the article but Drudge cites Gallup as having a poll that finds 80% say immigration will affect their vote. I am not sure if this is just 80% Republicans or 80% all Americans. Probably just Repubs. Trump has clearly given people the courage to stand up to PC. No matter what happens in the Presidential race he should be enshrined as a giant of politics.
"I favor legal immigration, but that has gotten completely out of control also."
Agree Doug.
Here in NJ wher ever one goes we see people who appear to be from somewhere else. The smallish Latinos are the most obvious and of course some of them are legal and legit.
But clearly so many others from so many countires are also here too illegally. Some people come in to my office with their parents who just arrived from overseas and who cannot speak a word of English - yet they have Medicare. How is this possible?
We are being abused and walked all over.
Yet I do recongnize how hard it would be to tell them to leave. Some are our co workers are friends....
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You should live in California. They are everywhere. Go to Home Depot or Lowes, and there will be 20 or more in the morning, just hanging around waiting hoping someone will hire them for a day. Walk into a winery or restaurant and yell ICE, and the stampede out the back will run you over.
Others open up a lawn mowing business because they do not need "papers" and because they can avoid getting business licenses. Just hang a sign on your truck door, and you look legit.
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Just went to a class on the Mexican cartels. The public would be shitting down both pantlegs if they knew who was walking among them.
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http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SafeZone.jpg
(http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SafeZone.jpg)
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http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/09/08/dea-report-shows-infiltration-of-mexican-drug-cartels-in-major-us-cities/
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Next are the Radical Muslims coming in with the millions of so called "refugees". Who is dumber the Europeans or us?
The more they are welcomed the more they will come.
1986 3 mill got amnesty from Reagan. In retrospect this kind gesture only helped feed the mess we are in today.
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"1986 3 mill got amnesty from Reagan. In retrospect this kind gesture only helped feed the mess we are in today."
Big mistake. In his defense, it happened in exchange for something that never happened. He didn't know to treat Democrat negotiators like Soviets.
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The Dems agreed to build a fence in return for the 3m given amnesty. Of course, they lied and the fence did not get built.
If we accept the premise that Germany is accepting the number of refugees that they are for replacing negative population and work force reasons, then that same rational might be a large part of doing the same in the US. With the Baby Boomer retirement years coming up, two things happen.
1. The labor force decreases.
2. Baby Boomer spending declines, except for in health care.
What is the solution? More immigration in the eyes of many, especially business organizations like the COC.
Why avoid deportation? If conducted, it would:
1. Reduce current consumer spending.
2. Negatively affect housing and durable spending on products.
3. Negatively affect used auto sales.
4. Drive up wages do to lack of workers.
(Just trying to suggest perceived reasons for avoiding deportation by the COC, Uni-Party, etc)
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http://cqrcengage.com/act/app/document/9355600
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https://www.facebook.com/AusTeaParty/photos/a.152771428091422.23669.150012808367284/891696527532238/?type=1
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reliability of this site in unknown:
http://conservativepost.com/and-so-it-beginsisis-flag-among-refugees-in-germany-fighting-the-police-pictures/
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Glenn Beck on Syrians
For those Beck lovers, he should be jailed if he tries this. The guy has gone totally wacko. That is the only word for it.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/14/glenn-beck-in-his-own-words-ill-save-more-people-than-schindler/ (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/14/glenn-beck-in-his-own-words-ill-save-more-people-than-schindler/)
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Beck has lost all credibility.
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In response to PP's post above #947:
The left has to find somebody to keep the liberal ponzy scheme going. So bring in from overseas.
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I've retained a soft spot for Beck, but that is pretty hard to take.
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/14/mexico-opening-door-to-syrian-refugees-joins-other-nations-south-of-us-border/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
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Federal Data: U.S. Annually Admits Quarter Of A Million Muslim Migrants
By PAMELA GELLER on September 14, 2015
Obama’s Trojan horse. In 2013, Obama imported 350,000 Muslim ‘migrants.’ Is it any wonder there has been a spike in jihadi attacks in the U.S. in recent years? And now he has called for increases in that enormous number even as ISIS has vowed to send jihadis in with the “migration’.
The Twin Cities already has a huge ISIS problem. Garland, Chattanooga, Key West, Phoenix ….. and it’s only going to get worse. Much worse.
Obama says he wants to assist Europe. Why? Do they take Mexicans and Central Americans they emigrate to the USA?
Federal Data: U.S. Annually Admits Quarter Of A Million Muslim Migrants,” Breitbart, September 14, 2015
A Breitbart News review of State Department and Homeland Security data reveals that the United States already admits more than a quarter of a million Muslim migrants each year. President Obama intends to add another 10,000 Syrian migrants on top of that.
In 2013 alone, 117,423 migrants from Muslim-majority countries were permanently resettled within the United States— having been given lawful permanent resident status. Additionally in 2013, the United States voluntarily admitted an extra 122,921 temporary migrants from Muslim countries as foreign students and foreign workers as well as 39,932 refugees and asylees from Muslim countries.
Thus, twelve years after the September 11th hijackers were invited into the country on temporary visas, the U.S. decided to admit 280,276 migrants from Muslim countries within a single fiscal year.
To put these numbers into perspective, this means that every year the U.S. admits a number of Muslim migrants larger in size than the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa; Lincoln, Nebraska; or Dayton, Ohio.
The rate of Muslim immigration has been increasing since September 11. Between 2001 and 2013, the United States permanently resettled 1.5 million Muslim immigrants throughout the United States. Unlike illegal immigrants, legal immigrants granted lifetime resettlement privileges will be given automatic work permits, welfare access, and the ability to become voting citizens.
Experts believe these numbers will only continue to increase.
The Middle East represents the fastest-growing bloc of immigrants admitted into the country on visas, according to a census data-based report authored by the Center for Immigration Studies. Student visas for Middle Eastern countries have similarly grown enormously, including 16-fold increase in Saudi students since 9/11. Arabic is now the most common language spoken by refugees, and 91.4 percent of recent refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps.
The large-scale importation of Muslim migrants from nations that do not share Western values has posed a series of assimilation difficulties for the United States. For instance, the importation of immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries has now put half a million girls in the United States at risk of enduring a traditional anti-Western, anti-woman practice known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This means that there are more girls in the United States at risk of lifelong sexual disfigurement than there are in Uganda and Cameroon.
Moreover, the importation of Muslim immigrants through the nation’s refugee program has led to the development of pockets of radicalized communities throughout the United States— as evidenced in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Dearborn, Michigan.
A review of recent terror activity– provided by the Senate Immigration Subcommittee– confirms the terror threat posed by our federal immigration policy of issuing large numbers of visas to majority-Muslim countries:
A refugee voluntarily admitted from Uzbekistan and “living in Idaho was arrested and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization, in the form of teaching terror recruits how to build bombs.”
A college student voluntarily admitted from Somalia, “who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, attempted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon.”
An immigrant voluntarily admitted from Kazakhstan “with lawful permanent resident status conspired to purchase a machine gun to shoot FBI and other law enforcement agents if they prevented him from traveling to Syria to join ISIS.”
An immigrant voluntarily admitted from Sudan, “who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, tried to join ISIS and wage jihad on its behalf after having been recruited online.”
An immigrant voluntarily admitted from Bangladesh, “who applied for and received U.S. citizenship, tried to incite people to travel to Somalia and conduct violent jihad against the United States.”
An immigrant voluntarily admitted from Yemen, “who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was arrested for trying to join ISIS. He was also charged with attempting to illegally buy firearms to try to shoot American military personnel.”
Yet even as the United States struggles to properly screen and assimilate the large numbers brought in each year, many Republican presidential candidates say that number should be even greater. GOP presidential hopefuls John Kasich, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeb Bush, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have all expressed support for admitting more Syrian migrants.
“I would be open to that if it can be done in a way that allows us to ensure that among them are not people who are part of a terrorist organization who are using this crisis,” Rubio told Boston Herald Radio on September 8th. This proposal could result in the admittance of many refugees. “The vast and overwhelming majority of people who are seeking refuge are not terrorists, of course, but you always are concerned about that,” Rubio said.
By contrast, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has suggested that Muslim countries should be willing to take in some of the Muslim migrants.
“Look, from a humanitarian standpoint, I’d love to help, but we have our own problems.” Trump declared on the September 9 broadcast of Hannity. “We have so many problems that we have to solve… The Gulf states [are] tremendously wealthy. You have five groups of people, six groups, they’re not taking anybody. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, these are tremendously wealthy and powerful from the standpoint of money. They — they’re not taking anybody. Russia’s not taking. Nobody’s taking. [But we’re] supposed to take — we have to straighten out our own problems,” Trump said.
Some presidential hopefuls have objected to the premise of Trump’s America-first immigration proposal— arguing that greater levels of immigration would only serve to benefit America.
For instance, the I-Squared bill currently before Congress introduced by Marco Rubio— whose campaign has declared he will be in first place by February— would import even more immigrants — some Muslim — by lifting green card caps for foreign students and tripling the number of foreign workers admitted on visas. This bill is central to Rubio’s campaign platform of creating “A New American Economy.”
Several of Rubio’s business backers have already begun to implement this policy throughout the nation. In Rubio’s home state of Florida, for instance, the New American Economy is at work at corporations including Disney, which is replacing many of its current American workers with foreign low-salaried workers from developing nations. This “New American Economy” would have multiple benefits for America such as fewer English speakers, more diversity and lower wages that will allow corporations to increase their bottom lines.
Rubio’s effort to create a New American Century is supported by many prominent Republicans and Democrats who say we need to expand our refugee resettlement of Muslim migrants.
For instance, Glenn Beckand Lindsey Graham have both explicitly said that the United States needs to take in more more refugees because a poem written by Emma Lazarus now displayed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The poem, entitled “The New Colossus,” reads in part:
Give me your tired, your poor/ your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/the wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
According to the Pew Research Center, there are nearly 5 billion people world-wide living on $10 or less a day. The globally poor and low-income population is fifteen times larger than the entire population of the United States.
The Statue of Liberty was not given to the United States with any association to immigration. Rather the statue was intended to be a symbol of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” which is why the only text originally included on the statue was the year 1776 written in Roman Numerals.
Yet even when Lazarus’ poem was later added to the statue in the early 1900s, it was understood that the poem was not meant to represent the nation’s federal immigration policy– a detail underscored by the fact that shortly after that poem was added, then-President Calvin Coolidge enacted a nearly five-decades-long immigration pause to allow the influx of European immigrants to better assimilate and allow middle class wages to rise.
Ironically, the Statue of Liberty– so often invoked by advocates for large-scale immigration– was a gift from the nation of France. Yet of the one million green cards handed out last year, very few were given to the Thomas Jefferson’s second favorite nation. About 9 out of 10 of green cards issued last year went to non-European foreign nationals from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
In 2013, we added more than ten times more immigrants on green cards from the Muslim countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Egypt (48,507) than we did from the nation France (4,425).
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/09/federal-data-u-s-annually-admits-quarter-of-a-million-muslim-migrants.html/#sthash.4GCbLRiT.dpuf
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn-UCR5p0y0#t=63
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV315xqbRK8
Infowars is often a scurrilous site, so I ask sincerely, any inaccuracies in this footage?
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On the guns, I read elsewhere that they were meant for another country, but I cannot remember the details. However, the general reporting has been in favor of what Infowars has said.
On the immigrants, the media is certainly downplaying the problems, especially that 75% are men, mostly young, and they are ignoring claims that a large part are potentially ISIS infiltrators.
Also, what is being ignored is that large numbers have significant id, including passports, etc. These are being throw away along the route so as to avoid being otherwise identified and denied entry or refugee status.
But both Alex Jones (Infowars) and the media have their own agendas, so who really knows?
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data-shows-frightening-toll-illegal-immigrant-criminals/
In the shadows.
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THE WAR ON AMERICA TURNS 50
Ann Coulter - September 30, 2015
Half a century ago, Democrats looked at the country and realized they were never going to convince Americans to agree with them. But they noticed that people in most other countries of the world already agreed with them. The solution was obvious.
So in 1965 -- 50 years ago this week -- Sen. Ted Kennedy passed an immigration law that has brought 59 million foreigners to our shores, who happen to vote 8-2 for the Democrats.
Democrats haven't won any arguments; they changed the voters. If anything, the Democrats have stopped bothering to appeal to Americans. The new feminized Democratic Party says, That's too bad about those steelworkers in Ohio losing their jobs, but THERE'S A WOMAN AT A LAW FIRM IN NEW YORK CITY WHO DESERVES TO MAKE PARTNER!
Republicans should be sweeping the country, but they aren't, because of Kennedy's immigration law. Without post-1965 immigrants bloc-voting for the Democrats, Obama never would have been elected president, and Romney would have won a bigger landslide against him in 2012 than Reagan did against Carter in 1980.
This isn't a guess; it's a provable fact. Obama beat Romney by less than 5 million votes in a presidential election in which about 125 million votes were cast. More than 30 million of Obama's votes came from people who arrived under Teddy Kennedy's immigration law; fewer than 10 million of Romney's did.
The 1965 act brought in the poorest of the poor from around the globe. Non-English-speaking peasants from wildly backward cultures could be counted on to be dependent on government assistance for generations to come.
Kennedy and other Democrats swore up and down that the new immigration law would not change the country's demographics, but post-1965-act immigrants are nothing like the people who already lived here.
As Pew Research cheerfully reports, previous immigrants were "almost entirely" European. But since Kennedy's immigration act, a majority of immigrants have been from Latin America. One-quarter are from Asia. Only 12 percent of post-1965-act immigrants have been from Europe -- and they're probably Muslims.
Apparently, the "American experiment" is actually some kind of sociological trial in which we see if people who have no history of Western government can run a constitutional republic.
As of 1970, there were only 9 million Hispanics in the entire country, according to the Pew Research Center. Today, there are well more than 60 million.
We've already taken in one-quarter of the entire population of Mexico, most of whom seem to live in Los Angeles. For the last decade, nearly half of all felons sent to California's prisons have been Hispanic, according to the Department of Corrections.
In 1970, there were only a few thousand Haitians in America. Today, there are nearly a million. Miami beaches and New York parks are suddenly littered with goat heads from Haitian voodoo rituals.
In 1970, there were virtually no Somalis in the United States. In the past 25 years alone, we've brought in more than 80,000 Somali refugees -- and more than half of those since 9/11. Recent headlines out of Minnesota: "Minnesota ISIS terror suspect pleads guilty to conspiracy," "February trial date set for Minnesota ISIS terror suspects," "The Twin Cities have an ISIS problem."
(Possible new GOP slogan: "We'll cut your taxes, as long as these voodoo priests and refugees approve it.")
In 1960, there were about 200,000 Muslims in the U.S., according to a study in the International Journal of Environmental Science and Development. Today, the U.S. census estimates that there are more than 6 million Muslims here. Muslims are expected to surpass Jews as the second-largest religion in America in about two decades.
No country has ever simply turned itself into another country like this.
With the media cheering the end of America and businessmen determined to keep importing cheap labor, Democrats don't even bother hiding what they're doing.
Democratic political strategists Ruy Teixeira and John Judis have been gloating for 20 years about how post-1965 immigration would soon produce a country where Republicans could not win an election, anywhere. Then Democrats could do whatever they want. They called the new emerging majority "George McGovern's Revenge."
In today's America, George McGovern would be a moderate Democrat; Jimmy Carter would be a two-term president; and we'd be holding primary debates at the Walter Mondale Presidential Museum and Library.
Any GOP candidate for president who wants to increase immigration -- i.e., all of them except Trump -- ought to be required to first pass this simple test: Be successfully elected governor of California on a platform of tax cuts and social conservatism.
The Democrats got the voters -- and the country got 9/11, Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon bombing, clitorectomies, an explosion of gang rapes, child rapes, sex tourism, slavery, voodoo, Russell Brand, billions of taxpayer dollars stolen in Medicare and Medicaid scams, an epidemic of heroin deaths, soccer, bankrupt school districts and hospitals, overcrowded prisons, and endless tax hikes to pay for all the immigrant services, as small town after small town goes all-Mexican, or all-Somali or all-Hmong.
The people coming in aren't the ones exulting about "the browning of America." It's smug liberals who want America to be humbled and destroyed. The cultural left is overjoyed at the remaking of our society into one that is poorer, browner and less free.
These changes are entirely the result of government policies that were never debated, much less put to a vote. Americans have not been consulted on the question of whether to turn our country into some other country. Never mind what we're doing. You'll thank us later.
I know it's gauche to consider what Americans want, but how about the immigrants? Presumably some didn't come only for the welfare, crime and terrorism opportunities. They decided to move to the United States -- not Mexico or Somalia or China -- because they wanted to live in America. If our current immigration policies aren't stopped, they're going to wonder why they bothered.
COPYRIGHT 2015 ANN COULTER
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http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/10/schools-ordered-to-help-illegal-aliens-hold-undocumented-immigrant-awareness-day/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/10/schools-ordered-to-help-illegal-aliens-hold-undocumented-immigrant-awareness-day/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I am not not sure what a undocumented immigrant is, is it leftist doublespeak for an illegal alien/criminal invader?
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Precisely, GM.
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"I am not not sure what a undocumented immigrant"
I can answer that for you GM.
An undocumented immigrant is defined as one who dreams. A family person. One is who hard working. One who is making a better life for him or her self or their aspiring physicist children.
One who is honest, law abiding, and pays sales tax. One who aspires to the American ideal. An individual who is simply following in the footsteps of all those white European immigrants of yester yore.
In short a dreamer. Just a step below a saint.
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October 24, 2015 - World Net Daily
A major battle in a war over the future of Western civilization has been lost as millions of migrants from the Middle East who largely oppose Judeo-Christian values and have no intention of assimilating flood the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other nations, talk-radio host Michael Savage told his listeners Tuesday.
Savage said he received an email from someone he described as "far smarter than I am" and "farseeing."
"He said to me, 'It's over.'"
Paraphrasing the email, Savage said that what German Chancellor Angela Merkel is "doing to Germany, what the weakling is doing to England, what the socialist is doing to France, what Obama the psychopath is doing to America, will render this country non-existent in less than 50 years."
"And I said to him, 'Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong,'" Savage recalled to his audience.
"But the fact of the matter is, the world is changing in ways you could never have imagined."
Savage later affirmed to a caller that he hasn't given up, noting he presents in his upcoming book, "Government Zero: No Borders, No Language, No Culture," "40 actions to save America," including in the private sector and at the state and local government level.
"We haven't lost the war. The war has just begun," Savage said. "Because 30 million to 40 million Americans are finally awakened to what the psychopath has done to this country, and they want to stop him from doing more. They want to stop him before it's too late."
Savage criticized President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Merkel and other Western leaders with a provocative comparison he recognized could be misunderstood.
They are doing, he said, what Adolf Hitler did in reverse: Instead of invading other countries, they are letting foreigners invade their countries.
"Hitler was a psychopath," Savage said, who "invaded other countries to impose his nation's, let us say, his distorted values and race on other countries."
"What is Obama doing?" Savage asked. "He's invading his own country with people of other races and other cultures and other languages to wipe away the predominant language, the predominant culture of his own nation. He is equally mad.
"Barack Obama is as equally mad as Adolf Hitler in that regard," Savage emphasized.
"Write it down," Savage said, directing his words to establishment media. "Maybe it will make it to CNN: 'Talk-show host says Obama as crazy as Hitler, because he's invading his own country with foreigners.' But they'd better get the whole quote correct. And I don't know if they're capable of it."
Savage said Merkel "is invading Germany with foreigners."
"She's invading her own nation," he said.
Regarding the war for Western Civilization – which was built largely on English common law, Judeo-Christian morality "and the uniquely American principles of individualism and self-reliance" – Savage also referenced the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
Some 50 years later, he asked, "Can anyone say that has worked out well?"
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/michael-savage-weve-lost-the-battle/#p8oTDpwCUiVOUMTp.99
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I have discouraged using Savage as a source on this forum, AND CONTINUE TO DO SO, but reading only what Obj has just posted, I can't say I disagree.
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I generally agree with Marc that Savage is not a reliable source, but even a broken clock is right twice a day - and Savage's comments here are valid, I agree.
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Having heard Savage in the Bay Area back in the early 90's on KGO and then KSFO, I have not listened to him since probably 95. He was just too extreme and arrogant for me. And I have never read a book or article either.
But reading this, I must absolutely agree with Savage as well. He sums it up nicely as to what will happen if changes do not occur. Immigration will destroy the US without concern for established borders and enforcing those borders and the immigration laws that go with them.
(This is also the problem I have with many Libertarians. They will tend to promote open borders along with legalization of drugs, etc.)
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One of the key themes in the debate was the matter of what to do about the illegals here.
We here have tended to the absolutist line of thought. Illegal= throw him/her out. Period.
However IMHO this line of thought has a fundamental problem: There are MANY cases where the parents are illegal and the child born here. Until the country decides/realizes that birthright citizenship is not the law, that make the child an American. Thus the absolutist position contains within it separating parents and children.
POLITICALLY THIS IS SUICIDE.
Discuss please.
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One of the key themes in the debate was the matter of what to do about the illegals here.
We here have tended to the absolutist line of thought. Illegal= throw him/her out. Period.
However IMHO this line of thought has a fundamental problem: There are MANY cases where the parents are illegal and the child born here. Until the country decides/realizes that birthright citizenship is not the law, that make the child an American. Thus the absolutist position contains within it separating parents and children.
POLITICALLY THIS IS SUICIDE.
Discuss please.
The parents take their kids with them. Why is this so hard?
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Agree with Doug.
The separation of families is simply a distraction, nothing more. It is the SJW group approach, throw up "that's inhuman or rascist" arguments to make people feel bad.
Screw them all...................
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Why is that so hard?
Easy.
Most people are persuaded by anecdotal "evidence".
Let's say you have two illegal and fecund Mexican parents who have been here ten years and they have four children (i.e. who are broadly understood to be American citizens.) Let's say the children are 9, 7, 5, and 3, and she's pregnant. The first three are all in school, and speak English and little to no Spanish. To make things worse, they have Bambi eyes. One or both of the parents are working hard and they are paying taxes and have no legal issues apart from their presence here.
Out of 11 million illegal aliens my best guess is that the other side will be able to find plenty of cases like this.
Do you really want to go into the elections saying these American citizens should be uprooted from the only thing they have ever known and shipped off to bumfuck narco-stan in Mexico?
Seriously?
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Americans who break the law are separated from their families by things called prisons. No matter how many kids they have. I guess we should stop enforcing those laws as well.
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Crafty:
Uh - YES - we want to say that - the polls show most Americans will be sympathetic to that position - certainly more so that the Democrat "amnesty for everyone" position. The reality is that we must at least threaten to do this - as Trump understands and is doing forcefully right now - doubling-down and saying he will have "deportation squads." This is how you negotiate and get what you want. Simply saying this is going to scare the crap out of many illegals and cause them to self-deport if Trump or Cruz wins.
While ultimately we may well settle for something less than this extreme - it needs to be stated just the way Trump and Cruz are stating it. These people and their children are here illegally. PERIOD. Send them back - and until the question of birthright citizenship is settled (which I believe it will be correctly if Trump or Cruz is elected - such that no such right exists) the children can choose to either stay here or go back with their parents. This is not an ethical or compassion issue. It is a legal issue. Taking the left's bait and accepting their premise that it is "mean" to send these people back is unilaterally surrendering - which Republican have raised to an art until recently when people such as Cruz came along.
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Cd,
There will be a plan for them to return quickly to the US, if they qualify. If they do not qualify, then they cannot return. Why would we want to keep people who could not qualify to return (probably criminal history the cause of rejection)?
So we leave them in the US to be with their families, even though they are criminals. Then, why have borders at all? Let's just open up the US to anyone like Europe is doing.
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Bringing this over from Carson thread:m
Quote from: ppulatie on Today at 09:32:36 AM
...
A reporter asked, “Can you explain your position on immigration? Are you in favor of encouraging people here to have a way to get — or in favor of supporting people here?”
Carson said, “Very easy question. I’m in favor of enforcing the laws that we have and in favor of securing our borders. All of our borders. This is not a difficult thing to do as was demonstrated in Yuma county Arizona where they stopped 97 percent of illegal immigration by putting up a double fence with asphalt road in between so there was quick access.
Actually putting border guards on the border and prosecuting first time offenders rather than the catch and release program that we now have. That stopped. That’s without the addition of some of the unique surveillance equipment that we now have available to us. I think you can get pretty close to a hundred percent.
The other thing you have to do is you have to decrease the incentives for people to come here. They say what is the point. That gets rid of the influx but it doesn’t take care of the 11-plus million people that are still here. I propose that we give them a six month period in which to register. If they don’t register, they’re criminals and treated as such. If they register in that six-month period and have a pristine record and they wish to be guest workers in this country they would have to pay a back tax penalty and have to continue to pay taxes going forward. They would no longer have to live in the shadow. That does not give them the right to vote. It does not make them U.S. citizens. If they want to become U.S. citizens, they have to go through the same thing anybody else wants to become a citizen, including leaving the country and apply from the outside unless the American people indicate they want a difference course than that.”
This is an excellent answer, very well thought through in my opinion.
PP's observations of weaknesses in this proposal are valid. If they can't afford the penalty, they won't register. Could be true. But the IRS type program could also accept a payment plan of 30 years or more for a family. A liberal friend says that if the policy is deportation, they will all hide. Some truth in that. Our government has incredible powers to track people, but is that what we want? Trump says the process would be humane. In this case he is reading the other side right; they will argue it is not, people dragged forcibly out of their own homes, women screaming, children crying, you can already visualize the political ad. Carson is spelling out a humane process in contrast with Trump's silence on it.
Jeb and Kasich are nuts to think there is no problem, let's keep going on the current path.
There has to be middle ground and both Rubio and Carson are seeking it. There has to be border security and visa enforcement. There have to be some people sent back, to send a message to the next wave that getting in and staying in is not a certainty anymore. America is under new management. And there has to be a way that productive, (otherwise) law abiding people and families, who are already fully established here for many years under the de facto amnesty of the last decades have some path to stay. Carson hit that note as well as it can be done.
Are we talking about a $50 penalty, a $5,000 penalty or a $50,000 penalty? Crafty talks about pricing the economic externalities. Let's calculate the costs, divide it by the number of people involved and assess it.
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As to Trump and immigration, remember this.
Trump is a master negotiator. What he says and seems to be saying is not what he is really doing. He is positioning the opposition for the kill shot. Look what happened in the debate. Jeb and Rubio all in for amnesty. Trump has them where he wants them.
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As to Trump and immigration, remember this.
Trump is a master negotiator. What he says and seems to be saying is not what he is really doing. He is positioning the opposition for the kill shot. Look what happened in the debate. Jeb and Rubio all in for amnesty. Trump has them where he wants them.
Trump is a master negotiator? Aside from Trump, who else thinks this is true?
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:-D
Now Carson has fallen into the trap. The majority of Republican voters are for immigration and deportation. This will not go over well with them.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carson-slams-trump-on-deportations-would-listen-on-citizenship-path/article/2576170#.VkSwnH50P9Y.twitter (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carson-slams-trump-on-deportations-would-listen-on-citizenship-path/article/2576170#.VkSwnH50P9Y.twitter)
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/12/its-on-carson-slams-trump-on-deportations-calls-for-pragmatic-immigration-policy/ (http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/12/its-on-carson-slams-trump-on-deportations-calls-for-pragmatic-immigration-policy/)
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Good to see this heating up! )
Crafty: "POLITICALLY THIS IS SUICIDE."
...
Let's say you have two illegal and fecund Mexican parents who have been here ten years and they have four children (i.e. who are broadly understood to be American citizens.) Let's say the children are 9, 7, 5, and 3, and she's pregnant. The first three are all in school, and speak English and little to no Spanish. To make things worse, they have Bambi eyes. One or both of the parents are working hard and they are paying taxes and have no legal issues apart from their presence here.
Out of 11 million illegal aliens my best guess is that the other side will be able to find plenty of cases like this.
Do you really want to go into the elections saying these American citizens should be uprooted from the only thing they have ever known and shipped off to bumfuck narco-stan in Mexico?
Seriously?
---------------------------------------------------------
Not just the political ads, but millions of people actually know the millions of people involved, at their school, work, activities, extended family, and in the neighborhood and community. It becomes single issue for a whole lot of people especially with peer pressure applied, that the so and so family is going to get deported if you vote Republican.
Objectivist: "we must at least threaten to do this - as Trump understands and is doing forcefully right now - doubling-down and saying he will have "deportation squads." This is how you negotiate and get what you want. Simply saying this is going to scare the crap out of many illegals and cause them to self-deport if Trump or Cruz wins."
Yes, we need a rule of law and a consequence for breaking it. We also need to win the election to have a seat at the policy table. I think that calm, reasonable, and even negotiable talk will get more done than taking what will most certainly be labeled an extreme position.
The people who came here illegally broke the law (a redundancy). But also they were following the law of the land in many other senses, which includes federal non-enforcement, easy employment, open enrollment in schools, free healthcare and other 'goodies', birthright citizenship, in state tuition and at the local level, 'sanctuary cities'. It isn't completely fair to put all the blame on the people who saw all this and took advantage of the opportunity offered.
To prosecute 'no trespassing' (on private property, state law), you need to post a no trespassing sign - reasonably visible.
http://www.signs.com/blog/state-by-state-guide-to-no-trespassing-laws-signage/
Our sign has been saying, open, welcome, please come in, for quite a long time.
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Doug,
To add to your observations:
Employers are required to check legal status of new hires. If they are not legal, they cannot be hired and the employer can be either fined or worse. Yet, if the employer does try to check legal status, the government can go after them for "adverse impact".
Then you have another problem. Far too many illegals have social security numbers that they have absconded with and use for their employment. Eventually the IRS finds out and sends the employer a letter with the SS# problem. The employer confronts the illegal, and the following we, he comes in with a new SS# and gives it to the employer. Again, it is false, but the employer cannot really check. He is damned if he does, and damned if he does not.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426419/christian-refugees-syria-religious-minorities-united-states-resettlement-policy
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Wonderful...........thank you Obama.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/breaking-syrian-refugee-already-missing-in-louisiana/ (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/breaking-syrian-refugee-already-missing-in-louisiana/)
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Wonderful...........thank you Obama.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/breaking-syrian-refugee-already-missing-in-louisiana/ (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/breaking-syrian-refugee-already-missing-in-louisiana/)
Probably just partying on Bourbon Street.
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Or dropping his pants and hoping to attract some hot young college women infidels... :-P
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The missing Syrian immigrant has been found...................in Washington DC.
Go figure............guess he just wanted to see the Washington Monument. Maybe the Jefferson Memorial.....
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The missing Syrian immigrant has been found...................in Washington DC.
Go figure............guess he just wanted to see the Washington Monument. Maybe the Jefferson Memorial.....
Ah, a pilgrimage to show his gratitude to the USA, no doubt.
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'Accepting Syrian refugees is political disaster for liberals.'
- Kevin Drum, MotherJones
http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/liberals-should-knock-mockery-over-calls-limit-syrian-refugees
We know ISIS wants to kill us.
We know they can (and will) infiltrate the refugees.
We know we can't vet them.
[Obama might as well be chanting 'Death to America'.]
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We know Jihadists are future Democrats. So Obama and the scumbags on his side will keep bringing them on over for votes.
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https://twitter.com/AaronWorthing/status/667057852104753152
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http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/18/at-least-15-us-citizen-terrorists-are-also-legal-immigrants/ (http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/18/at-least-15-us-citizen-terrorists-are-also-legal-immigrants/)
One question......Why?
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Re-post:
"This is a hilariously ignorant representation of the SS St. Louis voyage.
The St. Louis originally set sail for Cuba, which unbeknownst to the passengers had enacted stricter immigration policies since they embarked and required a $500 bond and written authorization from two Cuban cabinet members.
The US tried to intervene and have them admitted to Cuba, but the Cuban government refused. Privation was rampant after the Great Depression and immigrants were seen as competitors for scarce jobs and resources.
After negotiation, the reason they were refused admittance was and remained that nobody was willing to post the $453,500 required to admit them to Cuba, because the truth is that when it's not about rhetoric and it's about dollars and cents and actually doing something, almost nobody gives a shit about refugees.
They weren't allowed in Florida because of precedent. The US had already filled its quota of immigrants from Germany and Austria that year, and there was a backlog of several years. Admitting them would allow them to the front of the line ahead of over nine hundred others who had already been guaranteed immigration. Is there any incentive to follow the law if you can just sail over and plead to be allowed to the front of the line? Nope.
After the ship returned, 254 died in the Holocaust, half the number quoted, so I'm calling bullshit on this one. The full story of the voyage is available here:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267
- Commentary provided by Henryk Bronislaw Hinkle-Zaleski.
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https://www.facebook.com/CSPAN/videos/10153965457335579/
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No Religious Test? Actually, Yes, There Is
During his Monday press conference in Turkey, Barack Obama slammed opponents of his agenda to flood our nation with Syrian refugees. "When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted ... that’s shameful," he lectured. "That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion."
Except American law says we do have a religious test for admitting refugees (in contrast with no religious test for holding public office). Specifically, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy notes, "Under federal law, the executive branch is expressly required to take religion into account in determining who is granted asylum. Under the provision governing asylum (section 1158 of Title 8, U.S. Code), an alien applying for admission 'must establish that ... religion [among other things] ... was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.'" Furthermore, Section 1101(a)(42)(A) of Title 8, U.S. Code defines a refugee as a person "who is unable or unwilling to return to ... that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of ... religion [among other things]."
The reason we have asylum laws, and the reason they are geared toward a religious test, is that refugees are often fleeing their homeland because of religious persecution. The Islamic State is specifically and horrifically targeting Christians for persecution, slavery (including for sex) and death. Yet just 53 of the Syrian refugees Obama has admitted since 2011 have been Christians.
=======================
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/17/forget-the-syrian-refugees-america-needs-to-bring-its-afghani-and-iraqi-interpreters-here-first/
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Obama actions shield most illegals from deportation even as courts stall amnesty
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Thursday, November 19, 2015
President Obama's marquee deportation amnesty has been stalled by the courts, but the rest of his executive actions on immigration, announced exactly a year ago, are moving forward — including his move protecting more than 80 percent of illegal immigrants from any danger of deportation.
The amnesty, dubbed Deferred Action for Parental Accountability was supposed to grant full tentative legal status — including work permits, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses — to more than 4 million illegal immigrants. It has been halted by a federal appeals court, and its fate will soon rest with the Supreme Court.
But the rest of the dozen actions Mr. Obama announced on Nov. 20, 2014, are still advancing, including a far-reaching set of priorities that effectively orders agents not to bother deporting nearly all illegal immigrants.
"There are 7 or 8 or 9 million people who are now safe under the current policy. That is a victory to celebrate while we wait for the Supreme Court," said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who was among the chief cheerleaders pushing Mr. Obama to go around Congress and take unilateral steps last year.
The actions — often mislabeled by the press as executive orders — also included changes to the legal immigration system, such as making it easier for spouses of guest workers to also find jobs; allowing foreigners who study science and technology at U.S. universities to remain and work in the country longer; pushing legal immigrants to apply for citizenship; and waiving the penalty on illegal immigrant spouses or children of legal permanent residents so they no longer have to go to their home countries to await legal status.
On enforcement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, called for a more coordinated approach to border security, and that paid off with a major drop in arrests of illegal immigrants in the Southwest. Apprehensions were at their lowest levels since the 1970s.
At Mr. Obama's direction, Mr. Johnson announced changes that would let most rank-and-file illegal immigrants off the hook and instead focus deportation efforts on serious criminals, gang members and other security threats, and only the most recent of illegal border crossers.
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing what I told them to do — to reprioritize and focus on convicted criminals," Mr. Johnson said this month as he took stock of the changes. "This is the general direction that the president and I want to go when it comes to how we enforce immigration law — focusing on threats to public safety and border security for the American public."
The changes are already having a major effect. Deportations, which peaked at nearly 410,000 in fiscal year 2012, dropped to about 230,000 in fiscal year 2015, which ended Sept. 30. But Mr. Johnson said more of those being deported are the serious criminals and safety threats he wants his agents to worry about.
Indeed, if agents adhere strictly to his priorities, some 9.6 million of the estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the country have no real danger of being deported, according to an estimate this year by the Migration Policy Institute.
"The enforcement priorities announced last year, if strictly enforced, do protect the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants from being deported, because most immigrants have been here a long time and haven't committed a serious crime," said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the institute's U.S. immigration policy program.
The number could go even higher, depending on how agents follow some of Mr. Johnson's other instructions. The secretary had said even some illegal immigrants with serious criminal offenses on their records should be allowed to stay if they had mitigating factors, such as deep family or community ties.
Immigrant rights activists said they are still waiting for those special circumstances to be applied more broadly.
Mr. Johnson also has been pushing, with some success, to try to get sanctuary cities to buy into limited cooperation with his deportation agents. He scrapped the Secure Communities program that trolled state and local prisons and jails for illegal immigrants and replaced it with the Priorities Enforcement Program, which targets only serious criminals.
"It is tremendously harder now to deport even criminals, much less garden-variety illegal aliens. They have truly dismembered the immigration enforcement system, from the Border Patrol to the immigration courts," said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.
But the jewel of the executive actions was the deportation amnesty, which was delayed first by a federal district court in Texas and last week by an appeals court.
All sides in the debate agree that was a huge blow to Mr. Obama.
"Without being able to give away a benefit, like a work permit, these changes are less permanent, and easier to undo in some ways, than would have been the case had the president been able to implement DAPA," Ms. Vaughan said.
Mr. Obama said he took the series of steps in response to inaction from Congress, where his push for a broad bill granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship stalled in 2013. Frustrated by Republicans, Mr. Obama waited until after the 2014 elections, then announced his go-it-alone approach.
Many of the steps are works in progress.
Homeland Security has issued proposals to carry out the leniency program for illegal immigrant spouses and children of green-card holders and to allow foreign students in science and technology to stay longer. Both of those still need to be finalized, as does a proposal expanding hardship waivers.
Other moves were easier to accomplish: Homeland Security now accepts credit card payments for citizenship fees.
© Copyright 2015 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
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https://stream.org/why-so-few-syrian-christian-refugees/
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http://www.nationalreview.com//syrian-refugees-arent-1939s-jews?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20Best%20of%2011/20&utm_term=VDHM%20Reader
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The analogy is false and an insult to the victims of the holocaust.
However it would be a closer comparison if we were inviting *CHRISTAINS* who were fleeing for their lives. Not Muslims.
The libs will just not stop till they shove their ways down our throats.
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https://www.facebook.com/numbersusa/videos/1015218541868174/
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Putting aside the tendentious tone of the author, does he have a point?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anhvinh-doanvo/europes-crisis-refugees_b_8175924.html
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Putting aside the tendentious tone of the author, does he have a point?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anhvinh-doanvo/europes-crisis-refugees_b_8175924.html
I doubt it. The Saudis are very nervous about their security environment now. The last thing they want is to import unvettable military age males or black widows. The author is most likely acting as a paid or unpaid press flak for the Saudis, IMHO.
http://saudiembassy.net/press-releases/press09111501.aspx
Saudi Arabia Received 2.5 Million Syrians since Beginning of Conflict
September 11, 2015
(Washington, DC) – The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement today addressing the Kingdom’s efforts to support the Syrian people. Saudi Arabia has been one of the largest providers of aid to Syria’s people, and has taken in millions of citizens from the war-torn country.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that the following actions have been taken by Saudi Arabia:
The Kingdom has received around 2.5 million Syrians since the beginning of the conflict. In order to ensure their dignity and safety, the Kingdom adopted the policy not to treat them as refugees or place them in refugee camps. They have been given the freedom to move about the country, and those who wish to remain in Saudi Arabia (some hundreds of thousands) have been given legal residency status like the remaining residents. Their residency comes with the rights to receive free medical care, to join the labor market and to attend schools and universities. This was contained in a royal decree in 2012 that instructed public schools to accept Syrian students. According to government statistics, the public school system has accepted more than 100,000 Syrian students.
The Kingdom’s efforts were not limited to accepting our Syrian brothers and sisters after their crisis; it also extended its efforts to support and care for millions of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and others. Efforts included providing humanitarian assistance in coordination with the host governments and with international human aid organizations. Aid was provided in the form of money and goods.
The aid provided by Saudi Arabia to the Syrian people totals around $700 million, according to the statistics of the Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria, which took place in Kuwait on March 31, 2015. Government aid and aid provided by the National Campaign are included in that figure.
Humanitarian aid provided to Syrians by the Kingdom consisted of food and medical, academic, and residential supplies, and included the establishment of Saudi specialized clinics in refugee camps, most importantly the Zaatari Camp in Jordan. The Kingdom was able to provide medical care in the form of immunizations, preventive treatments and medical procedures. In addition, Saudi Arabia sponsored a large number of Syrian families living in Lebanon and Syria (specifically paying for their rent and living costs).
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Let's be clear, these refugees aren't all terrorists.
Factoring the survey results (http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18-8088-7c8a077e522e) with the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama plans to bring to the United States means Obama will bring in 1,300 ISIS supporters and a total of 3,100 who do not want the US to defeat ISIS.
Survey has margin of error + or - 4%.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/shock-poll-third-of-syrian-refugees-isis-sympathizers-13-percent-support/
What could possibly go wrong?
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:-o :-o :-o
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Let's be clear, these refugees aren't all terrorists.
Factoring the survey results (http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18-8088-7c8a077e522e) with the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama plans to bring to the United States means Obama will bring in 1,300 ISIS supporters and a total of 3,100 who do not want the US to defeat ISIS.
Survey has margin of error + or - 4%.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/shock-poll-third-of-syrian-refugees-isis-sympathizers-13-percent-support/
What could possibly go wrong?
Islam is a religion of peace!
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Two separate stories:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/syrian-refugees-central-america-routes-cuban-migrants
Global refugees take long detours through Latin America to reach the US
A liberal friend recently told me something to the effect that this is urban legend propagated by conservative imaginations.
The Guardian is a liberal newspaper.
Yes, we should crack down on visas and visa overstays too, in addition to border security and smarter legal immigration choices.
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Sen Sessions is out with a list of 15 vetted refugees who quickly joined jihad plots to attack the United States
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/24/sen-sessions-reveals-15-refugee-jihadis-hopes-shrink-obamas-2016-refugee-budget/
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IIRC back in the 50s and 60s we kept Communists from coming to America. What was the legal framework used? Does it still exist?
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This could go under the health thread but I believe this should go along with the immigrant thread.
Humans act as the reservoirs as well as other animals and the bug is the vector. Almost no question we will see more of the disease here not only due to immigrants infected with it but due to the insect picking it up from these immigrants and then transmitting to us natives. I suppose the left will say it is revenge for smallpox that wiped out the Indians.
Guarantee the political CDC will downplay or deny any immigrant link however. Notice the corrupt NPR of course blames dogs.
But this ain't no coincidence:
Chagas in US: 'Kissing Bugs' Becoming a Growing Concern, Report Says
By Clyde Hughes | Monday, 28 Jul 2014 11:07 AM
The so-called "kissing bug," an insect that carries a deadly parasite that can cause Chagas disease, is becoming a growing concern in the United States, especially in Texas and Virginia.
Though the bugs are native to Mexico and Central and South America — there are an estimated 8 million people infected there — more and more cases are popping up in the U.S., according to The Atlantic.
Cardiologist Dr. Rachel Marcus told the news site that northern Virginia, in particular, could be "ground zero" for Chagas disease because of increasing number of Bolivian immigrants there.
Similarly, researchers at Texas A&M told KFDX.com they've discovered kissing bugs in Dallas.
Kissing bugs, or triatomine insects, transmit a parasite that causes Chagas disease, which, if left untreated, can lead to death. Infected people can live for many years without even knowing they have the disease, the World Health Organization reported. The parasites often live in the heart and digestive muscles, with as many as 30 percent of patients suffering from cardiac disorders and as many as 10 percent suffering from digestive problems.
Susan Montgomery, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Atlantic that U.S. doctors started hearing more about Chagas disease in 2007 when blood bank workers began screening for the disease.
Susan Morris, with the Wichita County Public Health District in Texas, told KFDX.com that the kissing bug infestation there is "worse this year because we've been in drought for the past few years and people are really collecting that water so we've had a lot of mosquitoes all over town."
National Public Radio pointed to a study published Wednesday in the science journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that stated that infected dogs are acting as sort of Trojan horses in introducing the Chagas disease in Texas.
"From shelter mutts to purebred show dogs, canines across the state of Texas are becoming infected with a parasite that causes a potentially deadly disease in people," NPR reported.
"Although the dogs aren't spreading the parasite directly to people, they are helping to make the disease more prevalent in the southern U.S. Not to mention the parasite can make dogs sick and even kill them."
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/chagas-in-us-kissing-bug/2014/07/28/id/585278/#ixzz3tBDk3SuQ
Urgent: Rate Obama on His Job Performance. Vote Here Now!
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/refugees/419976/#article-comments
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Open-borders money backs Marco Rubio
By Michelle Malkin • December 17, 2015 07:35 PM
Open-borders money backs Marco Rubio
by Michelle Malkin
Copyright 2015
Political analysis of the Las Vegas debate immigration dust-up between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio is missing a key ingredient: the money factor.
You can read the lips of the candidates till the cows come home. But you’ll get to the truth much faster when you learn where pro-amnesty power brokers have placed their bets and hitched their wagons.
Rubio’s brazenly fraudulent campaign to paint Cruz as soft on illegal immigration is a flabbergasting attempt to distract from the Florida junior senator’s faithful allegiance to the open-borders donor class.
Here’s what you need to know:
Facebook, Microsoft and Silicon Valley back Marco Rubio. Mark Zuckerberg is a social justice CEO who panders to Hispanics with his pro-amnesty, anti-deportation advocacy; Facebook is an H-1B visa dependent company working hard to obliterate hurdles to hiring an unlimited stream of cheap foreign tech workers. It’s no coincidence that Facebook’s lobbying outfit, FWD.us, was waging war on Sen. Cruz online this week in parallel with Sen. Rubio’s disingenuous onstage attack.
The D.C. front group, which Zuckerberg seeded in 2013 with nearly $40 million during the Gang of Eight fight, has consistently provided political protection for Rubio as he carried their legislative water.
FWD.us’s GOP subsidiary, “Americans for a Conservative Direction,” showered Rubio and pro-illegal alien amnesty Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., with millions of dollars in media ad buys. The group also funded a deceptive, $150,000 ad campaign for immigration sellout Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., which falsely claimed she opposed amnesty to help her fend off a primary challenge. In all, FWD.us spent an estimated $5 million on TV and radio spots in more than 100 GOP districts before the Senate passed the Gang of Eight bill in June 2013.
Zuckerberg personally donated to Rubio, as have pro-H-1B expansionist Silicon Valley CEOs from Oracle, Cisco and Seagate. Microsoft, founded by leading H-1B/amnesty cheerleader Bill Gates, has been Rubio’s No. 2 corporate donor the past five years.
Paul Singer backs Marco Rubio. The hedge fund billionaire announced his support for Rubio in October. Amnesty is and always has been a top agenda item for Singer, who helped fund the National Immigration Forum along with fellow hedge fund billionaire George Soros. NIF propped up a faux “grass-roots” initiative of religious conservatives, dubbed the Evangelical Immigration Table, to lobby for the Gang of Eight.
NIF was founded by far-left attorney Rick Swartz, who opposes tracking/deporting visa overstayers and opposes employer sanctions against companies that violated immigration laws. Swartz also served as an advisor to Microsoft.
The Singer/Soros-funded NIF helped sabotage the Immigration Act of 1990, which was intended to impose modest restrictions on immigration, and turned it into “one of the most expansionist immigration bills ever passed,” as one expert put it. On Capitol Hill, Swartz worked closely with immigration expansionist Sen. Spencer Abraham’s legislative director Cesar Conda and Sen. Sam Brownback’s legislative director (now GOP House speaker) Paul Ryan—-who is busy this holiday season fronting an omnibus bill that will open the floodgates to 250,000 unskilled foreign guest workers.
Side note: Beltway establishment fixture Conda previously worked for the pro-amnesty U.S. Chamber of Commerce and mentored Ryan from the age of 19. Conda guided newbie Rubio as his Senate chief of staff from 2011-2014 and remains his powerful immigration Svengali behind closed doors.
Rove/Bush-tied front groups back Marco Rubio. The American Action Network is a Big Business GOP lobbying organization led by former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and co-founded with John McCain adviser/fundraiser Fred Malek. AAN shares [clarification: shared] its offices with amnesty peddler Karl Rove’s American Crossroads in D.C. AAN’s “action arm,” the American Action Forum, was founded in February 2010 and proceeded to spend a whopping $25 million to attack conservatives who opposed amnesty. [Correction: AAN embarked on the anti-conservative spending campaign.] Jeb Bush sat on the AAF board.
In 2013, the group dumped more than $750,000 into primetime, Fox News Channel ad buys pushing the Gang of Eight immigration bill, including $100,000 in ads to support leading GOP voices for amnesty, including, you guessed it, Sen. Marco Rubio.
Open-borders Democrats love Marco Rubio. As Sen. Schumer brayed last month: Rubio “was not only totally committed, he was in that room with us. His fingerprints are all over” the Gang of Eight monstrosity. Indeed, Sens. Durbin and Rubio plotted strategy during early morning workout sessions at the Senate gym.
Rubio hired Enrique Gonzalez, a Democratic donor and partner with the global immigration law firm, Fragomen Del Rey, to be his chief adviser on the bill. Gonzalez specializes in obtaining H-1B guest worker visas (tripled in the Gang of Eight bill) and EB-5 visas for wealthy foreign investors. After the bill passed, Gonzalez returned to his law firm as managing partner of the Florida office, where he brags about his role as Rubio’s “special counsel” and “principal advisor/negotiator”—read: bill writer.
Bottom line?
Cruz kept his promise to voters. He voted against the Gang of Eight giveaway. Period.
Rubio broke his promise: He paid lip service to border security and the American Dream, while scheming with Sens. Schumer and Durbin on the 180,000-word, 1,200-page Christmas tree for Big Biz, Big Tech and ethnic lobbyists.
Rubio didn’t just vote for the bill. He and his staff were integral to crafting it, shilling for it, and cashing in on the legislative boondoggle dubbed a “permanent pension plan for immigration lawyers.”
When you need the truth about which Beltway crapweasels are selling out America, always follow the money.
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Now isn't this just peachy?
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/][url]http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/ (http://[url)[/url]
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:x :x :x
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Now isn't this just peachy?
[url]http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/]http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/][url]http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/ (http://[url=http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-congressional-crackdown-on-terror-will-violate-iran-deal/)[/url]
Iran deal is unsigned and non-binding. Anything the Obama administraion gives away in or outside the agreement is by choice.
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Some powerful words thrown around in the immigration debate:
Undocumented
Illegal
Deportation
Mass deportation
Self deportation
Border security
Fence
Wall
Visa numbers
Vetting
Visa Overstays
Comprehensive Reform
Amnesty
Legalization
Path to Citizenship
A few comments addressing some of the above:
Undocumented is Orwellian liberal-speak. They didn't misplace their papers, they snuck in or overstayed in violation of our law. That we are now debating it means we allowed it. Now we have to deal with it.
Mass deportation for the most part isn't going to happen with people who are otherwise law-abiding, productive and long established here. Those who say otherwise need to describe specifically how they will accomplish mass deportation and how that policy is a general election winner. Selective, immediate deportation is more plausible. Who is it that you would round up if elected and how would you do it? We all deserve to know.
Visa overstays need to be treated like illegal border crossings. When we don't force an immediate turnback is when this problem festers and we lose.
Amnesty means forgiving the crime with no penalty. Since it is easy to throw in either a small or substantial penalty in legalization negotiations, the term has no meaning, is widely mis-used and is designed to inflame the debate or impugn the one accused of favoring it.
Legalization equals Citizenship in a slightly more drawn out way. If you allow large numbers of illegals to become legal, stay permanently and not have a 'path to citizenship', then the Democrats win three times. These future Dem voters are no longer illegal. Dems keep the issue to keep pounding Republicans on, and anyone living here legally and permanently and not allowed to vote is therefore a victim of discrimination so they will eventually win that 'right' and be even more loyal to Democrats by the time they do.
Let's argue out the policy proposal differences on realistic, political terms.
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I wonder if DHS sends them postcards to notify them of eviction first or just announce in the newspapers. The Post will be out there with their cameras decrying the inhumanity of it all and the MSM will playing up that angle to and the racial card and the women and children card:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-plans-raids-to-deport-families-who-surged-across-border/2015/12/23/034fc954-a9bd-11e5-8058-480b572b4aae_story.html
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I think they should all get full citizenship.
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"I think they should all get full citizenship."
Absolutely. This would be "good" for us and for America!
We all benefit. :roll:
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And then open the borders for everyone else to come. And after that, return the Texas, the Southwest and California to Mexico.
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I was obviously being sarcastic, because my first comment that I had to delete referencing the Katyn massacre was a little over the top, even by my standards, but yes... they need to go back to where they came from.
Edit: I'm an internment camp and forced repatriation kind of guy.
otherwise...you get people that don't even belong, voting as to how you should live. Nothing American about that at all.
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DDF
I caught it with you.....and added to your sarcasm.
My wife who is 1st gen from San Salvador says send them back.
My son whose ex was Canadian had to go through the process with her. He says send them back.
My neighbor who did it legally says send them back.
The son-in-law who is 1st gen says send them back.
Other relatives with legal spouses say send them back.
The only one who does not say to send them back is a La Raza supporter, and her sister who is an immigration attorney. (She sees the money.)
Everyone in my family and circle of friends did it legally and want the illegals to go back and do it legally.
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DDF
I caught it with you.....and added to your sarcasm.
My wife who is 1st gen from San Salvador says send them back.
My son whose ex was Canadian had to go through the process with her. He says send them back.
My neighbor who did it legally says send them back.
The son-in-law who is 1st gen says send them back.
Other relatives with legal spouses say send them back.
The only one who does not say to send them back is a La Raza supporter, and her sister who is an immigration attorney. (She sees the money.)
Everyone in my family and circle of friends did it legally and want the illegals to go back and do it legally.
Word.... been through it too. Come legally or not at all.
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DDF wrote:
"I was obviously being sarcastic"
Yes I knew you were. I was just agreeing with you with more sarcasm in the way of phony leftist and Chamber of Commerce propaganda. 8-)
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There is something very suspicious here with this sudden announcement about DHS rounding up a trivial number of illegals. I suspect OBama thinks that this show is going to somehow lay shame and guilt on the Republicans.
I predict it will be welcomed by more people than they think. Maybe even more than they think by Hispanics who are here legally. There is obviously political calculation to this. Obrock is not doing because it is the right thing. We know that:
*****A political bomb is about to blow up in the Democrats’ faces
Greg Sargent December 24 at 9:18 AM
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
THE MORNING PLUM:
This scoop from Jerry Markon and David Nakamura is going to scramble the politics of immigration in the presidential race, and it may create more problems for Democrats than for Republicans:
The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation.
The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a related surge of unaccompanied minors.
The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to officials familiar with the undertaking…The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds and possibly greater.
Read the rest for the details, but the short version is that there has been vigorous internal debate inside the Obama administration about this policy, and it has not been signed off on officially. The administration has long signaled that families crossing over illegally who do not qualify for asylum will be deported. But advocates have been urging the administration to treat these migrants as refugees, because experts believe that violence in Central America is a key reason for their efforts to cross the southern border.
In a preview of more to come, a leading immigration advocate, Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, told me that there will be intense pressure on the Democratic presidential candidates — particularly likely nominee Hillary Clinton — to denounce the new policy. Sharry pointed out that this could force Clinton to decide whether to align with immigration advocates and Latinos, as she’s been doing in hopes of winning the Latino vote by a huge margin in the general election, which would mean breaking with the Obama administration and adopting a position that Republicans will attack as weak on immigration enforcement.
“This will be a political nightmare for the Democrats,” Sharry told me. “The specter of raids picking up families and sending them back to violent countries is going to put Hillary Clinton in a difficult position. She’ll have to choose between protecting refugees from Central America, a demand of the Latino community, or standing with the law-and-order position of Obama and Republicans.”
Clinton has faced a similar predicament before. In 2014, when the crisis of unaccompanied children crossing the border dominated the news, Clinton triggered an outcry from immigration advocates when she suggested that they should be “sent back.” Clinton subsequently clarified her position, arguing that the process should be improved so those children who are genuine refugees would be recognized and treated as such. But the episode called into question whether Clinton can take Latino support for granted.
The new moves also may threaten to blur the contrasts that Democrats have been working hard to draw with Republicans. The rise of Donald Trump — with his call for mass deportations and fondness for insulting millions of immigrants — has helped drag the GOP ever rightward on immigration and has Democrats dreaming of a 2012-level victory among Latinos in 2016, a demographic edge that would be very hard for Republicans to overcome. Sharry suggested that if the Dem nominee doesn’t full-throatedly condemn the new policy, it could compromise the sharp contrast Dems have etched.
Indeed, one can imagine Trump taking credit for the stepped-up deportations at one of his rallies, arguing that, by forcing a conversation about the true nature of the immigrant threat (which he likes to claim credit for doing), he has forced spineless elites to confront it. That could theoretically make it harder for Clinton to align with Obama. “The administration will be accused of being Trump-like with immigrants,” Sharry said. “She’ll have
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This is an attempt to neutralize Trump. Nothing else. Contrary to what the Dems say, they do not want to run against Trump. They would rather have Cruz, who can be easily demonized by his Tea Party connections and therefore be beaten. As to Rubio, they can knock him off as well.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429480/muslim-immigration-sexual-assault-terrorism
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-to-expand-number-of-refugees-admitted-to-us/2016/01/13/35613e74-ba0b-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html
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This is an attempt to neutralize Trump. Nothing else. Contrary to what the Dems say, they do not want to run against Trump. They would rather have Cruz, who can be easily demonized by his Tea Party connections and therefore be beaten. As to Rubio, they can knock him off as well.
Exactly correct.
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When partial and very incomplete tallies FINALLY are released and are admittedly an undercount it comes as no surprise to those of us that can look around and see the obvious.
Similar to asking did Hillary break laws? Isn't it an obvious case. Do we have to keep saying "alleged" or in the words of JEB "if she broke the law.
Gee why don't we trust our government. Could it be we are being lied to day in and day out:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/19/bombshell-report-half-million-migrants-overstayed-visas-2015/
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immigration overreach:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will012316.php3
Could also go under the "war on rule of law" but I put under constitutional issues as well.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/10000-from-terror-countries-overstay-visas-in-u-s-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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GOSAR: ENDING INSTANT AMNESTY FOR CUBANS
By: Rep. Paul Gosar | February 12, 2016
As a congressman representing the state of Arizona, I am never surprised that illegal immigration is the hottest topic of discussion at my town hall meetings.
With over 350 miles of shared border with Mexico, Arizona is second only to Texas in total miles of border separating us from our southern neighbor. Yet the people in my district who most adamantly call for stronger enforcement of our immigration laws may be surprising to some. It’s not those gun-totin,’ bible-clingin’ Republicans that President Obama likes to mock. In fact, the strongest supporters of upholding our immigration laws…are LEGAL immigrants.
FOLLOW It is rare for me to host a public event anymore and not talk to a legal immigrant about his or her inspiring story of becoming an American. At the core of their decision to immigrate legally to the United States is the understanding that our country is a nation of laws, and that no one—not even the President of the United States—can circumvent the law. Our Founding Fathers knew that this was the key to empowering the pursuit of prosperity.
So imagine the frustration of legal immigrants when President Obama unilaterally normalized relations with Cuba last year but refused to end provisions from the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act which grant instant amnesty to Cubans who set foot on American soil. This is a luxury no other country in the world enjoys, so it’s fair to ask, why would we still treat immigrants from that nation any different than those from other countries? Despite Presidents Obama’s continued ideological efforts to erode American sovereignty, he can’t have it both ways… and he knows it. That is why I introduced legislation (H.R. 3818) to terminate three outdated policies that directly provide amnesty to Cuban aliens and cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
Last October, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel published a series of investigative articles exposing billions of dollars of waste at the expense of U.S. taxpayers as a result of Cuban immigration fraud. According to their yearlong research, “taxpayers spend more than $680 million per year on welfare to Cuban immigrants, not counting the cost of Medicaid health care benefits.”
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this flawed immigration policy is that Cuba does not allow Cuban citizens convicted of crimes in the U.S. to be repatriated. The Sun-Sentinel reported that
Cubans are allowed to enter the United States without visas or background checks of their criminal histories in Cuba. Unlike other immigrants seeking political asylum, Cubans can return home without jeopardizing their status, aiding crime rings that recruit accomplices and hide stolen money in Cuba.
I dare President Obama to face hard-working legal immigrants who followed the rules and patiently immigrated to this country and try to rationalize this injustice.
The unthinkable consequence of the Obama administration’s lawlessness is that, over time, hardworking legal immigrants will find somewhere else besides the United States to call home. And they won’t be alone. They will take their businesses and good-paying jobs with them. Who could blame them? If the legal foundations of our country are no longer upheld we risk undermining the very soul of the land of the free.
Congress should consider my commonsense legislation, which will level the playing field and end the outdated policies that provide amnesty to Cuban aliens and criminals. Cuban nationals should be treated under the same immigration rules as any other person seeking to immigrate to the United States and should not receive preferential treatment. The American people deserve better from our federal government… especially Americans who migrated here legally.
Congressman Paul Gosar represents Arizona’s 4th congressional district.
Author Rep. Paul Gosar
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"Cuba does not allow Cuban citizens convicted of crimes in the U.S. to be repatriated"
I am guessing the Castro regime is not a reliable source of background information on dissidents and expatriates.
I don't know about the merits of the arguments he makes but interesting that proposal to deal with criminals from Cuba comes out of AZ not FL.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/04/el-chapo-entered-us-california-manhunt-prison-break-daughter-says
El Chapo entered US twice while on the run after prison break, daughter claims
The drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” ...twice secretly entered the United States to visit relatives, according to his eldest daughter. Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz said that shortly after an interview with Hollywood star Sean Penn last year, her father dodged a massive manhunt with the complicity of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded US border controls to sneak into California – despite being one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/04/el-chapo-entered-us-california-manhunt-prison-break-daughter-says
El Chapo entered US twice while on the run after prison break, daughter claims
The drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” ...twice secretly entered the United States to visit relatives, according to his eldest daughter. Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz said that shortly after an interview with Hollywood star Sean Penn last year, her father dodged a massive manhunt with the complicity of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded US border controls to sneak into California – despite being one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
This is not exactly shocking.
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Now consider the other objective of controlling our borders. Until the mid-1980s, migration from Mexico to the United States was churned by the movement of Mexican males entering to find employment and then returning to spend their savings. From 1965 to 1986, for example, it is estimated that 86 percent of the illegal entrants were offset by their subsequent returns and thus the undocumented population rose slowly — less than 1 percent of the U.S. population over two decades. In 1986, however, we adopted the Immigration Reform and Control Act, supported by U.S. President Ronald Reagan's warnings that "terrorists and subversives" were entering the country. The result was that illegal immigrants who now faced much more rigorous barriers to entry simply stopped returning to their native countries. And one consequence of that was that they were increasingly joined by their wives and families. The result was a vast increase in the numbers of illegal aliens, as well as a huge increase in the number of children of unauthorized immigrants, about 80 percent of whom are U.S. citizens. The number of undocumented aliens thus rose from less than 3 million in 1986 to between 11 million and 12 million today, with all the consequences for internal division we are experiencing now.
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http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/10/6-minnesota-somali-organizations-receive-grants-to-combat-terrorism/
Let's import Somalis. Now's let's spend money fighting "radicalization"!
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/08/08/illegal-alien-crime-accounts-for-over-30-of-murders-in-some-states/
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Illegals get scholarships , go to our law schools, encourage more illegal immigration and are treated as heroes and as though they are so lovely. AS Levin would ask, what about our children? We could only imagine if these were future Republicans how this story line would be so different:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/meet-bold-dreamer-who-ll-receive-immigrant-youth-achievement-award-n540276
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Illegals get scholarships , go to our law schools, encourage more illegal immigration and are treated as heroes and as though they are so lovely. AS Levin would ask, what about our children? We could only imagine if these were future Republicans how this story line would be so different:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/meet-bold-dreamer-who-ll-receive-immigrant-youth-achievement-award-n540276
If the dems thought illegals would vote republican, we'd have a wall larger than the one in Game of Thrones.
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If the dems thought illegals would vote republican, we'd have a wall larger than the one in Game of Thrones.
[/quote]
Best thing I've read all day. Worth TWO chuckles. :mrgreen:
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8-) 8-) 8-)
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/362223.php
Chelsea Clinton: Not Only Does My Mom Vow to Not Deport Any Illegal Alien Children, She Thinks It's Important to Sign all Illegals Up for Obamacare, Too
During the Univision Democrat debate from two weeks ago, I was pretty surprised at how immoderate a position Hillary (and Bernie, too) staked out on illegal immigration: Not only did they agree with Jorge Ramos that it was immoral to even have a border, but Hillary vowed she would not deport a single illegal, not one, unless he was further guilty of serious non-immigration crimes.
That's going pretty far. But I don't think the media will question her much about this extremist position, the same as they won't question her about abortion.
Now Chelsea Clinton comes in to assure everyone that her mom thinks it's critical to sign all the illegals up for Obamacare, too.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: "Is she planning on expanding Obamacare as people know it, ACA, to include people who are not fully documented? Because when you get ill, your illness will not ask you if you are a permanent resident or not."
CLINTON: "It's such an important question. Thank you for supporting my mom. My mom has very strong feelings that we must push as quickly as possible for comprehensive immigration reform, and this is a real difference between her's and Senator Sanders' record, she supported comprehensive immigration reform at every possible chance and she was one of the original supporters and sponsors of the DREAM Act. She does not believe that while we are working towards comprehensive immigration reform we should make people wait, like the families you are talking about. Which is why she thinks it's so important to extend the Affordable Care Act to people who are living and working here, regardless of immigration status, regardless of citizenship status."
So not only do we have to accept anyone who slips past our border security as a permanent resident, we also have to subsidize them.
But remember, there's no reason -- none -- apart from pure racism to object to any of this. None. Nothing like simple self-interest, or not wanting to take on the burden of subsidizing all the world's mobile poor.
No, the only reason one could have to object to this is "hating brown poeple."
BTW: I'm updating the sidebar with stuff about the Salah Abdeslam attacks, if you're interested in that story. A lot of little things are coming out, but not enough for a main post.
There's a link to what could be the video of the arrest itself for example, though that might be video of one of the other captured terrorists.
Update: Hillary Rodham has declared the southern border secure, so there's no need for any additional border security.
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and of course the predictable response from the Dem machine when someone criticized Chelseeee mention of this.
The illegals would *pay* into the exchanges and not be paid for by tax money and just think of the savings that tax payers would benefit because of the reduced ER costs.
My response is to dream of the savings tax payers would accrue from sending these people back to where ever they came from.
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http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2016/03/31/library-congress-eliminate-terms-illegal-alien-alien/
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Fence of ladder? What a joke:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/video/mexican-youths-scale-us-border-032026987.html
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What millions of us who are ignored and essentially have no say think:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/levintv-we-ought-to-kick-their-asses-out-of-the-country
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As a member of the European Union, it is obliged to accept large numbers of unskilled immigrants who find not only Britain’s wages, but also her welfare system, much superior to those in their own countries.
A 16 year old girl solves the problem. Short clip.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/02/a-16-year-old-solves-britains-immigration-problem.php
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Betting she will be the next Margaret Thatcher in 30 yrs.
She blows Hillary away!
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Now that you mention it, I can picture it.
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Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to welcome at least 100,000 Syrian Muslims, refugees, into his country. This is in addition to the 25,000 he has already admitted.
13% 'support' ISIS, 33% 'sypathize' with ISIS.
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/13-percent-syrian-refugees-support-isis-poll
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/shock-poll-third-of-syrian-refugees-isis-sympathizers-13-percent-support/
Mr. Trump, it looks like we may need a couple more walls.
The Canada–United States border is the longest international border in the world, 5500 miles, 4000 across the lower 48 + 1500 going up Alaska. I wonder if Canada will pay for it...
I have never driven or flown into Canada but have been over the border many times on foot, boat and snowmobile.
As an aside, Crafty, may I recommend you take your son or family on a trip into the Boundary Waters before the border is closed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters_Canoe_Area_Wilderness
That portion of the wall will be most difficult to build, a million acres non-motorized, bringing in workers and cement blocks by paddle and portage. (3 million acres of lakes and forests counting the Canadian side, Quetico Park.)
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:-o
Please post in the Homeland Security thread as well.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzTgqksQT0Y#t=29
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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article75164957.html
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435274/immigration-elites-support-illegal-immigration-working-class-suffers?BpQgygT4QMu6uybp.01
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435274/immigration-elites-support-illegal-immigration-working-class-suffers?BpQgygT4QMu6uybp.01
No one except criminals should support illegal immigration.
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http://www.myafricanow.com/african-immigrants-lead-with-the-highest-academic-achievements-in-the-us/
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http://www.myafricanow.com/african-immigrants-lead-with-the-highest-academic-achievements-in-the-us/
Won't be picked up by the MSM.
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I've heard some minorities making a distinction between African Blacks and American Blacks.
In the medical field probably half of new doctors are either foreign born or children of foreign born.
Many are women. It seems to me in NJ that at half are women.
I guess the evil white male racist society is not out to get them and "keep them down".
I don't recall seeing insurance reimbursement rates and corporate salary rates specify lower pay for females.
Of course as a white male I just can't see it.
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Many years ago economist Walter Williams noted that blacks immigrated from the Caribbean or of Caribbean descent (e.g. Colin Powell) scored equal with whites.
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http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/05/19/airlines-now-offering-free-reduced-airfare-cuban-migrants-texas/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
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We cannot continue to let the Left change the language from accurate to disingenuous descriptions that serve their agenda. What part of the description "ILLEGAL" is not understood?:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-telemundo-president-shuts-down-221600617.html
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We cannot continue to let the Left change the language from accurate to disingenuous descriptions that serve their agenda. What part of the description "ILLEGAL" is not understood?:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-telemundo-president-shuts-down-221600617.html
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/immigration-terms-and-definitions-involving-aliens
Illegal Alien
Also known as an "Undocumented Alien," is an alien who has entered the United States illegally and is deportable if apprehended, or an alien who entered the United States legally but who has fallen "out of status" and is deportable.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien
Current through Pub. L. 114-38. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)
US Code
Notes
prev | next
(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
(b) Improper time or place; civil penaltiesAny alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to enter) the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty of—
(1) at least $50 and not more than $250 for each such entry (or attempted entry); or
(2) twice the amount specified in paragraph (1) in the case of an alien who has been previously subject to a civil penalty under this subsection.
Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be imposed.
(c) Marriage fraud
Any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or both.
(d) Immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud
Any individual who knowingly establishes a commercial enterprise for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, fined in accordance with title 18, or both.
(June 27, 1952, ch. 477, title II, ch. 8, § 275, 66 Stat. 229; Pub. L. 99–639, § 2(d), Nov. 10, 1986, 100 Stat. 3542; Pub. L. 101–649, title I, § 121(b)(3), title V, § 543(b)(2), Nov. 29, 1990, 104 Stat. 4994, 5059; Pub. L. 102–232, title III, § 306(c)(3), Dec. 12, 1991, 105 Stat. 1752; Pub. L. 104–208, div. C, title I, § 105(a), Sept. 30, 1996, 110 Stat. 3009–556.)
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Mitch McC on immigration on a talk show yesterday again cannot say what needs to be said. He is so worried about insulting the largest and fastest growing voting block - latinos.
Why the heck can he not say look this is not about Latins, or Mexicans. No one has any problem with them . It is about the millions of people of all faiths, ethnicities, cultures who are either coming into this country illegally or coming here with visas legally but then overstaying their visas illegally. Some are from Europe, Asia , Australia, South America, Central America, Africa. It doesn't matter. What does matter is we as American citizens have laws and have a solid right to enforce those laws.
Simple.
no one hates mexicans etc. We do have a right to resent anyone from other countries who come here and break our laws. Period. And we will enforce them. Periods
Why can no one ever say this? Stop making it about Mexicans. It is about ILLEGALS. Yes they are undocumented but they are undocumented because they are here illegally period.
And we should not budge on that issue and we are going to enforce out laws and these people will have to leave and get on line.
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It does not help when Trump makes an ass of himself and farts all over those of us intending to vote for him with stupid, stupid comments like he made about the judge in his Trump U. case.
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"It does not help when Trump makes an ass of himself and farts all over those of us intending to vote for him with stupid, stupid comments like he made about the judge in his Trump U. case."
Agreed.
As for the judge, if there is a conflict of interests due his affiliations then let his lawyers bring it up in a way that will not insult Mexicans and is in accordance with the justice system.
OTOH I don't know if there is a tactful legally acceptable way to do that. I suppose if his decisions or actions taken seem to not be impartial or objective to the law then a case can be made?
What say attorney on the board?
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I say Trump should let his lawyer do the talking on this.
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Why couldn't you do this in Mexico?
Why can't you get a legal student visa?
Why am I supposed to conclude good grades makes it all good?:
What is it about 'illegal' you as a valedictorian you cannot understand?
"what about a poor American who gets good grades whose spot you now have?"
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/09/illegal-alien-high-school-valedictorian-texas-blames-u-s-takes-swipe-trump/
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https://www.facebook.com/TheKellyFile/videos/1813461242202066/
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https://www.facebook.com/TheKellyFile/videos/1813461242202066/
Hey, only 10% will wage violent jihad.
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https://www.facebook.com/WesternJournalism/videos/10154442393108984/?pnref=story
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/us/politics/donald-trump-immigration.html?emc=edit_th_20160619&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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@ the expense of Americans. What does she care? It is all about her. No matter what:
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/22/clintonsimmigrationpolicyundermineseconomicnarrative/
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https://www.youtube.com/embed/6PzT8vEvYPg
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Was talking with Cynthia this morning. A member of the government here is actively campaigning, for immigrants in the States, to not support Trump. It's a fact. It's happening. Cynthia had included that fact in a news story that she just wrote and the owner took it out, for a few reasons. One reason is to be respectful of American politics, but the other reason might be to avoid American press from getting their hands on that. They would have a field day with it.
I have mixed feelings about it. I would die for the Mexican flag and people. That cannot be argued. I proven it far too many times. Having said that, I also have no political voice here, nor should I. I should accept Mexico as it is, or I should leave, because the people that were born here have a right to live as they wish excluding outside interference.
It is true that Mexico is attempting to campaign against Trump, which is blatantly hypocritical, because they don't allow it here, and they are involving themselves in foreign politics. The reason I have mixed feelings is because the money that people send back here matters. It matters because the poverty here would be even greater than it is currently, and having come to know Mexicans (not Latinos, but the people here), individually one cannot help but care for them. They have given me so much; love, opportunities that even my own government would not give to me.... the truly are a magnificent people as a whole.
The difficulty lies in the fact that I am a hypocrite, because I truly believe in national sovereignity, as does Mexico, and does the US, and many other individuals, and still, if I had to help someone better their life, maybe bending the rules, even though I myself follow them in the case of Cynthia and I, I would. How can one not help someone that legitimately is attempting to do nothing other than feed themselves? At the same time, how can one help everyone that needs help, without risking that which their own family needs to survive? Additionally, Mexicans have a right to their own land, as do Whites, and while it is obvious that Blacks and Latinos also inhabit the US, racism, "institutional racism" specifically, is always levied at Whites in particular, which is wholly unfair, if not just completely ignorant.
Many of us have grown up together in mixed communities. Texas is a great example of that, where Whites, Latinos, and Blacks have existed together for centuries, and while Latinos and Whites get along for the most part, the stain of slavery remains an excuse to many, as does the vitriol hatred that exists because of it.
Where do we go from here? No one woke up this morning and paid someone else's household bills, there are people of every color that make far more than anyone reading this ever will, and we sit here and fight amongst ourselves... to what end? How do we all fix this? How do any of us cease being a hypocrite, especially when we want to do the humanitarian thing, but also safeguard our own welfare as well? There really isn't very much racism. It's more often than not, people (of all colors) either being greedy, or people of all colors having the need to eat, and wanting to protect the security of their own family and themselves. That's what it is. How do we fix it?
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Enforce the rule of law, which most certainly includes defending our borders and deporting those who are here illegally. With this in place, it will be time to amend the rules. America is an unusually kind, forgiving, and generous country.
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Enforce the rule of law, which most certainly includes defending our borders and deporting those who are here illegally. With this in place, it will be time to amend the rules. America is an unusually kind, forgiving, and generous country.
I agree 100%.
I do think (especially in the age of Facebook), that individuals and that sovereign entities involving themselves in the sovereign politics of another nation, especially when they don't allow it themselves should be addressed though. That's out of bounds.
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out of both sides of her mouth as usual:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/07/11/hillary-were-not-holding-people-accountable-for-hiring-illegal-immigrants-which-creates-unlevel-playing-field/
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:cry: Because they congress won't:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/08/states-cannot-sue-obama-on-immigration-policy-but-guess-who-can
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http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2016/08/12/the-doj-is-funneling-tons-of-money-to-sanctuary-cities-n2203847
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I've been going over the Mexican Constitution for some things concerning myself and my work here (the Mexican Constitution is rather sizeable).
Being that the bulk of illegal aliens in the United States of America are from Mexico, and "gringos" are often referred to as racists for attempting to enforce immigration law, it is pertinent.
Some key points:
Article 2 - specifically recognizes the rights of "indigenous peoples," but given that people with Spanish blood wrote the Constitution, proclaims Mexico as a "multicultural nation" and gives the people with Spanish blood and surnames, dominion in the same land that they took from the indigenous people.
Article 8- "Public functionaries and employees will respect the public exercise to their right to petition, as long as it is formulated in writing, in a peaceful and respectful manner. In political petitioning, only citizens of the republic have this right."
Article 9 - "Only citizens of the Republic may take part in the political affairs of the country."
Article 32 - "Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable."
Article 33 - "The Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action." It also states: "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.
This is the Constitution for non Spanish speakers as translated by the most respected university in Mexico . UNAM
http://www.juridicas.unam.mx/infjur/leg/constmex/pdf/consting.pdf
It brings to light the blatant hypocrisy and effectively shuts off any argument that anyone from Mexico or any other Latin American country might use in order to attempt to justify illegal immigration.
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Nice to have this for future reference. Thank you.
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We already vet. We don't treat them all equally. We discriminate. Why not gear the process to this time of security crisis?
https://gborjas.org/2016/08/16/on-vetting-immigrants/
The 1917 Immigration Act, which listed the many traits that would make potential immigrants inadmissible, including:
All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who practice polygamy or believe in or advocate the practice of polygamy; anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all forms of law, or who disbelieve in or are opposed to organized government, or who advocate the assassination of public officials, or who advocate or teach the unlawful destruction of property; persons who are members of or affiliated with any organization entertaining and teaching disbelief in or opposition to organized government, or who advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers..of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government.
http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/39%20stat%20874.pdf
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Nice find.
"polygamists, or persons who practice polygamy or believe in or advocate the practice of polygamy" , , , hmmm , , , :wink:
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Making a constructive recommendation to Trump on immigration. Maybe the editors finally smell the chemical gas coming from the Democrat trenches seeping in.
Yes, time to put on the gas masks. We are in a fight against the Dems:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439228/donald-trump-immigration-plan-amnesty-option
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1500 undocumented Americans floated into Canada, were discovered and put on buses back their country of origin.
Is there anything we can learn here?
http://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/local/2016/08/22/nearly-1500-float-down-participants-land-canada/89092424/
If only we could slow the flow of Canadian hockey players coming here...
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What about the term "illegal" do you not understand Gary Johnson?
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/08/only-a-statist-like-gary-johnson-would-rage-over-the-term-illegal-immigrant
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/09/droves-african-migrants-mexico-awaiting-u-s-asylum-secret-pact/
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Trump Calls for More High-Skill Immigration
By Michael Barone
September 07, 2016
Would he go hard or go soft? That was the mainstream media template for judging Donald Trump's speech on immigration in Phoenix last Wednesday. The verdict: hard. "How Trump got from Point A to Point A on immigration," was the headline in the Washington Post's recap.
Similarly, the often-insightful Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall characterized Trump's discourse as "hate speech." "Precisely what solution Trump is calling for is almost beside the point."
That's precisely wrong. Marshall found the Phoenix crowd's raucous shouts distasteful, and so did I. But a search through Trump's prepared text and his occasional digressions fails to disclose anything that can be fairly characterized as "hate speech."
Instead it discloses some serious critiques and proposals for recasting our immigration laws, which almost everyone agrees need changing.
Start near the end, with the 10th of Trump's 10 points. He notes that we've admitted 59 million immigrants since the last major revision of immigration law in 1965, and that "many of these arrivals have greatly enriched our country." No asides about criminals or rapists.
Then he proposes a major policy change: "to select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society, and their ability to be financially self-sufficient ... to choose immigrants based on merit, skill and proficiency."
That's not racism or hate speech, and it's not out of line with American tradition.
Emma Lazarus' oft-quoted poem commends America for welcoming "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" and "the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." But during the great wave of immigration from eastern and southern Europe from 1892 to 1914, the Ellis Island inspectors, in line with national policy, excluded those deemed incapable of supporting themselves as well as those with communicable diseases.
And the United States deported immigrants judged to be terrorists. American immigration policy even then wasn't completely open door.
Trump seems to be calling, in non-provocative language, for changing immigration law to give priority to high-skill immigrants, as do the immigration laws of Canada and Australia. That's not racist: Those countries admit plenty of non-whites. But they do require proficiency in English (or French in Canada).
Both have higher foreign-born percentages of population than the United States, and both have students who score higher on PISA international achievement tests than U.S. students do. No wonder a diplomat from one of those countries told me, half in jest, "Please do not adopt our immigration system."
Every serious expert concedes that the 1965 immigration act resulted in an unexpected huge flow of low-skill immigrants, especially but not only from Mexico. Most serious scholars agree that has tended to reduce, at least a little, wages for low-skill Americans. Do we really need another inrush of unskilled workers in the next few decades?
Near the beginning of his speech, Trump said, "The media and my opponent discuss one thing, and only this one thing: the needs of people living here illegally." That's an exaggeration, but not by much: mainstream media judges Trump hard or soft depending on what he says about illegals. "The central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants -- or however many there may be," he went on. "The only one core issue" is "the well-being of the American people."
To some, this sounds like bigotry, prejudice against foreigners, a preference for a mostly (but far from totally) white populace over a vastly larger (and mostly non-white) humanity. They instinctively prefer Hillary Clinton's version of open borders, allowing anyone who gets here and isn't criminally convicted to stay.
Trump's answer came earlier in the day, in Mexico City, as he shook hands and spoke cordially with President Enrique Pena Nieto. I like and admire him, Trump said; he loves his country and I love mine. Nieto's invitation, much criticized in Mexico, was prompted by his need to get along with whoever is elected U.S. president. That need likewise prompted his cautious remarks about Trump in a joint news conference with Barack Obama earlier this summer.
Trump's threats of trade retaliation and suggestion he might not honor NATO obligations provide rationales for voting against him as irresponsibly reckless. His immigration proposals don't.
His proposals for visa tracking and E-Verify validation of job applicants -- similar to Marco Rubio's -- would marginally reduce the illegal population, as would his deportation of some illegals.
More important, though ignored by mainstream media, is that his policies would produce more high-skill immigrants and Hillary Clinton's plan would produce more low-skill immigrants. Which is better for America?
COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
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I do not have a citation, but am I correct that Baraq is looking to bring in over 100,000 "Syrians" in 2017? :-o :x :-o
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I do not have a citation, but am I correct that Baraq is looking to bring in over 100,000 "Syrians" in 2017? :-o :x :-o
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kerry-us-accept-85-000-refugees-2016-100-160512384.html?ref=gs
Got tourniquets?
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U.S. government “mistakenly” granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants, many from countries of concern to national security
September 19, 2016 11:40 am By Robert Spencer Leave a Comment
“Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.”
What could possibly go wrong, you racist, bigoted Islamophobe?
In any case, this shows the quality of the Obama “vetting” process.
“More than 800 immigrants mistakenly granted citizenship,” Associated Press, September 19, 2016:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birthdates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.
DHS said in an emailed statement that an initial review of these cases suggest that some of the individuals may have ultimately qualified for citizenship, and that the lack of digital fingerprint records does not necessarily mean they committed fraud.
The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth’s auditors said they were all from “special interest countries” — those that present a national security concern for the United States — or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries.
DHS said the findings reflect what has long been a problem for immigration officials — old paper-based records containing fingerprint information that can’t be searched electronically. DHS says immigration officials are in the process of uploading these files and that officials will review “every file” identified as a case of possible fraud.
Roth’s report said fingerprints are missing from federal databases for as many as 315,000 immigrants with final deportation orders or who are fugitive criminals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not reviewed about 148,000 of those immigrants’ files to add fingerprints to the digital record.
The gap was created because older, paper records were never added to fingerprint databases created by both the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI in the 1990s. ICE, the DHS agency responsible for finding and deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, didn’t consistently add digital fingerprint records of immigrants whom agents encountered until 2010.
The government has known about the information gap and its impact on naturalization decisions since at least 2008 when a Customs and Border Protection official identified 206 immigrants who used a different name or other biographical information to gain citizenship or other immigration benefits, though few cases have been investigated.
Roth’s report said federal prosecutors have accepted two criminal cases that led to the immigrants being stripped of their citizenship. But prosecutors declined another 26 cases. ICE is investigating 32 other cases after closing 90 investigations.
ICE officials told auditors that the agency hadn’t pursued many of these cases in the past because federal prosecutors “generally did not accept immigration benefits fraud cases.” ICE said the Justice Department has now agreed to focus on cases involving people who have acquired security clearances, jobs of public trust or other security credentials.
Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs….
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Strange, we usually see lots of competence from an agency run by the qualified Jeh Johnson.
U.S. government “mistakenly” granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants, many from countries of concern to national security
September 19, 2016 11:40 am By Robert Spencer Leave a Comment
“Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.”
What could possibly go wrong, you racist, bigoted Islamophobe?
In any case, this shows the quality of the Obama “vetting” process.
“More than 800 immigrants mistakenly granted citizenship,” Associated Press, September 19, 2016:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birthdates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.
DHS said in an emailed statement that an initial review of these cases suggest that some of the individuals may have ultimately qualified for citizenship, and that the lack of digital fingerprint records does not necessarily mean they committed fraud.
The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth’s auditors said they were all from “special interest countries” — those that present a national security concern for the United States — or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries.
DHS said the findings reflect what has long been a problem for immigration officials — old paper-based records containing fingerprint information that can’t be searched electronically. DHS says immigration officials are in the process of uploading these files and that officials will review “every file” identified as a case of possible fraud.
Roth’s report said fingerprints are missing from federal databases for as many as 315,000 immigrants with final deportation orders or who are fugitive criminals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not reviewed about 148,000 of those immigrants’ files to add fingerprints to the digital record.
The gap was created because older, paper records were never added to fingerprint databases created by both the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI in the 1990s. ICE, the DHS agency responsible for finding and deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, didn’t consistently add digital fingerprint records of immigrants whom agents encountered until 2010.
The government has known about the information gap and its impact on naturalization decisions since at least 2008 when a Customs and Border Protection official identified 206 immigrants who used a different name or other biographical information to gain citizenship or other immigration benefits, though few cases have been investigated.
Roth’s report said federal prosecutors have accepted two criminal cases that led to the immigrants being stripped of their citizenship. But prosecutors declined another 26 cases. ICE is investigating 32 other cases after closing 90 investigations.
ICE officials told auditors that the agency hadn’t pursued many of these cases in the past because federal prosecutors “generally did not accept immigration benefits fraud cases.” ICE said the Justice Department has now agreed to focus on cases involving people who have acquired security clearances, jobs of public trust or other security credentials.
Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs….
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-investing-500-million-in-migrants-1474344001
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This will just promote more migration which is what he wants.
Why not invest to make people do better just where they are.
He is a one world nation guy. He knows what is best for the rest of us.
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This will just promote more migration which is what he wants.
Why not invest to make people do better just where they are.
He is a one world nation guy. He knows what is best for the rest of us.
Excellent point. It isn't "Soros" either. It's Soros and whoever is the owner of the 7th heart he's had transplanted. To think, he would have been gone long ago.
Edit: My mistake. That was David Rockefeller.
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Fast-Tracking Immigrants for Votes
In light of the recent revelation that at least 858 individuals and maybe twice that many who had been slated for deportation were accidentally granted citizenship, one would expect that the Department of Homeland Security would be working overtime to shore up its vetting process and do its due diligence to reassure Americans that it will work carefully to prevent such a blunder from happening again. The DHS is indeed working overtime — not to get all its paper finger print records digitalized, but to processes as many immigrant citizenship applications as possible before the election.
An email from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office chief stated, "The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of the N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016." The email continued by "encouraging" employees to take advantage of overtime opportunities in order to meet the processing goal. The level of disconnect is simply stunning. In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) stated, "Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications."
The real problem is a mindset. Last week, one of Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers sent around a tweet quoting Donald Trump: "No one has the right to immigrate to this country." The staffer responded by writing, "We disagree," and said that Trump would have kicked his family out for immigrating from Libya. Whether this ends up being Clinton's official policy is almost irrelevant. This staffer revealed an attitude espoused by many on the Left: The U.S. has no right to reject or limit people from immigrating to America, whereas immigrants have an unfettered right to come here. This globalist, open-borders mindset is the main reason it has been so difficult to get Democrats on board with stopping illegal immigration. This fact is made even more obvious by their refusal to refer to illegal immigrants as "illegal," preferring the moniker "undocumented" immigrant. The truth is, Trump is exactly right that any sovereign nation is obligated to its citizens to regulate immigration, whether this be through limits or prevention. No non-citizen has the right to demand the privilege of citizenship, and to claim that such rights exist is to do violence to the rights of actual citizens.
Comment | Share
Texas Puts Refugee Program on Notice
The Obama administration plans to resettle 110,000 refugees into the U.S. over the coming year, but Texas is having none of it. The Lone Star State, which saw an influx of some 7,000 refugees over the last 12 months, has announced plans to sever its participation in the Obama administration's refugee program.
The Washington Free Beacon explains that the reason has to do with a lack of safeguards: "Texas officials drafted a plan that would require federal national security officials to provide assurances that none of the individuals being resettled pose a terror threat. The administration has declined to approve this plan."
Gov. Greg Abbott says, "Despite multiple requests by the state of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people. Therefore, Texas will withdraw from the refugee resettlement program. I strongly urge the federal government to completely overhaul a broken and flawed refugee program that increasingly risks American lives."
Abbott is right to be concerned. Around 30,000 migrants from terror hot spots managed to infiltrate the southern border last year. Barack Obama can insist, as he did this week, that "refugees are subject to more vigorous screening than the average tourist." But why should we believe anything he says? Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton asserted, "I think we've done a really good job securing the border."
How good? Well, a newly uncovered DHS memo says, "Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate." In fact, "bad actors ... have exploited this program." You don't say. Remember that next time Democrats say we have nothing to worry about.
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Hey, bigdog declared Jeh Johnson qualified for this position.
Fast-Tracking Immigrants for Votes
In light of the recent revelation that at least 858 individuals and maybe twice that many who had been slated for deportation were accidentally granted citizenship, one would expect that the Department of Homeland Security would be working overtime to shore up its vetting process and do its due diligence to reassure Americans that it will work carefully to prevent such a blunder from happening again. The DHS is indeed working overtime — not to get all its paper finger print records digitalized, but to processes as many immigrant citizenship applications as possible before the election.
An email from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office chief stated, "The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of the N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016." The email continued by "encouraging" employees to take advantage of overtime opportunities in order to meet the processing goal. The level of disconnect is simply stunning. In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) stated, "Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications."
The real problem is a mindset. Last week, one of Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers sent around a tweet quoting Donald Trump: "No one has the right to immigrate to this country." The staffer responded by writing, "We disagree," and said that Trump would have kicked his family out for immigrating from Libya. Whether this ends up being Clinton's official policy is almost irrelevant. This staffer revealed an attitude espoused by many on the Left: The U.S. has no right to reject or limit people from immigrating to America, whereas immigrants have an unfettered right to come here. This globalist, open-borders mindset is the main reason it has been so difficult to get Democrats on board with stopping illegal immigration. This fact is made even more obvious by their refusal to refer to illegal immigrants as "illegal," preferring the moniker "undocumented" immigrant. The truth is, Trump is exactly right that any sovereign nation is obligated to its citizens to regulate immigration, whether this be through limits or prevention. No non-citizen has the right to demand the privilege of citizenship, and to claim that such rights exist is to do violence to the rights of actual citizens.
Comment | Share
Texas Puts Refugee Program on Notice
The Obama administration plans to resettle 110,000 refugees into the U.S. over the coming year, but Texas is having none of it. The Lone Star State, which saw an influx of some 7,000 refugees over the last 12 months, has announced plans to sever its participation in the Obama administration's refugee program.
The Washington Free Beacon explains that the reason has to do with a lack of safeguards: "Texas officials drafted a plan that would require federal national security officials to provide assurances that none of the individuals being resettled pose a terror threat. The administration has declined to approve this plan."
Gov. Greg Abbott says, "Despite multiple requests by the state of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people. Therefore, Texas will withdraw from the refugee resettlement program. I strongly urge the federal government to completely overhaul a broken and flawed refugee program that increasingly risks American lives."
Abbott is right to be concerned. Around 30,000 migrants from terror hot spots managed to infiltrate the southern border last year. Barack Obama can insist, as he did this week, that "refugees are subject to more vigorous screening than the average tourist." But why should we believe anything he says? Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton asserted, "I think we've done a really good job securing the border."
How good? Well, a newly uncovered DHS memo says, "Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate." In fact, "bad actors ... have exploited this program." You don't say. Remember that next time Democrats say we have nothing to worry about.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtIi8QR5Mzs
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Breitbart: Hillary up by 6 in NJ . No surprise. Between the major power of the unions and mostly government unions this is reason Dems love open borders:
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/02/08/the-list-what-makes-new-jersey-a-state-of-many-nations/
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http://www.fairus.org/DocServer/ObamaTimeline_2016.pdf
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Screws us over:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/10/immigration-insanity-this-federal-judge-just-turned-six-states-into-sanctuary-cities
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Soros influencing Clinton:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/20/hillary-clinton-embraces-george-soros-radical-visi/
Of course it is all about increasing the Democrat voter rolls.
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http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/germany-offers-to-pay-countries-to-take-back-migrants/#WK7id5Feq7rYKyqQ.99
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqyeb-5ZfEc
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http://www.mrctv.org/blog/23-aliens-admitted-under-obamas-minor-program-are-adults
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/2/feds-halt-new-citizenship-approvals/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RZNU9XVXlNelU1TUdVMSIsInQiOiJVMEpzQ1MwM0QyM0syTW5YQlRONVJKaGU1d2dQT3JicHpUMGhRSmtvdVVYNG1VMXdLb3pIWGVSeU1hd2VsMXF1cUJxUFJvbDhEQVlDbGhnZXZ3aTArM3hhMzRLOGYzamNJOFdXZjlic0RXUT0ifQ%3D%3D
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/immigration-dreamers-trump.html?_r=0
Fine , but just don't expect they are going to vote for your party because you are being nice.
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I can't say I disagree with Trump here. Do we really want to fight this fight? Do we really want to take deport some teenager whose first language is English and all his schooling are American? Plenty of the Dreamer cases are quite appealing. Do we really want this fight?
Furthermore IMHO a good case can be made that this move will dramatically affect the tone of the conversation in our country from here forward. A lot of the emotion for sanctuary cities is based upon not wanting Dreamers to be deported. Of course the professional left will not change, but the American people will observe and take note.
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Trump’s Dreamer Opportunity
How to build goodwill as he looks to restrict illegal immigration.
Updated Dec. 14, 2016 7:50 p.m. ET
Donald Trump ran on reducing illegal immigration, and no doubt he plans to follow through on border security. But if he’s looking to build some political goodwill and consensus as he does, the President-elect could consider a deal with Congress that protects so-called dreamers.
Last week Senators Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake introduced bills that would shield from deportation some 800,000 millennials— “dreamers”—who were brought into the country illegally as kids. The bills offer Mr. Trump an opportunity to demonstrate magnanimity and maybe earn some political capital for the rest of his agenda.
In 2012 President Obama issued an executive order providing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The order granted a temporary safe harbor to young illegal immigrants who are attending school or have graduated. Veterans are eligible as well. Dreamers are also allowed to apply for a two-year work permit, which could be renewed.
We’ve supported legalization for the dreamers even as we criticized the flimsy legal basis for Mr. Obama’s exercise of executive power. Mr. Trump could rescind the 2012 executive order, as some on the left are warning. In the heat of the primary campaign, he promised to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants. But he later narrowed that to criminal aliens and has recently softened his tone again.
In an interview with Time magazine this month, Mr. Trump suggested he was open to negotiating a deal for dreamers. “They got brought here at a very young age. They’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs,” he said. “And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.” The President-elect added “on a humanitarian basis, it’s a very tough situation,” and he’s right.
About 741,000 immigrants have applied for relief under DACA. Most would feel like strangers in a strange land if they were transplanted to, say, Guadalajara after being raised and educated in the U.S. And since they were brought here by their parents as young children, they lack mens rea—a guilty mind—that is the standard for proving criminality. Deporting the dreamers could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, while denying legal status could prevent them from getting jobs or matriculating in some American colleges.
Mr. Trump could provide dreamers an escape from never-never land by signing legislation that provides a constitutional underpinning for DACA while Congress negotiates a broader immigration reform. Messrs. Durbin and Graham last week proposed a bill to extend DACA for three years. A similar bill introduced by Mr. Flake would also expedite deportation of immigrants with criminal convictions.
Some Republicans may need an extra spoonful of law enforcement to make the legislation go down, but that should be negotiable. By distinguishing between immigrants who knowingly break the law and those who are unwitting accessories, Mr. Trump would demonstrate that he’s merely trying to enforce immigration law, not target Latinos.
Democrats would show themselves to be acting in bad faith if they reject this olive branch merely because they want to wield immigration as a partisan weapon. This could be a major victory for both Mr. Trump and Congress.
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"But if he’s looking to build some political goodwill and consensus as he does, the President-elect could consider a deal with Congress that protects so-called dreamers."
No surprise this coming from WSJ which looks out for Wall Street.
Yes forcing the illegals who were brought or sent here as children to leave would be hard and a PR disaster. But anyone who thinks Trump would garner "good will" from the LEFT that will be ready to impeach him in two seconds every chance they get is not naive, but is an idiot.
The WSJ staff are not idiots. They are trying to fool us.
:-(
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The Left would seek to take credit perhaps, but if we deport these people/children it will be political suicide. Much of the sanctimoniousness of the sanctuary city folks comes from visions of these children being deported, families broken up etc.
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I agree. It is a no win for Republicans.
The left wins either way.
Just don't ever expect any thanks from them ...........
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/15/illegal-migration-hits-new-high-november-families-/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVRGaFlXTm1OemcxWW1FeCIsInQiOiJoVUV2bXVXSzhtRVVXTWRRNEtqdmk3d3dIUDI3aXVkZE1LWCtub293WG5hYUpMREF5RVl2QzVsZCtFVTBlbG9tN0dLZjcwcDh6ZnpIQkoydVlSa0U2Z0RqUk04aElPTXFIMlJ1VkVTWExDSisyVTBNUEJqYkY2bXVEV3hWZ25zayJ9
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The Left would seek to take credit perhaps, but if we deport these people/children it will be political suicide. Much of the sanctimoniousness of the sanctuary city folks comes from visions of these children being deported, families broken up etc.
Gosh, you mean the dems won't vote for us? Howabout we go back to the rule of law? The Mexicans that got the free food, housing and education on our dime can go back to their beloved Mexico and make it great again not quite such a corrupt sh*t hole. Evey family where someone commits a crime can be broken up, or should we stop sending people to prison?
(https://lawofmarkets.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/make-america-mexico-again.jpg)
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Hypothetical #1:
Kid brought illegally to America when he is two. His first language (as in "the one he speaks best") is English and his Spanish consists of being able to understand his parents without really speaking Spanish. His schooling is American. His culture is American. His friends are American. He is now twelve years old.
How do you think the politics of deporting him are going to go?
#2: Same facts except he is now in his mid-twenties, working, paying of his college loans, married with a pregnant American wife.
How do you think the politics of deporting him are going to go?
Note: Quibbling with over how typical this fact pattern is will not change how it will get played.
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Hypothetical #1:
Kid brought illegally to America when he is two. His first language (as in "the one he speaks best") is English and his Spanish consists of being able to understand his parents without really speaking Spanish. His schooling is American. His culture is American. His friends are American. He is now twelve years old.
How do you think the politics of deporting him are going to go?
**Want to see sad? Watch a toddler getting pat searched to go visit dad in prison. Should we abandon the rule of law for Feeeelz?
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article19180179.html
#2: Same facts except he is now in his mid-twenties, working, paying of his college loans, married with a pregnant American wife.
How do you think the politics of deporting him are going to go?
Note: Quibbling with over how typical this fact pattern is will not change how it will get played.
**Well, we could fight back instead of endlessly rolling over. We could preserve what's left of the rule of law and this country. How many more waves of illegal aliens should we take in as well? How much more money to you want taken from your family to support them? Ask a LEGAL immigrant, like my wife how they feel about the endless catering to illegal aliens while LEGAL immigrants deal with a very costly and difficult process to live in the US in compliance with it's laws.
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-222RB6sE26E/Tzw3FOEGZlI/AAAAAAAAA3g/mdlpzFhTWmU/s1600/18th+street+gang+honduras)
"Kid brought illegally to America when he is two. His first language (as in "the one he speaks best") is English and his Spanish consists of being able to understand his parents without really speaking Spanish. His schooling is American. His culture is American. His friends are American."
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I suspect the Left would choose somewhat more angelic looking examples for their propaganda, , , :lol:
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Worth the read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/world/americas/syrian-refugees-canada.html?emc=edit_ta_20161217&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
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I suspect the Left would choose somewhat more angelic looking examples for their propaganda, , , :lol:
They always do, this is how you reply.
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I suspect the Left would choose somewhat more angelic looking examples for their propaganda, ,
According to the LEFT dreamers include the highest percentage of aspiring astrophysicists of any group in the world.
The Crats are endlessly report how Trump lost big (the latest I looked it is up to 3 million now - 4 million by next month as they continue to "look" for all the votes).
If it wasn't for people who came here illegally and their children born here or not this would never have happened.
The born here you are automatically a citizen has got to go. It was not intended for people who come here illegally and have kids on our dime and then set up shop with them and then express outrage and cry racism when they are called on it.
That said I am now the dreamer if I think anything will ever get done with that.
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The true loss for this country is the law abiding we sent away. For example, my wife knew two Chinese STEM PhDs who upon completing their education, wanted to stay here. Of course not. USCIS would not allow them to stay once their education was completed. Meanwhile, we have Mexican sex offenders who can't even fill out sex offender paperwork in Spanish because they can't read/write in any language. I have seen this firsthand.
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Worth the read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/world/americas/syrian-refugees-canada.html?emc=edit_ta_20161217&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
(http://ace.mu.nu/archives/Islamophobia.jpg)
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/Islamophobia.jpg
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http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Study-Trump-Immigration-Policies/2016/12/20/id/764879/
I say good . So what. Fire them!
What am I supposed to be upset about supposed lost tax revenues and businesses that don't benefit me may have to hire Americans?
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http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=9215
Immigration
Posted on December 21, 2016
If you had asked me about immigration 30 years ago, I would have shrugged and said it was a good thing for the country. My family, like most everyone I knew, came over from the old country. It was not until I reached adulthood, living in New England, that I became aware of people who traced their roots to the colonial times. Even so, I was trained in the American mythology about a nation of immigrants, so I just assumed immigration was mostly a good thing, when I bothered to think about it, which was not often.
It was only after I came to know recent migrants that I started changing my mind about the topic. The people, who had recently gone through the system, had very different ideas about it than Americans born here. More important, they had no illusions about the state of the population in the old country. Talk to recent migrants and they will be happy to tell you that most of the people they left behind should stay over there. The recent migrants left the old country for a reason.
This came to mind the other day when I sat listening to a Turk and an Indian discuss immigration. Both were Trump people exclusively on the immigration issue. Both had come to America the old fashioned way – legally. The Turk was a Coptic Christian. He left for America thirty years ago as a young man, figuring there was no future for Christians in Turkey. The Indian had come here on a student visa, got a job, fell in love with America and decided to stay. In both cases, it took ten years to gain citizenship.
One of the things you learn from immigrants, when it comes to the immigration issue, is they place a high value on citizenship. That’s because they spent a lot to get it. Acquiring citizenship was a transaction for them, not an accident of birth. The Turk in this story left his home, and all that he knew, because he correctly saw where things were heading in Turkey. He was a guy that sold all his stuff, bought as many black chips as he could afford, and pushed them into the middle of the table.
The other thing immigrants know is that America is a lonely place. Europe, for example, is full of old cities and villages where people grow up in the shadow of ancestors. There’s no fresh start in a place like that. Every man is just a dot on the timeline started by people long ago. In other parts of the world, there’s the shadow of history and the entanglements of tribe and clan. In a place like India, the obligations to family and custom are more limiting than anything government can conjure.
In America, immigrants are free to start their own timeline. The past is no longer a set of boundaries on them. Just as important, they are free of the family and tribal restrictions. The Turk in this story married a Greek woman, who was also an immigrant. The Indian went into a career that does not exist in India and even if it did, his family would not have approved. You can do those things where it is just you, striking out on your own. That’s the attraction of America. It’s a blank canvass for immigrants.
None of this means we should fling open our borders and let the world move to America. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Borders and barriers are a filtering mechanism that helps tamp down the number of bad migrants a country gets. If the Germans had been more scrupulous, for example, they would not have murderous Muslims rampaging through their streets right now. Europe is headed for a very dark time solely due to their rulers forgot that good borders make for good citizens.
America should be learning from this. We have no shortage of workers and we no longer have vast tracks of unexploited land. We could have zero immigration and no jobs would go unfilled. There’s also the cultural aspect. We have had high levels of immigration for half a century, but low levels of assimilation. Even if there is an economic argument for more migrants, and there isn’t, it is far outweighed by the cultural arguments. It will take many generations to absorb the current migrants.
Even so, low levels of legal immigration are probably a good thing. The people willing to go through all the steps it takes to migrate legally are going to be people who scrupulously observe the law. They are not coming here just to screw it all up for everyone including themselves. Recent legal immigrants tend to be hyper-patriotic for that reason. They take nothing for granted because they had to earn their citizenship. Their presence is a healthy reminder that citizenship has value.
That’s ultimately the truth about the open borders crowd. They place no value on citizenship. That’s because they put no value on people. To the open borders enthusiasts, humans are just undifferentiated raw material, inputs they can manipulate. Whether the material comes from home or abroad is irrelevant because everything normal people associate with being human is of no concern to the managerial types. They see people the way normal people look at furniture.
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http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fg-immigration-trek-america-bangladesh/
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http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fg-immigration-trek-america-bangladesh/
Not our job to take in global poverty. Fix your own damn countries.
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From a "Republicans are nazis" Jewish liberal from the Jeff Bezos's Washington Post.
I don't why he is such a crazy leftist except it must be to help his global business brand. But he is another George Soros. Did anyone see the scowl expression on his face when he was sitting next to Trump at the Silicon Valley Trump tower mtg?:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/12/27/the-numbers-dont-lie-but-anti-immigration-radicals-do/?utm_term=.27ee0cb1e8a9&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
I suppse she thinks Obama is a friend of Israel.
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She is supposed to be the Wash Post's conservative writer!
"more people are leaving the United States to cross the border to Mexico than are coming the other way"
Because of bad job opportunities here. That is still sign of a revolving door, an unsecured border with weapons, drugs and terrorists crossing it.
Pew Research" blah blah. Didn't the polling companies just get everything wrong.
Speaking of that... Poll: 13% of illegals admit they vote
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/poll-13-of-illegal-aliens-admit-they-vote/
28% of Hispanics in America are illegal. 17% of the US population is Hispanic.
No one said illegals are all rapists. No one said they all vote. What was said is that WE get to decide who comes in. The extreme position in the debate was taken by Hillary who made no claim she would disallow anyone.
Even if we need more immigrants, who gets to choose whom we take in? Why don't we take in the best and the brightest, the most ambitious. Even for the lowest skill, lowest wage jobs, why don't we take in the ones with the best character and work ethic, clean background. Maybe we already do. No one knows with a wide open border.
If they all come from one or two places, live in enclaves and keep intact their culture and language of origin, and we chase them politically as separate groups, do we still have e pluribus unum, out of many, one?
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"She is supposed to be the Wash Post's conservative writer!"
Well if so she spends no time wasting bashing the President elect:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/?utm_term=.32341b78542e
BEZOS , the new SOROS ?, may well have her on board for this reason. Having her as the token "from the right" who is happy to bash Trump even before he gets out of the gate would be the compost's cynical gamesmenship.
She is NO republican that is for sure.
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Do we have a revolving door, or what?
What sayeth wash Post's Jen Rubin, how many of these types coming here is too many, one?
http://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/article123768739.html
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U.S. officials are grappling with a 15 percent surge in illegal immigration, reflecting continued failures by the Obama administration to deter illegal immigration along the country’s southwestern border.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/central-americans-continue-to-surge-across-us-border-new-dhs-figures-show/2016/12/30/ed28c0aa-cec7-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.c3a6f0fe9c25
Same newspaper as Jen Rubin. Illegals come and go as they choose - up until January 20th
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"Same newspaper as Jen Rubin."
Well it is possible she saw this in her own newspaper and did not believe ti. They are a fake news rag. :wink:
illegals by the millions are good for all of us. Especially us hard working tax payers. :wink:
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http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/12/30/bloomberg-gop-pushback-trumps-border-wall-immigration-enforcement-plans/ :x
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http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/12/30/bloomberg-gop-pushback-trumps-border-wall-immigration-enforcement-plans/ :x
The stupid party never misses a chance to fcuk things up!
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/46785
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Here
we go.
This is where the money is. Be sure to read the end of the article :
https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/el-chapos-york-jail-sounds-181525768.html :-)
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"The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people." —George Washington (1794)
Here Comes Trump's Great Wall
"After years of neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our borders." So said Bill Clinton in his 1995 State of the Union Address. Now, after a 22-year wait, Donald Trump will see that plan through. Trump tweeted Tuesday, "Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!" And so begins Trump's great wall project, which was mocked and derided by so many both in the mainstream media and the Washington establishment as merely a campaign slogan that would never actually see the light of day.
Honestly, one can hardly fault people for holding this pessimistic view, as history shows that politicians talk a good game but rarely act on their words — as typified by Clinton's SOTU speech. As Rush Limbaugh so often quipped, "symbolism over substance" is largely Washington's modus operandi. Thus far, Trump is deviating from that script.
We cautioned yesterday to give Trump time on immigration. Less than 24 hours later, we were proved right.
An interesting side note: While Trump is signing this latest executive order today, Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray will be arriving in Washington to prepare for the visit of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Much of the visit will focus on trade issues, but it would be naïve to think that Trump's statements regarding Mexico paying for the wall don't factor into the conversation. One thing's for sure, Trump is proving that there is indeed a new sheriff in town.
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https://patriotpost.us/posts/47111
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This never Trumper is explaining that Trump's executive order is actually watered down and not as expansive as proposed:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444370/donald-trump-refugee-executive-order-no-muslim-ban-separating-fact-hysteria
Like the old saying let a problem (wound ) fester and it will be far harder to treat later on.
We should have been taking care of the problem of illegals taking advantage of us a long time ago.
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Of course Judge blocks deportation in New York.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-refugees-lawsuit-iraq-visas-234305
So witch President appointed this judge:
1) President Bill Clinton
2) President George W Bush
3) President Bashar al-Assad
4) President Barack Obama
4) President Richard Nixon
If you did not pick the obvious answer you need to be held back a grade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Donnelly
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http://ijr.com/2017/01/788704-chris-kyles-iraqi-interpreter-has-blistering-message-for-all-the-protesters-over-trumps-muslim-ban/
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http://ijr.com/2017/01/788704-chris-kyles-iraqi-interpreter-has-blistering-message-for-all-the-protesters-over-trumps-muslim-ban/
I agree with his opinion.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxMTh_UzHM
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxMTh_UzHM)
Different, because?
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261062/carter-banned-iranians-coming-us-during-hostage-daniel-greenfield
Carter Banned Iranians from Coming to US During Hostage Crisis
Trump is just like Hitler. Or Jimmy Carter.
December 8, 2015
Daniel Greenfield
Trump is a monster, a madman and a vile racist. He's just like Hitler. Or Jimmy Carter.
During the Islamic Revolution's Iranian hostage crisis in which Islamists took over the country, Carter issued a number of orders to put pressure on Iran. Among these, Iranians were banned from entering the United States unless they oppose the Shiite Islamist regime or had a medical emergency.
Here's Jimmy "Hitler" Carter saying it back in 1980.
Fourth, the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.
Apparently barring people from a terrorist country is not against "our values" after all. It may even be "who we are". Either that or Carter was a racist monster just like Trump.
While Iran was a nation, it was targeted because it was overrun by Shiite Islamists who were engaging in terrorism against America. Sunni Islamists like ISIS have a big footprint in far more countries than Iran did so a visa ban targeting them needs to be much broader in scope than going after one country.
Meanwhile here's how the Iranian students who had become notorious for Anti-American protests in the US were treated.
Carter orders 50,000 Iranian students in US to report to immigration office with view to deporting those in violation of their visas. On 27 December 1979, US appeals court allows deportation of Iranian students found in violation.
In November 1979, the Attorney General had given all Iranian students one month to report to the local immigration office. Around 7,000 were found in violation of their visas. Around 15,000 Iranians were forced to leave the US. The ACLU protested, lawyers sued over the deportations and lost. First Amendment objections were set aside by a Federal Appeals court.
Meanwhile any Iranians entering the US were forced to undergo secondary screening.
Interestingly enough, Carter did this by invoking the Nationality Act of 1952. A law originally opposed by Democrats for its attempt to restrict Communist immigration to the United States.
“If this oasis of the world should be overrun, perverted, contaminated, or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished,” Senator McCarran said of the law. He was a Democrat.
Now unlike Muslims, Iranians were not necessarily supportive of Islamic terrorism. Many were and are opponents of it. Khomeini didn't represent Iran as a country, but his Islamist allies. So Trump's proposal is far more legitimate than Carter's action. Carter targeted people by nationality. Trump's proposal does so by ideology.
Classifying Iranians as a group is closer to racism than classifying people by a racist supremacist ideology that calls for the mass murder and enslavement of non-Muslims, as ISIS is doing today.
One of the neater subsets of the 1952 Act barred the entry of, "(11) Aliens who are polygamists or who practice polygamy or advocate the practice of polygamy."
I wonder which creed this might apply to.
Maybe we can all calm down now long enough to have a rational conversation on the subject.
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When I lived in DC area in late 70's there were thousands of Iranians demonstrating in the DC streets yelling "down with America".
Can you imagine Americans doing that in Tehran?
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http://silenceisconsent.net/hypocrisy-much-obama-halted-refugees-for-6-months-in-2011-liberals-were-silent/
contrast this:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/30/sorry-mr-president-the-obama-administration-did-nothing-similar-to-your-immigration-ban/
This seems more measured:
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-order-muslims/514844/
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http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-lessons-of-Roosevelts-failures-480065
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http://www.worldtribune.com/flashback-jerry-brown-biden-and-other-dems-refused-to-accept-vietnamese-refugees/
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http://ijr.com/2017/01/790148-muslim-americans-fire-back-at-anti-trump-protesters-with-a-list-of-things-they-should-be-doing/
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http://www.worldtribune.com/flashback-jerry-brown-biden-and-other-dems-refused-to-accept-vietnamese-refugees/
The left is always ready to leave our allies to the re-education camps and mass graves of socialism.
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https://strategypage.com/qnd/mexico/articles/20170131.aspx#foo
Mexico: Blame Canada
January 31, 2017: The government announced it would spend $50 million to hire lawyers in the United States to defend Mexican citizens there illegally and faced with deportation. This is all about money and a lot more than $50 million. The Mexican central bank tracks how much money Mexicans abroad send home and in 2016 it was $25 billion, almost all of it from Mexicans in the United States and much of it from Mexicans in the United States illegally. That remittance cash accounts for more foreign exchange than Mexican oil exports. The remittance income is rising. It was nearly $22 billion in 2013 and is expected to rise to $28 billion in 2017, unless the United States enforces its immigration laws like Mexico does. Mexico has for decades tolerated illegal migration to the United States because the corruption and bad government in Mexico did little to provide jobs for the growing number of unemployed Mexicans and created a lot of potentially troublesome young men and women. Tolerating and, for many Mexican politicians, openly supporting the illegal migrants, was a popular policy and the government came to regard it as a right. But it was also about money and the remittances created a huge source of foreign currency flowing back to Mexico.
There’s more to it than money. After years of being accused of permitting the abuse of Central American migrants who enter Mexico the government agreed pay more attention to border security on its own southern border. Many of the illegal migrants from Central American are heading for the United States and that was not seen as a Mexican problem. But criminal gangs increasingly robbed and kidnapped the migrants and the government did very little to stop that. The gangsters often attacked Mexican citizens as well. Mexico has more severe laws against illegal immigration and illegal migrants than the U.S. It also enforces them more vigorously than does the U. S. By mid-2014 Mexico agreed to undertake Operation Sur which was supposed to curb illegal Central American migrants from entering Mexico. Operation Sur increased surveillance operations along Mexico’s southern border and improved border inspections. The government also tried to improve registration of legal migrants. In addition to the criminals, local police forces in southern Mexico have been accused of extorting money from illegal migrants and police corruption has long been a major problem. Despite Operation Sur, Mexico did little halt illegal migration across its northern border.
All this was noticed in the U.S. and politicians there found themselves under increasing pressure to enforce American migration laws as vigorously as Mexico (and Canada) did. By 2016 that brought to power an American government that seemed serious about applying Mexican practices to illegal migrants and actually did so. That was unpopular in Mexico and will probably lead to unexpected changes inside Mexico. But the practice of blaming your northern neighbor for your problems is losing its punch even in Mexico.
January 28, 2017: Police discovered the decapitated corpses of three policemen from the town of Huimanguillo (Tabasco state). The victims were slain near the border with Veracruz state.
January 27, 2017: In the south (Yucatan state) the government announced the arrest of three men suspected of smuggling drugs for the Sinaloa cartel. One of these, Roberto Najera Gutierrez, was described as a senior cartel leader and one of cartel boss Joaquin Guzman’s top lieutenants. The other two individuals are also Sinaloa cartel operatives. Gutierrez has directed drug trafficking operations from Central American countries and he has been especially active in Chiapas and Yucatan states.
January 24, 2017: The government confirmed the January 19 arrest (in Sinaloa state) of Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon, the son of a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel. Monzon is suspected of investing cartel funds in real estate in Mexico as well as being involved in violent crimes in Baja California state.
January 23, 2017: Colima state had 607 murders in 2016 versus 189 in 2015. That is a 220 percent increase. A turf war between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels is engulfing the state, with the seaport of Manzanillo the prize. Around 700,000 people live in Colima. The 2016 summary was announced just before state security officials said it believed that that Jalisco New Generation cartel gunmen were responsible for the murders of a dozen people in the state between January 19 and 23. Seven headless corpses were found near Manzanillo on January 21.
January 19, 2017: The government announced that Sinaloa cartel commander Joaquin Guzman had been extradited to the U.S. Media called the unexpectedly rapid extradition a “surprise.” In U.S. federal court in New York Guzman pled not guilty to a 17-count indictment. He faces narcotics trafficking and money laundering charges. He is also accused of ordering murders and kidnappings in the U.S.
January 17, 2017: Oil theft continues to plague the national oil company, Pemex. Attempts to sue U.S. oil companies that sold stolen petroleum products have not been successful. Pemex lost a lawsuit in December 2016 that ultimately involved 23 U.S. companies and several individuals. It was trying to recover money from the sale of stolen products. Cartels sell the stolen oil and (in some cases) refined products to all buyers, including buyers in the U.S. Pemex’s suit failed because the defendants successfully argued they did not know the oil was stolen.
January 16, 2017: Government once again said that foreign companies should not fear investing in Mexico due to fear of violence.
January 14, 2017: A Mexican federal court ordered a drug lord to pay around $1 million in indemnities for the 1985 murders of a Mexican pilot and a U.S. DEA agent. The criminal ordered to pay was identified as Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, a co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel. The murdered DEA agent was Enrique Camarena and his family will receive around $465,000.
January 11, 2017: The price of tortillas is once again increasing. They have gone up almost 20 percent in the last six months. When the price of corn and other staple goods increase, the government faces instant criticism. For the record, the price of eggs and milk has also spiked. President Enrique Pena’s poll ratings are already miserable. The majority of Mexican citizens believes his government is corrupt. Pena is trying to blame macro-economic and a new administration in the U.S. Fuel prices have increased and the peso has slipped against the dollar.
January 10, 2017: Security official said that police used surveillance photos from a parking lot to identify and then arrest Zia Zafar. Is accused of shooting and wounding U.S. consular official in Guadalajara on January 6. Zafar is a U.S. citizen from California and was extradited to the U.S. on January 9.
January 8, 2016: Protests continue over the rise in gas and diesel prices. Prices have increased 20 percent since January 1 when the government began reducing fuel subsidies. Authorities now estimate 1,500 people have been arrested for looting businesses and attacking gas stations.
January 6, 2017: Police in Ciudad Juarez broke up a gas price increase protest demonstration that tried to block the international bridge to El Paso, Texas. On the evening of January 5 demonstrators occupied customs offices on the international bridge. A government spokesman in Mexico City said that at least four people have died in violence related to gasoline price increase protests.
Los Zetas cartel gunmen ambushed a senior state prosecutor and three police officers in Tamaulipas state. Ricardo Martinez Chavez was the regional director of the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office. The attack occurred near the town of Nuevo Laredo.
January 2, 2016: Protests against the increase in fuels prices are spreading throughout the country. The fuel price increase kicked in on January 1 and the violence began on January 2nd. The government is trying to create a competitive energy market. Protestors are using the term “gasolinazo” to describe their gripe. The term translates as “gasoline-punch.” A group of protestors in Mexico City noted that President Enrique Pena promised that prices would drop after competition was introduced. However, in the initial phases of the program, prices are increasing.
December 31, 2016: The government is saying that reports are false that gunmen in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel threatened to burn down gas stations to protest impending price increases. However, for some 24 hours the claim raced around the internet and the Jalisco Attorney Generals Office began an investigation of the allegation.
December 30, 2016: Los Zetas cartel gunmen in Nuevo Laredo kidnapped four Mexican citizens who had just been deported from the U.S. The four men were rescued by Mexican Army soldiers who stormed the house where the victims were being held for ransom.
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https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/these-73-sitting-democrats-voted-to-ban-visas-from-some-muslim-countries-that-law-still-exists?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=013017SeventyThreeDems&utm_campaign=crfb
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http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/nine-questions-protesting-donald-trumps-immigration-ban-must-answer/
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Third post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uXJ1mgkyF0
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4th post
H-1B Visas: How Donald Trump Could Change America’s Skilled Worker Visa Rules
Indian outsourcing firms are watching closely to see what moves Mr. Trump makes on immigration
President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, January 23, 2017. ENLARGE
President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, January 23, 2017. Photo: Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By Newley Purnell
Jan 24, 2017 4:27 pm IST
20 COMMENTS
During his campaign, President Donald Trump assailed a skilled-worker visa program used to send foreigners to the U.S., and in his inaugural speech Friday he said the country would “follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.”
Indian outsourcing firms are already preparing for potential changes to visa rules, which could present a challenge because they send thousands of workers to the U.S. every year via the H-1B program.
More In H1-B Visa
What President-Elect Donald Trump Said About Working Visas to the U.S.
Study: U.S. Must Open to Tech Talent as Immigrants Founded Most of the Biggest Startups
Donald Trump Says He’s Changing on H-1B Visas
Is the U.S. Going to Slash the Number of H-1B Visas It Issues?
U.S. Court Refuses to Order Reversal of Controversial Green Card Flip Flop
India’s Hard-Working Expat Army - The Numbers
So how much, and how quickly, could Mr. Trump change the regulations?
A significant shakeup would likely need to be approved by Congress, though there are some steps Mr. Trump could take himself immediately, analysts say.
There has been an uptick in proposed immigration bills of late. Policymakers from both sides of the aisle have likely been emboldened by Mr. Trump’s pledge to protect American workers.
“It is clear that there is growing momentum to change the H-1B and visa laws,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive of Dallas, Texas-based technology management consulting firm Everest Group, which analyzes the outsourcing industry.
New laws would probably result in more robust restrictions targeting foreign firms like those in India’s $108 billion outsourcing industry, Mr. Bendor-Samuel said.
Last week, two prominent senators, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, said they planned to re-introduce a bill from 2007 that would require all employers seeking to hire workers on H-1B visas to make a “good faith effort” to hire Americans first.
Among other provisions, it would require that rather than H-1Bs being awarded in lotteries, the government would be required to prioritize the top foreign students who have studied in the U.S. These would include advanced degree holders, those earning a “high wage,” and those with “valuable skills.”
The bill’s planned reintroduction comes after Rep. Darrell Issa, one of the highest-profile Republicans in Congress and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said earlier this month he intends to reintroduce a bill clamping down on H-1Bs, though his appears more limited in scope that Sens. Grassley and Durbin’s.
Both bills would need to be passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump will also have scope to act independently.
Eric Ruark, director of research at Arlington, Va.-based NumbersUSA, which advocates for limited immigration, said Mr. Trump could use an executive directive to tighten the U.S.’s Optional Practical Training, or OPT, program.
The OPT program gives foreign graduates in fields like science, technology, engineering or math the right to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject.
Mr. Trump could roll the time limit back to the original 12 months, the threshold until it was expanded under President George W. Bush in 2008, and tighten the eligible fields of study.
In addition, Mr. Ruark said the president could end a provision announced under President Barack Obama in 2014 that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the U.S.
While the timing for any potential action remains unclear under Mr. Trump, Mr. Ruark said H-1B policies are an issue “we feel strongly will be addressed in his administration’s first year.”
Corrections and Amplifications
The OPT program allows graduates to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject. An earlier version of this article said the time limit was 29 month
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http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-australia-refugees-20170202-story.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=425e8e7a46-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-425e8e7a46-80108809
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http://cis.org/Sanctuary-Cities-Map
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444670/travel-ban-anthony-kennedy
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444670/travel-ban-anthony-kennedy
We might as well call our Supreme Court, our Politburo, as they settle all of our political, executive and legislative matters for us.
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"We might as well call our Supreme Court, our Politburo"
exactly Doug!
There are a few who interpret the Constitution
and a few who are in between and the rest are Communist (Democrat) Party members.
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https://www.justsecurity.org/37332/bipartisan-group-senior-officials-ninth-circuit-immigration-order-harms-furthers-national-security/
“The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”
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https://www.justsecurity.org/37332/bipartisan-group-senior-officials-ninth-circuit-immigration-order-harms-furthers-national-security/
“The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”
How dare the US not allow potential terrorists in!
:roll:
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"The filing is signed by ten former officials–including Secretaries Albright, Kerry, Napolitano, and Panetta; General Michael Hayden (who, at times, ran both the CIA and the NSA); and Ambassador Rice, plus others who held top national security and/or foreign relations positions across Republican and Democratic administrations. , , , The statement also assesses that “the Order will endanger intelligence sources in the field,” which is notable since the signatories include John McLaughlin and Michael Morell, who served at different points as Deputy Director and Acting Director of the CIA during the George W. Bush Administration."
Certainly a well credentialed crew , , , from the Clinton-Obama Cartel. (COC) The only names there not known to me to be major COC players are Hayden and McLaughlin-- though well they may be, I simply do not know.
They are entitled to their opinions, and we are entitled to remember who they were and are:
*Morell and Rice were major players in the famous and fallacious "Benghazi talking point" lies. Morell was a backer of Hillary for president.
*Albright is 20 years out of date and served when the US was the uni-polar power-- which is quite unlike today. IIRC she was rather , , , half bright when it came to the aftermath of Yugoslavia, and arguably had a fair amount to do with persuading the Russians that our promises there and with regard to eastern Europe were meaningless.
*Panetta, was a congressman of no particular intel or military experience before joining Team Obama and becoming a major Clinton ally. If you think she was a good Sec. State and Obama a good CiC then his word should carry weight.
etc etc.
But enough of the ad hominem-- which is relevant in that the resumes are waved about as an appeal to authority.
"The group’s statement also calls into doubt any deference that might normally be given to executive branch decision-making. “The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”
To the best of my knowledge as a matter of law this is quite irrelevant. To the best of my knowledge the relevant law does not require that the Commander in Chief submit his decision making process for the approval of the Judicial Power.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182
, , ,
(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.
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vir·tue sig·nal·ing
noun
noun: virtue signalling
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
"it's noticeable how often virtue signaling consists of saying you hate things"
(http://memecrunch.com/meme/BFE9Q/virtue-signalling/image.jpg)
http://memecrunch.com/meme/BFE9Q/virtue-signalling/image.jpg
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I hope the cute, young, naive gals pictured have the opportunity to visit the gang rape emergency room in support of other victims and not as victims themselves.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3831991/Wheelchair-bound-woman-gang-raped-six-migrants-Swedish-asylum-centre-asking-use-toilet.html
My daughter's 5th grade class went to Friendship Camp as an answer to terrorism. Good luck with that.
Teaching people to underestimate
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Instead of "can't we all just get along "
it looks like "can't we all just be NICE".
Oh the NICE people...........
They are all so much better then us because they are all so NICE.
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"*Albright is 20 years out of date...". Yet you cite Kissinger, or articles using Kissinger as a jumping off point, with some frequency. See, for example, http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2134.msg100161#msg100161
"The group’s statement also calls into doubt any deference that might normally be given to executive branch decision-making. “The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”
"To the best of my knowledge as a matter of law this is quite irrelevant. To the best of my knowledge the relevant law does not require that the Commander in Chief submit his decision making process for the approval of the Judicial Power."
A few things on this. First, presidents do not submit policies to courts for prior approval. That would be an advisory opinion, and is nonjusticiable. But that is not at all what the 10 are saying. They say "the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies," which in the case of executive orders includes both OMB and OLC.
"To the best of my knowledge as a matter of law this is quite irrelevant." This surprises for several reasons. First, we had a discussion about this very topic last weekend, and I explained the legal procedure for the very specific tool, executive orders, at question with the travel ban. For example, as I discussed with you, "All executive orders and proclamations proposed to be issued by the President are reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel for form and legality..." (https://www.justice.gov/olc), except the very specific executive order in question. Second, some of the most important SCOTUS cases in constitutional law regarding national security and presidential power involve the very specific tool, executive orders and the limits of presidents to issue them. See, for example, https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/323us214 (Korematsu) and https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/343us579 (Youngstown).
So, it is important not only to understand the US Code that you provide (thank you for that, by the way), but also the legal procedures of the very specific tool the president opted to use for the travel ban, and, in fact, "there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats."
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/2016/04/20/author-u-s-official-who-issued-visas-to-911-hijackers-still-works-for-state-department/2/
How dare Trump keep these professionals out of the loop!
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/2016/04/20/author-u-s-official-who-issued-visas-to-911-hijackers-still-works-for-state-department/2/
How dare Trump keep these professionals out of the loop!
https://www.google.com.fj/amp/amp.dailycaller.com/2015/10/01/u-s-refugee-chief-didnt-know-boston-bombers-were-refugees/?client=safari
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Please post in Homeland Security as well.
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According to the "lEfT" states rights are sacrosanct with regards to not enforcing Federal immigration law but have no status when we are talking "f" bathrooms:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/02/appalling-hypocrisy-ignorance-of-courts-on-immigration-and-states-rights
Right no politics involved .
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/2016/04/20/author-u-s-official-who-issued-visas-to-911-hijackers-still-works-for-state-department/2/
How dare Trump keep these professionals out of the loop!
https://www.google.com.fj/amp/amp.dailycaller.com/2015/10/01/u-s-refugee-chief-didnt-know-boston-bombers-were-refugees/?client=safari
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-kentucky-us-dozens-terrorists-country-refugees/story?id=20931131
Exclusive: US May Have Let 'Dozens' of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees
By James Gordon Meek
Cindy Galli
Brian Ross
Nov. 20, 2013
QUANTICO, Virginia
Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists' fingerprints.
"We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that," FBI Agent Gregory Carl, director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline".
"I wouldn't be surprised if there were many more than that," said House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul. "And these are trained terrorists in the art of bombmaking that are inside the United States; and quite frankly, from a homeland security perspective, that really concerns me."
As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets. One Iraqi who had aided American troops was assassinated before his refugee application could be processed, because of the immigration delays, two U.S. officials said. In 2011, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis were resettled as refugees in the U.S., half the number from the year before, State Department statistics show.
Suspect in Kentucky Discovered to Have Insurgent Past
An intelligence tip initially led the FBI to Waad Ramadan Alwan, 32, in 2009. The Iraqi had claimed to be a refugee who faced persecution back home -- a story that shattered when the FBI found his fingerprints on a cordless phone base that U.S. soldiers dug up in a gravel pile south of Bayji, Iraq on Sept. 1, 2005. The phone base had been wired to unexploded bombs buried in a nearby road.
An ABC News investigation of the flawed U.S. refugee screening system, which was overhauled two years ago, showed that Alwan was mistakenly allowed into the U.S. and resettled in the leafy southern town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, a city of 60,000 which is home to Western Kentucky University and near the Army's Fort Knox and Fort Campbell. Alwan and another Iraqi refugee, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 26, were resettled in Bowling Green even though both had been detained during the war by Iraqi authorities, according to federal prosecutors.
Most of the more than 70,000 Iraqi war refugees in the U.S. are law-abiding immigrants eager to start a new life in America, state and federal officials say.
But the FBI discovered that Alwan had been arrested in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2006 and confessed on video made of his interrogation then that he was an insurgent, according to the U.S. military and FBI, which obtained the tape a year into their Kentucky probe. In 2007, Alwan went through a border crossing to Syria and his fingerprints were entered into a biometric database maintained by U.S. military intelligence in Iraq, a Directorate of National Intelligence official said. Another U.S. official insisted that fingerprints of Iraqis were routinely collected and that Alwan's fingerprint file was not associated with the insurgency.
"How do they get into our community?"
In 2009 Alwan applied as a refugee and was allowed to move to Bowling Green, where he quit a job he briefly held and moved into public housing on Gordon Ave., across the street from a school bus stop, and collected public assistance payouts, federal officials told ABC News.
"How do you have somebody that we now know was a known actor in terrorism overseas, how does that person get into the United States? How do they get into our community?" wondered Bowling Green Police Chief Doug Hawkins, whose department assisted the FBI.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Peter Boogaard said in a statement that the U.S. government "continually improves and expands its procedures for vetting immigrants, refugees and visa applicants, and today [the] vetting process considers a far broader range of information than it did in past years."
"Our procedures continue to check applicants' names and fingerprints against records of individuals known to be security threats, including the terrorist watchlist, or of law enforcement concern... These checks are vital to advancing the U.S. government's twin goal of protecting the world's most vulnerable persons while ensuring U.S. national security and public safety," the statement said.
Last year, a Department of Homeland Security senior intelligence official testified in a House hearing that Alwan and Hammadi's names and fingerprints were checked by the FBI, DHS and the Defense Department during the vetting process in 2009 and "came in clean."
After the FBI received the intelligence tip later that year, a sting operation in Kentucky was mounted to bait Alwan with a scheme hatched by an undercover operative recruited by the FBI, who offered Alwan the opportunity to ship heavy arms to al Qaeda in Iraq. The FBI wanted to know if Alwan was part of a local terror cell -- a fear that grew when he tapped a relative also living in Bowling Green, Hammadi, to help out.
The FBI secretly taped Alwan bragging to the informant that he'd built a dozen or more bombs in Iraq and used a sniper rifle to kill American soldiers in the Bayji area north of Baghdad.
"He said that he had them 'for lunch and dinner,'" recalled FBI Louisville Supervisory Special Agent Tim Beam, "meaning that he had killed them."
Alwan even sketched out IED designs, which the FBI provided to ABC News, that U.S. bomb experts had quickly determined clearly demonstrated his expertise.
'Needle in a Haystack' Fingerprint Match Found on Iraq Bomb Parts, White House Briefed
The case drew attention at the highest levels of government, FBI officials told ABC News, when TEDAC forensic investigators tasked with finding IEDs from Bayji dating back to 2005 pulled 170 case boxes and, incredibly, found several of Alwan's fingerprints on a Senao-brand remote cordless base station. A U.S. military Significant Action report on Sept. 1, 2005 said the remote-controlled trigger had been attached to "three homemade-explosive artillery rounds concealed by gravel with protruding wires."
"There were two fingerprints, developed on the top of the base station," Katie Suchma, an FBI supervisory physical scientist at TEDAC who helped locate the evidence, told ABC News at the center's IED examination lab. "The whole team was ecstatic because it was like finding a needle in a haystack."
"This was the type of bomb he's talking about when he drew those pictures," added FBI electronics expert Stephen Mallow.
Word was sent back to the FBI in Louisville.
"It was a surreal moment, it was a real game changer, so to speak, for the case," FBI agent Beam told ABC News. "Now you have solidified proof that he was involved in actual attacks against U.S. soldiers."
Worse, prosecutors later revealed at Hammadi's sentencing hearing that he and Alwan had been caught on an FBI surveillance tape talking about using a bomb to assassinate an Army captain they'd known in Bayji, who was now back home – and to possibly attack other homeland targets.
"Many things should take place and it should be huge," Hammadi told Alwan in an FBI-recorded conversation, which a prosecutor read at Hammadi's sentencing last year.
Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller briefed President Obama in early 2011 as agents and Louisville federal prosecutors weighed whether to arrest Alwan and Hammadi or continue arranging phony arms shipments to Iraq that the pair could assist with, consisting of machine guns, explosives and even Stinger missiles the FBI had secretly rendered inoperable and which never left the U.S.
But agents soon determined there were no other co-conspirators. An FBI SWAT team collared the terrorists in a truck south of Bowling Green in late May 2011, only weeks after al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and Obama had visited nearby Fort Campbell to thank the SEALs and Army Nightstalker pilots for their successful mission. The Kentucky al Qaeda case drew little attention as the nation celebrated Bin Laden's death.
Suspects Linked to Attack That Killed 4 US Soldiers
Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers who had served in Bayji in 2005 saw news reports about the two arrests, and Army Staff Sgt. Joshua Hedetniemi called the FBI to alert them to an Aug. 9, 2005, IED attack that killed four of their troopers in a humvee patrolling south of the town. The U.S. attorney's office in Louisville eventually placed the surviving soldiers in its victim notification system for the case, even though it couldn't be conclusively proven that Alwan and Hammadi had killed the Guardsmen.
The four Pennsylvania soldiers killed that day were Pfc. Nathaniel DeTample, 19, Spec. Gennaro Pellegrini, 31, Spec. Francis J. Straub Jr., 24, and Spec. John Kulick, 35.
"It was a somber moment for the platoon, we had a great deal of love and respect for those guys and it hit us pretty hard," Hedetniemi said in an interview in the Guard's armory near Philadelphia. "I think that these two individuals are innately evil to be able to act as a terrorist and attack and kill American soldiers, then have the balls to come over to the United States and try to do the same exact thing here in our homeland."
Confronted with all the evidence against them, Alwan and Hammadi agreed to plead guilty to supporting terrorism and admitted their al Qaeda-Iraq past. Alwan cooperated and received 40 years, while Hammadi received a life term which he is appealing. A hearing for Hammadi's appeal took place Tuesday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio.
"We need to take this as a case study and draw the right lessons from it, and not just high-five over this," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, who headed the military's Joint IED Defeat Organization until last May. "How did a person who we detained in Iraq -- linked to an IED attack, we had his fingerprints in our government system -- how did he walk into America in 2009?"
Barbero is credited with leveraging the Kentucky case to help the FBI get funding to create a new state of the art fingerprint lab focused solely on its IED repository in a huge warehouse outside Washington. The new FBI lab assists counterterrorism investigations of suspected bombmakers and IED emplacers and looks for latent prints on 100,000 IED remnants collected over the past decade by the military and stored in the vast TEDAC warehouse.
The only man in the Humvee to survive the 2005 IED bombing in Bayji, Daniel South, who is now an Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Texas, said he was stunned to learn al Qaeda-Iraq insurgents were living in Kentucky -- but he's glad they were finally brought to justice for attacking U.S. troops in Iraq.
"I kind of wish that we had smoked [Alwan] when it happened, but we didn't have that opportunity so I guess this is second best," South told ABC News.
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Arguably not the sort of case with which to lead the way , , ,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/09/for-decades-immigration-authorities-gave-this-mother-a-pass-wednesday-when-she-checked-in-with-them-they-seized-her/?utm_term=.1747188dd724&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Apparently INS has some 45 empty judge slots (thank you Obama) and this has contributed mightily to legal process delays. Trump needs to fill these slots ASAP.
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Arguably not the sort of case with which to lead the way , , ,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/09/for-decades-immigration-authorities-gave-this-mother-a-pass-wednesday-when-she-checked-in-with-them-they-seized-her/?utm_term=.1747188dd724&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Apparently INS has some 45 empty judge slots (thank you Obama) and this has contributed mightily to legal process delays. Trump needs to fill these slots ASAP.
Why not? Time to enforce the law.
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...Apparently INS has some 45 empty judge slots (thank you Obama) and this has contributed mightily to legal process delays. Trump needs to fill these slots ASAP.
In my travels I listened to NPR and a young liberal reporter set out to study these far right concerns at the border. She joined up with a Hispanic Border Agent who voted for Trump, a contradiction she just couldn't get over! In short order they discovered people crossing the border illegally. When the agent identified himself as "Border Patrol", the people came running to them for intentional arrest. To them, border patrol means safety, as opposed to running into border gangs, criminals, private citizens with guns, etc. True or not, they uttered what they were trained to say, we are being persecuted for such and such in the place where we came from. They requested Atlanta as where they wanted their free ride. There they would be put on a docket and in say 9 months for the case to be called. In that time a certain percent (75-80%?) disappear into the fabric of society, join with family members already here, become dreamers, sanctuary city beneficiaries, etc. The frustration with the border agent is that his work is not just a waste of time but making the problem worse. His union endorsed Trump. (Hispanic versus Hispanic racists in the mind of the news crew? )
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http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/02/09/dershowitz-9th-circuit-ruling-not-a-solid-decision-looks-like-its-based-more-on-policy-than-on-constitutionality/
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http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/02/09/dershowitz-9th-circuit-ruling-not-a-solid-decision-looks-like-its-based-more-on-policy-than-on-constitutionality/
Pretty much what you'd expect from the 9th circus.
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Let's use this thread for the legal issues please: http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1338.0
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Politicians of both parties did not enforce immigration law and let illegals come here and have anchor babies so now we have the sad sack stories in our faces. Maybe her parents should have thought about this and applied for legal status first. The med organizations are now all LEFTist all the time.
https://wire.ama-assn.org/ama-news/med-student-dreamers-speak-out-maintaining-daca-protections?&utm_source=BHClistID&utm_medium=BulletinHealthCare&utm_term=021417&utm_content=MorningRounds&utm_campaign=BHCMessageID
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That does not change the fact that DACA dreamers stories are going to be a real tough story to counter politically.
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"That does not change the fact that DACA dreamers stories are going to be a real tough story to counter politically."
no it doesn't. :x
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http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-daca-20170216-story.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=7b1c773c1e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-7b1c773c1e-80108809
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Stats are only stats.
Depends on whether they are accurate to start with, who interprets them and which stats are measured and others that may be ignored.
So FWIW:
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/19/study-trumps-border-wall-save-64-billion-10-years/
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"""For most Americans, identity theft, falsification of government affidavits, or trafficking in fraudulent Social Security numbers are the sort of violations that would end their own careers and unwind the very cohesiveness of government. """""
""""""In turn, Trump opponents will discover that while a small percentage of the undocumented have committed violent crimes, a far larger percentage than is commonly reported may have committed identity theft or falsified government documents. Arguing to Americans that these are neither real crimes nor deportable offenses will prove no more a winning message for Trump’s critics than would deporting productive and law-abiding residents who entered the U.S. illegally win support for Trump himself.""""
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445161/donald-trump-immigration-position-popular-unless-deports-law-abiding-residents
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/320740-the-memo-trumps-big-immigration-gamble
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/22/feds-paid-1-billion-in-social-security-benefits-to-individuals-without-ssn.html
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/30/irs-doesnt-tell-1-million-taxpayers-that-illegal-i/
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So why are not Republicans out all over the airwaves saying these things?
The GOP
Grand old pussies.
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‘False Documents’ Share article on Facebook share Tweet article tweet Plus one article on Google Plus +1 Print Article Adjust font size AA by Victor Davis Hanson February 23, 2017 11:02 AM @vdhanson The Wall Street Journal wrote an unfortunate and misleading op-ed today on the new protocols on illegal immigration issued by the Department of Homeland Security — epitomized by the Journal’s weird sentence, “Mr. Kelly’s order is so sweeping that it could capture law-abiding immigrants whose only crime is using false documents to work.” Only crime? (And what a string of oxymorons: “law-abiding”/“crime”/“false documents”!) The WSJ should know that “false documents” are seldom used just “to work,” but are part and parcel of a continuous process of misleading or defrauding the system in nearly every transaction with government and private enterprise. “False documents” do not imply a misspelled middle name or a day or two off the correct date of birth, or some sort of innocuous pseudonym. No, they involve the deliberate creation of a false identity, sometimes at the expense of a real person, and often with accompanying fraudulent Social Security numbers and photo identifications — crimes that both foul up the bureaucracy for law-abiding citizens, facilitate other crimes, and are the sort of felonies that most Americans would lose their jobs over and face either jail time or stiff fines. And often they are the second crimes — following not “law-abiding” behavior but the initial crime of entering and residing in the United States unlawfully. The WSJ’s editors some time should wake up and find a wrecked car sitting on their property (that went off the road and airborne and did thousands of dollars of damage), the driver having fled and the registration on the abandoned vehicle proving to be a “false document,” or better yet, discovering that one’s check-routing number was printed on “false document” checks to facilitate theft of thousands of dollars, or having someone speed off after hitting your mailbox only to find from sheriffs that the license-plate numbers revealed a “false document” identity, or going to a market in the San Joaquin Valley while the person ahead of you tries four EBT cards in succession under “false document” names before one is found to have a positive balance, or waiting in line in a doctor’s office as the receptionist politely explains to the person ahead of you that the health card presented has a name that does not match the driver’s license presented. The use of “false documents” is not an end game or mere infraction, but rather the doorway to all sorts of subsequent falsification and fraud that does enormous damage both to the system in general and to individuals in particular. As I wrote today, Americans are compassionate people and might well countenance allowing illegal-immigrant aliens without subsequent criminal records, but with a record of some years of established residence and a productive work history without dependence on social welfare, to pay a fine, apply for a green card, and become legalized residents — all the while maintaining residence in the U.S. But the idea that illegal immigrants who assume false identities or lie on government documents thereby commit minor infractions is, well, outrageous.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445176/wall-street-journal-immigration-editorial-false-documents-crime?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202017-02-23&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportations-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/225648/immigrant-hysteria-st-louis?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=4079b29cc3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-4079b29cc3-207194629
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Yeah, its Breitbart, but the quotes are extensive.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/27/jorge-ramos-america-our-country-not-theirs-we-are-not-going-leave/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
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Yeah, its Breitbart, but the quotes are extensive.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/27/jorge-ramos-america-our-country-not-theirs-we-are-not-going-leave/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
Se se puede!
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http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/27/one-county-saw-a-27-drop-in-assaults-after-it-helped-enforce-immigration-law-heres-the-rest-of-the-story/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRFME5EWm1NR05pWXpJNCIsInQiOiJrTEl3REJlZzREZzljNXFZamM4a0s2UFwvXC96eE1wSU5IdHJxbnB1bnJsd1RUSnBFMW4ycmJcLzNlOEhqeG1FaFg0ajJacHJsTmRCeTFOZEtnSDhFMG1FaENKXC9yT2xCbEFLUENob2lQSU0xSUVwYmJNR25qc0p5RnN6R0RoU0piQUsifQ%3D%3D
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If I am not mistaken, the author here wrote a very serious book on Iraq called "Fiasco".
Are U.S. Immigration Centers the Next Abu Ghraib?
By THOMAS E. RICKS
FEB. 27, 2017
By all accounts, Gen. John Kelly was a fine Marine. He served with Gen. James Mattis, now the secretary of defense, and was seen as being in the Mattis mold — a low-key, prudent, rigorous thinker. So it is with surprise that I see Mr. Kelly, in his new role as secretary of Homeland Security, presiding over a ham-handed crackdown on immigrants.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are operating aggressively under President Trump, feeling, as The New York Times reported, “newly emboldened” and “newly empowered.” Officials’ use of detention powers is widening, with some people being held who have no criminal history at all. The government raids often are conducted around dawn, to catch people as they leave for work. The uniformed agents are wearing body armor and carrying semiautomatic weapons. The morning raids and the military appearance may not be new developments, but they are especially worrisome when ICE and Customs and Border Protection, domestic law enforcement agencies, are overseen by a former general.
And there definitely seems to be recklessness in the way Homeland Security is operating. In recent days, agents have taken a woman with a brain tumor out of a hospital, almost deported a distinguished French scholar flying into Houston to deliver a university lecture and scared the daylights out of an Australian children’s author who vowed after the experience never to visit the United States again.
This isn’t being done solely to foreigners. The son of the boxer Muhammad Ali, a citizen, was questioned upon arriving in Florida from Jamaica about his religion, which would seem to be a clear violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. And passengers on a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York were required to show their identity documents to customs officials because ICE thought a person with a deportation order might be on the plane.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
Immigration Agents Discover New Freedom to Deport Under Trump FEB. 25, 2017
New Trump Deportation Rules Allow Far More Expulsions FEB. 21, 2017
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
For people who witnessed the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, such an aggressive stance is all too familiar. Over the weekend, Brandon Friedman, a former officer in the 101st Airborne Division, questioned on Twitter why Homeland Security officers were operating without constraints. He added, “In the military, it happens to aggressive units with poor leaders.” Erin Simpson, a political scientist who worked on strategic assessments for the United States military in the Afghan war, added in another tweet that the federal agents seem to enjoy “near impunity.”
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Most chilling of all was the comment by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, last Tuesday that President Trump wants to “take the shackles off” federal agents.
All this reminds me eerily of the words and actions by United States military officers who helped create the conditions that led to the abuses of Iraqi detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where a detainee abuse scandal in 2004 undercut the American effort in Iraq. I’m not suggesting that immigrants are being tortured in the horrific way that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were, but I do see parallels in the aggressive stance of Homeland Security agents and the message this carries abroad.
Even the language is similar. On Aug. 14, 2003, as the Iraqi insurgency was mushrooming, an Army officer in the Human Intelligence Effects Coordination Cell at American military headquarters in Iraq sent out a directive saying that “the gloves are coming off regarding these detainees.” In case that wording left any doubts, he added, “We want these individuals broken.”
In response to orders like that, some Army units became far more aggressive. Like the Homeland Security operations, these Army missions often were conducted as night or dawn raids. Those hundreds of roundups wound up swamping the Abu Ghraib prison. Six weeks after the “gloves are coming off” memo, it held some 3,500 Iraqis. Four weeks later, that number had doubled.
When Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the demoralized Army unit running the prison, complained about the numbers of prisoners arriving, she was dismissively told to “cram some more tents into the compound.” Perversely, this undercut the intention of collecting more precise intelligence, because there weren’t enough interpreters and interrogators on hand to detect the bad actors among the thousands of people being held. A subsequent investigation by the Pentagon found that some prisoners were held for months before being questioned.
What puzzles me is that Secretary Kelly surely knows all this. In his first tour in Iraq, he was General Mattis’s deputy commander. General Mattis was eloquent in his public comments about Abu Ghraib. “When you lose the moral high ground, you lose it all,” he said.
Secretary Kelly would be wise to think back on his years as a Marine, and to keep his honor clean, as the “Marines’ Hymn” admonishes service members. If he doesn’t, the United States may through the actions of his department lose far more than it gains.
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Oh no! The law is being enforced!
:roll:
If I am not mistaken, the author here wrote a very serious book on Iraq called "Fiasco".
Are U.S. Immigration Centers the Next Abu Ghraib?
By THOMAS E. RICKS
FEB. 27, 2017
By all accounts, Gen. John Kelly was a fine Marine. He served with Gen. James Mattis, now the secretary of defense, and was seen as being in the Mattis mold — a low-key, prudent, rigorous thinker. So it is with surprise that I see Mr. Kelly, in his new role as secretary of Homeland Security, presiding over a ham-handed crackdown on immigrants.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are operating aggressively under President Trump, feeling, as The New York Times reported, “newly emboldened” and “newly empowered.” Officials’ use of detention powers is widening, with some people being held who have no criminal history at all. The government raids often are conducted around dawn, to catch people as they leave for work. The uniformed agents are wearing body armor and carrying semiautomatic weapons. The morning raids and the military appearance may not be new developments, but they are especially worrisome when ICE and Customs and Border Protection, domestic law enforcement agencies, are overseen by a former general.
And there definitely seems to be recklessness in the way Homeland Security is operating. In recent days, agents have taken a woman with a brain tumor out of a hospital, almost deported a distinguished French scholar flying into Houston to deliver a university lecture and scared the daylights out of an Australian children’s author who vowed after the experience never to visit the United States again.
This isn’t being done solely to foreigners. The son of the boxer Muhammad Ali, a citizen, was questioned upon arriving in Florida from Jamaica about his religion, which would seem to be a clear violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. And passengers on a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York were required to show their identity documents to customs officials because ICE thought a person with a deportation order might be on the plane.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
Immigration Agents Discover New Freedom to Deport Under Trump FEB. 25, 2017
New Trump Deportation Rules Allow Far More Expulsions FEB. 21, 2017
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
For people who witnessed the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, such an aggressive stance is all too familiar. Over the weekend, Brandon Friedman, a former officer in the 101st Airborne Division, questioned on Twitter why Homeland Security officers were operating without constraints. He added, “In the military, it happens to aggressive units with poor leaders.” Erin Simpson, a political scientist who worked on strategic assessments for the United States military in the Afghan war, added in another tweet that the federal agents seem to enjoy “near impunity.”
Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.
Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
See Sample Manage Email Preferences Privacy Policy
Most chilling of all was the comment by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, last Tuesday that President Trump wants to “take the shackles off” federal agents.
All this reminds me eerily of the words and actions by United States military officers who helped create the conditions that led to the abuses of Iraqi detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where a detainee abuse scandal in 2004 undercut the American effort in Iraq. I’m not suggesting that immigrants are being tortured in the horrific way that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were, but I do see parallels in the aggressive stance of Homeland Security agents and the message this carries abroad.
Even the language is similar. On Aug. 14, 2003, as the Iraqi insurgency was mushrooming, an Army officer in the Human Intelligence Effects Coordination Cell at American military headquarters in Iraq sent out a directive saying that “the gloves are coming off regarding these detainees.” In case that wording left any doubts, he added, “We want these individuals broken.”
In response to orders like that, some Army units became far more aggressive. Like the Homeland Security operations, these Army missions often were conducted as night or dawn raids. Those hundreds of roundups wound up swamping the Abu Ghraib prison. Six weeks after the “gloves are coming off” memo, it held some 3,500 Iraqis. Four weeks later, that number had doubled.
When Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the demoralized Army unit running the prison, complained about the numbers of prisoners arriving, she was dismissively told to “cram some more tents into the compound.” Perversely, this undercut the intention of collecting more precise intelligence, because there weren’t enough interpreters and interrogators on hand to detect the bad actors among the thousands of people being held. A subsequent investigation by the Pentagon found that some prisoners were held for months before being questioned.
What puzzles me is that Secretary Kelly surely knows all this. In his first tour in Iraq, he was General Mattis’s deputy commander. General Mattis was eloquent in his public comments about Abu Ghraib. “When you lose the moral high ground, you lose it all,” he said.
Secretary Kelly would be wise to think back on his years as a Marine, and to keep his honor clean, as the “Marines’ Hymn” admonishes service members. If he doesn’t, the United States may through the actions of his department lose far more than it gains.
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I wonder what crimes or acts of terror will be committed by the thousands coming in to the US because of the unconstitutional block on the President's proper ban on entry from named, terrorist countries. Blood I would not want on my hands.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/02/over-4300-refugees-have-arrived-in-the-us-since-judge-blocked-trumps-travel-ban/
Facts on the ground keep supporting this President's stand on immigration.
Regarding the wall and the border, it is strange that enforcing existing law is so controversial.
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I wonder what crimes or acts of terror will be committed by the thousands coming in to the US because of the unconstitutional block on the President's proper ban on entry from named, terrorist countries. Blood I would not want on my hands.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/02/over-4300-refugees-have-arrived-in-the-us-since-judge-blocked-trumps-travel-ban/
Facts on the ground keep supporting this President's stand on immigration.
Regarding the wall and the border, it is strange that enforcing existing law is so controversial.
All immigrants are good, and if they misbehave in some way, it's because of the inherent evils of American society.
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https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/muslim-who-claimed-visa-denied-by-trump-ban-who-schumer-got-into-us-arrested-for-sexual-assault-of-12-year-old-girl
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:wink:
Sorry there is *NO* equivalence of this to the "underground railroad" though the LEFT is trying to go there:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/05/de-blasio-500000-illegals-blocks-law-enforcement/
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'IMMIGRANT PRIVILEGE' DRIVES CHILD RAPE EPIDEMIC
Ann Coulter - March 8, 2017
Before breathing a sigh of relief that, unlike Western Europe, we don't have Muslim rapists pouring into our country, recall that we have Mexican rapists pouring into our country.
Almost all peasant cultures are brimming with rapists, pederasts and child abusers. Latin America just happens to be the peasant culture closest to the United States, while the Muslims are closest to Europe.
According to North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, immigrants commit hundreds of sex crimes against children in North Carolina every month -- 350 in the month of April 2014, 299 in May, and more than 400 in August and September. More than 90 percent of the perpetrators are Hispanic.
They aren't even counting legal immigrants. Aren't those worse? Only certain Republicans get excited about the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. The rest of America is trying to understand the point of the last 40 years of legal immigration. Why was this necessary?
Below is a very short excerpt from a few days in November 2013. As Stalin is supposed to have said, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.
-- Abundez, Jose, Juan (11/12/2013): Felony Sex Offense -- Parental Role
-- Aguilar-Sandoval, Jersson, Iss (11/21/2013): Felony First Degree Sexual Offense; Felony First Degree Rape; Felony First Degree Kidnapping
-- Aguilar, Rafael (11/04/2013): Felony Indecent Liberties With Child
-- Aguilar, Rigoberto, Castellano (11/04/2013): Felony First Degree Rape; Felony Indecent Liberties With Child; Felony Stat Rape/Sex Offn Def>4-<6yr
(Note: That's sex with a child between 4 and 6 years old.)
-- Manzano, Gustavo, Adolfo (11/20/2013): Felony Indecent Liberties With Child; Felony Rape of Child
-- Monje, Alcides, Aguilar (11/18/2013): Felony Stat Rape/Sex Offn Def >=6yr; Felony Indecent Liberties With Child, 13.
The list, for a single month in a single state, goes on in the same vein through 87 separate offenders. When not providing North Carolina meatpackers with cheap labor, immigrant workers seem to spend all their time raping little girls.
To be fair, there are also Asian names, such as Y'Hon Nie (Indecent Liberties With Child, First Degree Sex Offense-Child, Second Degree Sexual Offense); and David Vo Minh (First Degree Sex Offense-Child, Indecent Liberties With Child).
North Carolina's cheap labor advocates better be paying Sen. Thom Tillis well. It sure isn't the average North Carolinian demanding that he shill for amnesty. Illegal immigration alone costs North Carolina taxpayers billions of dollars per year.
Our nation's epitaph, with a photo of Sen. Tillis, could be: "We built a powerful economic engine that attracted people, but then some businessmen saw their chance to screw the country and make a pile for themselves. Let's bring in low-wage workers so we can externalize our costs to the taxpayer!”
Except North Carolina's businesses aren't just externalizing their costs to the taxpayers. They're externalizing their costs to little girls.
The reason websites like North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement are so important is that the government and the media hide immigrant crime from the public.
They cite bogus studies that compare immigrants to America's criminal class. (We didn't want immigrants who are only slightly less criminal than our worst inner cities.)
Or they announce their impressionistic conclusions. (I heard about a crime in Montana -- that state must have a lot of crime, is not a scientific way to argue.)
Or they refuse to count any criminal without an ICE detainer against him as an immigrant, at all. (Is the court translator a hint that the defendant isn't a 10th-generation American?)
The way to determine how many immigrants are committing crime is to count them. Why does the government refuse to do this?
The number of immigrants in prison would be a good start, but that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Immigrant criminals flee back to their own countries after arrest. Prosecutors deport illegals rather than imprison them -- and then the illegals come right back. Some George Soros-inspired prosecutors allow illegals to plea guilty to a minor offense, to prevent them from being deported.
To get the full picture, government investigators will need to talk to crime victims, police and prosecutors, too.
And we want honesty -- not studies that count anchor babies and second-generation immigrants as "the native population.”
The media is the government's co-conspirator in hiding immigrant crime. I have approximately 1,000 examples of media subterfuges on immigrant crime in Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.
Here are a few recent examples from Sen. Tillis' North Carolina.
Headline: "Burke County man convicted of raping 13-year-old girl," Charlotte Observer, Feb. 1, 2017 (Ricardo Solis Garcia -- an illegal whom Mexico refused to take back);
Headline: "Burlington man charged with child rape," The Times News, Jan. 19, 2017 (Felipe Samuel Rivera Rodriguez);
Headline: "Angier man accused of having sex with 14-year-old girl," The Fayetteville Observer, Aug. 29, 2016 (Estevan Roberto Silva).
NOTE TO READERS: The North Carolina Estevan Roberto Silva -- sex with a 14-year-old girl -- should not be confused with the Texas Esteban Villa Silva -- sex with a 12-year-old girl about 60 times -- or the Alabama Esteban Silva Jr. -- 42-year-old man convicted of sex with a 12-year-old girl. All these child rapes were revealed in coded headlines like "Man pleads to sexual relationship with girl.”
Other informative North Carolina headlines:
Headline: "Man, 42, arrested for sexual offense with girl under 13" (Carlos Gumercindo Crus);
Headline: "Man charged with sexual assault of a minor" (Jose Freddy Ambrosio-Gorgonio);
Headline: Man Pleads Guilty in Child Rape Case (Luis Perez-Valencia).
It's too relentless to be a coincidence.
There have been more stories in the American media about a rape by white lacrosse players that didn't happen than about thousands of child rapes in North Carolina that did.
I'm pretty sure our media is opposed to rape. But evidently, not as opposed as they are to America.
COPYRIGHT 2017 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
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http://ijr.com/2017/03/819844-news-media-furiously-reported-khizr-khans-visa-crisis-then-suddenly-a-funny-thing-happened/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Owned&utm_term=ijamerica&utm_campaign=ods&utm_content=Politics
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We can always scour the world and find someone who will work harder for less.
Great for employers. Great for competition. Till it happens to you:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/03/the-horrendous-visa-program-forcing-tech-workers-to-dig-their-own-graves
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Some pro-immigration people accidentally publishing information about the costs. See if this link comes up.
http://m.startribune.com/what-we-know-and-what-we-don-t-about-resettlement-related-costs/415827654/
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Relating to the US-mexico question, Islamophobia in America, etc, our (illegal?) immigration application should offer the choice: Want to assimilate. Don't want to assimilate. Choose one.
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Relating to the US-mexico question, Islamophobia in America, etc, our (illegal?) immigration application should offer the choice: Want to assimilate. Don't want to assimilate. Choose one.
About 3/4's don't want to assimilate, for a mixture of political, personal (family) or economic reasons. The ones that do assimilate, are heavily berated by those that do not (Uncle Tom syndrome applied to Latinos).
I could back that up with various news stories and screen shots of comments in Spanish. It's absolutely the truth.
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http://freebeacon.com/issues/hawaii-hires-al-qaedas-best-lawyer-lead-suit-trump/
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Pravda on the Beach (POTB) a.k.a. the LA Times:
Snark aside an interesting point is raised:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/
As best as I can tell is that there could/should be an increase in temporary work visas (specifying farm work?).
====================
OTOH
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/all-you-americans-are-fired?utm_term=.vaDXKljAkQ#.bvLbY7mJZ2
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/these-first-generation-chinese-americans-are-loudly-opposing-sanctuary-laws/2017/03/17/92728e94-09db-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.a8870bfda161
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/20/cinco-de-mayo-canceled-mexicans-fear-trump-deporta/?utm_source=activeengage&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=activeengage
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/20/cinco-de-mayo-canceled-mexicans-fear-trump-deporta/?utm_source=activeengage&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=activeengage
So much winning...
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http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/03/30/green-card-ice-arrests-lawrence
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http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/03/focus-border-wall-visa-overstays-create-illegal-immigrant-crisis/
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http://thehill.com/latino/328853-trump-frays-nerves-on-both-sides-of-immigration-fight
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http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/04/16/exclusive-gay-porn-kingpin-protect-america-muslim-barbarians/
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Doing a search on "El Chapo" I found I posted this recommendation on Nov 25, 2006. I knew I did but i did not remember it was that far back.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/04/25/ted-cruz-calls-14-billion-seized-el-chapo-fund-border-wall/
But logic never works in DC so this won't happen
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more on the political activist judge Orrick the third:
http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/judge-william-h-orrick-political-beliefs-party-barack-obama-donate-planned-parenthood-immigration-case-donald-trump/
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447058/trump-administration-sanctuary-city-executive-order-activist-liberal-judge-william-h-orrick?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202017-04-26&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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Video:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4351026/clinton-1995-immigration-sotu
Full transcript:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51634
All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
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http://www.dailywire.com/news/16990/trump-sending-so-many-gang-members-back-el-joseph-curl
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gives justification to the phrase "anchor babies" . It worked, just not for us:
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/betrayal-trump-grants-amnesty-to-125000-illegals-in-3-months
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/us/trump-undocumented-victims.html?emc=edit_ta_20170625&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
Hmmm , , , wonder why he won the election , , ,
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/us/trump-undocumented-victims.html?emc=edit_ta_20170625&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
Hmmm , , , wonder why he won the election , , ,
"To Mr. Trump’s critics, the office and the people it was supposed to represent were little more than pawns in his crude attempts to make monsters out of a largely law-abiding population"
What lying c*cksuckers. If you are an illegal alien, that is a violation of the law. If you are working without legal docs, that is a violation of the law. If you are using someone else's SSN, that is a violation of the law.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/us/trump-undocumented-victims.html?emc=edit_ta_20170625&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
Hmmm , , , wonder why he won the election , , ,
"To Mr. Trump’s critics, the office and the people it was supposed to represent were little more than pawns in his crude attempts to make monsters out of a largely law-abiding population"
What lying c*cksuckers. If you are an illegal alien, that is a violation of the law. If you are working without legal docs, that is a violation of the law. If you are using someone else's SSN, that is a violation of the law.
They were formerly known as otherwise law abiding citizens, who as you point are not law abiding nor are they citizens. Then when you own the language and nearly all it's outlets in education and media, it is tempting to drop the otherwise designation which weakens or defeats your point and just call them law abiding or "largely"? law abiding. Never mind what percent come as violent gang members and what additional percentage conspired and contracted with violent gangs to enter and settle here.
"Hmmm , , , wonder why he won the election , , ,"
Great point. We argue against creeping and blatant leftism in all its deceptions and defects every day on these pages and in our own circles and no one seems to listen or care. Then out of the blue, without any articulate argument or true leader, people suddenly start to get it - because of what they see and what they know.
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/370424.php
June 28, 2017
El Salvadoran Illegal Immigrant Who Raped and Killed Muslim Girl Is, Get This, Reported a Member of MS-13
Gee, I wonder why this particular Hate Crime dropped off the national media radar in such a hurry.
Incidentally, he is suspected of having sexually assaulted another woman in the previous week:
The suspect charged with murdering a 17-year-old Muslim girl during Ramadan was accused of sexually assaulting another woman a week before the teen’s slaying in Virginia and is reportedly an MS-13 gang member.
Darwin Martinez Torres, of El Salvador, allegedly sent a woman to hospital after he punched and choked her, according to a Loudoun County Child Protective Services report obtained by the Washington Post.
The alleged acts happened in front of a child, and the woman said she didn’t want to press any charges against her attacker who was later identified by authorities as Torres.
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Immigration Policy: What Is It Good For?
Chris Blattman, a professor of conflict studies at the University of Chicago, responded to Amanda’s Canada populism piece by pointing out that although Canada had avoided an anti-immigrant backlash, it had accepted relatively few poor migrants, which he argues is “not exactly a badge of honor.”
That gets at one of the central questions of immigration policy that is often obscured by immigration politics: Who is immigration supposed to be helping?
Roughly speaking, there are three different groups that immigration policy can benefit — the receiving country, which gets new workers and consumers; the sending country, which receives remittance money from workers overseas; and the immigrants themselves, who get increased opportunity and/or safety in their new home.
It’s possible to benefit all three groups, of course, but immigration policy looks different depending on whose interests you prioritize.
For instance, if you admit more poor immigrants and refugees, you are more likely to maximize the benefits to the immigrants themselves than if you focus on people who are already safe and rich. And if you want your immigration program to double as an effective form of foreign aid, you should admit more people from developing countries, to expand the remittances they send back home.
But if you just care about economic benefits for your own country, that arguably suggests a pretty different policy. Then, you should prioritize skilled, educated immigrants who already speak the language and will integrate easily, even if they’re less needy (which they probably are) and less likely to send desperately needed remittances back home.
That is what Canada has done. With the exception of their refugee resettlement program, which is substantial but represents only a small fraction of overall immigration, Canada focuses on maximizing benefits to its own economy, not to refugees or other countries.
Depending on whom you ask, that’s either practical or selfish. It has boosted Canada’s economy, but cut out poorer immigrants who could benefit most. And it’s worth noting there is substantial evidence that even poor, unskilled immigrants are still a net economic benefit to their new countries, so this is a prioritization of “more benefits for us” over “some benefits for us.”
But the lesson of rising right-wing populism may be that democratic governments don’t just need to decide which of those groups to prioritize, they also need to figure out how much immigration they can accept without provoking a nativist backlash. Canada’s example suggests that wealthier immigrants may come at a lower political “cost” than poorer ones.
That isn’t an answer to the moral question of how much countries ought to use their immigration policies to help the poor and vulnerable. But it does hint at why many seem to find it daunting to try.
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ROME — More than 20,000 migrants have reached Italy in the last week, a sharp spike that has left the Italian government considering whether to deny landing rights to independent rescue ships not flying the Italian flag if it does not get more help from the European Union.
The number of migrants risking the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from Libya often increases in warmer months, but this week’s surge is extraordinary even compared with the already high summer numbers of recent years.
The spike in migration has inflamed one of the most divisive debates in Italian politics, and worsened tensions between Italy and the European Union. And the role of rescue ships operated by humanitarian groups and nongovernmental organizations has now moved to the center of that debate.
Right-wing parties, which celebrated victories in Sunday’s municipal elections, have latched onto the climbing number of asylum seekers as a vote-getter. Some have argued that the center-left government is incapable of stanching the flow of migrants, while others accuse the government of having a secret plan to swell the number of immigrants with the intention of one day granting them voting rights.
Right-wing politicians and newspapers have spread a sense that the nongovernmental organizations are essentially profiteers who collude with human traffickers to aid and abet illegal immigration. “They are complicit in this mass exodus and earn from it,” said Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, an anti-immigrant party that campaigned vigorously for many of the center-right candidates who won in Sunday’s election.
There is no evidence of any such collusion.
Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency in Southern Europe, said that rescue ships operated by nongovernmental organizations had rescued 12,600 people in the Mediterranean — about 35 percent of the overall number saved — in the first four months of 2017. But she said that she did not believe they drew more migrants into the water or that they played a role in the rising number of asylum seekers arriving in Italy.
Ms. Sami said that while she was aware of reports about the Italian blockade proposal, there were no reports of ships being blocked. She said she believed the Italians were trying to get Europe to show “greater solidarity with Italy.”
But the center-left government, which has championed a more welcoming approach and saved thousands from the sea, is now showing signs that its patience is wearing thin. It is treating the recent landings as something close to a national — or at least political — emergency.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Marco Minniti was briefed about the high numbers of landings at Italian ports during a stop in Ireland on his way to the United States for a meeting with American officials. The numbers were so high that Mr. Minniti — often characterized by supporters as on the tougher, more realistic, side of the center-left government — decided to turn back to Rome.
But government officials say there is little Mr. Minniti, or anyone in Italy, can do alone. The Italian news media reported this week that Italy has authorized its ambassador to the European Union, Maurizio Massari, to ask the European Commission to revise the bloc’s asylum procedures and consider the possibility of blocking boats without Italian flags from docking in Italy.
“It’s a hypothesis we are considering,” said one Italian government official with knowledge of the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. “We would block the boats that don’t fly an Italian flag from docking in our ports. It can’t just be Italy that receives all the migrants. Europe must understand that our coasts are not just our frontier but Europe’s frontier.”
Some experts doubt the legality of such a policy, and Mr. Massari did not return an email request for comment.
Mr. Salvini, the leader of the Northern League, mocked the proposal as a publicity stunt allowing the government to feign a tougher, and now more popular, posture. “We’ve been asking to block these boats for three years,” he said in an interview. “That the government is going to Brussels to ask is ridiculous because Brussels has already said they have no intention of doing it. Some things you do or you don’t. You don’t ask.”
Mr. Salvini approvingly named Hungary, Austria and France as countries that have demonstrated a willingness to turn migrants away. Other countries, such as Poland, have refused to host asylum seekers and lighten Italy’s load.
This is frustrating to the Italian government, but also to many migrants who feel stuck in Italy because European Union rules state that, while waiting for judgments on their asylum requests, they must stay in the country where they were first registered. Often that country is Italy.
In recent conversations with asylum seekers on Italy’s northern border, where migrants stood around sweltering reception centers and loitered around Lake Como, several said that they appreciated Italy for rescuing them from the sea but that they dreamed of moving to Germany or Northern Europe for work.
Italian government officials have argued that Italy is taking on too much of the burden, and last week leaders of European Union member states agreed to free up more funds to help Italy and Greece, another front-line nation, with the rising number of migrants.
Italy has also sought to stem the flow at the source of the migration.
The Italian government, like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, has advocated that Europe concentrate on development in African countries to discourage people from leaving. The European Union has even sought to train the Libyan Coast Guard and provide it with faster boats to better patrol its own coast. Migrants who are intercepted before reaching international waters can be returned there.
But it does not seem to be working.
If the current pace holds, more migrants will arrive in Italy this year than the 180,000 that the Interior Ministry recorded last year. More than 60,000 arrived in the first five months of 2017.
Ms. Sami, the United Nations spokeswoman, said the focus on nongovernmental ships was misplaced. She said more focus was needed on stopping traffickers in Africa and getting the thousands of people making the journey from Niger to Libya to stay.
Once they are in the water, she said, “the first imperative — and we don’t see any exception — is to save lives.”
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https://www.steynonline.com/7947/pass-me-my-sharia-niblick
Pass Me My Sharia Niblick
by Mark Steyn
Steyn on Canada
June 28, 2017
Pam Davies for The Toronto Sun
Celebrating diversity in court: Ontario judge, Crown Counsel, Arabic interptreter, and niqabed defendant
The formal observances of Canada's 150th birthday have included a sesquicentennial viceregal gaffe and a pair of commemorative prime ministerial socks. But of course what most Canadians like to do when we're not trapping beaver and huffing poutine is celebrate diversity. And so it was that at the Canadian Tire store in Scarborough a "Scarborough woman" went full Allahu Akbar in the paint aisle, but, touchingly, instead of just slashing at her "fellow Canadians" with the traditional machete of her own cultural inheritance, she also embraced Canadian values by clobbering her victims with a golf club as if berating the caddy at nearby Cedar Brae. Global News reports:
Police said a woman walked to the paint section of the store with a golf club and began swinging it at employees and a customer while uttering threats.
A source confirmed to Global News the woman was reportedly wearing a niqab and a bandana adorned with what appeared to be a symbol for IS at the time of the alleged incident.
Police said employees and customers managed to subdue the woman and contact police, when she pulled a "large knife" out from under her clothing.
The woman was restrained and police said the knife was "pried out of her hand" with the help of another store employee. The employee sustained non-life threatening injuries and was treated at the scene.
The "Scarborough woman" is one Rehab Dughmosh, which sounds like a treatment centre for aging hardcore groupies who've put their back out but is in fact the name of the perpetrator. The allegedly alleged perpetrator, I should say. Ms Dughmosh, speaking through an interpreter and the folds of her head-to-toe body bag, made a brief statement to the court:
"I meant to harm those people," Rehab Dughmosh told Justice Kimberley Crosbie through an Arabic interpreter during a court appearance.
"I reject all counsel here. I only believe in Islamic Sharia law. I would like to revoke my Canadian citizenship that I received. I don't want to have any allegiance to you... If you release me, I'm going to commit this type of action again and again because I'm pledging allegiance to [IS leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," she said, adding she refuses to adhere to Canadian law.
Well, that's easy for you to say. Her Honour was not entirely persuaded:
Asking the accused to think about it, Justice Kimberley Crosbie would not immediately accept her attempt to plead guilty to the alleged ISIS-inspired attack that saw two people assaulted.
Joe Warmington's Toronto Sun column is full of fascinating details. For example, the lavishly funded Canadian bureaucracy cannot reliably state whether or not Rehab Dughmosh has any Canadian citizenship to revoke, or where she came from:
They are working on the belief she was born in Syria but before Canada they are looking into leads of a possible stop in Jordan... She does have status in Canada but it's still not clear if she has Canadian citizenship or has the belief that permanent resident status is one and the same.
If she is a Canadian citizen it would be next to impossible to deport her. If she has a temporary or permanent residence status, there is a process.
Good luck with that. Mr Warmington quotes socks symbol Justin Trudeau:
"I'll give you the quote so that you guys can jot it down and put it in an attack ad somewhere that the Liberal Party believes that terrorists should get to keep their Canadian citizenship," he said. "Because I do. And I'm willing to take on anyone who disagrees with that."
Trudeau's premise is "as soon as you make citizenship for some Canadians conditional on good behaviour, you devalue citizenship for everyone"...
It comes to something when a golf-club-wielding Arabic-cursing body-bagged jihadist crone unable to speak the language of "her" country and attacking patrons of a suburban shopping mall in furtherance of the global caliphate nevertheless has a better grasp of citizenship than a western prime minister. But, alas, such is the case. Citizenship is not conditional on "good behaviour", but it is conditional on what Rehab Dughmosh calls "allegiance". In traditional ethnostates such as, say, Denmark, that didn't used to be a big deal: your family had been Danish for a thousand years, you felt Danish, you lived Danish, so naturally your allegiance was to Denmark - "naturally" as in it's so natural you don't even think about it. That's why we call adopting citizenship "naturalization" - because, by the end of it, it's supposed to feel natural. Naturalization requires a transfer of allegiance, which is why in Canada you take an oath to the Queen and in America, just to underline the point, you're also called upon to "absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen".
That should just about cover it.
Except that it doesn't. Because to the post-modernists of the western political class "allegiance" is a fusty concept. They don't believe in it, so they don't see why Ahmed off the boat from Misurata should be expected to. Perhaps the weirdest moment for me in the Munk Debate last year, between Nigel Farage and me, on the one hand, and, on the other, Louise Arbour and Simon Schama, was this exchange:
Mark Steyn: When you've got second- and third- generation Belgians and Frenchmen and Germans and Britons and Canadians going off to join ISIS, blowing up Paris, blowing up Brussels, that ought to occasion a certain modesty among us that our skills at assimilation, at inculcating our values, are not as awesome and all-encompassing as they were in the nineteenth century. And to think, when second- and third-generation immigrants are blowing up the airport, that the answer is suddenly to accelerate immigration from the same source, is very bizarre. In what sense are these people Belgian?
Simon Schama: Well, you know, in what sense is Razia Iqbal British? She's fully British, right..? And she happens to be a British Muslim, right? And how more British can you get than doing the BBC World Service?
Mark Steyn: Yes. I worked with Zeinab Badawi at Channel 4 in Britain. I've got no problem with that. But that's my point: Holding a passport does not make you Canadian and does not make you Belgian and does not make you French.
Louise Arbour: What?
Simon Schama: I agree.
Professor Schama appeared to concede that point, but Mme Arbour was apparently stunned by it, and returned to it later, very emphatically:
Louise Arbour: And by the way, Mark, if you have a Canadian passport you're a Canadian citizen. There's no arguing with that, right?
Mme Arbour is a former Supreme Court justice but she's missing my point: a Canadian passport may make you a Canadian citizen, as a point of law, but it does not make you a Canadian, as an actual, living, breathing reality. Body-bagged from head to toe, speaking neither English nor French, Rehab Dughmosh has renounced her allegiance to Canada and proclaimed instead her allegiance to the Islamic State, which happens to be Canada's enemy, which in the pre-Arbour era would be what we quaintly call "treason". Why does Mme Arbour presume to know better than Ms Dughmosh about where the latter's allegiance lies?
A few days ago, a sniper with Canada's special forces broke the world record for longest confirmed kill, picking off a Soldier of Allah at 3,450 meters - which is over two miles. That's phenomenal and unprecedented, and the JTF2 guy who did it deserves all the honours the Canadian state can confer on him. On this 150th birthday I only hope we can continue to produce more men like that.
But what's the point if, for every ISIS barbarian you pick off at 3,450 meters, back on the home front you're importing hundreds and thousands of loons who support him and share his world view, day in, day out. There are more "British Muslims" fighting for al-Baghdadi than for the Queen. Thousands more: they feel their allegiance to the Caliphate in a way that they do not for Britain. Likewise with Rehab Dughmosh: she feels her allegiance to ISIS, and not for Canada. Never did. Pace the socks symbol Trudeau, making citizenship conditional on "good behaviour" - ie, non-treason - does not "devalue citizenship for everyone". Tolerating ISIS fighters holding UK and Canadian and Belgian citizenship is what "devalues citizenship for everyone". Rehab Dughmosh's Canadian citizenship devalues that JTF2 sniper's Canadian citizenship.
That's true in the broader sense, too. Ms Dughmosh and those "British" ISIS volunteers feel their true allegiance; they live and breathe it. If you accept them, as Mme Arbour does, as Canadian and UK and French and Swedish citizens, "no arguing with that", you devalue your own citizenship to the point where its purchase on you starts to weaken and dissolve. I look at the feeble, passive reactions to jihadist provocations in Manchester and London and Paris and Brussels, and wonder: how many of the west's citizens feel British or French or Belgian? It's the shrunken reductive definition of "citizenship" advanced by the likes of Trudeau that devalues it - and (a somber thought for this 150th Dominion Day) perhaps fatally.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asz2mDfMYgI
Damn, he's good.
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I frequently sit in slack jawed admiration.
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US has let in enough refugees to fill 10 Pittsburghs
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-bureaucrats-us-has-let-in-enough-refugees-to-fill-10-pittsburghs/article/2627697
3.3 million since 1975.
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Yes, but but 40 years too late:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/01/speaker-ryan-posts-video-of-visit-to-southern-border-its-time-for-the-wall/
The Paul will turn around and speak amnesty for the 15 million that are already here so I have no illusions this declaration comes at a price.
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We have a word in English for the act of an illegal person taking a legal person's money... theft.
Why are illegals entitled to ANY taxpayer dollars?
Maybe we can also achieve economies of scale with those deportation costs.
https://cis.org/Report/Deportation-vs-Cost-Letting-Illegal-Immigrants-Stay
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-fiscal-drain-of-illegal-immigrants-is-6-times-cost-of-deportation/article/2630500
Report: 'Fiscal drain' of illegal immigrants is 6 times cost of deportation
by Paul Bedard | Aug 3, 2017
The "fiscal drain" of illegal immigrants on American taxpayers is about 6 times the price of deporting them, according to a new study that bolsters the Trump administration's bid to remove criminal illegals and cut overall immigration costs.
The Center for Immigration Studies on Thursday said in a new report that deportation costs an average of $10,854. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that includes apprehension, detention, and processing.
Letting illegal immigrants stay in the U.S., results in a bill to taxpayers of $65,292 "for each illegal immigrant, excluding their descendants," according to Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. That includes government benefits.
Camarota, citing two key fiscal impact studies, said that reason the cost of illegal immigration is high is because many are poorly educated and require more in government benefits than others.
"In short, illegal immigrants are a large net fiscal drain because of their education levels and this fact drives the results. Deportation, on the other hand, is not that costly relative to the fiscal costs illegal immigrants create," he wrote.
His key findings:
Deportation costs
In April of this year, ICE reported that the average cost of a deportation, also referred to as a removal, was $10,854 in FY 2016, including apprehension, detention, and processing.
Partly due to policies adopted in the second term of the Obama administration, ICE removed nearly 170,000 fewer aliens in 2016 than in 2012, even though it actually spent 8 percent more in 2016 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The removal of so many more illegal immigrants in FY 2012 means that the average cost per removal in that year was $5,915, adjusted for inflation.
If the average cost of a deportation was what it had been in FY 2012, then the larger enforcement budget in FY 2016 would have allowed for 200,000 more removals without spending additional money.
Costs of illegal immigrants
Researchers agree that illegal immigrants overwhelmingly have modest levels of education — most have not completed high school or have only a high school education. There is also agreement that immigrants with this level of education are a significant net fiscal drain, creating more in costs for government than they pay in taxes.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine estimated the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) of immigrants based on their educational attainment. Averaging those estimates and applying them to the education level of illegal immigrants shows a net fiscal drain of $65,292 per illegal — excluding any costs for their children.
Based on this estimate, there is a total lifetime fiscal drain of $746.3 billion. This assumes 11.43 million illegal immigrants are in the country based on the U.S. government's most recent estimate.
The fiscal cost created by illegal immigrants of $746.3 billion compares to total a cost of deportation of $124.1 billion, assuming a FY 2016 cost per deportation, or $67.6 billion using FY 2012 deportation costs.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450164/skill-based-immigration-international-norm
and likely who your lawyer is and what political connections one has .....
(and if you swear to vote for Democrats :roll:)
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This guy just refuses to get off the stage:
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/open-borders-shill-john-mccain-resurrects-gang-of-8-amnesty-push
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pasting CCP's post here:
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/sanctuary-cities-funding-justice-department/2017/08/07/id/806360/
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http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/345648-trump-spurs-wave-of-new-immigration-laws?rnd=1502139291
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Third post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/7/donald-trump-endorses-immigration-point-system-dem/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWlRWbE9XUmpNbU0yWWpabCIsInQiOiJsWkNSVjJOZXVFTDlWM0xqZ2RMMlc2dUI1ZUUzeWNSY1BUY3JNYkxWaWt0QUxcLzRZbTFBQ2RMOFpDYWRDRDBqNDc2NDZ3SHlJNnVoODRNZmhIUkhOR2ZaS0Z6MkRiNnRZc0hScVMzd2l5b2pBNU1KbTVMVGd0REVBU1B4Zmh3TGIifQ%3D%3D
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This guy just refuses to get off the stage:
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/open-borders-shill-john-mccain-resurrects-gang-of-8-amnesty-push
This issued was settled in the 2016 election. McCain's view was on the ballot via his surrogate Lindsey Graham. Graham won 0.1% of the Republican vote in two states and 0.0% in the rest while Trump and 'Build the Wall' won the nomination and 30 states.
I backed Rubio's approach and it failed. Elections have consequences.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/07/11/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/Tillerson_JCPOA_Letter07112017.pdf?tid=a_inl
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since Obama. How does Immigration explain this? No will to increase resources to get and keep illegals out:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/13/illegal-alien-arrests-are-way-up-but-deportations-are-down/
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our politicians would have sympathy for those who pay taxes rather then everyone else:
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/enough-with-daca-wheres-the-sympathy-for-these-americans
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Weird formatting here, probably best to read on the NRO site, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/451117/daca-immigration-honesty-about-problem but content posted here for our record:
The Corner The one and only. A Little DACA Honesty Share article on Facebook share Tweet article tweet Plus one article on Google Plus +1 Print Article Adjust font size AA by Victor Davis Hanson September 6, 2017 12:24 PM @vdhanson
It is surreal to look at more than a dozen clips of Barack Obama in non-campaign mode prior to 2012 assuring the country (“I am not king”) that he simply could not usurp the power of the Congress and by fiat illegally issue blanket amnesties in precisely the fashion he would in 2012 — presumably on the assumption that new polls worded along the lines of “would you deport small children brought by their parents to the country as infants” showed a majority of Americans would not.
So, on the basis of both short-term gain in 2012 and long-term progressive interest in creating a new demographic reality in swing states in the southwest, Obama eagerly did exactly what he had said that he could not legally do — and not with reluctance, but with the self-righteous zeal of a convert, and in condemnation of anyone morally suspect enough to have agreed with his position prior to his reelection campaign. Such is identity politics.
But note his about-face came only after the fact that from January 2009 to January 2011, Obama enjoyed a large majority in the House, and until Scott Brown’s election in 2010, a supermajority in the Senate, led by Harry Reid. And yet over that period, Obama did not force over the impotent objections of Republicans a DACA bill that would now have precluded the present conundrum — in the fashion in which he had successfully pushed through Obamacare without a single Republican vote.
Observers have a right to be a little skeptical about the current outrage that was not voiced against an American president in 2009–12, who passed on the opportunity of DACA amnesty, and added insult to injury to “dreamers” by asserting that his constitutional lawyering made it unethical and illegal to pass a law by fiat and circumventing the Congress — at least until he needed reelection heft.
Trump’s six-month hiatus returns the issue to constitutionality and thus back into the hands of the Congress, and presumably it seeks to avoid ad hoc court decisions or executive orders.
Most Americans are not willing to grant blanket amnesty, but rather to offer in some cases legalized residence (if done constitutionally by Congress, and signed by the president) to those few hundred thousands who were brought illegally to the U.S. as minors and who have not committed a crime, are employed or in school, and are not on public assistance. I have had dozens of undocumented immigrants as students over the years, know many neighbors who are here illegally, and have personal friends without legality — and the stereotypes of those in their later twenties or early thirties who are employed or in school, speak fluent English, and are law-abiding are largely true: They are impressive people for whom a green card is a good idea.
That dispensation would leave it up to particular DACA immigrants to decide whether to enjoy renewable green-card residence or, in cases, to pay a fine (many after 18 and before DACA chose not to address their illegal status), satisfy existing requirements, and seek citizenship — a legislative compromise possible if the present aberration of massive illegal immigration is seen as a one-time lapse in the law, and we return to secure borders, credible fencing, and strict enforcement of existing immigration laws, and meritocratic, diverse, and ethnically blind legal-immigration reforms.
Yet many doubt that the critics of the present DACA reprieve are willing to adopt the latter conditions when they can demagogue the issue.
Left unseen also is the elephant in the room: If DACA immigrants are seen by both sides as a particular class alone deserving of ex officio amnesties (e.g., 800,000 to 1 million?), then de facto is that a concession that other adults who willingly broke the law in entering and residing in the U.S., often through illegal agencies of document fraud and false identities, are not eligible for a similar assortment of gradated amenities? Does DACA then offer final clarity about who is and is not eligible for green-card amnesty? Or is DACA a ruse or first step to blanket amnesties for 11-15 million to come?
And we will see whether immigration protests can square the circle of harsh criticism of the U.S. (as witnessed, for example, in prior Cinco de Mayo rallies, La Raza sloganeering, and the boilerplate of ethnic-studies curricula on campus) with the overwhelming desire to stay at all costs in a country so often unfairly damned as irredeemably racist and bigoted — in order to avoid at all costs crossing the border to countries so often romanticized in the abstract. We are living in interesting but largely intellectually dishonest times.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/451117/daca-immigration-honesty-about-problem
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"Or is DACA a ruse or first step to blanket amnesties for 11-15 million to come? "
Prof Hanson nails it. It's so hard to argue policy when what comes out of their mouths, pens or keyboards is a lie or deception.
How about having an honest discussion or debate over where we draw the line, who deserves to be a citizen, who can vote and how do we secure this as a country with borders? It's never happened. They prefer alleging bigotry and cruelty to any reasonable solution.
The strangest moment for me in the last campaign was when Hillary answered Trump's 'extreme view' of enforcing the law with a far more extreme view, refusing to recognize any sovereignty or security interest for the country whatsoever. Anyone for any reason could enter our country in violation of federal law, gain full citizenship and vote. The Blue Wall cringed in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and collapsed.
As VDH points out, they had the votes to do it and didn't, preferring a perpetual political issue to a so-called solution.
How do you settle a serious matter with dishonest opponents? You can't and you don't. So just make reasonable laws where you can and enforce them. Build the wall. Strengthen voter ID laws. Chip away at sanctuaries with funding consequences. Refuse anything beyond humane emergency services to illegals. Deport them one at a time at the first sign of trouble.
In the old days TEMPORARY workers came here to work. They didn't expect to vote and tried to stay out of trouble. That doesn't sound so bad; let's have a program for that and shut down the border gangs.
Allowing them to become permanent and illegal to the point they no longer have a home to go back to was cruel.
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repubs out maneuvered? what would give this author this idea?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451233/republicans-immigration-surrender-dream-act-traded-border-security
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/14/donald-trump-the-wall-will-come-later-after-daca-amnesty-deal/
With Rush saying on his show they Ryan is going around in private there ain't going to be any wall he certainly is part of the problem
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/14/donald-trump-the-wall-will-come-later-after-daca-amnesty-deal/
With Rush saying on his show they Ryan is going around in private there ain't going to be any wall he certainly is part of the problem
Yes. Ryan has been consistently soft on illegal immigration. At least he favors a wall, unlike the sovereignty denial party. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/344765-paul-ryan-it-is-time-for-the-wall
He was strongest on healthcare, the most prepared to stand up to Obama when it was being rammed down us. I think he is strong on tax reform too, another area where nothing is happening.
Trump should wonder what his title would be today if he had run as the DACA amnesty President.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/trump-embraces-amnesty/539790/
Top 3 domestic issues all need action:
1. "The wall will come later..."
Trump has his credibility resting on that. I'm sure they will do something, eventually, if we all live long enough.
2. Healthcare has an urgency with the current system in a downward (upward?) spiral.
3. Tax reform: This HAS to be done before year end, effective Jan 1, or the Republicans can run for reelection on their continuation of the Pelosi-Obama economic plan. Even then it could be too late.
Most of the arguments and won't-get-it-done quotes are about process, not policy. But when you don't pass anything, it becomes about policy. The current law of the land is, no wall, O'care still in place and year 10 or 11 of Pelosi-Reid-Obama tax and spend programs.
Screw the Republican voters, conservatives, Trump voters and THEY WILL STAY HOME.
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People who don't like Trump are really not going to like President Duturte.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/14/donald-trump-the-wall-will-come-later-after-daca-amnesty-deal/
With Rush saying on his show they Ryan is going around in private there ain't going to be any wall he certainly is part of the problem
Yes. Ryan has been consistently soft on illegal immigration. At least he favors a wall, unlike the sovereignty denial party. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/344765-paul-ryan-it-is-time-for-the-wall
He was strongest on healthcare, the most prepared to stand up to Obama when it was being rammed down us. I think he is strong on tax reform too, another area where nothing is happening.
Trump should wonder what his title would be today if he had run as the DACA amnesty President.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/trump-embraces-amnesty/539790/
Top 3 domestic issues all need action:
1. "The wall will come later..."
Trump has his credibility resting on that. I'm sure they will do something, eventually, if we all live long enough.
2. Healthcare has an urgency with the current system in a downward (upward?) spiral.
3. Tax reform: This HAS to be done before year end, effective Jan 1, or the Republicans can run for reelection on their continuation of the Pelosi-Obama economic plan. Even then it could be too late.
Most of the arguments and won't-get-it-done quotes are about process, not policy. But when you don't pass anything, it becomes about policy. The current law of the land is, no wall, O'care still in place and year 10 or 11 of Pelosi-Reid-Obama tax and spend programs.
Screw the Republican voters, conservatives, Trump voters and THEY WILL STAY HOME.
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By William McGurn
Sept. 11, 2017 7:05 p.m. ET
1286 COMMENTS
Throughout his political life, Barack Obama has been hustling America on immigration, pretending to be one thing while doing another.
Now he’s at it again. Mr. Obama calls it “cruel” of Donald Trump both to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected hundreds of thousands of people who came to the U.S. as children illegally—and to ask Congress to fix it. The former president further moans that the immigration bill he asked Congress to send him “never came,” with the result that 800,000 young people now find themselves in limbo.
Certainly there are conservatives and Republicans who oppose and fight efforts by Congress to open this country’s doors, as well as to legalize the many millions who crossed into the U.S. unlawfully but have been working peacefully and productively. These immigration opponents get plenty of attention.
What gets almost zero press attention is the sneakier folks, Mr. Obama included. Truth is, no man has done more to poison the possibilities for fixing America’s broken immigration system than our 44th president.
Opinion Journal Video
Opinion Journal: Obama’s Dreamer Dishonesty
Main Street Columnist Bill McGurn on how the former president has poisoned the immigration reform debate. Photo Credit: Getty Images.
Mr. Obama’s double-dealing begins with his time as junior senator from Illinois, when he helped sabotage a bipartisan immigration package supported by George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy. Mr. Obama’s dissembling continued during the first two years of his own presidency, when he had the votes to pass an immigration bill if he had chosen to push one. It was all topped off by his decision, late in his first term, to institute the policy on DACA that he himself had previously admitted was beyond his constitutional powers.
Let this columnist state at the outset that he favors a generous system of legal immigration because he believes it is good for America. Let him stipulate too that a fair and reasonable solution to 800,000 children who are here through no fault of their own should not be a sticking point for a nation as large as America. But once again, here’s the point about Mr. Obama: For all his big talk about how much he’s wanted an immigration bill, whenever he’s had the opportunity to back one, he’s either declined or actively worked to scuttle it.
Start with 2007, when a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators came up with a bill that also enjoyed the support of the Bush White House. It wasn’t perfect, but it extracted compromises from each side—e.g., enhancements for border security, a guest-worker program, and the inclusion of the entire Dream Act, the legislation for children who’d been brought here illegally that Mr. Obama claims he has always wanted.
Sen. Obama opted to back 11th-hour amendments that Kennedy rightly complained were really intended as deal-breakers. At a critical point, Kennedy urged that President Bush ask then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep the Senate in session to get the last few votes the bill needed. Mr. Reid opted for the Obama approach: Concluding he’d rather have the political issue than actual reform, he adjourned the Senate for the July 4 recess.
A year later Mr. Obama was running for president. Before the National Council of La Raza, he vowed: “I will make [comprehensive immigration reform] a top priority in my first year as president.” Yet notwithstanding the lopsided Democratic majorities he enjoyed in Congress his first two years, he didn’t push for immigration legislation, which makes his promise to La Raza rank right up there with “if you like your health care plan you can keep it.”
Mr. Obama frequently noted the limits on his powers. “I know some here wish that I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself. But that’s not how democracy works,” he said. Then in 2012 he decided he would indeed change the law himself. A June 2012 Journal editorial captures the cynicism built into the DACA memo.
The president’s move, the Journal predicted, “will further poison the debate and make Republicans more reluctant to come to the negotiating table and cut a deal.” The editorial went on: “One begins to wonder if anything this President does is about anything larger than his re-election.”
Today Carl Cannon, executive editor and Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics, is almost alone in the national press in pointing to this history, in a piece pegged to the Democratic response to President Trump’s pitch to codify DACA into law. “Instead of responding to this overture in a spirit of compromise,” Mr. Cannon writes, “Democrats chose vitriol and name-calling, their default position in the Trump era.”
Perhaps, suggests Mr. Cannon, a “certain ex-president” is accusing Mr. Trump of cruelty “to help us forget” that when he and other Democrats “had the chance to grant 11 million immigrants access to the American dream, they instead chose, for partisan purposes, to keep them in the shadows.” Fair enough to criticize Mr. Trump and Congress for whatever they do going forward to clean up this mess. But let’s remember the Obama duplicity that created it.
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Of course. Get them in the voting booths ASAP. By '18!!!
Then once citizens they can also bring in their families who can then bring in their families . Get them on medicare medicaid food stamps. Let em vote !!! Ryan all for it !!! Terrific. We are so freakin "nice". I wondered how in the world I was seeing older patients who were born in other countries and live predominantly in those countries, some cannot speak a word of English, walking into my office *with Medicare*. What a system . Great for them.
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/09/17/durbin-dems-understanding-trumps-daca-deal-includes-citizenship/
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While I don't agree with some of this article's comments, I do post it because of its description of the specifics of the RAISE Act bill.
http://www.speroforum.com/a/LACTVQECKE43/81709-The-RAISE-Act-meritbased-immigration-explained?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FXQODGVTOK34&utm_content=LACTVQECKE43&utm_source=commentary&utm_term=The+RAISE+Act+meritbased+immigration+explained#.WcKBsHrcCeQ
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/record-135-billion-a-year-for-illegal-immigration-average-8075-each-25000-in-ny/article/2635757
Record $135 billion a year for illegal immigration, average $8,075 each, $25,000 in NY
by Paul Bedard | Sep 27, 2017, 6:30 AM Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Email this article Share on LinkedIn Print this article
Record $135 billion a year for illegal immigration costs
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The swelling population of illegal immigrants and their kids is costing American taxpayers $135 billion a year, the highest ever, driven by free medical care, education and a huge law enforcement bill, according to the the most authoritative report on the issue yet.
And despite claims from pro-illegal immigration advocates that the aliens pay significant off-setting taxes back to federal, state and local treasuries, the Federation for American Immigration Reform report tallied just $19 billion, making the final hit to taxpayers about $116 billion.
State and local governments are getting ravaged by the costs, at over $88 billion. The federal government, by comparison, is getting off easy at $45 billion in costs for illegals.
President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and conservatives in Congress are moving aggressively to deal with illegals, especially those with long criminal records. But their effort is being fought by courts and some 300 so-called "sanctuary communities" that refuse to work with federal law enforcement.
The added burden on taxpayers and the unfairness to those who have applied to come into the United States through legal channels is also driving the administration's immigration crackdown.
The report, titled "The Fiscal Burden Of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers," is the most comprehensive cost tally from FAIR. It said that the costs have jumped about $3 billion in four years and will continue to surge unless illegal immigration is stopped. It was provided in advance exclusively to Secrets.
"Clearly, the cost of doing nothing to stop illegal immigration is far too high," said FAIR Executive Director Dan Stein. "President Trump has laid out a comprehensive strategy to regain control of illegal immigration and bring down these costs," said Stein. "Building the wall, enhancing interior enforcement and mandating national E-Verify will go a long way in bringing these ridiculously high costs under control," he added.
Over 68 often shocking pages, FAIR documents the average $8,075 in state, local and federal spending for each of the of 12.5 million illegal immigrants and their 4.2 million citizen children.
Broadly, the costs include $29 billion in medical care, $23 billion for law enforcement, $9 billion in welfare, $46 billion for education.
Just consider the cost of teaching an illegal alien child who doesn't speak English. FAIR estimates an average cost of over $12,000 a year, and that can reach $25,000 in New York. Add to that welfare, health care, school lunches, and the per student price soars.
In state costs alone, California leads the list at $23 billion per year, followed by Texas at $11 billion, and New York at $7.4 billion.
And it also documents the taxes paid and how they don't come close to offsetting the costs. What's more, FAIR noted that 35 percent of the illegal population operate in an underground economy hidden from tax collectors. And worse, employers hire illegals and either pay them cheaply or under the table.
"The United States recoups only about 14 percent of the amount expended annually on illegal aliens. If the same jobs held by illegal aliens were filled by legal workers, at the prevailing market wage, it may safely be presumed that federal, state and local governments would receive higher tax payments," said FAIR.
Key findings pulled from the report:
The staggering total costs of illegal immigrants and their children outweigh the taxes paid to federal and state governments by a ratio of roughly 7 to 1, with costs at nearly $135 billion compared to tax revenues at nearly $19 billion.
The nearly $135 billion paid out by federal and state and local taxpayers to cover the cost of the presence of 12.5 million illegal aliens and their 4.2 million citizen children amounts to approximately $8,075 per illegal alien and citizen child prior to taxes paid, or $6,940 per person after taxes are paid.
On the federal level, medical ($17.14 billion) is by far the highest cost, with law enforcement coming second ($13.15 billion) and general government services ($8 billion) third.
At the state and local level, education ($44.4 billion) was by far the largest expense, followed by general public services ($18.5 billion) and medical ($12.1 billion).
The top three states based on total cost to state taxpayers for illegal immigrants and their children: California ($23 billion); Texas ($10.9 billion), and New York ($7.5 billion).
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
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*** Since 1986, employers have been required by federal immigration law to verify an employee’s legal right to work in the U.S. They also must maintain records of each worker’s employment verification and identification documents. ****
If we actually had real enforcement half the companies in the US would be fined:
Pennsylvania Company to Pay Record Fine for Illegally Hiring Immigrants
Asplundh Tree Expert pleads guilty for employing those who didn’t have authorization to work in the U.S.
By Alicia A. Caldwell
Sept. 29, 2017 3:31 p.m. ET
25 COMMENTS
A Pennsylvania-based tree-trimming company was ordered to pay $95 million in the largest fine against a company for hiring thousands of immigrants who didn’t have permission to work in the U.S., according to federal officials.
Asplundh Tree Expert of Willow Grove, Pa., pleaded guilty in federal court in Philadelphia on Thursday to illegally hiring the immigrants. Some of the immigrants were in the U.S. illegally, none had authorization to work in the country, according to court documents.
A federal judge ordered the family-owned company to pay $80 million and adhere to an Administrative Compliance Agreement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The details of the agreement weren’t made public.
In a separate civil settlement, ICE said, the company agreed to pay $15 million related to its violation of immigration law.
ICE said Asplundh decentralized hiring so the company’s senior management could “remain willfully blind” as lower-level mangers hired and rehired workers they knew weren’t allowed to work in the U.S. The agency also said the lower-level managers knowingly accepted false or fake identification documents.
In a statement posted on the company’s website on Sept. 19, Chairman and CEO Scott Asplundh said the company, which has more than 30,000 employees in the U.S, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, took “immediate corrective action” after being told of the federal investigation in 2015. The company declined to comment further on Friday.
Policy changes, Mr. Asplundh said in the statement, included reviewing the identity of every employee using a photo ID system based on the face-recognition software used by ICE.
The company’s guilty plea and civil settlement were the result of a six-year investigation by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division.
Since 1986, employers have been required by federal immigration law to verify an employee’s legal right to work in the U.S. They also must maintain records of each worker’s employment verification and identification documents.
ICE routinely audits a business’s employment verification records and has levied tens of millions of dollars in fines since 2007. It is unclear what the largest fine was before this week’s against Asplundh.
However, in 2014, the latest figures available from the Department of Homeland Security, the government opened 2,022 workplace-enforcement cases and levied fines totaling more than $16 million.
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White House Makes Hard-Line Demands for Any ‘Dreamers’ Deal
By MICHAEL D. SHEAROCT. 8, 2017
The border wall between Tecate, Mexico, and Tecate, Calif., last month. Credit Paul Buck/European Pressphoto Agency
WASHINGTON — The White House on Sunday delivered to Congress a long list of hard-line immigration measures that President Trump is demanding in exchange for any deal to protect the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, imperiling a fledgling bipartisan push to reach a legislative solution.
Before agreeing to provide legal status for 800,000 young immigrants brought here illegally as children, Mr. Trump will insist on the construction of a wall across the southern border, the hiring of 10,000 immigration agents, tougher laws for those seeking asylum and denial of federal grants to “sanctuary cities,” officials said.
The White House is also demanding the use of the E-Verify program by companies to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs, an end to people bringing their extended family into the United States, and a hardening of the border against thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America. Such a move would shut down loopholes that encourage parents from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to send their children illegally into the United States, where many of them melt into American communities and become undocumented immigrants.
“Now is the time for Congress to adopt these immigration priorities,” Marc Short, the president’s legislative director, told reporters during a conference call on Sunday night. Otherwise, he added, illegal immigration “will likely increase.”
While it is unclear whether Mr. Trump views the demands as absolute requirements or the beginning of a negotiation, the proposals, taken together, amount to a Christmas-in-October wish list for immigration hard-liners inside the White House. Immigration activists have long opposed many of the proposals as draconian or even racist.
The demands were developed by a half-dozen agencies and departments, officials said. But among the officials behind the demands are Stephen Miller, the president’s top policy adviser, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, both of whom have long advocated extremely aggressive efforts to prevent illegal entry into the country and crack down on undocumented immigrants already here.
The demands represented a concerted effort to broaden the expected congressional debate about the Dreamers to one about overhauling the entire American immigration system — on terms that hard-line conservatives have been pursuing for decades.
In a letter to lawmakers, Mr. Trump said his demands would address “dangerous loopholes, outdated laws and easily exploited vulnerabilities” in the immigration system, asserting that they were “reforms that must be included” in any deal to address the Dreamers.
Democratic leaders in Congress reacted with alarm, saying the demands threaten to undermine the president’s own statements in which he had pledged to work across the aisle to protect the Dreamers through legislation.
“The administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House, said in a joint statement.
Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi, who declared after a White House dinner last month that they had reached a deal with Mr. Trump to protect Dreamers, denounced the president’s demands as failing to “represent any attempt at compromise.” They called it little more than a thinly veiled effort to scuttle negotiations even before they begin in earnest.
“If the president was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good-faith effort to do so,” they added.
Last month, the president abruptly ended an Obama-era policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in which former President Barack Obama had used his executive authority to protect about 800,000 of the young immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide them work permits.
Even as Mr. Trump kept his campaign promise to halt what he had described as “one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president,” he quickly added that he would work with Democrats in Congress to replace the executive policy with legislation, giving them six months to do so. But a White House official said on Sunday that Mr. Trump was not open to a deal that would eventually allow the Dreamers to become United States citizens.
“The president’s position has been that he’s called on Congress to come up with a permanent solution and a fix to this process,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said last week.
Immigration advocates will most likely urge Democratic leaders to refuse a deal that includes the president’s proposals. But immigration and human rights advocates are also under pressure to do something for the Dreamers, thousands of whom will begin, by March, losing permission to work and protection from deportation if a deal is not reached.
Privately, many advocates have acknowledged that a negotiated deal with the Republican president is likely to include some immigration changes.
Administration officials responsible for securing the border and enforcing the nation’s immigration laws told reporters on Sunday night that the changes requested by the president were essential to protecting American workers from unfair competition and deterring what they described as a never-ending flow of illegal immigrants into the country.
On the president’s wish list is a long-sought Republican goal of stopping American residents from sponsoring the arrival of extended family members. His demand would limit residents to bringing only spouses and children. Also central to the effort, officials said, are legal changes that would strip away the rights of illegal immigrants to claim asylum or make another case to stay in the United States, allowing federal officials to more quickly deport them.
“We cannot have true border security if we don’t change federal laws to ensure that people who are apprehended are removed,” said Ron Vitiello, the acting deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection.
Thomas D. Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a vast increase in the number of agents and other federal resources would allow for a crackdown on immigration violators that had been difficult in the past.
Another key part of that crackdown would be on tens of thousands of children who have surged across the border with Mexico during the past several years, many of them seeking to escape gang-related violence in Central American countries. This year, about 38,500 children have been apprehended at the border without their parents.
Administration officials say the children — many of whom are sent to live with a cousin, aunt, uncle or sibling in the United States — must be turned back or quickly deported once they arrive. Under current law, many of them remain in the United States for years during legal proceedings to evaluate their asylum or refugee claims.
If the children are not deported quickly, officials say, many will never leave, eventually becoming a new population of sympathetic young immigrants who seek amnesty. That could create lasting cycles in which illegal immigrants demand to be given a legal status, the officials say.
The president’s demands include new rules that say children are not considered “unaccompanied” at the border if they have a parent or guardian in the United States. They also propose treating children from Central America the same way they do children from Mexico, who can be repatriated more quickly, with fewer rights to hearings.
Mr. Trump is also calling for a surge in resources to pay for 370 additional immigration judges, 1,000 government lawyers and more detention space so that children arriving at the border can be held, processed and quickly returned if they do not qualify to stay longer.
Critics say the focus on deporting unaccompanied children is heartless and impractical. They say many were sent by their parents on long, dangerous treks in the hopes of avoiding poverty, hunger, abuse or death by gangs in their home countries.
Advocates acknowledge that more resources are necessary to speed up those hearings. But they argue that White House efforts to demand quick decisions are likely to merely result in many children being sent back to places where they are raped, beaten or killed.
Sending the children back with just a cursory hearing is “a recipe for disaster in terms of returning people to danger,” said Wendy Young, the president of Kids in Need of Defense, a group that aids young refugees.
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GM,
Smart political move by Trump by his giving Congress 60 days to come up with plan.
In one stroke he:
does not alienate his base by giving the 800K illegals a pass, though he does not rule out some sort of compromise for them.
he makes Congress come up with a plan
he insists on border control
he insists E verify
he insists on a wall and more agents
he insist on removing funding for Democrats in cities or states who refuse to enforce Federal law
Only problem:
The Republican cowards in the Houses
But Trump gets an A +
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From Cog Diss Republicans thread:
CCP: Doug
...But I don't understand what you mean here:
"And why is the Trump side opposed to bring the best and the brightest in, especially when they hold the screening controls?"
Are you saying Trump is restricting the best and brightest? I don't see that. Look at our academic institutions. They are *loaded* with foreign born. And now the children of foreign born.
Did you see the Asian American lawsuit against Harvard? They are claiming they are being discriminated against because they are Asian . If true half the staff of Harvard should be Chinese. So Trump may not be the ones restricting them.
What great scientist can you name that has not been able to work in the US?
------------------------------------
Thanks ccp, good points. I can answer you more generally. With illegal immigration and Democrat-led immigration we had some problems (understatement). Again, see Ann Coulter's Adios America, well researched data. The problems had to do with abandonment of what got us originally to the point of American greatness.
1. E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. Not to pick on any one Hispanic but as a group we have a lot of people not becoming 'one' with the already here Americans. The illegal flood wrongfully puts a cloud over the legal ones. They aren't all going back so we need settlement of this issue, a stop to the flood and a pause or tightening of the legal inflow from where too many have come too fast to assimilate.
In this town, ditto that for Somalians who have other problems. They aren't assimilating and a certain percentage of them are hostile to everything we stand for like peace and prosperity.
If the problem today were Scandinavians, Scots or conservative political board writers, then pause or stop that too.
2. Overstayed visas. Non enforcement of our laws brought us 9/11. The wall and southern border is only one aspect of the law breaking.
3. National security and sovereignty: We can't have war gangs deciding who comes in.
4. The phenomenon of "free shit". Muslims don't go to Sweden for the weather or sunshine; they go for the world's most generous government benefits. Same partly goes for us. Liberals compare current inflow with previous ones, but people in the past did not come for that reason. They came to pursue the American Dream in the Shiny City on the Hill. Immigrants suffered, sacrificed, perservered and bettered themselves and the country. Contrast that with now.
5. Lastly or firstly, WE should decide who comes in, not be victims of it.
Regardless of where Trump is on this, in general, we will need laborers. The US, like Europe, have demographic challenges. But as mentioned, we have 100 million adults already here and not working at a point we are defining as full employment. In fact, the size of our workforce is a fluid number that depends on incentives and disincentives to work - and has plenty of room to move. So maybe the need for laborer is later. Right now we need to entice some labor out of existing population. But if we aren't willing to do that, we need laborers now.
I know that when we read the MIT class list or faculty list we don't see the most common names we have here: Johnson, Anderson, Nelson, Olson, Peterson, Smith, Larson, Miller. http://kkcb.com/what-are-the-most-common-last-names-in-minnesota/ But I don't know by seeing their names how many are foreign students, how many are citizens, how many are allowed to stay and how many are forced to leave upon graduating - as G M referenced.
What I know or believe is more general, that whether we are or not right now, it is in our best interest to retain and recruit the best and the brightest, the most ambitious and especially to attract and retain entrepreneurs, the dearth of the last ten years. MHO.
cf: Einstein was a nice catch for the US, won WWII.
Also András Gróf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove
How many people are employed by the industry Intel (first microchip) pioneered and who is the next one to do that?
40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-companies-founded-by-immigrants-2017-2
Others are certain to not do anything like that and some predictably pose a net loss loss to our country. The point is that: we choose who gets in, based on our best interests.
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From Cog Diss Republicans thread:
CCP: Doug
...But I don't understand what you mean here:
"And why is the Trump side opposed to bring the best and the brightest in, especially when they hold the screening controls?"
Are you saying Trump is restricting the best and brightest? I don't see that. Look at our academic institutions. They are *loaded* with foreign born. And now the children of foreign born.
Did you see the Asian American lawsuit against Harvard? They are claiming they are being discriminated against because they are Asian . If true half the staff of Harvard should be Chinese. So Trump may not be the ones restricting them.
What great scientist can you name that has not been able to work in the US?
------------------------------------
Thanks ccp, good points. I can answer you more generally. With illegal immigration and Democrat-led immigration we had some problems (understatement). Again, see Ann Coulter's Adios America, well researched data. The problems had to do with abandonment of what got us originally to the point of American greatness.
1. E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. Not to pick on any one Hispanic but as a group we have a lot of people not becoming 'one' with the already here Americans. The illegal flood wrongfully puts a cloud over the legal ones. They aren't all going back so we need settlement of this issue, a stop to the flood and a pause or tightening of the legal inflow from where too many have come too fast to assimilate.
In this town, ditto that for Somalians who have other problems. They aren't assimilating and a certain percentage of them are hostile to everything we stand for like peace and prosperity.
If the problem today were Scandinavians, Scots or conservative political board writers, then pause or stop that too.
2. Overstayed visas. Non enforcement of our laws brought us 9/11. The wall and southern border is only one aspect of the law breaking.
3. National security and sovereignty: We can't have war gangs deciding who comes in.
4. The phenomenon of "free shit". Muslims don't go to Sweden for the weather or sunshine; they go for the world's most generous government benefits. Same partly goes for us. Liberals compare current inflow with previous ones, but people in the past did not come for that reason. They came to pursue the American Dream in the Shiny City on the Hill. Immigrants suffered, sacrificed, perservered and bettered themselves and the country. Contrast that with now.
5. Lastly or firstly, WE should decide who comes in, not be victims of it.
Regardless of where Trump is on this, in general, we will need laborers. The US, like Europe, have demographic challenges. But as mentioned, we have 100 million adults already here and not working at a point we are defining as full employment. In fact, the size of our workforce is a fluid number that depends on incentives and disincentives to work - and has plenty of room to move. So maybe the need for laborer is later. Right now we need to entice some labor out of existing population. But if we aren't willing to do that, we need laborers now.
I know that when we read the MIT class list or faculty list we don't see the most common names we have here: Johnson, Anderson, Nelson, Olson, Peterson, Smith, Larson, Miller. http://kkcb.com/what-are-the-most-common-last-names-in-minnesota/ But I don't know by seeing their names how many are foreign students, how many are citizens, how many are allowed to stay and how many are forced to leave upon graduating - as G M referenced.
What I know or believe is more general, that whether we are or not right now, it is in our best interest to retain and recruit the best and the brightest, the most ambitious and especially to attract and retain entrepreneurs, the dearth of the last ten years. MHO.
cf: Einstein was a nice catch for the US, won WWII.
Also András Gróf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove
How many people are employed by the industry Intel (first microchip) pioneered and who is the next one to do that?
40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-companies-founded-by-immigrants-2017-2
Others are certain to not do anything like that and some predictably pose a net loss loss to our country. The point is that: we choose who gets in, based on our best interests.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/02/02/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates-infographic/
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/stay-or-not-stay-calculus-international-stem-students-united-states
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/02/02/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates-infographic/
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/stay-or-not-stay-calculus-international-stem-students-united-states
The difference is staggering and all the numbers are surprisingly low. In a country of 325 million we only have 500,000/yr. college degrees in all STEM subjects? It makes me proud of my daughter but not of my country on that point. That points to a larger problem than (legal) immigration.
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Thanks GM and Doug for your thoughtful and insightful posts.
It is not so easy, I see, for graduates to stay and also somewhat risky in a sense as they may never be able to become permanent.
Perhaps we could raise the immigration levels for proved skilled laborers then.
However, I really like this private solution even better long term:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/10/12/google-give-1-billion-nonprofits-help-americans-get-jobs-new-economy/756703001/
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/12/two-dreamers-caught-smuggling-illegal-immigrants-u/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTldGaE9XRmpaalJtTTJWaSIsInQiOiI3Qlo3cHJ1VmE1eHRvclJvc0ZnSWE4RlRBc3grcVVLRTJrRnNyVm5cLzlqaGZoVVwvRzJacVlkTFUzVlU0MVZiZElzUWJyeHBpMUR4Y1VnK2tvWTRienFYRTBFN2ZWTzViZWtvRFhJeFByTXB6OWNrcW5JbU90VExPTkR0TVwvM21UMSJ9
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He is somewhat of a mainstream journalist (moderate Dem, oxymoron?) and he is telling Dems to take the deal with Trump.
It allows DACA children to stay.
"the beneficiaries were brought illegally to the United States as children by their parents, it's hard to make a case that they should be punished. As a practical matter, most have grown up as Americans. They have few roots in their country of birth."
Samuelson justifies his support for a wall on three grounds:
reduce -- though not eliminate -- illegal immigration (not a goal for the left!)
the wall would symbolize a major shift in U.S. immigration policy -- a tougher attitude (Who knew?)
Finally, the wall is required as a political act of good faith to immigration opponents. They believe the wall would be effective, and the only way to prove -- or disprove -- these claims would be to try it. (We had an election on that. He says, honor it!)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/10/11/yes_build_the_wall_135239.html
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-homeland-security-documents-reveal-sanctuary-cities-denied-284-ice-detainers-three-months-released-illegal-aliens-charged-assaults-drug-weapons-violations/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tipsheet&utm_term=members&utm_content=20171016211944
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Its Breitbart, so caveat lector
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/10/17/ice-detainer-issued-for-suspected-wine-country-arsonist-in-sonoma-jail/
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https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/statement-ice-acting-director-sonoma-countys-repeated-releases-dangerous-criminal
STATEMENT
10/18/2017
SHARE
Statement from ICE Acting Director on Sonoma County's repeated releases of dangerous criminal alien
“Once again, a non-cooperative jurisdiction has left their community vulnerable to dangerous individuals and preventable crimes. ICE lodged a detainer against Jesus Gonzalez with Sonoma County jail officials on October 16, following his arrest on felony charges for maliciously setting fire to a property. This is especially troubling in light of the massive wildfires already devastating the region. Over the past year, ICE has lodged detainers against Mr. Gonzalez after four separate arrests by Sonoma County on various felony and misdemeanor charges. ICE was never notified of Mr. Gonzalez’ various releases. Additionally, Mr. Gonzales has been returned to his home country of Mexico on two separate occasions. The residents of Sonoma County, and the state of California, deserve better than policies that expose them to avoidable dangers. Non-cooperation policies – now enshrined in California state law – ensure only one thing: criminals who would otherwise be deported will be released and left free to reoffend as they please.”
Visit ICE.gov for more information
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http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2017-11-15.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/atlanta-immigration-arrests.html?emc=edit_ta_20171126&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/atlanta-immigration-arrests.html?emc=edit_ta_20171126&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
More and faster please!
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/AYKQUQLGYR21/82325-ICE-report-92-percent-illegal-aliens-arrested-have-criminal-convictions?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=QMMLFAGGYP58&utm_content=AYKQUQLGYR21&utm_source=news&utm_term=ICE+report+92+percent+illegal+aliens+arrested+have+criminal+convictions#.WieDs3Zrzcs
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92 % of illegals arrested have criminal convictions
This is a bogus statistic
well yeah, they are NOT arresting the non criminals illegals ; they all slide
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/tuberculosis-comes-to-minnesota.php
Somali immigrants bring diversity and tuberculosis to Minnesota!
At least I hear they make great cops!
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/tuberculosis-comes-to-minnesota.php
Somali immigrants bring diversity and tuberculosis to Minnesota!
At least I hear they make great cops!
We can't even get Garrison Keillor or Al Franken to assimilate.
Like Sweden, the 'refugees' don't come here for the weather - or any commonality with the 'host' nation.
Christmas morning forecast: -18 F.
It should be a good year for iceboating, a favorite Somali pastime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixkmV8d3lM (see 100mph on ice starting at 1:30 mark)
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http://dailysignal.com/2017/12/22/supreme-court-tellingly-rejects-lower-court-roadblock-to-elimination-of-daca-program/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell%22&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURFNE1UQTJZelJoTlRBNSIsInQiOiI1WmpYeEQ4ak9Sa3hqSVNCcnNVT1l4YkNYRnlmTEJkT3ordjhXZG1FN0xudktsZXFMcVRuMHB6QVY1NUp3bEZyYkRORU93d283R0pwcUR4clNDekoya1BcL0tNY3BLMEkzcjJlaG1lVHExZG9NOGFyUTAxbXBpXC9oWVNOb0IwSVh5In0%3D
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Governors Pardon Immigrants Convicted of Serious Crimes to Halt Deportation
JANUARY 03, 2018
While the nation was preoccupied celebrating the holidays, the While the nation was preoccupied celebrating the holidays, the governors of two major states pardoned immigrants convicted of serious crimes to shield them from deportation. First, California Governor Jerry Brown pardoned two men on the verge of being deported for committing crimes in the U.S., according to a Sacramento news report. Days later, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo pardoned 18 immigrants convicted of serious crimes so they could remain in the country. The foreigners had obtained legal immigration status in the United States but committed such abhorrent crimes that they faced removal after the completion of their criminal sentence. An official statement issued by the governor’s office refers to the pardoned as “contributing members of society” who face the “threat of deportation and other immigration-related challenges” as a result of their crimes.
Cuomo said the foreign criminals he pardoned had been rehabilitated but the “stigma of convictions” prevented them from gaining legal status or fully reentering society. "While the federal government continues to target immigrants and threatens to tear families apart with deportation, these actions take a critical step toward a more just, more fair and more compassionate New York," Cuomo said in a statement. The state press release also quotes several representatives from open borders groups praising the governor’s pardons. Among them is the president of a group dedicated to eradicating racial disparities in the criminal justice system, who commended Cuomo’s strong display of leadership. “Too many immigrants with prior criminal convictions are subjected to the gratuitous punishment of deportation, despite being longstanding contributing members of our community,” said the president of the Vera Institute of Justice. The director of the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law also applauded Cuomo, saying “deportation is an out-size punishment for prior criminal convictions when people serve their sentences and go on to become longstanding, law abiding, contributing members of society.”
Let’s look at a few of the newly pardoned immigrants. The Californians are two Cambodian men, Mony Neth of Modesto and Rottanak Kong of Davis, arrested in immigration sweeps a few months ago. The men, ages 42 and 39, came to the U.S. as children and were convicted of felonies as adults. The crimes include a weapons charge and association to a gang. Neth and Rottanak were scheduled to be deported in December along with dozens of other Cambodians convicted of crimes but a federal judge in southern California issued a temporary restraining order after their pro bono attorneys from a civil rights group filed an emergency motion. Nearly 2,000 Cambodians in the U.S. are subject to deportation, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) figures cited in a northern California newspaper. More than half of them have criminal convictions that stripped them of legal status.
The New York pardons include a 57-year-old Mexican transgender woman convicted of criminal facilitation, a 35-year-old man from Estonia convicted of larceny and a 53-year-old Dominican man convicted of criminal sale of a controlled substance. The Mexican national, Lorena Borjas, deserves to stay in the U.S. because she is a strong advocate for transgender and immigrant communities and runs HIV testing programs for transgender sex workers and a syringe exchange for transwomen taking hormone injections. The Estonian, Alexander Shilov, became a nurse and frequently gives talks on overcoming addiction. The Dominican, Freddy Perez, works as an electrician and takes care of his autistic younger brother. For these reasons, they deserve to remain in the U.S. despite their criminal histories, according to Cuomo.
This appears to be part of a broader effort by local governments to protect criminal immigrants from deportation. Months ago, Judicial Watch reported that prosecutors in two major U.S. cities ordered staff not to charge illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes because it could get the offenders deported. Brooklyn, New York District Attorney Eric Gonzalez was the first to issue the order creating two sets of rules involving local crimes. The goal, according to a statement issued by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, is “minimizing collateral immigration consequences of criminal convictions.” Taxpayers in the busy New York City borough are also paying for two immigration attorneys to train all staff on immigration issues and advise prosecutors when making plea offers and sentencing recommendations. The idea is to avoid “disproportionate collateral consequences, such as deportation, while maintaining public safety.” Gonzalez, the Brooklyn District Attorney, says he’s committed to equal and fair justice for all Brooklyn residents—citizens, lawful residents and undocumented immigrants alike.
A few weeks after Brooklyn proudly disclosed its policy, prosecutors in Maryland’s largest city joined the bandwagon, albeit more quietly. There was no public announcement or celebratory press conference but a local newspaper got ahold of an internal memo sent by Baltimore’s Chief Deputy State’s Attorney instructing prosecutors to think twice before charging illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes. The chief deputy, Michael Schatzow, used similar language in the memo, writing that the Trump administration’s deportation efforts “have increased the potential collateral consequences to certain immigrants of minor, non-violent criminal conduct.” Schatzow is second-in-command to Baltimore’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, and oversees major crimes at the state agency. “In considering the appropriate disposition of a minor, non-violent criminal case, please be certain to consider those potential consequences to the victim, witnesses, and the defendant,” Schatzow wrote to his staff.
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Lets see if they were potential Republicans he absolutely would not have pardoned them and be playing the tit for tat game with Trump.
Cuomo is the same as his old man. I don't need to post any adjectives to get my point across.
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/will-ice-arrest-guv-brown-for-violation-of-law-he-did-break-the-law/
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/HGBBHTDDNC21/82550-Motel-chain-sued-by-Washington-for-helping-federal-immigration-officials?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RKMBQVQQDC47&utm_content=HGBBHTDDNC21&utm_source=news&utm_term=Motel+chain+sued+by+Washington+for+helping+federal+immigration+officials#.Wk43HXZG3cs
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/9/first-denaturalization-occurs-under-dojs-operation/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRReE1EVXpOamN3TkRrMCIsInQiOiJlZHNhU2I1UUpFRkJ0RXR3NVRQRTc4VnNvWVFqMHR1a3hcLzBwWWw0bjBvNmZzYmo5MW1OVzVxcm41aWc2SGFueXBuYWhBQnpPXC85QjZ6WDBHSThqN2I2M0lydlpzamh3ejRSUHNad01kNmRISUhCeU9jNTNia2E3cUFUYjFpVzhWIn0%3D
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https://spectator.org/importing-the-s-hole/
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https://www.city-journal.org/html/crudeness-and-truth-15668.html
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http://coldfury.com/2018/01/12/stacking-the-deck/
Stacking the deck
Posted on 1/12/2018 by Mike
The Left badly needs a new electorate. And they’ve been working hard as they can to get themselves one.
Why do we have an immigration system that favors countries on fire vs countries not on fire?
I’ve spoken to a British immigration lawyer who told me how hard it is for Brits to move to this country. If you have something to contribute to this country, stay out. If you’re going to be on welfare for the next three generations, go to the head of the line.
The left would never admit that it’s policy, but it’s policy.
It’s not purely partisan. That hypothetical Norwegian immigrant is very far from a sure GOP vote. It’s quite possible that a Norwegian immigrant is as statistically likely to vote Dem as a Haitian immigrant. And may even be more professionally left-wing.
But that’s not the only issue.
The left doesn’t just want likely voters that lean their way. Many welfare immigrants will never bother to get citizenship and have poor voter turnout rates. But they utilize as much of the system as possible. And that’s where the real money is.
Remember, elections come and go, but the bureaucracy endures.
Yep—and dependency on Uncle Sugartit is forever. But it really is about more than just stuffing more Wards ‘O The State into the maw of the Machine:
The Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund circulated a memo on Monday calling illegal immigrants brought here at a young age — so-called “Dreamers” — a “critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.”
The memo, co-authored by former Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri, was sent around to allies calling on Democrats to “refuse to offer any votes for Republican spending bills that do not offer a fix for Dreamers and instead appropriate funds to deport them.”
Their ideology is stagnant, their policies stale, their programs the same old reliable failure they’ve always been; Trump’s remarkable ascension, stunning as it was to the business-as-usual DC remoras, would seem to demonstrate that enough voters now realize it to send them packing.
Admittedly, cobbling together a new electorate isn’t the entire Democrat Socialist motive for bringing in hordes of unskilled, illiterate, no more than half-bright immigrants that nobody really wants or needs, just as Daniel argues. But it’s certainly an important part of it—and if you don’t think so, just ask those among them like Palmieri who are at least smart enough to see the writing on the wall. Ultimately, though, their problem is even bigger, as Limbaugh glancingly mentioned today during a discussion of the Trump tax cuts:
The increase in your standard of living this year is money that the government did not get because the Republicans cut your taxes. And that’s it in a nutshell. And this is something, again, not one Democrat voted for. This is something that pretty much every member of the Democrat leadership lied about. This is something that no Democrat, not only didn’t vote for, but probably doesn’t support. This is a threat to Democrats! Rising economic stability, rising standards of living, less dependence on government?
Those are not good things. As I said yesterday, the Democrat Party is the one political party that profits from poverty, the one political party that attempts to grow and enrich itself with poverty. The Democrat Party is the Democrat Party that stakes its future on a constant underclass in poverty. Yet they claim they’re for the little guy.
And this right here—their cynical reliance on widespread, intractable poverty as a mechanism for gaining and maintaining power, their despicable pimping of helplessness and hopelessness—is why they’re almost certainly doomed. As I’ve said right along, they have revealed themselves as being unalterably, implacably opposed to the very idea of Making America Great Again. How does any party so twisted and perverse transform itself into something most normal Americans would ever want to vote for—especially at the moment those Americans are experiencing real, practical benefit from an America throwing off its Democrat-forged shackles and slowly but steadily rising to its feet once more?
Trump is undeniably getting results, and Americans are seeing the fruits of his labor in their own wallets, which means more to them than just about anything else, I’d bet. No, he hasn’t made good on every last promise he made as of yet, sure enough, and there’s nothing wrong with holding his feet to the fire when he looks like needing it. But the bottom line is this: can anybody out there remember a President that achieved so much of such profound benefit to the nation so quickly—in his first year alone? I’ve been paying attention to this stuff for a long time now, and I sure can’t.
Better still, every move Trump makes in implementing the MAGA agenda amounts to pounding another nail into the Democrat-Socialist coffin—or tossing another golden shovel-full onto their grave, more like. Which, burying them once and for all will likely prove to be the biggest step towards truly making America great again we could ever take, all by itself.
Best of all? Honestly, I cannot for the life of me see a single damned thing they can do about it. After all, they dug that hole themselves, and were so pleased by the excellence of their work that they went and just jumped right on in. Their GOPe handmaidens jumped in with them, following their lead as they always have. All we needed was to find a guy unafraid to take up the shovel himself and start filling in on top of the damned fools.
And so we did.
The Democrat Socialists badly need Trump to be every bit as stupid as they’ve assumed he was all along to bail them out via an immigration botch. He has shown absolutely no evidence to date of that being the case—NONE. Quite the opposite, actually. They now find themselves in the worst position imaginable: the only one who can save them from Trump is…Trump.
Yep, we’re gonna need those Midwestern farmers to grow us a HELL of a lot more corn for popping before all is said and done, I figure
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IMHO much of the excrement hole brouhaha is driven by the Dems looking to sabotage where Trump had them after that first meeting-- in the spotlight for their failure to honestly engage with the merits regarding chain migration, merit migration, visa lottery, etc.
Keep in mind that Durbin is a lying sack of shit.
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1) https://patriotpost.us/articles/53445
2) https://www.dailywire.com/news/25855/watch-rand-paul-reveals-what-trump-did-haiti-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=011518-news&utm_campaign=position2
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"Jeff Bezos has converted the once-respected Washington Post into a cheap fake news tabloid."
oh come on . WP was always a left wing propaganda outlet for the Democratic Party
Though it is very disturbing that the richest man in the world is also its benefactor and a left wing radical which is a total contradiction for him.
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"Jeff Bezos has converted the once-respected Washington Post into a cheap fake news tabloid."
oh come on . WP was always a left wing propaganda outlet for the Democratic Party
Though it is very disturbing that the richest man in the world is also its benefactor and a left wing radical which is a total contradiction for him.
If they are wrong on this remark or context then that makes at least a couple of major fake news bloopers in Trump's first year. It didn't take much to move from a mostly left-wing rag to a fake news outlet.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2018/01/15/will-trump-go-sloppy-and-soft-on-illegal-immigration-n2434509
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=a7tfGgZgRcA
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second post
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/you-think-democrats-want-to-fix-immigration-dream-on/article/2646144
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One of my pet peeves about politics is the way the Left is stealing our language, a word and a phrase at a time, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, smart growth, choice, for examples. In this case, these people aren't "Dreamers", they are the most politically active of all the illegal aliens, opposing the sanctity of our laws. We don't owe them something. IF we extend a preference to them it would be out of the goodness of our hearts AND because it is in the best interest of the country.
Are they are no different than us except for lacking formal legal status?
We have already offered them free education (free everything?) and yet they are more than three times as likely to become high school dropouts: http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/11/the-numbers-behind-the-dreamers/
For some reason it is wrong to point out the heinous crimes committed by individual members of this group but perfected fine to talk about individual members who have done great things.
A better idea than the current daca dreamer drama might be to judge people one by one on their merits instead of in a such a wide ranging group.
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One of my pet peeves about politics is the way the Left is stealing our language, a word and a phrase at a time, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, smart growth, choice, for examples. In this case, these people aren't "Dreamers", they are the most politically active of all the illegal aliens, opposing the sanctity of our laws. We don't owe them something. IF we extend a preference to them it would be out of the goodness of our hearts AND because it is in the best interest of the country.
Are they are no different than us except for lacking formal legal status?
We have already offered them free education (free everything?) and yet they are more than three times as likely to become high school dropouts: http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/11/the-numbers-behind-the-dreamers/
For some reason it is wrong to point out the heinous crimes committed by individual members of this group but perfected fine to talk about individual members who have done great things.
A better idea than the current daca dreamer drama might be to judge people one by one on their merits instead of in a such a wide ranging group.
Like all illegal aliens, so-called dreamers are free to return to their countries and apply to lawfully enter the US.
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https://www.city-journal.org/html/truth-behind-trump-storm-15676.html
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https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2018/01/19/yale-study-shows-23-million-illegal-immigrants/
A working paper by Dr. Mohammad Fazel Zarandi from the Yale School of Management, coauthored by two other Yale professors, estimates that there are 22.8 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
This is over double estimates compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, which claims 11.1 million illegal aliens live in the US.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/01/18/there-3-5-m-dreamers-and-most-may-face-nightmare/1042134001/
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/01/18/there-3-5-m-dreamers-and-most-may-face-nightmare/1042134001/
Round them up and deport them!
Stop rewarding criminal conduct and you will get less of it.
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and sanctuary cities :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/20/german-city-bans-new-refugees-anti-migrant-mood-increases/
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Assuming the shutdown is over for a moment, we are back to DACA and immigration.
Some points to consider while structuring the deal:
How many people are we talking about? 800,000 'dreamers'? 3 million? All illegal immigrants? 11 million? 23 million?? Democrats want all illegals to be voting citizens for political purposes. Democrats are ready to welcome Puerto Rico as a state too. Felons too, any group that votes with them. Point that out and you oppose ethnicities for political purposes - and are racist. [What about rule of law, assimilation, e puribus unum?] We might not need to hold elections anymore if they can sign up enough new voters.
A minute after they pass amnesty without citizenship they will scream discrimination and demand citizenship and voting rights for these legal residents.
Republicans are divided on the illegal immigration issue. Enough would vote amnesty for DACA alone to pass with the Dems if Schumer could get that vote.
Real border security has to be part of this. Not a wall everywhere, not just fence, real money appropriated to real contractors to actually build out an acceptable plan to secure the border as promised. This can't be the Reagan deal again where amnesty happens and security doesn't, making the problem permanent and accelerating.
Enforcement of overstayed visas is part of border security. They come here in airplanes too. See 9/11.
We need a settlement on sanctuary states and cities. Why give legal status to people who already have it?
Anchor babies. The problem is caused by a misinterpreted constitutional amendment. How is it solved? Maybe it requires a constitutional amendment to fix it. The policy of giving a baby a different nationality than the parents is splitting up families. Are Senators for that or against it?
Chain migration. Dick Durbin supported an end to this in 2010 - before he called it racist.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/12/watch-dick-durbin-advocated-for-ending-chain-migration-in-2010-a-term-he-now-says-is-racist/
Wouldn't it be great if our side framed the issue instead of always having to always say no to their bad deals.
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https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html
Just never funded.
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https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html
Just never funded.
Yes - the inside baseball point made on Sunday shows yesterday of "authorized" but not "appropriated".
We don't need it authorized. We need the construction costs appropriated as a line item on the current year budget.
If we are trading DACA for wall, we should be timing completion of DACA status change with completion of the secure border.
[Earlier in the month I had the opportunity to cross the northern border in both directions. They weren't taking anyone 'undocumented'.]
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"Yes - the inside baseball point made on Sunday shows yesterday of "authorized" but not "appropriated""
Exactly so!
====================
https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/22/the-shutdown-victory/
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The only DACA agreement should be that if they voluntary return to their countries, they get preference for immigration status when immigrants from that country are accepted.
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I prefer Trump's approach:
DACA
Merit Based Immigration
No Lottery
A Well Funded Law with complementary support
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one question about "DACA".
Ok we legitimize the children of illegals who were brought here illegally through the cute "no fault of their own phrase"
Then we know the crats will be screaming for their parents and other relatives with CNN posting daily crying families .
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AND the 3M more who never registered and as such have not yet been counted , , ,
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And how do you screen for who was brought here when? It's not like they have documentation of how and when they crossed the border. Imagine the manpower that would be required to screen the "dreamers". USCIS struggles to screen people legally here who do have documentation and did enter the US legally.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/22/shock-poll-us-wants-massive-cuts-legal-immigration/
Americans strongly support granting citizenship rights to illegal immigrant Dreamers. But they also back Mr. Trump’s three demands for a border wall, limits to the chain of family migration and an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery.
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Trumps other points could pass if votes in Congress matched the views of the people.
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This is a poll I can believe - unlike those idiotic CNN fake news polls that make it sound like everyone is for massive immigration and open borders.
Who can believe most Americans who were born here tolerate the concept of people coming and staying here illegally using our services and freedoms and laws to tell us what to do?
But with regard to DACA - How in tarnation are we going to know who was brought here as a child and lived here for decades and who is simply lying?
Did anyone see the article pointing out that most immigrants in Europe are lying about their ages?
And what about their illegal parents - you know they will marching in the streets that we can't break up families?
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This is a poll I can believe - unlike those idiotic CNN fake news polls that make it sound like everyone is for massive immigration and open borders.
Who can believe most Americans who were born here tolerate the concept of people coming and staying here illegally using our services and freedoms and laws to tell us what to do?
But with regard to DACA - How in tarnation are we going to know who was brought here as a child and lived here for decades and who is simply lying?
Did anyone see the article pointing out that most immigrants in Europe are lying about their ages?
And what about their illegal parents - you know they will marching in the streets that we can't break up families?
Thank God we don't have that slug Jeb as President. Can you imagine? We would have instantaneously 30 to 35 million new Democrat voters
the entire nation would become California .
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/370611-trump-open-to-path-to-citizenship-for-daca-recipients
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If true:
http://www.breitbart.com/2018-elections/2018/01/25/amnesty-now-no-benefits-10-years/
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If accurate, Trump's offer is quite bad!!!
PS: Breitbart seems to have dramatically improved in the wake of Bannon's departure.
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no real immigration reform for years
sort of like the tax cuts but in reverse. The business cuts go on forever but the individual ones phase out .
Same pattern . His policies geared more for the business crowd who are advising (Mnuchin et all) him rather the n those who voted for him.
Just my take ........
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no real immigration reform for years
sort of like the tax cuts but in reverse. The business cuts go on forever but the individual ones phase out .
Same pattern . His policies geared more for the business crowd who are advising (Mnuchin et all) him rather the n those who voted for him.
Just my take ........
On the tax cuts point, the corporate cuts had to be permanent or they wouldn't achieve any of the intended effect. They would otherwise fail and just run up the deficit. The personal cuts are temporary because of arcane Senate rules. They become permanent whenever the House, Senate and President do that but it would take a rule change or 60 votes in the Senate to do it. We shouldn't make a drop of 39.6% to 37% with eliminated deductions permanent. We should make a cap of about 25% permanent.
As reported, the immigration offer is terrible, but I highly doubt that is the final deal. Schumer offered wall money and took it away. Trump previously and made some offer sounds that he took back. He is a game player, wrote a book about it, brags about it, makes all kinds of head fakes to get what he wants. He can say anything (because he is Donald Trump) and because it still has to go through a Republican House, get 60 votes in the Senate, or wait for another election.
In my opinion, more important than this report is the question of what deal he really should take. Instead of a 10 year loophole against us, how about turning the trick the other way. How about if 'dreamers' get legalization and a 'path' only if they meet the mighty description that Democrats have made of them. They serve in the military, they are firefighters, entrepreneurs, etc. living the American dream, then so be it. If they are sponges on our system, let's give them a different path. If we are legalizing some, let's stop the illegal voting of the others and give some a path home. This should be a great opportunity to clean up the mess and take the issue off the table.
Breitbart story aside, the politics of this might have flipped. Trump has dangled a carrot. Dreamers have heard the offer of legalization and citizenship. They like that and will not be forgiving of Schumer and the gang if they don't take all of Trump's demands to get it, secure the border, end chain migration, convert to point system like Canada, and so on.
A recent poll says Americans want the level of LEGAL immigration cut in half. I doubt if that goes unnoticed by Trump. Half the legal immigration and near zero illegal immigration would be a good deal for the country right now. As much as I like the new ISIS and al Qaida settlements in Minnesota, enough is enough.
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"As reported, the immigration offer is terrible, but I highly doubt that is the final deal."
Could all be fake news. OTOH if true it seems stupid. We just won the shutdown debate and now make offers that gives up the farm??
God forbid we try to "make nice" and cave again the same we have been for decades........ would not put it past the warriors on our side who fight with their tails between their legs too often.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/26376/betrayal-trump-unveils-immigration-plan-republican-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=012618-news&utm_campaign=position1
https://www.dailywire.com/news/26327/trump-caving-illegal-immigration-not-really-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=012618-news&utm_campaign=position3
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Second post
http://www.nationalreview.com/morning-jolt/455806/uh-oh-immigration-hawks-are-underwhelmed-white-houses-proposal?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180126_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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"But there’s another possibility. That possibility is simple: Trump already knows Democrats aren’t going to negotiate. He’s therefore posturing for public consumption by demonstrating how much “love” he can show illegal immigrants; the next step will be to tell the public that Democrats care so little about illegal immigrants and border security that they’re willing to forego amnesty for 1.8 million illegal immigrants in order to leave the border wide open. It’s not a bad public argument, so long as you know that Trump isn’t actually attempting to cut a deal here."
How can anyone in with their head screwed on straight can believe this?
suppose the Dems do take the deal?
Like Mike Savage said today Daca people are never goin to vote R, so why play their game.? and !
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Through 04:40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tktbu6YvGsI
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It might have been Tucker last night (or was it Ingrahm?) who brought up the point that Lindsey Graham is probably the worst GOP person to be negotiating for immigration enforcement.
Why in the world does the GOP send up the liberal on immigration Graham to negotiate ? I suppose because he is a leftist on immigration a deal would be made vs a hard liner but that aside, his being there is assinine.
I have not checked but I am sure the WSJ loves the WH immigration proposal. I see Rubio likes it......... :cry:
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/28/virginian-immigration-hawks-outraged-fairfax-countys-gives-illegal-alien-criminals-sanctuary/
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/28/virginian-immigration-hawks-outraged-fairfax-countys-gives-illegal-alien-criminals-sanctuary/
A strange deal and a strange reaction to it. Making so-called dreamers citizens makes them second-class citizens (?) because they cannot automatically bring in as citizens the people who brought them here illegally.
Did Trump do this just to get them to turn it down? Who do dreamers blame if they end up with no deal?
Even if you like the deal, there are a number of things missing in it.
In business law, an offer is no longer valid once the other side has turned it down. Stop treating these people as a group and process their applications individually on a case-by-case basis under a merit-based system and under current law where those turned down must leave.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-over-500-criminal-dreamers-ordered-deported-are-still-in-us/article/2646671
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The father broke the law twice and stuck it in our faces with false ID. She could have gotten into Yale as a Mexican too.
Too bad Trump could not use this as an example of why we should be enforcing immigration laws:
ttps://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/daughter-two-time-deportee-will-special-guest-state-union-201108421.html
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Did you know this is an immigration issue? We are decriminalizing defecation so that it won't be used as a crime in deportation.
In other words, people from shithole places are making the US a sh*thole. Instead of taking the best, we are lowering the bar.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/01/to_protect_illegals_from_deportation_denver_decriminalizes_pooping_on_the_pavement.html
http://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/certain-crimes-will-now-have-lighter-sentences-in-denver/442367895
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https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/files/2014/12/Surname-Map-1.png
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DU15VGfW0AEn-uB?format=jpg)
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/31/third-daca-recipient-in-week-arrested-on-human-smuggling-charges.html
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"Trump’s immigration ‘compromise’ is a trick"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-immigration-compromise-is-a-trick/2018/01/29/e629d2d6-0539-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.a781973ba3c4
------------
Her point is that DACA / Dreamer legalization and citizenship has enough support to pass on its own. Why should Trump get all these other things with it?
My thought, why are we still dealing with people in (electoral) groups. Some 'dreamers' deserve an upgrade, some deserve arrest, some deserve deportation. I would upgrade all the ones that they describe, served in the military, live their whole life here without breaking our laws, came through no fault of their own, self supporting, not living off the dole, etc. Use the merit based system now, where we have some information on them.
The flip side of her argument is, why do we need to give any illegals a gift in order to call for securing our borders. That should stand alone and their existence and residence here proves that the border as it sits has not been secure - and people are still over-staying their visas. Chain migration is wrong and the legal lottery is wrong. Those issues are popular and also could be passed on their own, if not for the power the party has over its representatives.
Is Trump's a good deal (for us)? I don't know, but since Democrats won't take it, it flips the blame on the issue.
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Doug,
The WAsh compost article from the Far LEft millineal makes no sense.
She states the Dreamers to citizens is a no brainer and everyone is for it and therefore it is a given. So why is Trump's offer a compromise?
He just tripled it to 2 million - that is why!
And it is a gift to give them citizenship , especially so when they are here breaking out laws .
And what about their families who brought them here illegally ? We all know they will be next in line to cry on CNN .
And what about relatives of those born here of those who took advantage of our law that anyone born on US soil is an automatic citizen . How more millions and of course all their families are we talking about . Probably 30- to 40 % of California!
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Doug,
The WAsh compost article from the Far LEft millennial makes no sense.
She states the Dreamers to citizens is a no brainer and everyone is for it and therefore it is a given. So why is Trump's offer a compromise?
He just tripled it to 2 million - that is why!
And it is a gift to give them citizenship , especially so when they are here breaking out laws .
And what about their families who brought them here illegally ? We all know they will be next in line to cry on CNN .
And what about relatives of those born here of those who took advantage of our law that anyone born on US soil is an automatic citizen . How more millions and of course all their families are we talking about . Probably 30- to 40 % of California!
ccp, I agree you and we had an election on this. Further, the 'dreamers' militant involvement in their own negotiations makes this situation uglier, makes it clear there will be no thankfulness or political benefit for helping them.
I posted the compost article just to try to understand why Democrats didn't jump all over a deal we see as a giveaway. They want 'dreamers' legalized for nothing in exchange and they want ALL illegals legalized and NOT fix the system that let them in.
Note that when they controlled the entire Executive Branch, the House of Representatives and had 60 votes in the Senate, they didn't do it! Now they don't so Democrat hardlining should easily be exposed as posing for political advantage rather than trying to help a mostly sympathetic group.
This issue defines a slippery slope argument. If you enforce the law as it is - you are racist. If you legalize 800,000 - you must do 2 million. If you do 2 million - you must do 12 million, 60 million. If you legalize - you must make them citizens. And if you give all of that - they want Puerto Rico to be a state. Then they would leave the border open, get it back as an issue and do it all again.
All that said, it doesn't define what Trump or Republicans should do now. He can't just say no; he has to offer something so offered them all of DACA in exchange for all he needs on immigration. Trump bought time on DACA. He exposed and shrunk Schumer with the shutdown mess. He has dangled a deal that solves it for 'dreamers' and solves it for border security for now. It ends chain migration which is BIG. It leaves all other illegals wanting theirs, so that issue stays alive for Democrats, but it removes their leverage on the issue because the security side and lottery and the chain migration issues have all been addressed.
Still missing: Ending the anchor baby misinterpretation of law, defeating the sanctuaries and dealing with the rest of the illegals.
Maybe we should legalize one person for each that we deport based on the merit system. Then when we get through the best of the DACA and the worst of the criminals it will be the illegal and Hispanic communities that holler stop.
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Hi Doug,
All good thoughts and points you make
My feeling is we should be very tough with immigration
I can live with the illegals who are brought here as kids if verified and they are not criminals
but that is it.
Like you point out most illegals are NEVER going to appreciate any amnesty is any way where they will vote Rebup. The crats will never give up shoving there open borders schtick down our throats so why compromise at all.
It will not placate them and they will immediately grab for more like they always do. I say no compromise , except some window dressing for show and maybe some independent votes because as ALWAYS with the LEFT there really never is any compromise.
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The default dem position on immigration is absolute open borders now and forever.
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The default dem position on immigration is absolute open borders now and forever.
Right. This was exposed in the 2016 Presidential debate. Immigration was the issue that allegedly what made DT an extremist. But when Hillary's turn came, she expressed not one word of support for securing the border or having any limit on legal or illegal administration.
Compare that with responsible things President Clinton said in his SOTU, or even the comprehensive bill including both security and limits supported by all Dems in 2013.
The contrast on this issue between Trump and Hillary couldn't have been more stark and Trump won the election.
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I have complained that liberals are stealing our language. The term "Dreamers" is a perfect example of that. "Dreamers" include great people, thugs and gang members, why are they one group? And, as ccp would ask, why are their dreams more important than ours?
...especially clear in his most memorable line, "Americans are Dreamers, too."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/02/02/the_president_presses_his_advantage_on_immigration_136164.html
I cringed when I heard that. Trump was ignoring or forgetting the rules of political correctness. Scott Rasmussen took it differently:
In just four words, a president not known for his eloquence turned years of Democratic branding and messaging against them. Trump brazenly and succinctly re-defined the public imagery surrounding the term Dreamers in a way that infuriated the political left. Topher Spiro of the liberal Center for American Progress, called it "intentionally divisive." CNN reported that others thought the line "marginalized immigrants."
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While y'all were getting on Marco Rubio for being a traitor, siding with schumer, look what they got all Democrats to vote for, Durbin to end chain migration, Schumer to end the lottery, Elizabeth Warren to secure the border? Oh Lordy!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/2013-all-senate-dems-voted-to-build-border-fence-kill-visa-lottery-end-chain-migration/article/2647518
2013: All Senate Dems voted to build border fence, kill visa lottery, end chain migration
All Senate Democrats united with two independent senators in 2013 to push through a comprehensive immigration reform plan to build a border fence and end “chain migration” and the visa lottery, positions they now oppose because they are in President Trump’s immigration package.
Led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 52 Democrats and two independents (also Democrats) OK’d the legislation.
(http://nep.washingtonexaminer.biz.s3.amazonaws.com/Gang1.jpg)
It called for “no fewer than 700 miles” of border fencing. It also included a section detailing the end of the diversity visa, a lottery for green cards meant to diversify the U.S. immigrant population.
List of senators who voted for immigration reform in 2013.
And it rewrote rules for which relatives of legal immigrants could come in, the so-called “chain migration” blueprint, to limit the numbers.
The provisions that were included in the legislation sponsored by Schumer, S.744 - Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, are very similar to those Trump is now pushing.
The bill ultimately failed in the House. But it it did win in the Senate, 68-32. All no votes were Republican.
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Duh!!! wonder why Barbara Jordan wanted to stop the immigration BS - duh. Compare her knowing it hurts Backs to the fools in today's CBC (no not complete blood count):
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-honors-barbara-jordan-a-democrat-who-shared-trumps-immigration-views/article/2646173
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/53887-defining-chain-migration-and-visa-lottery
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How times have changed. Immigrants use to compete for jobs and now they compete for program benefits, and jobs. In either case, black men will be the next group to break, in part, from the liberal bloc. Not black women yet, as a group they are incorrigibly liberal. Same goes for legal Hispanics. ; some are receptive to conservative principles. Some part of your vote is based on economics and your own family's best interests. New entrants compete for jobs, benefits, housing.
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"Not black women yet, as a group they are incorrigibly liberal."
I have been toying with the idea of developing a political comedy act. As part of that I have been doing some casual market research (i.e. bouncing certain jokes off of people I interact with as part of my day)
Far and away the group that responds most favorably to this joke is black women, with black men a close second:
Q: How did Bill and Hillary Clinton meet?
A: Dating the same girl in law school.
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https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/frankvernuccio/2018/01/31/the-impact-of-immigrants-on-state-medicaid-budgets-n2442392?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
By 2013, 25 percent of immigrants and their children were on Medicaid, compared to 16 percent of natives and their children.”
Those entering the U.S. legally are required to be screened for infectious disease. [Those entering illegally are not.]
“Illegal immigration may expose Americans to diseases that have been virtually eradicated, but are highly contagious, as in the case of TB […] Immigrants coming here have been documented as having communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and swine flu […] individuals coming in contact with people with these diseases are at risk of becoming infected. Those most vulnerable to contracting illnesses from illegals are the first responders such as the Border Patrol agents. In turn, they may pass diseases and conditions on to their children, spouses, seniors and those with whom they come in contact who have compromised immune systems […] It isn’t the diseases that we have been vaccinated against that are the most concerning, but ones like TB, which have developed multiple drug resistance, or tropical diseases such as Dengue fever that doctors may have difficulty diagnosing and for which there is no treatment.”
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https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/frankvernuccio/2018/01/31/the-impact-of-immigrants-on-state-medicaid-budgets-n2442392?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
By 2013, 25 percent of immigrants and their children were on Medicaid, compared to 16 percent of natives and their children.”
Those entering the U.S. legally are required to be screened for infectious disease. [Those entering illegally are not.]
“Illegal immigration may expose Americans to diseases that have been virtually eradicated, but are highly contagious, as in the case of TB […] Immigrants coming here have been documented as having communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and swine flu […] individuals coming in contact with people with these diseases are at risk of becoming infected. Those most vulnerable to contracting illnesses from illegals are the first responders such as the Border Patrol agents. In turn, they may pass diseases and conditions on to their children, spouses, seniors and those with whom they come in contact who have compromised immune systems […] It isn’t the diseases that we have been vaccinated against that are the most concerning, but ones like TB, which have developed multiple drug resistance, or tropical diseases such as Dengue fever that doctors may have difficulty diagnosing and for which there is no treatment.”
Legal immigrants have to be screened for TB and have a medical exam prior to immigration to the US.
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Legal immigrants have to be screened for TB and have a medical exam prior to immigration to the US.
yes . I have done the TB tests for some .
many come up positive for the TB screen because in other countries they give BCG a vaccine that can prevent TB
so we get CXR
but there is a relatively new blood test that is really a sea change in screening though to my knowledge it is expensive
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http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/02/01/caroline-glick-israel-can-teach-america-dealing-illegal-aliens-wall-deport/
This in particular caught my eye:
"Israel’s experience is instructive on two counts.
"First, border security works. The combination of legislation and the border wall ended infiltration by illegals almost instantaneously.
"Second, as Israel’s current situation indicates, champions of illegal immigration have no intention of making any deal. They are not fighting for illegal aliens because they want to make the world a better place. They are championing their cause because they want to make Israel a different place. And since most Israelis like Israel the way it is, there is no common ground to be found."
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/26736/colts-linebacker-killed-dui-accident-mexican-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=020518-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/26736/colts-linebacker-killed-dui-accident-mexican-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=020518-news&utm_campaign=position1
The tree of diversity must be constantly watered with the blood of Innocents.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/trump-dems-barrel-daca-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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Second post
Tucker Carlson, whom I think is a responsible player, cited this number last night-- can we find a proper citation for it?
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Second post
Tucker Carlson, whom I think is a responsible player, cited this number last night-- can we find a proper citation for it?
https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Legal-and-Illegal-Immigrant-Households
But they vote democrat at even higher rates, so we have that going for us...
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Thank you very much GM!
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/02/president-le-trump.php
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/27568/breaking-supreme-court-refuses-reinstate-daca-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=022618-news&utm_campaign=position1
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http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-family-struggles-mexico-20180207-htmlstory.html?utm_source=kw&kwp_0=685138&kwp_4=2424703&kwp_1=1024428#track=lat_social__sleeper-engagement__fb-ad_keywee_______Aqc
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-says-american-workers-are-hurt-by-immigration-but-after-ice-raided-this-texas-town-they-never-showed-up/2018/03/04/8ce16362-1d65-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.78300c32dc18&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/27/supreme-court-backs-donald-trump-illegal-immigrant/?utm_source=FB-ARB&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Chacka_CL:TWT_FR:Traffic_D:180207_CP:Breaking%20News%202018&utm_content=146470016&utm_term=146470016
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Gee I wonder who the 3 dissenters were.
no politics there. Just them reading a different interpretation of the Constitution - of course :roll:
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Gee I wonder who the 3 dissenters were.
no politics there. Just them reading a different interpretation of the Constitution - of course :roll:
Breyer. Ginsburg, Sotomayor in dissent, all politics, Kagan sat this one out. Thank God for the other five when they actually read and follow the constitution.
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Reuters: "Supreme Court curbs rights of immigrants awaiting deportation"
curbs rights?? What rights? Immigrants?? We don't deport immigrants.
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Kagan recuses from immigrant-detention case, November 10th, 2017
Kagan had learned only today that “while serving as Solicitor General, she authorized the filing of a pleading in an earlier phase” of the case.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/11/kagan-recuses-immigrant-detention-case/
Kagan is not at all consistent in recusing herself from cases, IMHO. Must have read the writing on the wall early that this one was not winnable for the non-constitutional side.
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" Breyer. Ginsburg, Sotomayor in dissent, all politics, Kagan sat this one out"
Thanks for clarification Doug.
woops , I stepped on a dog bm .
I thought it was G S and K (no not Glaxo Smith Kline)
Now that I recall Breyer has been way left on immigration and if I am not mistaken , illegal immigration as well.
waiting for new slots on the SCOTUS to open.
humanely from retirement and not death .
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"waiting for new slots on the SCOTUS to open.
humanely from retirement and not death ."
Yes. Unlike the poisoning of Scalia...
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Session DOJ sues California - finally!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/06/trump-doj-sues-california-over-interference-with-immigration-enforcement.html
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When a liberal hears a conservative exert 'states' rights' in the modern era they think of slavery and allege racism. The Left mostly wants no states' rights because liberal federal judges and Justices can supercede in everything from feeding your own cows, killing your young, to gay marriage.
Now enter federal immigration law and sanctuary cities and states and the roles flip, except that conservatives are still the racists.
States' rights vs federal powers vs individual rights in constitutional law depend on what the constitution says on that matter.
Do individuals hold all the rights in national security? No. Do states have all the power in defining immigration and citizenship? No, not unless a major precedent is struck down.
https://www.theamericanview.com/constitution-course-supplemental-assignments/what-authority-does-the-u-s-constitution-give-the-federal-government-regarding-immigration/
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1876 that immigration regulation was an exclusive Federal responsibility. The case was most recently cited in Arizona v. US, 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chy_Lung_v._Freeman
Funny that the issue then was California objecting to Chinese inflow.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/7/california-sanctuary-laws-obstruct-public-safety-l/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/KUQRQLDDKW26/82983-Trump-administration-relies-on-Obamaera-court-ruling-to-sue-California?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UWZAKUBIDT57&utm_content=KUQRQLDDKW26&utm_source=news&utm_term=Trump+administration+relies+on+Obamaera+court+ruling+to+sue+California#.WqMHbXrcCqA
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http://thehill.com/latino/378873-gop-immigration-bill-stirs-tension-among-hispanic-conservatives?rnd=1521324525/?userid=188403
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http://thehill.com/latino/378873-gop-immigration-bill-stirs-tension-among-hispanic-conservatives?rnd=1521324525/?userid=188403
Amazing how many people are loyal to la Raza, not America. Sad!
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https://www.themaven.net/bluelivesmatter/news/cbp-agents-refusing-to-turn-over-wanted-felons-to-california-police-Ud7vGIxy0keuj9TRTAv-NQ?full=1
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/OLKITYZJLH47/83096-NYC-Health-officials-show-86-percent-of-TB-cases-are-among-immigrants?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DVVZTTYEXN53&utm_content=OLKITYZJLH47&utm_source=news&utm_term=NYC+Health+officials+show+86+percent+of+TB+cases+are+among+immigrants#.WrsgwXrcCqA
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G M: "Gee, that's strange. Legal immigrants have to be screened for TB. I wonder how these immigrants didn't get screened."
Also strage how false terms become mainstreamed. In law, I believe these people are called illegal aliens. In logic or observation they are trespassers, whether you arrest them or send them home.
When the American 'hikers' were captured on the border of Iran and held in isolation 18 months without contact, did the mullahs call them "immigrants," or is that just the American (Left) usage of the term?
I wonder if tuberculosis makes health care costs go up? Are illegals all screened for their ACA conforming prepaid health plans before they enter, does anybody know?
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http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/29/survey-78-percent-europeans-want-tighter-control-borders/
And it would b certain many of the 22 % who are in the minority are likely people born outside of Europe
I am sure it is similar here with the majority for the minority here who are for open borders being born outside the US.
The Left would have us think when listening to the MSM the opposite.
Bastards.
sad part the Republican wimps have been absolute zeroes on immigration with no plans to do anything about it . Trump let them sucker him. Ryan should resign or be tossed out. McConnell too. His wife is already rich in questionable ways.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/04/01/deal-on-daca-no-more-trump-says/?utm_term=.283e5221a65a&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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Craft D posts:
"ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/04/01/deal-on-daca-no-more-trump-says/?utm_term=.283e5221a65a&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1"
Sounds good coming from Trump but will the legislative branches act on this? No indication so far. They ALWAYS have an excuse not to act on immigration unless it is mea culpa ("like gang of 8 proposal")
Every day that goes by the Crats swell their ranks with future voters ..................
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Southern border:
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/04/02/bangladesh-nationals-arrive-texas-border/
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The images of long lines of people walking north to the US were a problem.
So what happens ? They get put on air conditioned buses and are get driven to the border for waiting ACLU lawyers and DNC staffers.
We need to stop *every single one of them* and send a message - you must get in line like everyone else - legally otherwise you will never get in the US.
CNN - as always plays the emotion card: "oh it is not about illegal activity it is families fleeing poverty and corruption." Yada yada
https://ntknetwork.com/caravan-tells-cnn-theyre-all-going-to-america/
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http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/383512-supreme-court-invalidates-law-requiring-the-deportation-of?userid=188403
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http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/383512-supreme-court-invalidates-law-requiring-the-deportation-of?userid=188403
I knew we were celebrating the Gorsuch pick too early. We were bound to be disappointed on some decisions no matter who was the pick.
Does 1st degree burglary mean armed? Threat of force? I don't think so.
https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=25139
Was this burglary armed or posing a threat of force in the crime? I don't know. If so, did they need a second charge of committing a felony with use of a firearm?
If I am reading this right, it is about an "immigrant", not an illegal. Unfortunately , maybe a criminal immigrant's rightful place is in our prison. A mistake was made to make him legal? Maybe our deport focus needs to be on illegals.
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My bad, you are correct-- I have corrected my subject line accordingly
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By The Editorial Board
April 17, 2018 7:08 p.m. ET
2 COMMENTS
President Trump said he wanted Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia, and on Tuesday he got his wish. Though Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberals on an immigration case, his logic would have made the late Justice proud.
In Sessions v. Dimaya, the government sought to deport a legal resident twice convicted of first-degree burglary. The Immigration and Nationality Act lets the government deport any immigrant convicted of a “crime of violence.” The question is whether first-degree burglary is a violent crime.
Section 16b of the criminal code includes a residual clause that defines a violent crime as “any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan invoked the Court’s Johnson precedent and held that the residual clause was void for vagueness. In Johnson (2015), Justice Scalia’s majority opinion rejected a similar residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act and ruled that its vague language produced “more unpredictability and arbitrariness” than the Constitution allows.
Chief Justice John Roberts’s minority opinion tries to distinguish the residual clauses in the two cases to save Section 16b, which he notes “is incorporated into many procedural and substantive provisions of criminal law.” But he appears as concerned with the policy results of the Court’s decision as the legal merits.
The big news is Justice Gorsuch’s elegant concurring opinion that joins the majority result but for different reasons. “Vague laws invite arbitrary power,” he writes, “leaving the people in the dark about what the law demands and allowing prosecutors and courts to make it up.” (See Comey, James nearby.)
Justice Gorsuch writes that Congress is free to define 16b with more specific crimes. But until it does the vague statute violates the due process right of individuals by giving license to police and prosecutors to interpret laws as they wish. This defense of individuals against arbitrary state power was a Scalia staple. Justice Gorsuch adds that vague laws also threaten the Constitution’s ordered liberty because they “risk allowing judges to assume legislative power.”
Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is sending a useful message that Congress should write clearer laws that aren’t subject to arbitrary interpretation. Congress can rewrite immigration law, and the President should be pleased with his nominee for doing what he promised.
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How about a State Department travel warning to Americans to stay out of Mexico due to narco terrorism
which is now being seen at travel resorts
as one way to get Mexico to do more to stop them and every one else who walks through their country an the way to the US to illegally enter .
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/04/23/trump-pressures-mexico-block-illegal-immigrants-us-border/
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https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Bracken/e/B00350B7EU
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/26/ms-13-gang-members-claim-theyre-underage-gain-acce/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning
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Soros-Funded Group Launches App to Help Illegal Aliens Avoid Feds
An open borders group that has benefitted from U.S. taxpayer dollars and is funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros launched a smartphone application to help illegal immigrants avoid federal authorities.
The app, Notifica (Notify), is described in a Laredo, Texas news article as a tool to protect immigrants living in the U.S. illegally by utilizing high tech and online social communications. With the click of a button, illegal aliens can alert family, friends and attorneys of encounters with federal authorities. “Immigration agents knocking at the door?” the news story asks. “Now, there’s an app for that, too.”
The group behind the app is called United We Dream, which describes itself as the country’s largest immigrant youth-led community. The nonprofit has more than 400,000 members nationwide and claims to “embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia.” Among its key projects is winning protections and rights for illegal immigrants, defending against deportation, obtaining education for illegal immigrants and acquiring “justice and liberation” for undocumented LGBT “immigrants and allies.”
Illegal aliens encounter lots of discrimination, which creates a lot of fear, according to United We Dream. “We empower people to develop their leadership, their organizing skills, and to develop our own campaigns to fight for justice and dignity for immigrants and all people,” United We Dream states on its website, adding that this is achieved through immigrant youth-led campaigns at the local, state, and federal level.
United We Dream started as a project of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. Between 2008 and 2010, NILC received $206,453 in U.S. government grants, the records show. The project funded was for “immigration-related employment discrimination public education.” Headquartered in Los Angeles, NILC was established in 1979 and is dedicated to “defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.”
The organization, which also has offices in Washington D.C. and Berkeley, California claims to have played a leadership role in spearheading Barack Obama’s amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has shielded hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from deportation. “Ultimately, NILC’s goals are centered on promoting the full integration of all immigrants into U.S. society,” according to its website.
Both the NILC and its offshoot, United We Dream, get big bucks from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF). In fact, both nonprofits list OSF as a key financial backer. In the United States Soros groups have pushed a radical agenda that includes promoting an open border with Mexico and fighting immigration enforcement efforts, fomenting racial disharmony by funding anti-capitalist black separationist organizations, financing the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups involved in the Ferguson Missouri riots, weakening the integrity of the nation’s electoral systems, opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts and eroding 2nd Amendment protections.
OSF has also funded a liberal think-tank headed by former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the scandal-ridden activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), so corrupt that Congress banned it from receiving federal funding.
Incredibly, the U.S. government uses taxpayer dollars to support Soros’ radical globalist agenda abroad. As part of an ongoing investigation, Judicial Watch has exposed several collaborative efforts between Uncle Sam and Soros in other countries.
Just last week Judicial Watch published a special investigative report that exposes in detail the connection between U.S.-funded entities and Soros’ OSF to further the Hungarian philanthropist’s efforts in Guatemala. The goal is to advance a radical globalist agenda through “lawfare” and political subversion, the report shows.
Much like in the United States, OSF programs in Guatemala include funding liberal media outlets, supporting global politicians, advocating for open borders, fomenting public discord and influencing academic institutions.
Last year Judicial Watch exposed a joint effort between the U.S. government and Soros to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia. Records obtained by Judicial Watch in that investigation show that the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia worked behind the scenes with OSF to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. Ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The cash—about $5 million—flowed through the State Department and USAID.
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Not hard to download it and feed bad info into it on a regular basis.
Soros-Funded Group Launches App to Help Illegal Aliens Avoid Feds
An open borders group that has benefitted from U.S. taxpayer dollars and is funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros launched a smartphone application to help illegal immigrants avoid federal authorities.
The app, Notifica (Notify), is described in a Laredo, Texas news article as a tool to protect immigrants living in the U.S. illegally by utilizing high tech and online social communications. With the click of a button, illegal aliens can alert family, friends and attorneys of encounters with federal authorities. “Immigration agents knocking at the door?” the news story asks. “Now, there’s an app for that, too.”
The group behind the app is called United We Dream, which describes itself as the country’s largest immigrant youth-led community. The nonprofit has more than 400,000 members nationwide and claims to “embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia.” Among its key projects is winning protections and rights for illegal immigrants, defending against deportation, obtaining education for illegal immigrants and acquiring “justice and liberation” for undocumented LGBT “immigrants and allies.”
Illegal aliens encounter lots of discrimination, which creates a lot of fear, according to United We Dream. “We empower people to develop their leadership, their organizing skills, and to develop our own campaigns to fight for justice and dignity for immigrants and all people,” United We Dream states on its website, adding that this is achieved through immigrant youth-led campaigns at the local, state, and federal level.
United We Dream started as a project of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. Between 2008 and 2010, NILC received $206,453 in U.S. government grants, the records show. The project funded was for “immigration-related employment discrimination public education.” Headquartered in Los Angeles, NILC was established in 1979 and is dedicated to “defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.”
The organization, which also has offices in Washington D.C. and Berkeley, California claims to have played a leadership role in spearheading Barack Obama’s amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has shielded hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from deportation. “Ultimately, NILC’s goals are centered on promoting the full integration of all immigrants into U.S. society,” according to its website.
Both the NILC and its offshoot, United We Dream, get big bucks from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF). In fact, both nonprofits list OSF as a key financial backer. In the United States Soros groups have pushed a radical agenda that includes promoting an open border with Mexico and fighting immigration enforcement efforts, fomenting racial disharmony by funding anti-capitalist black separationist organizations, financing the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups involved in the Ferguson Missouri riots, weakening the integrity of the nation’s electoral systems, opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts and eroding 2nd Amendment protections.
OSF has also funded a liberal think-tank headed by former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the scandal-ridden activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), so corrupt that Congress banned it from receiving federal funding.
Incredibly, the U.S. government uses taxpayer dollars to support Soros’ radical globalist agenda abroad. As part of an ongoing investigation, Judicial Watch has exposed several collaborative efforts between Uncle Sam and Soros in other countries.
Just last week Judicial Watch published a special investigative report that exposes in detail the connection between U.S.-funded entities and Soros’ OSF to further the Hungarian philanthropist’s efforts in Guatemala. The goal is to advance a radical globalist agenda through “lawfare” and political subversion, the report shows.
Much like in the United States, OSF programs in Guatemala include funding liberal media outlets, supporting global politicians, advocating for open borders, fomenting public discord and influencing academic institutions.
Last year Judicial Watch exposed a joint effort between the U.S. government and Soros to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia. Records obtained by Judicial Watch in that investigation show that the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia worked behind the scenes with OSF to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. Ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The cash—about $5 million—flowed through the State Department and USAID.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/keith-ellison-sports-i-dont-believe-in-borders-t-shirt
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second post
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/10/half-of-americans-now-live-in-sanctuaries/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/ICLXUILELI54/83309-Dramatic-drop-of-Muslim-refugees-to-the-United-States?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RQGGJORUTX6&utm_content=ICLXUILELI54&utm_source=news&utm_term=Dramatic+drop+of+Muslim+refugees+to+the+United+States#.WvRrj3rcCmA
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In St. Paul, MN, in the liberal elite, college town neighborhoods, [Walter Mondale and Kofi Annan went to Macalester] I see the sign, "All Welcome Here" in front of a nicely kept house, here and there. I imagine you find the same thing in Cambridge Mass, Palo Alto, CA and similar liberal, well to do neighborhoods. The sign is a subtle and positive rebuke of the other side's effort to get control of the border.
It would be fun to organize a large number of groups of well behaved conservatives to ring their bell and test their policy. The first few people might arrive empty handed, asking if they might come in and talk about some issues over a cup of tea, and then more come with sleeping bags, answering the door for yet more with beers, tune boxes, suitcases, moving vans, furniture, start moving their stuff around to make room, and see how far it goes until they call the police. Then point to the 'all welcome here' sign with the police while have more and more keep arriving with the police there and see how it goes. Set up tents in the yard if asked to leave the house, and at some point offer them one of our signs that says, 'Posted, Private Property, No Trespassing'. )
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http://thehill.com/latino/387365-trump-close-to-extinguishing-tps-program-for-immigrants?userid=188403
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endless immigration is good for us; the mantra we have heard for decades. despite common sense we are told it has no effect on wages. these are jobs that no American would do yadda yadda yadda. who would have guessed. But this is not just for low wage jobs - immigration is hard on Americans across all levels:
http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2018/05/22/trump-rising-wages-are-nightmare-says-restauranteur/
God darn it! Close the border!!!!
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endless immigration is good for us; the mantra we have heard for decades. despite common sense we are told it has no effect on wages. these are jobs that no American would do yadda yadda yadda. who would have guessed. But this is not just for low wage jobs - immigration is hard on Americans across all levels:
http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2018/05/22/trump-rising-wages-are-nightmare-says-restauranteur/
God darn it! Close the border!!!!
Republican policies give dishwashers a 30% raise. Who knew!
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" Republican policies give dishwashers a 30% raise. Who knew!"
I don't know but we got to make sure every dishwasher and other legal American resident knows!
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Well the 5,000 people on my FB page now know , , ,
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"This is unhuman," Chica said during a phone interview. "He was not committing any crime. He is a father who is working for his daughters. Every day our daughters ask me why their dad is not coming home."
Ahhh, but alas he IS committing a CRIME. He was told to depart but he is still in the US ILLEGALLY:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/military-calls-ice-pizza-delivery-man-224042264.html
this whole attitude that it is ok to come and stay here illegally has got to be fought tooth and nail
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They sure know how to confuse and project who is breaking up families in the illegal immigration debate.
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Public Middle School Terrorized by MS-13
is a “Ticking Time Bomb”
A violent street gang energized by the steady flow of illegal immigrant minors is terrorizing a public middle school less than 10 miles from the nation’s capital while administrators cover up the problem and the feds ignore the crisis.
Teachers are afraid, drugs are sold, gang graffiti litters the area surrounding the campus and gang-related fights are a daily occurrence, according to a lengthy mainstream newspaper report published this week. Most of the dozens of teachers, parents and students interviewed for the story refused to be identified for fear of losing their jobs or being targeted by the gangbangers that have taken over at William Wirt Middle School in Riverdale, Maryland.
Wirt is part of the Prince George’s County Public School system, which has more than 130,000 students. “The school is a ticking time bomb,” according to one educator quoted in the article.
The culprits belong to the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a feared street gang of mostly Central American illegal immigrants that has spread throughout the U.S. and is renowned for drug distribution, murder, rape, robbery, home invasions, kidnappings, vandalism and other violent crimes.
The Justice Department’s National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) says criminal street gangs like the MS-13 are responsible for the majority of violent crimes in the U.S. and are the primary distributors of most illicit drugs. Judicial Watch has reported extensively on how Barack Obama’s open border policies helped criminal enterprises like the MS-13.
When the barrage of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) began four years ago, Homeland Security sources told Judicial Watch that the nation’s most violent street gangs—including MS-13 and the 18th Street gang—were actively recruiting new members at U.S. shelters housing the minors.
A year later the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed that the MS-13 is a top tier gang thanks to the influx of illegal alien gang members that crossed into the state under Obama’s disastrous program, which saw over 60,000 illegal immigrants—many with criminal histories—storm into the U.S. in a matter of months.
At last count, more than 200,000 UACs have entered the U.S. through Mexico. The Texas Department of Public Safety disclosed in a report that the number of MS-13 members encountered by U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector increased each year, accelerating in 2014 and coinciding with increased illegal immigration from Central America during the same period.
When dozens of MS-13 members were indicted in Boston a few years ago for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking, firearm violations, federal racketeering and immigration offenses, federal prosecutors revealed that the gang actively recruited prospective members in high schools situated in communities with “significant immigrant populations from Central America.” The recruits are known as “paros” and they are typically 14 or 15 years old, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). During a tryout period, they must engage in violent criminal activity before becoming a full-fledged MS-13 member.
At the Maryland school a short drive from the White House MS-13 aggressively recruits students recently arrived from Central America, sources say in the news story. One eighth-grader said the gang “dominates the school.” Teachers are so scared they refuse to be alone with students and many said they repeatedly reported gang activity to administrators who simply ignored them.
“Teachers feel threatened but aren’t backed up,” an educator says in the news article. “Students feel threatened but aren’t protected.” Wirt’s principal declined reporters’ repeated requests for an interview, which is very revealing. The school’s resource officer, from the Prince George’s Police Department, declined to comment about gang activity on the campus.
Records obtained by the newspaper reveal that as of May 1, police were called to the school 74 times. One parent predicts that “there’s going to be a tragedy at that school.” A teacher said the administration’s attitude about gangs is “don’t ask, don’t talk about it.”
It’s important to note that Prince George’s County, where the Riverdale middle school is located, provides sanctuary for illegal immigrants and defies federal requests to hold illegal aliens arrested for state crimes until immigration agents pick them up.
Besides Prince George’s County, three other large Maryland jurisdictions shields illegal aliens from the feds and deportation—Montgomery and Baltimore counties as well as the city of Baltimore. Maryland’s Attorney General, the state’s chief law enforcement official, issued a legal memo last year defending the practice.
Complying with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers for criminal illegal aliens is voluntary, the Attorney General writes in the document, and state and local law enforcement officials are potentially exposed to liability if they hold someone beyond the release date determined by state law.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/13/us-clears-more-asylum-cases-it-receives-may/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning
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A letter from US Civil RIghts commissioner:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/06/a-civil-rights-commissioner-weighs-in-on-children-at-the-border.php
http://www.usccr.gov/press/2018/06-15-18-PR.pdf.
Dear Attorney General Sessions and Secretary Nielsen:
I write as one member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and not on behalf of the Commission as a whole. The majority of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has issued a statement condemning the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security for separating parents and children who cross the border illegally.1 The reason parents and children are separated is the law: When an adult illegal alien is prosecuted for unlawful entry, that person is taken into the custody of the U.S. Marshals and the children are taken into custody by HHS. Nonetheless, unless the adult applies for asylum, the unlawful entry is resolved relatively quickly and the separation is brief. But if the adult applies for asylum, the process–-and separation–is lengthier. That is because the 1997 Flores Consent Decree (and the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation thereof) stipulates that children may be held no more than twenty days. The asylum process is much longer.
If the U.S. were detaining the children with their parents, the Commission majority would surely issue a statement condemning the Departments for detaining children. Thus, the only way to avoid separating children from illegal alien parents that would be acceptable to the Commission majority would be to release both parents and children into the U.S., contrary to law. The bottom line is that the Commission majority is opposed to enforcing almost any immigration laws pertaining to illegal entry.
People who have potentially valid claims for asylum can present themselves at ports of entry and request asylum. They will be processed normally and will not be separated from their children because they are following the law.2
It is unwise to release detained individuals into the United States, because they are then very likely to abscond into the interior and fail to appear for their immigration hearing. “Over the past 20 years, 37 percent of all aliens free pending their trials – 918,098 out of 2,498,375 – never showed for court.”3 (Aliens who are detained are almost certain to appear at court, because they do not have the ability to abscond). And individuals who have claimed asylum also are likely to fail to appear for their court proceedings – “- n average, 46,000 people each year vanished from proceedings created specifically for those claiming persecution in the lands they called home.”4 This suggests that quite a few of these claims are weak, if not false, and that the individual’s goal was simply to make it into the United States and then disappear.
Separating children from their parents is regrettable. It is not, however, unique. American parents are separated from their children every day when they are arrested or incarcerated. According to HHS, during Fiscal Year 2016, 20,939 American children entered foster care because their parent is incarcerated.5 This is more than ten times the number of children who have been separated from their parents due to entering the United States illegally.6 People who cross the border illegally have committed a crime, and one of the consequences of being arrested and detained is, unfortunately, that their children cannot stay with them.
Among the principal reasons people immigrate to this country is the primacy we give to the rule of law and the benefits that flow therefrom. Despite what my colleagues seem to think, there is no super-statute that decrees that aliens must be treated better than Americans. If Congress decides to change the law, that is its prerogative. But until such time as Congress changes the law, the Department of Justice should continue enforcing existing law and prosecute every case of illegal entry.
Sincerely,
Peter Kirsanow Commissioner
1) U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Issues Letter to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security Denouncing Separation of Immigrant Families,” June 15, 2018, http://www.usccr.gov/press/2018/06-15-18-PR.pdf.
2) Tal Kopan, “New DHS policy could separate families caught crossing the border illegally,” CNN, May 7, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/07/politics/illegal-immigration-border-prosecutions-families-separated/index.html.
3) Mark Metcalf: “Courting Disaster: Absent attendance and absent enforcement in America’s immigration courts,” Center for Immigration Studies, March 19, 2017, https://cis.org/Report/Courting-Disaster.
4) Id.
5) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The AFCARS Report, Oct. 20, 2017, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport24.pdf.
6) Colleen Long, “DHS reports about 2,000 minors separated from families,” Associated Press, June 15, 2018, https://apnews.com/3361a7d5fa714ea4b028f0a29db1cabc?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true
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"Department of Health and Human Services has been taking in about 250 children per day"
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/us-could-be-holding-30-000-border-kids-by-august-officials
It sounds to me like these children are being used as human shields.
Wouldn't a wall solve this?
From the previous post, it is the parents choosing asylum that causes the extended separation. It is the choice of illegal crossing that starts it.
Does anyone believe that putting these families up at the Ritz would make the problem go away?
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" It sounds to me like these children are being used as human shields. "
no doubt American liberal citizens are orchestrating this..
I say so what
Send them back with their parents 100%
that will take care of the problem
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/18/http-www-breitbart-com-big-government-2018-06-18-dhs-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen-challenges-cowardly-congress-for-failure-on-immigration-laws/
What kind of parent does this?
Answer: those coached by foreign born immigration lawyers and leftist groups the encourage them to do this while the media is tipped off to go to the border and wait for their arrivals
If only most of these people were to become Republican voters this would end yesterday!
Of course the rhinos in legislative branches can't stand the heart tugging heat and cave. As always.
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"80% of women and girls from Central America who enter the U.S. illegally suffer rape."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/central-america-migrants-rape_n_5806972.html
The message coming back from the US southern border should be, if you get to the border (wall), you won't get in - illegally. Therefore, don't come to the border. Don't get raped. Don't get separated from your children. Band together with the good people in your country and fix your country. If there aren't enough good people in your country to do that, then we really don't want unscreened people from there to come here.
Leftist strategy, if you make it to the border, you will be welcomed, housed, fed, given cash, income for life, free healthcare, and made a citizen so you can vote your own raises and bring the rest of your families. What could possibly go wrong?
The irony of it all is that no one south of our border wants US advice or assistance to build there what we have or had here, safety, security, freedom, prosperity, etc. It seems they are almost all on the do-the-opposite plan, and want to bring that with them here.
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"The irony of it all is that no one south of our border wants US advice or assistance to build there what we have or had here, safety, security, freedom, prosperity, etc. It seems they are almost all on the do-the-opposite plan, and want to bring that with them here."
yes. ANd i ask what is this "***asylum***" stuff anyway?
this was meant mostly for people fleeing communism I thought or political persecution.
So now anyone can walk to the border and state "I am in fear of my life" and provide what evidence for this and now automatically they can be released into the US?
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ANd i ask what is this "***asylum***" stuff anyway?
this was meant mostly for people fleeing communism I thought or political persecution.
So now anyone can walk to the border and state "I am in fear of my life" and provide what evidence for this and now automatically they can be released into the US?
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Right. "Asylum" has become the loophole. Persecution is sometimes true. There is real danger in these countries. Yet we spend billions on international organizations and trillions on foreign policy / defense, and neither the people nor the governments want our help. When the US tried to help stop communism and oppression in Central America, the Left here screamed bloody murder.
We aren't the only country with this problem. Save our country first and then help others.
If you are coming here for the right reasons, then you can sign a contract to not take welfare etc or commit crimes. First generation immigrants maybe shouldn't vote, just so the left or right doesn't bring them here to vote. For illegals who are legalized, maybe the first two generations shouldn't vote. Legalized guests. I play sports as a guest at some really nice, member owned clubs. That I go there often for decades does not buy me ownership or a say in anything, especially their guest policy.
Immigrants are great if they are legal, if we decide who comes based on merit, if they come in reasonable and controlled numbers from different places, if they contribute positively to our country when they come, if they respect our past, our culture, our institutions, and want to build our future in a way compatible with the way we want to, and if they assimilate. E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one.
The issues on this board are interrelated. If we had a flat tax, same for every dollar of every person's income and required a balanced budget, majorities would not vote for mass giveaways of manufactured money and people would not come here for to commit crimes and receive welfare. Immigrants used to be the hardest workers and the biggest believers of the American Dream.
CCP and Trump have convinced me, we need to build a wall and with that all the other enforcement necessary in this day and age, for visa overstays etc. Then we need to pause, assimilate who we already have here, solve our inner city issues, take a deep breath, and then make a new immigration policy based on the needs of our country and take in the best people around the world who want to fill them. We should not blindly take those who join a criminal invasion.
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If you violate the law as an American citizen (Or at least there is probable cause to believe you have) you don't take your children with you to your jail cell. Every arrestee, every person sent to prison is separated from their family.
I guess it only matters when Obama isn't president.
Imagine if the left cared for Americans like they do criminal invaders.
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If you violate the law as an American citizen (Or at least there is probable cause to believe you have) you don't take your children with you to your jail cell. Every arrestee, every person sent to prison is separated from their family.
I guess it only matters when Obama isn't president.
Imagine if the left cared for Americans like they do criminal invaders.
Right. Also, if you go to war, your children are without at least one parent. This is a media manufactured crisis. It is the parents separating their families. We didn't go into their countries and homes and capture them. The law isn't new under Trump. The Left is using its biggest weapons, the media and social media, to prevent him from enforcing existing laws. They used the courts to stop him from breaking the sanctuary city hold. It all is predicated on the idea that entering illegally is not really a crime. But it is.
The Left projects. Pelosi says Trump is using the children for political advantage. What? How could it be more obvious that the Left is using these children for political purposes.
The cage picture was a kid at a protest.
http://wgntv.com/2018/06/18/the-truth-behind-this-photo-of-an-immigrant-child-crying-inside-a-cage/
[Michael Brown didn't have his hands up saying don't shoot in Ferguson either. Oh well.]
US HHS is an agency largely built and staffed by Democrats. Don't believe me? Ask them. Children housed there are not being owned and housed by Mexican, criminal border gangs, raped, abused and sold into sex trafficking and border crossing scams.
Funny that this 'scandal' broke simultaneously with the feared IG report exposing the phony Hillary investigation.
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" Funny that this 'scandal' broke simultaneously with the feared IG report exposing the phony Hillary investigation. "
The "humanitarian crises "on our border may be the post IG report diversion but I think the SDNY AG lawsuits was geared along with the NYC -DC JURNOlisters as the diversion for that.
This made up crises is to put pressure on the Repub legislators now "working" on immigration to make bigger concessions.
The cowards (or bribed by lobbyists) almost certainly will.
Who else watched the ver sun tanned Brooke Baldwin shoving down the throat of an Border Patrol Official this afternoon the question "what do think about that tape of the wailing child ?
If this in NOT JORNOlister DEM Party conspiracy I don't know what is.
When I heard the question all I could think is the answer should be that kids parents should be ashamed at putting him or her in that situation.
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ccp: "When I heard the question all I could think is the answer should be that kids parents should be ashamed at putting him or her in that situation."
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you knowingly put your child in that kind of danger here, you will be criminally charged for it, child endangerment, and the children go into foster care until the criminal and civil matters are resolved.
Child endangerment occurs whenever a parent, guardian, or other adult caregiver allows a child to be placed or remain in a dangerous, unhealthy, or inappropriate situation... Child endangerment is a crime in every state.
https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/criminal-offense/child-endangerment.htm
Children determined to be in need of protective services...must be in foster care
http://www.mncourts.gov/Help-Topics/Child-in-Need-of-Protection-or-Services-(CHIPS).aspx
If we endanger our kids, we lose them until the issues are resolved to the satisfaction of a court and a judge. If they endanger their kids, we are required to build hotels for them so that there is no separation and they can be housed comfortably together indefinitely at no cost to them.
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Doug writes :
Child endangerment occurs whenever a parent, guardian, or other adult caregiver allows a child to be placed or remain in a dangerous, unhealthy, or inappropriate situation... Child endangerment is a crime in every state.
https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/criminal-offense/child-endangerment.htm
Doug ,
you are EXACTLY right . this is a crime . I just reviewed a child abuse and neglect course for my PA license (I have themm in 18 states)
and leaving a child exposed in this way would call for immediate action on a health professionals part to call the state or county agency that has jurisdiction .
I forgot about this. Yet the Lib onslaught is this is Trump and Republicans fault all these kids are being dumped at our feet some of whom will hook up with gangs at a later date.
We need to do our best to should the LEFT down though since they control 905 of the media it would be tough.
Screw people like the girly Schwartzenegger and this ex Bush guy Stephen Schmidt who conveniently switches to the Dem Party because of Trump.
Tells us how phony this ex Bush guy is for stating he will joining a party that has raced completely off the left side of the charts.
I guess he needs a job and positions are wide open and paying well for any one reputed to be a Repub who is willing to denounce Trump - the only guy since Reagan who was really conservative in his policies .
Like I said Bush 1 gave us the Clintons and 2 gave us Barry and 3 would have given as a nation that would have put the Dem Party in permanent control by flooding the country with people who are not like out forefathers immigrants (some are actually but they wait in line)
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Yes, it's all about flooding the country with a 3rd world underclass to give the left a permanent domination of electoral votes.
Kate Steinle's parents had their daughter permanently separated from them. Funny how that didn't bother the left at all.
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Trump will find signing an executive order will not placate the LEft but will embolden them.
That said can we move on to enforcing the border and our laws. If Trump can't do it then NO one will.
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Doug: Yes it is, for now.
The whole plan:
1. Jail, bounce back, deter and deport all new illegal entrants.
2. Build the wall already and staff it.
3. Reform legal immigration. Merit based, American industry needs based, measured numbers from different places - that assimilate.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/toddler-used-as-face-of-family-separation-was-never-separated-from-her-mother/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/toddler-used-as-face-of-family-separation-was-never-separated-from-her-mother/
I was told that these are professional journalists with credentials!
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https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/muslim-migrant-violence-comes-to-maine/
Muslim Migrant Violence Comes to Maine
BY ROBERT SPENCER JUNE 19, 2018 CHAT 363 COMMENTS
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
The migrant violence that is becoming a feature of daily life in Sweden, Germany, France and elsewhere in Europe is now coming to the United States. Did we think we would be immune?
Maine’s Sun Journal reported last week that a “melee” broke out near Kennedy Park in Lewiston, Maine, initiated by “at least two dozen teenagers, preteens and adults.” This mob was made up of Somali Muslim migrants: News Center Maine reports: “[A]ccording to family members, the fight was between white and Somali members of the Lewiston community.” Our immigration chickens are, as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright would say, home to roost.
The Sun Journal reported that the incident began when “gunfire from BB and pellet guns erupted from the open windows of a black car driving north on Bates Street.” Lewiston resident Nicholas Vinciguerra and friends “confronted the youths in the car and asked them why they had shot at them. Suddenly, the three men were surrounded by roughly 30 people swinging sticks, baseball bats, and other weapons, Vinciguerra said. ‘You could see they were swinging for the fences,’ he said.”
“They had bats and sticks and rocks and steel pipes,” said one eyewitness. “They had everything. They were just coming in by the dozens. There were maybe 30 of them and eight of us. It was just a brawl. A bloodbath.” One of the victims, a 38-year-old man named Donald Giusti, died of his injuries.
One Lewiston resident noted that there had been other incidents, but nothing had been done: “It’s like the police are scared. But they need to put a stop to it or there are going to be riots.”
Said Vinciguerra: “I just want my town to be the way it used to be, where you could go out your door and go for a walk at 9 o’clock at night and not have to worry.”
That peace is unlikely to return to Lewiston anytime soon. In response to the unrest, Lewiston Mayor Shane Bouchard is full of the usual politically correct doubletalk:
Kennedy Park is a large common space in the middle of some of the poorest census tracts in the Northeast. When you have large, diverse groups of people in the same place you are bound to have incidents. Lewiston is no different in that respect than any other medium to large city, except that Lewiston’s violent crime rate is one of the lowest in Maine.
It’s not going to stay low for much longer.
But Bouchard is full of hope. Referring to the new Somali Muslim migrant residents of Lewiston in the most delicate and indirect manner possible, he said: “Our community resource officers are reaching out to the leaders in our new Mainer community. While we are fighting a cultural barrier, outreach to these groups has been successful in the past, and we are hopeful we can make some progress.”
Yes, outreach to the Muslim community will fix it. So many have placed so much hope on this outreach -- not just in Lewiston, Maine, but all across the country, as well as in Canada and Western Europe.
If they had a better knowledge of history, they might not be so sanguine. In my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, the first and only comprehensive history of fourteen centuries of jihad worldwide, I prove definitively that that there has never been a period since the beginning of Islam that was characterized by large-scale peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims, living together in harmony as equals. There was no time when mainstream and dominant Islamic authorities taught the equality of non-Muslims with Muslims, or the obsolescence of jihad warfare. There was no Era of Good Feeling, no Golden Age of Tolerance, no Paradise of Proto-Multiculturalism. There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad.
For years now, the U.S. has been importing entire communities from jihadi hotspots such as Somalia and Iraq, and placing them in middle-sized American cities such as Lewiston, Maine, certain that “diversity” will triumph. But will it? How can we be so sure, when, as I demonstrate in The History of Jihad, there are simply no historical precedents for the kind of society that the Left is trying to build in the West by means of mass Muslim migration?
It is much more likely that we will see more conflict like what has been happening at Kennedy Park in Lewiston, Maine, than that we all march together into the glorious multicultural future.
That old adage about having to repeat the past that one does not remember has seldom, if ever, carried such a sting. As we repeat the past that we have forgotten in this case, the nation we leave to our children and our children’s children will be engulfed in bloodshed and chaos.
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An earlier post cites:
"It is unwise to release detained individuals into the United States, because they are then very likely to abscond into the interior and fail to appear for their immigration hearing. “Over the past 20 years, 37 percent of all aliens free pending their trials – 918,098 out of 2,498,375 – never showed for court.”3
I confess this surprises me greatly. I thought the number of no-shows was well over 90%?
Can we come up with some hard data on this please?
I'm in the middle of a FB battle and could really use it!
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Starting the answer:
"Over the past 20 years, 37 percent of all aliens free pending their trials — 918,098 out of 2,498,375 — never showed for court. Courtrooms, like borders, are porous. On average, 46,000 people each year vanished from proceedings created specifically for those claiming persecution in the lands they called home. Few things diminish a court system more. "Failures to appear", write court observers, "undermine the integrity of the justice system" and "erode the respect that an independent judiciary deserves."More than respect was eroded, though. Enforcement was disabled."
"The courts' most recent annual report provides a telling example of this institutional misguidance. Here's how they did it. Conceding 38,229 aliens ran from court in 2015, court executives didn't compare the runaways to all aliens free pending trial, i.e. 38,229 ÷ 88,868 = 43 percent. Instead, they added all aliens in detention to the denominator, so the equation was 38,229 ÷ 139,048 (88,868 aliens free pending trial + 50,180 aliens in detention) = 27 percent.54 Nowhere in 20 years of annual reports are direct comparisons ever made between aliens free before trial who fled court vs. all aliens free before trial. Using this method, the courts minimized failures to appear in 2015 and every year reported back to 1996 and in the process hid the fact that nearly two-fifths of all those released on their own recognizance never made it to court"
https://cis.org/Report/Courting-Disaster
===============
Even this surprises me. I thought the no-show rate was over 90% , , ,
This catches me attention "Nowhere in 20 years of annual reports are direct comparisons ever made between aliens free before trial who fled court vs. all aliens free before trial."
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/32165/father-says-girl-never-separated-border-mom-paid-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=062218-news&utm_campaign=position1
https://www.dailywire.com/news/32148/backfire-poll-has-bad-news-those-hoping-border-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=062218-news&utm_campaign=position7
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"A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FAMILY CONTROVERSY
BY Kevin Ryan
President Trump today has signed an order to keep illegal immigrant families together (though it will almost certainly face legal challenges). The move comes after a political backlash over the detention of minors whose parents had brought them over the border illegally. Critics, media outlets, and immigrant advocacy groups have for weeks now been making frenzied comparisons to Nazi concentration camps, slavery, and human rights abuses. “Fact check” websites have even made false statements and misleading narratives. Here are the real facts.
IS THERE A LAW BEHIND THE DETENTIONS? Yes, there are several. 8 U.S. Code § 1325, “Improper entry by alien”, says that any alien who illegally enters the United States shall be imprisoned for up to 6 months and/or fined for their first violation. The fine and prison sentence increase to up to 2 years in jail for each subsequent violation. When an illegal immigrant (or anyone, for that matter) is criminally charged and imprisoned, their children are necessarily separated, because children are not allowed to accompany adults to prison. That goes for any crime requiring detention or imprisonment in America. This has always been the case, under Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
THEN WHY WEREN’T PEOPLE UP IN ARMS DURING THE OBAMA YEARS? They were, when President Obama actually arrested illegals. But he mostly ignored the law. From 2010 through 2016, out of 2,362,966 adults apprehended at the southern border, only 492,970, or 21%, were referred for prosecution:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/19/the-facts-about-trumps-policy-of-separating-families-at-the-border/.
Obama instead adopted a “catch-and-release” policy, in which most illegal migrants who were caught were released with a notice to appear in immigration court. The Obama administration also specifically did not arrest illegals who were accompanied by minors, in part fearing the political ramifications of having to house children while accommodations were made to deport or release them to relatives. This policy, as well as a 2015 court ruling that said illegals with minors could only be detained for 20 days, resulted in a huge surge of migrants crossing the border with children.
According to The New York Times, “Migrants were increasingly exploiting existing immigration laws and court rulings, and using children as a way to get adults into the country, on the theory that families were being treated differently from single people“:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html
Apprehensions of people traveling in families jumped from 40,000 in FY 2015 to 78,000 in FY 2016—a 95% increase: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-policies-rolled-out-stem-unwanted-migrants-may-face
HOW DID POLICY CHANGE UNDER TRUMP? This past April, the Trump Administration announced that it would no longer selectively ignore the illegal immigration law, and would instead prosecute 100% of border-crossing offenses. One reason for the measure: people convicted and deported under the illegal immigration law are less likely to return, since a second conviction increases the potential jail sentence from 6 months, to up to 2 years: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325. A conviction also puts severe restrictions on the ability to become a legal resident someday. These are the deterrent effects the administration referred to.
WHAT WAS THE RESULT? Arresting all adults who cross the border illegally, regardless of whether they were with children, created a surge in “unaccompanied alien minors” separated from their parents, because people detained for prosecution are not allowed to be jailed with their children in America. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents during six weeks in April and May.
WHAT HAPPENS TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHILDREN WHEN THEIR PARENTS OR GUARDIANS ARE ARRESTED? There are a myriad of laws and bureaucratic regulations in place regulating what happens to unaccompanied alien minors. They were in place long before President Trump came into office, and they are the same ones followed by President Obama: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1232
• Children from contiguous countries (Mexico or Canada) are screened by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and, if no signs of trafficking or fear of persecution are reported, may be summarily returned to their home country pursuant to negotiated repatriation agreements.
• Children from non-contiguous countries cannot be placed into expedited removal proceedings. CBP must transfer custody of these children to Health and Human Services’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within 72 hours. The government is required to place these children with family members in the U.S. whenever possible. Some children have no relatives available, and in those cases the government may keep them in ORR shelters for longer periods of time while suitable sponsors are identified and vetted. Once a sponsor is found, the minor is released to await immigration court proceedings.
WHICH PARTY WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PASSAGE OF THESE LAWS GOVERNING THE HANDLING OF MINORS?
The president has claimed that Democrats are to blame for the law. That’s not strictly true. The law that addresses how U.S. Immigration officials must handle unaccompanied minors is the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which codified the 1997 Flores Settlement. A history of its evolution can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf.
It passed a Democratic congress by unanimous consent before being signed into law by President George W. Bush:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/7311.
The law lapsed in 2011, but was re-passed as an amendment to the 2013 Violence Against Women Act reauthorization. At the time, Democrats unanimously supported the bill, while many Republicans voted against it, but not because of its measures regarding unaccompanied illegal minors. President Obama signed it into law:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/47
WHAT ABOUT THOSE CHILDREN PHOTOGRAPHED CRYING IN A CAGE? WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT? The viral photo of a child crying in a cage that outraged so many people is actually not from a government shelter, but instead is from a protest against them. At a June 10 protest in Dallas against White House immigration policies, protesters set up their own cage, and placed children in it to call attention to their cause. A photograph of one of the children crying in the cage was mistakenly or misleadingly shared as if it were from one of the facilities: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/19/fact-check-border-detention-children/716016002/
WHAT HAPPENS GOING FORWARD? Today, President Trump signed an order allowing families to be housed together even while adults in the family are being detained or prosecuted for crossing the U.S. border illegally. It’s a benefit not offered to any other people in America, even citizens, who are detained on criminal charges. It should at least temporarily solve the issue of separated families, while still allowing the Administration to pursue its “zero-tolerance” policy of criminally charging everyone who enters the country illegally. That said, expect lawsuits to challenge it, and perhaps legislation to codify it. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/affording-congress-opportunity-address-family-separation/
OTHER SOURCES: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/matt-schlapp/no-donald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/crime-enter-illegally.html
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/toddler-cage-photo/
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/guide-children-arriving-border-laws-policies-and-responses
http://time.com/5314769/family-separation-policy-donald-trump/
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Good post CD. Good synopsis of what led to where we are.
WAs there any source about Dems handing out voter cards to everyone released into the US ? :roll:
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/trump-family-separation-reversal-left-not-satisfied/#slide-1
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How does abolishing immigration enforcement help Puerto Ricans?
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-democrat-abolish-ice-platform/
Thats it : shoot youselves in the foot to spite Republicans. :wink:
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https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2018/07/02/network-coverage-wildfire-ceases-once-suspect-revealed-illegal
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The Democratic Senate Immigration Disaster
Originally published at Fox News
Republicans have the chance to secure a significant victory in the U.S. Senate this fall – largely because the Democrats’ radical immigration positions could lead to their catastrophic downfall.
As more and more Democrats throw their support behind so-called sanctuary cities, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and promoting open borders, more and more Americans are expressing their vehement opposition to these positions.
Most recently, in their fervor over the child detention issue, every Senate Democrat scrambled to co-sponsor Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act (partly to rebuke the president and partly to appease the growing radical wing of the Democratic party) despite the bill proposing half-baked, open-border policies that very few Americans support.
Gabriel Malor wrote an eye-opening piece for The Federalist describing how devasting the Feinstein bill would truly be for our country it were passed. Malor notes that, “Every Senate Democrat has now signed on to cosponsor a bill written so carelessly that it does not distinguish between migrant children at the border and U.S. citizen children already within the United States. The bill further does not distinguish between federal officers handling the border crisis and federal law enforcement pursuing the ordinary course of their duties.”
The bill would negatively impact virtually the entire United States because it sloppily defines its geographic scope as “at or near the port of entry or within 100 miles of the border.” As Malor pointed out, “That’s roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population. Even more live near ports of entry, including in places far from the border crisis, like Salt Lake City, Utah (nearly 700 miles from the nearest border crossing), Tulsa, Oklahoma (more than 600 miles from the nearest border crossing), and Nashville, Tennessee (nearly 600 miles from the nearest border crossing). All major U.S. metropolitan areas fall within either 100 miles of the border or are near a port of entry or both.”
A recent Harvard-Harris Poll conducted by Mark Penn (who is not Republican) clearly shows that most Americans overwhelmingly disagree with the radical Democratic immigration agenda. To illustrate just how wide this gulf is, I’ve included the below chart that describes the percentage results of Penn’s poll by issue (click the image for a larger view).
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/immigration-dhs-appropriations-bill-bad-amendment/
:x
Trump can't do it by himself.
They should also enforce any caucasians who are here illegally. And highlight it ain't about "your language or race"
If you are here illegally -> then out.
That would counter the Left's claim it is white racists blah blah blah.
Which it isn't.
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Immigrants, With Their Split Identities, Trigger Soul-Searching in Germany
Debate on a new immigration bill is heightening political tensions and challenging decades-old attitudes regarding nationality and ethnicity
The Neukölln neighborhood in Berlin is one of the city’s most diverse districts. Lena Mucha for The Wall Street Journal
By Bojan Pancevski
Aug. 15, 2018 8:00 a.m. ET
BERLIN— Düzen Tekkal and her family had put on their best clothes for the naturalization ceremony. But when her father expressed his joy at becoming German, the presiding civil servant said, “You are not German—you only have citizenship.”
Ms. Tekkal was 8 years old at the time, the daughter of Yazidi immigrants from Turkey. Now she is an author, the head of a charity and a contributor to a social-media movement known as #MeTwo—a play on the #MeToo controversy and the split identities of many immigrants—that is raising awareness about discrimination in Germany.
The movement has ignited a furious debate just as lawmakers gear up to consider landmark legislation aimed at regulating economic immigration and helping immigrants integrate into German society—pushed by a party that made passage a condition of joining conservatives in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fragile ruling coalition.
“It took an eternity for the conservatives to admit that Germany is a land of immigration. People from Turkey, Spain, Italy, Greece and so on came to our country to help us rebuild it, but they had a difficult time integrating here,” said Sebastian Hartmann, a lawmaker with the Social Democrats and co-author of the bill.
The #MeTwo debate and the pending legislation are challenging complex, decades-old attitudes in Germany regarding nationality and ethnicity, and raising questions about Germans’ willingness and capacity to integrate foreigners and their descendants.
Germany needs to attract workers as the current population ages, according to economists who say the country must lure at least 400,000 skilled outsiders a year to maintain economic growth.
Already, nearly a quarter of Germany’s 82 million people have at least one immigrant parent who was born without German citizenship, according to 2017 figures. And the country takes in almost as many newcomers a year as the U.S., mostly European Union nationals who are free to work across the bloc and asylum seekers who can’t be turned back under international law.
But the admission of nearly two million refugees since 2015 has heightened political tension, boosting far-right parties and weakening established parties, including Ms. Merkel’s.
Germany has never had a coherent set of laws enabling non-Europeans to settle for work. There is a political tradition that sees Germany as a temporary home for some categories of foreigners but not as a land of permanent immigration.
“German identity is still linked to ethnicity here and that needs to change urgently, because it simply does not allow others to fit in,” said Ali Can, an activist of Turkish-Kurdish descent who runs a hotline for migrants and is the initiator of the #MeTwo movement.
The tradition of connecting nationality and ethnic background has its roots in the origin of the German nation, which unlike the U.S. or post-revolutionary France wasn’t founded around political ideals but on ethnicity and language. It has shaped the legal system—Germany, with some exceptions, doesn’t recognize dual citizenship—and even language—as in the term Biodeutsche, or organic Germans, often used as shorthand for citizens of Germanic stock. And Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, was a term officially used to refer to immigrants from countries such as Turkey, who were invited by the German government to help rebuild the post-WWII economy but were then expected to leave.
“Germany is not a classic immigration country, and it also cannot become one due to its historical, geographic and social circumstances,” the conservatives said in a 2001 policy paper.
Critics from across the political spectrum now say such views are out of sync with reality. Germany’s political discourse on immigration was “long designed to avoid the statement of fact: We need immigration for the job market and because of our demographic decline,” said Petra Bendel of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration, a think tank. Some 1.2 million jobs stand vacant in Germany, she said.
The bill backed by the Social Democrats would set criteria for non-Europeans who want to work in Germany, and establish a point-based system designed to attract skilled workers. Modeled on legislation in countries such as Canada, the new system would consider the needs of employers and cut red tape for foreign workers needed for the booming German job market.
As part of the deliberations on the new legislation, the conservatives are discussing a controversial initiative, backed by the Social Democrats, to give work permits to some rejected asylum seekers who speak German and have skills needed by the job market. There are around 200.000 such rejected migrants, according to official estimates.
The chancellor’s cabinet is expected to debate the bill this month before it goes to parliament in the fall. Ms. Merkel has said she wants the law to come into force at the latest within two years.
Some conservatives, however, see political risks. After the refugee crisis, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD—a fringe group built largely around opposition to the EU—recast itself as an anti-immigration voice and became the main opposition force in parliament. It is now polling at 17%.
AfD leaders used the recent controversy around Mesut Özil , a celebrated soccer player of Turkish descent, for their campaign against migration. Mr. Özil resigned from the German national team last month after his appearance in a pre-election photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan caused an uproar in Germany. Mr. Erdogan is a controversial figure due to his autocratic policies, and critics attacked Mr. Özil for expressing allegiance to a strongman leader of a foreign country.
Some activists such as Ms. Tekkal, who is a member of Ms. Merkel’s conservative party, said migrants should also take responsibility for their integration. She advocates what she calls a “healthy constitutional patriotism” centered not around nationalism or ethnic exclusivity but values such as freedom of speech, democracy and secularism.
She said immigrants want to feel like they belong, and cited the case of Mr. Özil, who expressed loyalty to both Germany and Turkey.
“Erdogan is better than we are in wooing young Germans of Turkish origin,” she said. He presents himself as the father of a nation who is embracing them, she added. “We have underestimated the attraction of this.”
Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com
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https://israelunwired.com/illegal-immigrants-storm-beach-in-spain-as-beachgoers-look-on/
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for more Fed tax dollars:
https://www.westernjournal.com/texas-school-district-prepping-send-teachers-migrant-shelters/
It never ends.
Keep encouraging them to come.
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U of Penn lawyer in immigration law, blames her employer for overstaying her visa :
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/immigration-lawyer-deport-university-of-pennsylvania-20180819.html
I say adios...
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Illegal alien charged with murdering the Iowa girl who disappeared last month. Developing ...
Apparently, he confessed.
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Illegal alien charged with murdering the Iowa girl who disappeared last month. Developing ...
Apparently, he confessed.
The MSM will now try to make the story go missing.
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Yup.
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This doesn't mean all Mexicans or all illegals are rapists. It doesn't change the crime that she is young and pretty, or white or somebody's daughter. But it is a gruesome crime that would not have happened if this one person had been apprehended and deported sooner.
He was a criminal under US law before he committed this rape and this murder.
Rivera 24 had been living illegally in the area for 4 to 7 years. Dreamer?
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-election-ljusnarsberg-insight/immigration-and-welfare-fears-merge-as-sweden-lurches-to-the-right-idUSKCN1LL0Z4
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The Dems keeping fighting "lurch to the right"
by brining in more likely leftist and identity politics voters
And the likes of McCain just keep agreeing with them.
yea yea yea we are a nation of immigrants
but we don't have to be country that wants to end the nation state
and the immigrants today are not like those of 75 yrs ago
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The Dems keeping fighting "lurch to the right"
by brining in more likely leftist and identity politics voters
And the likes of McCain just keep agreeing with them.
yea yea yea we are a nation of immigrants
but we don't have to be country that wants to end the nation state
and the immigrants today are not like those of 75 yrs ago
There is a difference between immigrants and colonists. More and more, we have colonists entering this country, legally and illegally.
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“In America's five largest cities, 48 percent of residents now speak a language other than English at home. In New York City and Houston it is 49 percent; in Los Angeles it is 59 percent; in Chicago it is 36 percent; and in Phoenix it is 38 percent.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/nearly-half-in-top-5-u-s-cities-dont-speak-english-at-home-record-67-million
E pluribus pluribus.
Out of many, many.
NOT the motto of the US!
Try calling the City of Minneapolis and listen for your language,
612 673 3000. We are lucky to still have English as a choice.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/immigration-study-finds-nearly-twice-as-many-undocumented/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-09-21&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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"The population of undocumented immigrants is widely thought to be around 11.3 million. But the study, which was conducted by three Yale-affiliated researchers, indicates that the total may be more than 22 million. Even the authors were surprised by their findings."
I would have been surprised if it was NOT 20 + million. Here is NJ EVERY fast food restaurant has Latinos working at them and other restaurants they are the busboys etc.
Many construction companies landscapers and the rest we have all seen. Many of the legal immigrants have their parents here and many are on Medicare . Many Asians here illegally or overstaying their Visas.
There is no enforcement. Everyone can see that .
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We need to spread word and URL of this study far and wide!
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/immigration-study-finds-nearly-twice-as-many-undocumented/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-09-21&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
Twice the number is a 50% error? Looks to me like previous studies were off by 100%.
Maybe this number is off by just as much, measuring the impossible to measure.
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"Maybe this number is off by just as much, measuring the impossible to measure."
The real number is impossible to know. The Left will not allow anyone to track , the Republicans do not have the guts to do anything about it
and are often with the Chamber of Commerce so I agree , it is possible there may even be 40 million in the US at this time. But 10 or 11 million - no way. :wink:
That has been the same number for how many yrs now?
Anyone and everyone can see there are so many more people who are from other countries and they cannot all be here legally.
Until we go after the employers we are unlikely to get this under control. OTOH I don't know how we can go after the employers. I don't know that ID cards can fix this and simply fakes will be sold on black market . A human data bank of finger prints retina scans? I would think both Left and Right would have reasons to fight this.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/411763-conservatives-fear-trump-will-cut-immigration-deal?userid=188403
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https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/10/21/immigration-expert-jessica-vaughan-four-ways-trump-can-solve-migrant-caravan-crisis/
Instead of centers where they get food and shelter
there should be jails waiting for them
If they are pregnant they can get a midwife who will deliver while in jail
on barges on the Rio Grande - not on US soil
no schooling
The entertainment would be speeches by the Bush family - winning their hearts and minds - to be future Republicans
:roll:
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https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/10/21/immigration-expert-jessica-vaughan-four-ways-trump-can-solve-migrant-caravan-crisis/
Instead of centers where they get food and shelter
there should be jails waiting for them
If they are pregnant they can get a midwife who will deliver while in jail
on barges on the Rio Grande - not on US soil
no schooling
The entertainment would be speeches by the Bush family - winning their hearts and minds - to be future Republicans
:roll:
It wouldn't be hard for the US military to create a security zone on Mexican soil.
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While no fan of Flake I happen to agree with him here. I *never" liked the strategy of labelling all of them with a "criminals" and *ms 13* and *al qaeda types* brush.
Why can't we simply say people have no right to walk into our country and overstay our visas against our laws and the toleration of this has to end?
We all know most are Burger King cashiers, diner busboys, and landscapers and baby sitters for the elites anyway .
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/10/22/watch-jeff-flake-trump-wrong-to-emphasize-criminals-among-caravan/
If Dems take the House forgettabout it all . There will never be any enforcement (except by executive order)
We already lost numerous states to immigration and are on verge to lose more , Calif, Colorado, New Mexico , and more.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/37517/trump-trolls-obama-2005-obama-speech-its-terrific-hank-berrien?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=102418-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuSdXiFtLk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0mit2wfSSiBd6X7b9-AmOrZ3yR_KOUY8PXmAXWzcZHrLFZaa0LRl4jbF4
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Pasting Doug's Euro thread article here as well:
Note that it is from 2015.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/germany-merkel-refugee-asylum/405058/
Among several points of interest, note the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers.
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"Note that it is from 2015."
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/germany-merkel-refugee-asylum/405058/
Thanks Crafty. I added (2015) to that post. The point of posting the older article was that this crisis has been brewing for a long time, anyone could see it coming. What did she think would happen? Million(s) of non-Germans come in, let's say 10% of them radicalized Islamists, maybe 30% more with sympathies that direction. The come where they will receive among the greatest welfare benefits in the world. And the leader believes they will come in, assimilate, learn the language and customs, contribute, produce, respect western culture, live in peace?
If she didn't see that coming, we did.
Same or similar goes for the US with 22 million or more non-Americans, non-immigrants invading. More coming. Except we already elected the anti-Merkel.
Generous welfare system, open borders, if you are Leftist - pick only one of those. For the rest of us, choose neither.
If you are a Leftist like Obama and don't want events like Trump and the deplorables winning your elections, ... govern better.
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"this crisis has been brewing for a long time, anyone could see it coming"
Yup.
Certainly we here have, and have done our best to raise the alarm.
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It is Breitbart, so caveat lector!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/12/28/anchor-baby-population-in-u-s-exceeds-one-year-of-american-births/
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/the-originalist-case-against-birthright-citizenship/
Ryan says Trump does not have the power to by executive order stop the citizenship based on being born on American soil
yet he himself has done nothing .
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It is Breitbart, so caveat lector!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/12/28/anchor-baby-population-in-u-s-exceeds-one-year-of-american-births/
True from what I can find, Pew and Census.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States
Wall Street Journal: "Birthright Citizenship, by the Numbers" August 20, 2015
https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/08/20/birthright-citizenship-by-the-numbers-the-numbers/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-in-the-united-states-since-1990/
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/the-originalist-case-against-birthright-citizenship/
Ryan says Trump does not have the power to by executive order stop the citizenship based on being born on American soil
yet he himself has done nothing .
Great article. Depends on what 5 or 9 Justices think original meaning of original text of the 14th amendment section 1 is or however they choose to approach it.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Does a visitor meet that criteria? A baby becomes a citizen of a different country than the parents and that was the intent of the framers in writing this? I don't think so.
We need an executive order or a bill that becomes law and a challenge to that to place it before the Court to determine the constitutionality. Whether done by Congress or by the Executive Branch, it was certain to be challenged. If struck down, then an amendment to the constitution will be needed.
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Taking this over to the Constiution/SCOTUS thread on the SC&H forum.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/birthright-citizenship-arguments-constitutional-requirement/
I get the subject to the jurisdiction bit , but that means subjects to the laws , not entitled to benefits and rights accorded to citizenship.
The representatives will NEVER change this amendment against the will of the people for their own agendas.
How about we make it clear , if you have a baby in this country while just visiting or are not permanent resident( green card ) or illegally here , both parents can NEVER be citizens.
I don't quite understand if "aliens" do not have the birth right then why illegals or those not permanent residents ? NOne of this anchor baby stuff.
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This is a serious Constitutional issue; let's discuss it here https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1850.new#new not in this thread.
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(https://i.imgur.com/RdTzzlo.jpg)
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Asked what they are fleeing, I was guessing the answer was sh*thole countries but no, they are fleeing climate change.
That is something to remember when asked for an example of fake news!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/migrant-caravan-causes-climate-change-central-america
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-migrant-caravan-climate-change_us_5bd3374ee4b0d38b5882f000
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caravan-provides-a-preview-of-climate-migrations-experts-say/
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/08/1017712
https://www.news24.com/Green/News/climate-change-swelling-central-american-migration-to-us-experts-20181024
Change in temperatures, prolonged drought and intensified rainfall mean that millions of Central American farmers who subsist on basic grains can see their crops wiped out.
"Climate change has no ideology, it has victims and we are seeing these victims suffering every day," said Alonzo.
-----------------------
Climate change and variability causes drought and intensified rainfall. Do they have it all covered there?
When was this not true?
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caravan due to climate change - no fake news here!
lets see Trump is responsible for climate change in the first place, is adding to it, and now is makin all our neighbors suffer from it who would otherwise be safe from it if only they can walk across the border and get a job cutting grass , construction or filling orders at Burger King and while all the services at our OB departments and schools for free.
Now this is logic and makes perfect sense. And many people with PhD after their names will actually go into their class rooms and teach this.
And the Hollywood types can promote this in their next fantasy murder movie at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (can you imagine the uproar if this was made during brocks time there>)
.
And Oprah will be able to claim she is out saving her race from chains and cotton fields by warning us of what is going on........
no fake news. no no fake news
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caravan due to climate change - no fake news here!
lets see Trump is responsible for climate change in the first place, is adding to it, and now is makin all our neighbors suffer from it who would otherwise be safe from it if only they can only walk across the border and get a job cutting grass , construction or filling orders at Burger King and use all the services at our OB departments and schools
Now this is logic and makes perfect sense. And many people with PhD after their names will actually go into their class rooms and teach this.
.......
no fake news. no no fake news
Yes, I forgot to put that in my post. Washington Post already wrote that Trump is complicit in climate change that caused the hurricanes (and now third world "migrations").
Meanwhile, U.S emissions are down under Trump, parts per thousand of atmospheric carbon dioxide is mathematically still at zero, and the amount of so-called global warming from all causes is measured in tenths of a degree per century. Ouch.
But droughts, floods and hurricanes are "unprecedented",
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The True History of Millstone Babies
by Ann Coulter
November 01, 2018
Having mastered fake news, now the media are trying out a little fake history.
In the news business, new topics are always popping up, from the Logan Act and the emoluments clause to North Korea. The all-star panels rush to Wikipedia, so they can pretend to be experts on things they knew nothing about an hour earlier.
Such is the case today with “anchor babies” and “birthright citizenship.” People who know zilch about the history of the 14th Amendment are pontificating magnificently and completely falsely on the issue du jour.
If you’d like to be the smartest person at your next cocktail party by knowing the truth about the 14th Amendment, this is the column for you!
Of course the president can end the citizenship of “anchor babies” by executive order — for the simple reason that no Supreme Court or U.S. Congress has ever conferred such a right.
It’s just something everyone believes to be true.
How could anyone — even a not-very-bright person — imagine that granting citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is actually in our Constitution?
The first question would be: Why would they do that? It’s like being accused of robbing a homeless person. WHY WOULD I?
The Supreme Court has stated — repeatedly! — that the “main object” of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment “was to settle the question … as to the citizenship of free negroes,” making them “citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”
“No Supreme Court has ever held that children born to illegal aliens are citizens.”
Democrats, the entire media and House Speaker Paul Ryan seem to have forgotten the Civil War. They believe that, immediately after a war that ended slavery, Americans rose up as one and demanded that the children of illegals be granted citizenship!
You know what’s really bothering me? If someone comes into the country illegally and has a kid, that kid should be an American citizen!
YOU MEAN THAT’S NOT ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION?
Give me a scenario — just one scenario — where the post-Civil War amendments would be intended to grant citizenship to the kids of Chinese ladies flying to birthing hospitals in California, or pregnant Latin Americans sneaking across the border in the back of flatbed trucks.
You can make it up. It doesn’t have to be a true scenario. Any scenario!
As the court has explained again and again and again:
“(N)o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th, 14th and 15th) amendments, lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.”
That’s why the amendment refers to people who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “and of the state wherein they reside.” For generations, African-Americans were domiciled in this country. The only reason they weren’t citizens was because of slavery, which the country had just fought a Civil War to end.
The 14th Amendment fixed that.
The amendment didn’t even make Indians citizens. Why? Because it was about freed slaves. Sixteen years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Supreme Court held that an American Indian, John Elk, was not a citizen, despite having been born here.
Instead, Congress had to pass a separate law making Indians citizens, which it did, more than half a century after the adoption of the 14th Amendment. (It’s easy to miss — the law is titled: “THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924.”) Why would such a law be necessary if simply being born in the U.S. was enough to confer citizenship?
Even today, the children of diplomats and foreign ministers are not granted citizenship on the basis of being born here.
President Trump, unlike his critics, honors black history by recognizing that the whole purpose of the Civil War amendments was to guarantee the rights of freed slaves.
But the left has always been bored with black people. If they start gassing on about “civil rights,” you can be sure it will be about transgenders, the abortion ladies or illegal aliens. Liberals can never seem to remember the people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, i.e., the only reason we even have civil rights laws.
Still, it requires breathtaking audacity to use the Civil War amendments to bring in cheap foreign labor, which drives down the wages of African-Americans — the very people the amendments were written to protect!
Whether the children born to legal immigrants are citizens is controversial enough. But at least there’s a Supreme Court decision claiming that they are — U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. That’s “birthright citizenship.”
It’s something else entirely to claim that an illegal alien, subject to deportation, can drop a baby and suddenly claim to be the parent of a “citizen.”
This crackpot notion was concocted by liberal zealot Justice William Brennan and slipped into a footnote as dicta in a 1982 case. “Dicta” means it was not the ruling of the court, just a random aside, with zero legal significance.
Left-wing activists seized on Brennan’s aside and browbeat everyone into believing that anchor babies are part of our great constitutional heritage, emerging straight from the pen of James Madison.
No Supreme Court has ever held that children born to illegal aliens are citizens. No Congress has deliberated and decided to grant that right. It’s a made-up right, grounded only in the smoke and mirrors around Justice Brennan’s 1982 footnote.
Obviously, it would be better if Congress passed a law clearly stating that children born to illegals are not citizens. (Trump won’t be president forever!) But until that happens, the president of the United States is not required to continue a ridiculous practice that has absolutely no basis in law.
It’s often said that journalism is the first draft of history. As we now see, fake news is the first draft of fake history.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4XhLiiu0is&fbclid=IwAR3mFiU1PY-m_YiGo3AWp2ddkdgKQqOs3O77_9umM-ZIGZ1T2OAUFwXrvZk
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If not done then we will never have enforcement and the Dems win the one party state we are close to becoming:
https://www.westernjournal.com/congress-can-right-now-fix-immigration-enforcement/
I am not holding my breath
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/11/18/orange-county-immigration-midterms-blue/?fbclid=IwAR0MUyjF7JtO3gA0r1Cn41tHcJiQIoslP4oiCRdkFOZg2x8K67RgAll2jVo&utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newslink&utm_term=members&utm_content=20181120204707
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2014
===============
Washington Post
From April 2014:
====================================
Monkey Cage
Lies, damned lies, and Obama’s deportation statistics
By Anna O. Law April 21, 2014
CALEXICO, CA – NOVEMBER 15: A U.S. Border Patrol agent looks for tracks along the U.S.-Mexico border fence on November 15, 2013 in Calexico, California. The fence separates the large Mexican city of Mexicali with Calexico, CA, and is a frequent illegal crossing point for immigrant smugglers. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Lies, Damned Lies, and Obama’s Deportation Statistics
This is a guest post from Anna O. Law, the Herbert Kurz Associate Professor of Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties at CUNY Brooklyn College. She is the author of The Immigration Battle in American Courts.
What is the trend in deportation of immigrants under the Obama administration? This seemingly simple question is proving very hard to answer. Consider three characterizations from recent media reports. Here is The Economist in February 2014:
America is expelling illegal immigrants at nine times the rate of 20 years ago; nearly 2m so far under Barack Obama, easily outpacing any previous president.
In April, the Los Angeles Times wrote:
A closer examination shows that immigrants living illegally in most of the continental U.S. are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came to office, according to immigration data. Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009.
And last week, Julia Preston of the New York Times reported that in the fiscal year 2013, the immigration courts saw a 26 percent drop in the number of people who have been deported, thereby producing:
… a different picture of President Obama’s enforcement policies than the one painted by many immigrant advocates, who have assailed the president as the ‘deporter in chief’ and accused him of rushing to reach a record of 2 million deportations. While Obama has deported more foreigners than any other president, the pace of deportations has recently declined.
Somehow, the Obama administration is simultaneously responsible for the highest rate of deportation in 20 years and a 26 percent drop in deportation. What is going on here? As it turns out, changes in immigration law, terminology and classification are causing this confusion.
One problem is the continued use of “deportation” in virtually all media reporting. In actuality, that category has been obsolete in immigration law since 1996. Prior to 1996, immigration law distinguished between immigrants who were “excluded,” or stopped and prevented from entering U.S. territory, and those who were “deported,” or expelled from the United States after they had made their way into U.S. territory. After 1996, both exclusion and deportation were rolled into one procedure called “removal.” At that point, the term “deportation” no longer had any meaning within the official immigration statistics. Its continued use in media reports is part of the confusion.
The large number of immigrants who are apprehended, usually but not exclusively along the southwestern border, and prevented from entering the country were part of a category called “voluntary departure” before 2006. Now that is called “return,” which also includes the subcategory of “reinstatement.” There is also a large category of “expedited removals” of persons that do not appear before an immigration judge but the procedure carries all the sanctions as a judge ordered removal.
These would-be immigrants accept this sanction that forgoes a court appearance before an immigration judge because formal removal — in which the U.S. government runs them through legal proceedings and pays for their return to their home country — would result in a multi-year bar (five to 20 years) on their eligibility to legally reenter the United States. Critics deride this policy “as catch and release.” The consequences of a return are much less harsh than a formal removal because the returned immigrant could come back legally, and presumably illegally, at any time.
Thus, comparing the deportation statistics across different presidential administrations is dicey because it is unclear what categories of people are actually being counted and categorized. Moreover, different administrations choose to emphasize different statistics. Dara Lind notes that the Bush administration seems to have reported removals and returns together, but Obama’s administration has emphasized only its number of removals.
Meanwhile, many media reports continue to use the term “deportation” when they mean either return or removal or some subset of those. The Department of Homeland Security that issues official statistics must now try to retrofit new legal categories to old data, and even it cannot excise the term deportation altogether because pre-1996, there were, in fact, deportations.
Confusion about terminology helps explain the conflicting accounts cited above. The aforementioned New York Times article focuses on return numbers. But the Economist is also right, because if you combine the Obama’s return and removal numbers, he is well over the controversial 2 million mark.
This confusion enables political spin, too. If you want to portray Obama as weak on enforcement, use the removal numbers, which, compared to his predecessors, are lower. If you want to make Obama look tougher on enforcement, combine the return and removal numbers (like George W. Bush apparently did) or use the now meaningless “deportation”; both moves would conflate return and removal — and boost the overall number of expulsions.
But don’t expect these nuances to make it into political discourse anytime soon. Way back in 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit described immigration law as “second in complexity only to the internal revenue code.” It would appear little has changed.
CORRECTION: The original post claimed that Obama had de-emphasized removals and concentrated on returns and that the ratio of his removals to returns was skewed toward returns compared to his predecessors. That claim is not correct because based on DHS’s data, (Table 39: Aliens Removed and Returned, FY 1892-2012) his cumulative numbers since taking office show Obama has removed a total of 1,974,688 people and returned 1,609,055 others. There have been more returns than removals only in FY 2009 and 2010. Moreover, comparing across administrations is not wise given the changes in law and counting procedures.
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/no-judge-has-jurisdiction-to-erase-our-border/
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/media-orgasmic-over-pitiful-photograph-of-woman-with-children-storming-the-u-s-border/
were these kids taken off the street in Tijuana ?
I find it hard to believe they walked a thousand miles for this photo op
They are probably bused the whole way only to get off to go to the BR or eat while posing for photos for CNN or are seen walking (as though they were doing so for hundreds of miles)
to go take a leak at the local rest room or off the side of the road.
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This paragraph from that cuts to the chase:
"Why are those kids half-naked and in diapers?
I'm looking around at the rest of the surging crowd and they're all wearing pants. In fact, a lot of them have accessories and headbands and scarves and bags. None of the adults are running around without pants. Why are these two children naked from the waist down and in diapers when they both appear to be at least 5 or 6 years old? This is a glaring red flag. This image is supposed to make us feel grief at the state of these poverty-stricken children who don't even have decent pants. But why does everyone else have them? How come the only people without pants in this photo are these children? Do they belong to these women? I don't know how we could tell. I think if I took my five-year-old out on a criminal adventure and dressed him only in a diaper while I dragged him around, running from police, I would be arrested and investigated for child abuse and neglect. I'm quite certain that this behavior from me would be frowned upon as bad parenting. But I think we are supposed to look at these women and feel sympathy for their "plight," even though we know we would be locked up if we did the same thing. I do feel sorry for those kids. They're human shields. This isn't a better life. It's the event catalyst for post-traumatic stress disorder. And what's this?"
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/38683/was-photo-migrant-mother-fleeing-children-staged-joseph-curl
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/26/h-2b-visas-temporary-seasonal-guest-workers-double/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=os4%2FIlh9sd6qFQ%2FSgZqJyfWe3IOOGBO2o9Wg0oCF1DUbeTKQ6YywO%2BZ3%2B2Q2VYXR&bt_ts=1543318442505
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All one has to do is look around and you can see this is a massive under estimate. These "nonpartisan" tax exempt organizations are anything but:
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2018/12/01/pew-u-s-illegal-immigrant-population-hits-lowest-level-in-a-decade/
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~ 300,00 cases in US but who can really know?
http://www.aappublications.org/news/2018/11/08/mmwr110818
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~ 300,00 cases in US but who can really know?
http://www.aappublications.org/news/2018/11/08/mmwr110818
Yeah, but Diversity!
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63% of noncitizen-headed households got some form of welfare benefit in 2014, compared with 35% for citizens.
31% of noncitizen households got cash benefits, when you include the Earned Income Tax Credit. That compares with 10% for citizen-headed households.
45% of households headed by a noncitizen reported using food programs in 2014. That's the latest year for which such census data are available. That compares with 21% for U.S. citizens.
Half of noncitizen households reported using Medicaid, compared with 23% for citizens.
https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen-Households-Access-Welfare-Programs
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/non-citizens-uninsured-welfare-census-data/
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63% of noncitizen-headed households got some form of welfare benefit in 2014, compared with 35% for citizens.
31% of noncitizen households got cash benefits, when you include the Earned Income Tax Credit. That compares with 10% for citizen-headed households.
45% of households headed by a noncitizen reported using food programs in 2014. That's the latest year for which such census data are available. That compares with 21% for U.S. citizens.
Half of noncitizen households reported using Medicaid, compared with 23% for citizens.
https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen-Households-Access-Welfare-Programs
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/non-citizens-uninsured-welfare-census-data/
Of course. If you are bringing in self sufficient immigrants, they might not vote democrat.
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our two party system . Repubs appear destined to extinction.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/immigration-flood-numbers-still-rising-will-trump-be-the-president-to-stop-it/
now with Dems in control of the House s/p Ryan republicans doing nothing
this will only get worse
we've lost folks.......
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:-o :x :-o :x :-o :x
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our two party system . Repubs appear destined to extinction.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/immigration-flood-numbers-still-rising-will-trump-be-the-president-to-stop-it/
now with Dems in control of the House s/p Ryan republicans doing nothing
this will only get worse
we've lost folks.......
Soft Genocide
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Speaking of Ryan I cannot believe this:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/08/paul-ryan-pushes-stealth-outsourcing-amnesty-irish/
Not only he requesting amnesty for illegals , he is doing it for white Europeans totally feeding the Dems with the racist bias of immigration
Ryan should not be allowed back in public serivice!
This only proves what seemed obvious - he never had any inkling of enforcing illegal immigration .
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/victorina-morales-trump-golf-club-undocumented_us_5c0d2f72e4b035a7bf5c0e27
and vote for Democrats.
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https://gellerreport.com/2018/12/63-percent-migrants-welfare.html/
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From Pew which is not non partisan :
https://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/illegal-immigration-New-Jersey/2015/09/24/id/693109/
at leaast Pew admits this cost us far more then what they reportedly pay in state and fed taxes
I think the rate is more like 15%
The city I grew up in is now literally 75 % Spanish. But it is not just Spanish . They are from all over. Eastern Europe China - everywhere.
https://www.sagar.com/spurt-in-indian-illegals-in-new-jersey.html
Add to those born here of illegals or non permanent residents and that would could easily explain a rate of 10%.
I am waiting for State income tax to go up.
Gotta pay up on all those pensions and endless other benefits the state doles out.
No hope of anything else . None .
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I note this paragraph in the article:
"The American Immigration Council said deportation is a constant fear for undocumented immigrants, often leaving children in the foster care network at a cost of $26,000 per year per child. With the deportation of a working parent, the remaining parent is often forced into state social welfare programs at a heavy burden to the state’s resources."
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/pelosi-no-wall-funding-even-if-that-means-government-closed-forever/
obviously crats have done their polling
but are they right ?
usually the independents will side with them I think on this at least they have in past
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suddenly my state another Democrat Party mob controlled state is stating some supervisor committed crimes
(like New York Democrat Party control is taking up investigations of anything to do with Trump
Does DOJ have any control over this?
Anything in Constitution about this?)
Did not I see these women are in the states illegally?
Did not I read they presented false Identification ?
so who is commiting crimes ?
I am supposed to feel sad for them?
Everything we are seeing including the Rats' Stephanopolous practiced speech today is geared to sway public opinion in favor of impeachment . The lib pollsters are just drooling at the bits to make the first headline -> majority supports impeachment - after the inside Dem mob gets the email including the jurnolisters and the schumers schiffs nadlers et al
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/donald-trump-deport-vietnam-war-refugees/577993/?fbclid=IwAR1yaa08pLVkwjyjA7sAPMyiIvcmBIFxJi-fPGQprrMAKHoi8wufI-QPfRc
Do I read through the haze correctly that those being deported have criminal convictions?
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/donald-trump-deport-vietnam-war-refugees/577993/?fbclid=IwAR1yaa08pLVkwjyjA7sAPMyiIvcmBIFxJi-fPGQprrMAKHoi8wufI-QPfRc
Do I read through the haze correctly that those being deported have criminal convictions?
Yes, but they did their very best to obscure that, being professional journalists who should be trusted!
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For all his bellicosity
Trump accomplished as much for the wall as he did with North Korea
:x
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now it is 10 billion to be given to the corrupt governments so they can skim most of it for their own pockets and probably much of it will wind up in the hands of drug cartels.
I am sure the Dems and rinos will be falling all over one another to fund this . But nothing for the needed wall.
God Damn it!!! :x
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/12/18/state-department-pledges-10-billion-to-develop-central-america-southern-mexico/
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I'm burning on that too.
Separately, here's this:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/39449/seven-year-old-guatemalan-girl-died-sepsis-not-joseph-curl?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=121918-news&utm_campaign=position1
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now it is 10 billion to be given to the corrupt governments so they can skim most of it for their own pockets and probably much of it will wind up in the hands of drug cartels.
I am sure the Dems and rinos will be falling all over one another to fund this . But nothing for the needed wall.
God Damn it!!! :x
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/12/18/state-department-pledges-10-billion-to-develop-central-america-southern-mexico/
What is happening is not accidental. What's left of this country is being destroyed on purpose.
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I can't disagree :x :x :x
The Nazis in Charlottesville chanted "The Jews shall not replace us"-- the perennial nastiness of the old hatred aside, they are right that the progressives don't like America and seek to dilute Americans with undocumented voters , , ,
Immigrants who come to be Americans are what made this country. Now the progressives have subverted the education system and the media to teach that America is bad.
Helluva message for the immigrants who come now.
=================
The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.
The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.
The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.
The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.
This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.
– Rudyard Kipling
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If they change the rules now and assuming Flake and Corker vote no on the 5 Billion can't they do it again in January when they have 53 votes and those two are gone?
I understand the thought "this could come back to haunt us"
but the Dems had little problem using it to pack the courts :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.59eb052b7e9c
When push comes to shove they will use it again anyway so why do we have to stick to the Queensberry rules?
This is our last chance to slow immigration . And even then it is only a making a dent into the problem.
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If they change the rules now and assuming Flake and Corker vote no on the 5 Billion can't they do it again in January when they have 53 votes and those two are gone?
I understand the thought "this could come back to haunt us"
but the Dems had little problem using it to pack the courts :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.59eb052b7e9c
When push comes to shove they will use it again anyway so why do we have to stick to the Queensberry rules?
This is our last chance to slow immigration . And even then it is only a making a dent into the problem.
The stupid party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
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https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/06/study-confirms-refugees-arent-economically-beneficial-they-are-mostly-unemployed-and-cost-billions-of-euros/?fbclid=IwAR2DgAng9NDo8kIWyoKhdxIuevrs6lIBqhN7lzqStE699EafeLVtrvc7Wkg
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https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/06/study-confirms-refugees-arent-economically-beneficial-they-are-mostly-unemployed-and-cost-billions-of-euros/?fbclid=IwAR2DgAng9NDo8kIWyoKhdxIuevrs6lIBqhN7lzqStE699EafeLVtrvc7Wkg
Did their analysis factor in all the counterterrorism jobs created? Rape kit production?
-
Can we say this stalemate is not about money. It is about the 2016 election, the 2020 election, and maybe about the 2018 election as a new Congress gets sworn in.
Fulfill a promise or deny a promise, it is all about Trump. Or is it about national security and rule of law versus those who openly oppose both?
----------------------------
"Who is going to suffer a symbolic defeat to restart the 25 percent of the government that is currently shuttered?"
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/government-shutdown-symbolism-refighting-2016-election/
---------------------------
[Doug]The EPA will shortly run out of money and potential polluters will only be restrained by the 50 state agencies that can issue myriads of felonies and fines and the civil justice system capable of levying trillions of dollars of damages to victims. We need our non-essential services re-opened!
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/california-coastal-elites-poor-immigrants-fleeing-middle-class/
but the slimy Dems pontificate this:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/california-coastal-elites-poor-immigrants-fleeing-middle-class/
If we don't stop this shit now . I don't understand why not all Repubs are on the same side on this issue.
-
Did you mean to post the same URL two times?
-
corrected post:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/california-coastal-elites-poor-immigrants-fleeing-middle-class/
but the slimy Dems pontificate this:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/opinions/trump-immigration-crisis-doesnt-exist-gergen-piltch/index.html
This is why we will be a one party country soon and why the crats ignore and lie about it.
I don't understand why not all Repubs are on the same side on this issue.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gergen
This guy has been around from Nixon and works all sides but stay relevant in DC has changed to Independent to distance himself from Trump.
Am I alone here or do others literally sit and scratch their head every time I listen to him or read anything of his and think, who bothers to listen to this guy?
I can't recall him every saying ANYTHING worth listening to.
There must something he does behind the scenes that has somehow made him relevant but I have NEVER seen it.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Governor-Andrew-Cuomo-Inaugural-Ellis-Island-Speech-Third-Term-NY-503773581.html
Cuomo:
"faulted the federal government, saying politicians had exploited fear and frustration that many Americans feel to deepen divisions among the population "for their own political purpose." He said some of the nation's leaders had demonized diversity to "make our differences our greatest weakness instead of our greatest strength."
translation :
'Diversity' is our greatest strength as long as they all vote Democrat and we can wipe out Republicans .
Diversity my ass. Diversity is the 'code' word for lets wipe out the Republican Party once and for all.
Diversity as long as it does not include policies of the half the country on the Right.
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https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obama-takes-heat-over-border-wall-support/article_d7489473-692b-5b25-930d-2d0721153c0d.html
-
"https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/obama-takes-heat-over-border-wall-support/article_d7489473-692b-5b25-930d-2d0721153c0d.htm
Obama takes heat from a *white* hispanic.
Only now that bamster is out can this guy get away with this and not be pummeled
By the way, ironically , this was one of the times bamster was correct. Of course he is openly against the wall now, as he was privately against it then ( despite the phony insincere political posturing .)
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Clarification, that report is dated Oct 13, 2006. Senator Obama voted for a border barrier then for the US southern border - just as he does now for his own, Washington DC residence.
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'If I Come to Your Home, Do You Want Me to Knock or Climb Through the Window?'
- Border Patrol Agent
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2019/january/if-i-come-to-your-home-do-you-want-me-to-knock-or-climb-through-the-window-border-patrol-agents-defend-shutdown
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Minneapolis’ ‘Little Mogadishu’ Sees 56 Percent Increase in Violent Crimes Caused by Somali Gangs
http://tennesseestar.com/2019/01/02/minneapolis-little-mogadishu-sees-56-percent-increase-in-violent-crimes-caused-by-somali-gangs/
-----
Why are we bringing human trafficking Somali gangs and Somali terrorists to Minneapolis?
What could possibly go wrong?
In a high rise of public housing subsidies, no one questions what role welfare plays in the dysfunctional society ruled by gangs.
Instead we get Israel hating Ilhan Omar who married her brother to come here elected to Congress to represent Minneapolis ripping the Middle East's only democracy.
https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/269488770066313216?lang=en
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2019/01/11/wow-lindsey-graham-has-some-advice-for-trump-about-democrats-and-the-wall-n2538885
Agree no "deals"
they either put up or shut up and proceed with wall one way or other .
Time to stop giving in to the extortion
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46802548?fbclid=IwAR0AtoCyz2LUHwya7xT2jjXtObKDdJc675QPPdOP9hdZPaFAAWcMz-qKrA8
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"Hard line enforcement cuts illegal African migration to Europe to a trickle."
To the LEFT it makes no difference
"walls don't work" when the evidence refutes this
then the answer is "there is no crises on the border"
when that doesn't make sense the answer is
"it is immoral or cruel to stop poor folks who are looking for a better life"
When even that does not work
"most illegals overstay their visas"
and then do not offer the obvious answer to the question as to , why are you not closing THAT loophole d
Since in the words of Oprah , we can't die off fast enough we have to be overrun - one way or another.
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courtesy of USA today :
no point in building wall because the illegals are building tunnels.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/amid-border-wall-debate-third-025943458.html
actually this is not new. We have seen drug smuggling tunnels for many years,
The Left does not compromise. If we don't stop compromising we will continue to lose
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Requiring the digging and re-digging of tunnels is one way of slowing them down, reducing the flow. A barrier stops the massive caravans from attacking agents with rock throwing and mostly stops the flow families and infants and the deaths that have come from that.
A physical barrier is one big piece of the enforcement puzzle. We will still need 24/7 surveillance, horizontally and vertically. After the barrier is up we have to look for ladders and tunnels, ultralights and private planes, mini-tramps and pogo sticks. See the Steve McQueen motorcycle jump in the Great Escape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ccVu992CYE
I assume tunnels can be found with surveillance technology and efforts. Listen to the ground and watch activity from above with drones and satellite imagery.
Get the military involved if necessary. How about if we have the US patrol both sides of the barrier if the government of Mexico will not cooperate.
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"Listen to the ground and watch activity from above with drones and satellite imagery"
the technology must be far greater then during WW1
in the trenches
listening for tunnels
we should deal with them now like we did then
or on the Pacific Islands in WW 2; blast them shut or use flame throwers .
i would think that would put a near complete end to the bullshit
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Requiring the digging and re-digging of tunnels is one way of slowing them down, reducing the flow. A barrier stops the massive caravans from attacking agents with rock throwing and mostly stops the flow families and infants and the deaths that have come from that.
A physical barrier is one big piece of the enforcement puzzle. We will still need 24/7 surveillance, horizontally and vertically. After the barrier is up we have to look for ladders and tunnels, ultralights and private planes, mini-tramps and pogo sticks. See the Steve McQueen motorcycle jump in the Great Escape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ccVu992CYE
I assume tunnels can be found with surveillance technology and efforts. Listen to the ground and watch activity from above with drones and satellite imagery.
Get the military involved if necessary. How about if we have the US patrol both sides of the barrier if the government of Mexico will not cooperate.
Try digging a tunnel into a wealthy leftist's estate, see how far you get.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/01/14/conservative-activists-jump-pelosis-fence-with-illegal-aliens-to-prove-a-vital-point-n2539038
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Photo from Drudge. Imagine hiking along the Mexican side of the US/Mexico border and seeing this, or seeing open land with no fence or maybe just a ranchers fence. Try to figure out in which scenario one a potential intruder might be more tempted to cross. Or maybe you are border, which is safer for you and easier to defend?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dw6vJkBWoAAJbXF.jpg)
Elsewhere in America in the rich elite suburbs or Wzashington DC I presume, Elizabeth Warren likes her iron fence with a big, beautiful gate. If not the bad guys, I suppose it keeps the neighbors' kids out.
https://media.breitbart.com/media/2019/01/GettyImages-1076221824.jpg
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/judge-creates-right-for-illegal-alien-to-block-deportation-so-she-can-sue-law-enforcement/
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let alone reform.
This is it folks:
https://www.westernjournal.com/wapo-urges-pelosi-take-trumps-deal-pressure-splits-dem-leadership-others/
Nothing about visas overstaying
people walking or flying in to have babies
nothing to stop the extended family from being brought over
nothing about stopping people from hiring illegals
nothing about shipping out those who are here illegally
or "sanctuary " enclaves
the tying it up in courts for years
W already gave up and concluded we have to change and win the hearts ande minds of the entitlement crowd over to the Repub Party
The chance of that is infinitely small if not zero.
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WHY WE FIGHT:
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/levin-count-me-out-im-not-going-in-on-amnesty/
No more "negotiating"
We lose every time .
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https://www.westernjournal.com/new-york-spend-millions-putting-illegal-immigrants-college/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=westernjournalism&utm_content=2019-01-26&utm_campaign=manualpost&fbclid=IwAR2wW5m9GLhLwsW_ziSGFHZunCjxgGZRGenQlDVhIl6Wd54c0UOJCyiH3m8
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offering *free* tuition to illegals:
due to stuff like this we have another 12,000 + already in another caravan coming north .
OTOH this new illegal transfer of future low wage workers and democrats certainly sticks it to the MSM that , yes , we do have an emergency on our Southern border
and yes Trump needs to declare an emergency
and after the Obama appointed judge in Oregon or Hawaii or DC or San Francisco blocks it then get it up the SCOTUS asap.
Too bad RBG wasn't replaced yet.
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""Legal-good/illegal-bad is actually the default setting for mousy and irresolute Republican politicians: Demonstrate toughness to voters by demanding better enforcement, while swearing your allegiance to the continued importation of 1 million legal immigrants (and hundreds of thousands of “temporary” workers) every year, thus soothing employers looking for cheap labor and showing the New York Times how non-racist you are"
yup:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/donald-trump-wants-increased-immigration/
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/house-freedom-caucus-tries-buy-time-trump-border-deal-worse-thought/
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I'd rather this be kept in the Homeland Security thread.
-
Trump should just declare emergency and build the wall
If the legislative branch refuses to fix or enforce laws
then it is his job as chief law enforcement person to do so.
Yeah I know the Obama political activist judges will hold it up.... blah blah blah
Graham is holding hearing but as he points out Dems have no interest so nothing will come of it except as always a show for the the 10 % of the media on our side to play and the 90 % on the other side to ignore , deny , obfuscate and spin.
and the crises continues
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Everyone in the world simply come in and make a claim - get release into the country - and you in.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/everyone-sleeps-courts-abolishing-immigration-enforcement/
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/380204.php
Because that's what is important to the left.
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:cry: :cry: :cry: :x :x :x :x :x :x
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Julian Castro: Decriminalize immigration.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections-2020/2019/04/02/julin-castro-unveils-plan-decriminalize-illegal-immigration-grant-citizenship-path-millions
Doug: Stop committing immigration crimes. The laws are in place for a reason.
"Illegals" commit one crime when they come in and a second crime when 92% don't show up for their court date. Another potential crime is that many or most have paid money to illegal border gangs to secure their entry. Presenting false ID is a fourth crime committed by people "who have done nothing wrong". Just living by the laws of where you come from, cf. Somali female genital mutilation, is another issue. Bringing in previously eradicated public health risks is yet another reason for immigration laws and enforcement.
Leftists / Dems resent the term shitholes when a leader allegedly utters it but consider these places all unlivable every time someone tries to flee them.
Trump has hit 50% Hispanic approval in two polls. Border enforcement will begin when actual Hispanic vote goes 51% Republican.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/poll-50-hispanic-voters-approve-of-trump-gop-regains-ballot-lead
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-1497644182-htmlstory.html
Visa overstays are another part of it. Isn't that where the 9/11 hijackers came from?
Borderless anti-sovereignty Leftists turn moderates like me into MAGA hat sympathizing zealots.
---------------
Byron York today:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-how-bad-does-border-have-to-be-for-democrats-to-admit-its-an-emergency
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/the-age-of-robot-farmers?utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_040919&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&user_id=50142053&esrc=&utm_content=A&utm_term=TNY_Daily
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/the-age-of-robot-farmers?utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_040919&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&user_id=50142053&esrc=&utm_content=A&utm_term=TNY_Daily
The dems don't want them here for labor. They want them here for votes.
-
makes sense
https://www.spartareport.com/2019/04/why-did-the-9th-circuit-side-with-trump/
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Glenn Beck: Chicago Marxists are Pulling the Strings on the Attack on our Border
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD7XgFaCpdk
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The world retains its ability to surprise:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/46033/finally-amid-border-crisis-lindsey-graham-josh-hammer?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=041719-news&utm_campaign=position5
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"They're not criminals", the Left maintains. Yet:
1. They broke the law by coming in. Strike one.
2. In many cases they did business with the criminal gangs that in fact control the border. Strike two.
3. They falsely claim asylum. 85% of those claiming asylum are not deemed eligible for asylum. Strike three.
4. 92% of those who awaiting their hearing disappear and don't show up for their hearing.
5. Of the illegals transported in to stay with family already here, 76% of those households already house illegals.
6. Of the so-called families coming in, thousands of children have admitted to border agents the man claiming it's his family is not their father.
I heard these from good sources but many are disputed by politiFact and others. This is an area where google search bias makes it nearly impossible to find information not in line with the narrative. I would like to get accurate numbers and good source links on all of this. Doug
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"1. They broke the law by coming in. Strike one.
2. In many cases they did business with the criminal gangs that in fact control the border. Strike two."
True, but of little persuasive power with the mindset here that is the fundamental problem. How to get through? Tucker Carlson sometimes focuses with questions: How many do you think should come in? Is there a number which is too many for you? Why? Do you know how many we legally let in? Should we choose those who benefit America or something else?
"3. They falsely claim asylum. 85% of those claiming asylum are not deemed eligible for asylum. Strike three."
I thought the number was 95%, but how to deal with the Due Process argument that until they are determined not admisable they get to stay? What about the Ninth's creation of habeas corpus for illegals?!?
"4. 92% of those who awaiting their hearing disappear and don't show up for their hearing."
Ask this: What do you think should be done about this?
", , ,
"6. Of the so-called families coming in, thousands of children have admitted to border agents the man claiming it's his family is not their father."
"I heard these from good sources but many are disputed by politiFact and others. This is an area where google search bias makes it nearly impossible to find information not in line with the narrative. I would like to get accurate numbers and good source links on all of this. Doug"
Very important point!!!
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Anyone think they work so hard to hide the information on illegals because it validates their positions?
"1. They broke the law by coming in. Strike one.
2. In many cases they did business with the criminal gangs that in fact control the border. Strike two."
True, but of little persuasive power with the mindset here that is the fundamental problem. How to get through? Tucker Carlson sometimes focuses with questions: How many do you think should come in? Is there a number which is too many for you? Why? Do you know how many we legally let in? Should we choose those who benefit America or something else?
"3. They falsely claim asylum. 85% of those claiming asylum are not deemed eligible for asylum. Strike three."
I thought the number was 95%, but how to deal with the Due Process argument that until they are determined not admisable they get to stay? What about the Ninth's creation of habeas corpus for illegals?!?
"4. 92% of those who awaiting their hearing disappear and don't show up for their hearing."
Ask this: What do you think should be done about this?
", , ,
"6. Of the so-called families coming in, thousands of children have admitted to border agents the man claiming it's his family is not their father."
"I heard these from good sources but many are disputed by politiFact and others. This is an area where google search bias makes it nearly impossible to find information not in line with the narrative. I would like to get accurate numbers and good source links on all of this. Doug"
Very important point!!!
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https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/01/19/good-question-why-did-somalis-locate-here/?fbclid=IwAR1tfNL1DPiP7ViWK0gfbtUgxJcVHRRScNXMyYhbhv0wV-leOhiUBg_GahU
2015
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/lutheran-social-service-of-minnesota-is-responsible-for-the-somali-chaos-in-st-cloud/?fbclid=IwAR0L-DWcw5ZdkmS3KYXq420LMI7666MQtXSujsXKrkTfat7O0murrTmdlbk
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https://defensemaven.io/bluelivesmatter/news/new-york-mayor-says-they-ll-sue-if-immigrants-are-dropped-off-in-city-P8UqFslGH0O6-lHV0T-A7w/?fbclid=IwAR0UDUPG5rhtjSqye0Xrm2F44llOm3eX041i5HVPy7d8z5twHWMFeTQKUvE
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/10/01/adopted-daughter-of-military-family-will-have-to-leave-the-country-court-rules/?fbclid=IwAR03zWJn1Jq2kuuB_WM4WA5YMCa8TMevQw90PSy88C7uUoXnvP9P3fNpqFA#.XLeC8NiF_bi.facebook
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Why now after hundreds of years:
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/health/2019/04/23/remember-kissing-bug-cdc-confirms-one-found-delaware/3548857002/
CDC will do the politically correct and not the health correct thing here.
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https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/16/undocumented-la-county-parents-projected-to-receive-650m-in-welfare-benefits/?fbclid=IwAR2JTL6f5duyPT10rOcJpsZ2iK8ysQHULgZJKfQkr6IZ91HTPGXfMPydRgo
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"""https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/16/undocumented-la-county-parents-projected-to-receive-650m-in-welfare-benefits/?fbclid=IwAR2JTL6f5duyPT10rOcJpsZ2iK8ysQHULgZJKfQkr6IZ91HTPGXfMPydRgo"""
they ain't going to get that south of the border
does the phrase anchor babies mean anything or is that simply racist hate speech?
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Hey ccp,. They are building the wall as we speak. )
https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-says-now-money-256-202612485.html
And preparing for the fight against a one judge injunction.
https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-says-now-money-256-202612485.html
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" . Hey ccp,. They are building the wall as we speak. )
https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-says-now-money-256-202612485.html
And preparing for the fight against a one judge injunction.
https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-says-now-money-256-202612485.html"
----------
We read of daily records being set of the number people flooding the border
ZERO! anything being done to stem the tide of visa overstays - not even talked about and the media of course , like good Democrat soldiers ignore it .
report 1% of the entire population of Guatemala arrived to US just since September!
EVen Nicky Haley headline telling how great unlimited immigration is good for us!!!!
State after state being turned blue
Trump is trying in his clumsy way but that is it.
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unveiling of the Jarod's (documented as the genius *) plan today:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/16/donald-trump-unveils-2020-immigration-plan-on-thursday/
* Nicki Halley; 2018; [who incidentally thinks we need open borders; 2019 news report]
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Better than illegal immigration.
We need skilled workers.
Identifies workers in the trades, not gender studies and social justice majors.
More likely to assimilate when they come from all over.
Bureaucracy will slow the flow.
Allows Trump to beat the anti-immigrant charge, and build the wall.
Helps Trump win reelection.
It won't pass anyway.
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" .It won't pass anyway. "
not through a Dem Congress
I have not seen the details of this plan.
the meat is in the details .
That is why I am totally suspicious of Schiestre Schumer "supporting Trump's tariffs against the Chinese communist tyrants.)
he must be praying it slows the economy and causes a crash or separates farmers and others to get pissed at Trump
prior to the election . Schumer is that big of a partisan prick as we all know.
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I am totally confused as to what this is all about from the start. I thought we are keeping illegals out not busing them around.
https://www.westernjournal.com/trump-administration-no-plans-send-migrants-florida/
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DNA testing reveals a THIRD of migrants faked family relationship
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7045351/Rapid-DNA-testing-reveals-migrants-faked-family-relationship-kids.html
Leftists rush to re-unite gang members with their hostage children.
The status quo at the border is humane? For whom?
When you have no fence around your swimming pool you are liable for trespasser drownings. Attract nuisance law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
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watch , if trump gets abortion ban exception for rape or incest
the allegations of rape will sky rocket.
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That belongs in the Abortion thread please.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2019/06/04/judge-tosses-dems-lawsuit-trying-to-block-trumps-use-of-military-funds-for-border-wall-n2547384
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I am so shocked ! Who would ever have thought ! :wink:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/06/06/mexico-claims-some-funding-for-migrant-caravans-came-from-u-s-and-england/
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In 16 states and DC more born in US then from legal residents:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/06/average-124k-anchor-babies-born-us-this-year-so-f
great for the Democrat Party - not for America .
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https://fee.org/articles/the-us-should-look-to-the-uae-on-immigration-reform/
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Doug ,
Here in NJ
if one goes into any nursing home (around me at least), most of the aids already are born somewhere else.
They are mostly Caribbeans Africans and foreign Latinos and some former USSR communist block countries like Poland or Ukraine.
They are already paid minimum wage and the nursing homes already seem to recruit them.
The Filipinos are more the nurses and some doctors.
The Indians/Pakistanis/middle Easterners mostly the doctors and a few nurses .
I don't know if they are here on some sort of visa or at least some must be illegal - I really don't know.
And I don't want to be slapped with a lawsuit so I wouldn't even dream of asking
As for paying them $500 dollars a month that is Dubai.
Here it would only work if you live on spaghetti and out of your car or flop on someone's floor for a few bucks.
Just found this :
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/foreign-born-health-care-workers-united-states
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He threatened a 5% and escalating tariff (that would have paid for the wall). Tariffs are tricky. He threatened Mexico but American consumers would pay the tax. How would new tariffs step on recent news of a new free trade agreement with Mexico? We won't know as they came to agreement over the weekend. What level of cooperation should we expect from a new Mexican President who is most likely not concerned with US/American interests? Mexico made some promises and some of it I don't think we know yet. Will border crossing slow because of this? Immediately or when? Does this substitute for dealing with the real, internal problems of getting Democrats to deal with immigration rules here? Was it Trump who was afraid of implementing new tariffs?
Why shouldn't Mexico cooperate with us on the Honduran, Guatemalan part of the problem? Gangs controlling their northern (and southern) border is not good for them either.
--------------------------------------------
Hugh Hewiit opinion in the Washington Post, "Trump Victory Leaves Democrats Sputtering"
Read it here without subscription:
https://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns/bill_whitaker/hugh-hewitt-washington-post-trump-emerges-victorious-in-mexican-tariff/article_5a7c96af-e359-53a1-8700-01711fcb741b.html
Hugh Hewitt, Washington Post: Trump emerges victorious in Mexican tariff standoff
Because President Donald Trump emerges as a clear winner from his weeklong confrontation with Mexico over our neighbor’s lax enforcement of its southern border, reflexive Trump critics will scramble to find some way of containing what is a clear Trump triumph, which came with assists by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who conducted the key negotiations.
Already we have heard about long-term damage to trust between the North American allies, about investor nervousness and Trump’s unpredictability. This sort of flailing-about to deny the obvious says nothing about Trump and much about those critics who can no more admit he played high-stakes poker and won a round on border security than they can admit that the president delivered a magnificent tribute to the heroes of Normandy on this past Thursday.
Much of the media has overheated now and, like an engine that has run too long without an oil change, has begun to seize up, stall, even melt. That Trump has contributed to the slow wreck of American media is undeniable. It’s a feature, not a bug, of his presidency to attack, attack, attack the media elites. And no matter how often center-right journalists counsel him to abandon the Stalinist “enemy of the people” rhetoric, he hasn’t because it triggers a flaming hatred among the ideologies of the left, with platforms and elites eager to signal each other that they are part of the tribe menaced by this Godzilla from Trump Tower.
Voters, though — not just the “Twitter Democrats” but voters of all ages and ideologies — are a pretty smart bunch. Assume for a moment that they know, generally, that tariffs are a lousy idea in terms of economic growth. Assume as well that they know that tariffs can be an instrument of national power in confrontations unrelated to economic growth.
Assume that voters know our competition with China is far more than an economic race but rather a complex geopolitical rivalry that both sides wish to keep contained short of open conflict and that is waged through proxies, cyber-confrontations, intellectual-property battles, freedom-of-the-seas disputes and the relative size and power of our armed forces and those of our allies. In that context, tariffs on Chinese goods are just part of an overall negotiation toward a new normal that is in everyone’s interest. So “tariffs bad, free trade good” is simplistic. “Free trade is good and agreed-upon international conventions are required for genuinely free trade and tariffs may be necessary to achieve those conventions” is accurate. And widely understood.
“Alliances are good” is also simplistic. “Alliances in which allies actually do what they promise with regard to percentage of GDP spent on national defense while not increasing dependence on Russian natural gas” is complex but accurate.
Hard as it is for the Manhattan-Beltway echo chamber to believe, sounding sophisticated isn’t actually being sophisticated. Trump’s record is mixed, but not this week. This week, even as Joe Biden began to melt (the headline in Saturday’s Times of London online edition was “Democrats raise doubts over Joe Biden’s stamina for presidential nomination race” — never a good sign when the neighbors notice these things), Trump put together back-to-back big successes.
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want open borders as much as the US can take
I have ONE question for them.
WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION IS IT WRITTEN THE US SYSTEM IS SUPPOSED TO BE A PONZI SCHEME WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT IT HAS BECOME:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/george-will-demands-open-borders-im-for-as-much-immigration-as-the-economy-can-take/
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Here is their border bill:
NOthing to stop the flood from entering the US
Nothing that protects the interest of citizens .
only taxpayer money to help the illegals
and for God Sakes money to pay for them to get instructions on how to take advantage of loopholes and pay for Dem operative lawyers and immigration lawyers
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/06/23/pelosi-says-the-house-will-pass-a-border-bill-but-theres-a-catch-n2548805
The dirtbags keep encouraging them to come and then turn around and point to the "humanitarian crises" on the border
with Chrissy Cuomo right there with his TV crews talking about toothpaste and dental floss .
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An acquaintance of mine, part of our sports group when he is up here, once a top ten hedge fund manager in the world and Texas state pickle ball champion, has a payment and work based immigration proposal.
http://m.startribune.com/immigration-pushes-one-time-minnesota-hedge-fund-hotshot-into-politics/511710352/
https://www.idealimmigration.us/policy
From the article:
Under his proposal, dubbed the Workforce Visa Act, any foreign national with a valid offer of employment could pay $2,500 to obtain a one-year guest worker visa. That could be renewed annually at the same cost, with the proceeds going to workforce training and development funds for permanent residents in the state where the visa holder lives.
Employers could hire the visa workers if they agreed to pay back the $2,500 as part of their wages. That's meant to defuse criticism that immigrants take jobs from American workers, since the latter could be hired without the additional $2,500 charge.
After a decade, workforce visa holders could achieve legal permanent residence by paying an additional $25,000 or by agreeing to work for another 10 years. Prior to citizenship, the visa holders would not be eligible for public benefits but could join a workplace union.
"This would not eliminate or reduce or supplant any other path to legal status," Kuhn said. "It is an additional path."
Workers and business owners now in the country without legal documentation would be eligible. "We have 11 million here now who are living in fear and avoiding assimilation. The best way to achieve that is to let them know they have a path to live here permanently," Kuhn said.
Kuhn believes a work-focused increase in the legal immigration rate would be an economic boon, helping reduce worker shortages not only in the agriculture, home construction and hospitality industries, but also in specialized fields like technology and medical research.
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From above link:
"This would not eliminate or reduce or supplant any other path to legal status," Kuhn said. "It is an additional path."
Who would oversee , administer this?
More bureaucracy. I don't know .
This is interesting:
https://www.usapa.org/what-is-pickleball/
I tried racquetball . easier than handball .
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From above link:
"This would not eliminate or reduce or supplant any other path to legal status," Kuhn said. "It is an additional path."
Who would oversee , administer this?
More bureaucracy. I don't know .
This is interesting:
https://www.usapa.org/what-is-pickleball/
I tried racquetball . easier than handball .
He seems slightly naive on the politics of it but that may be an advantage for him to press forward while everyone else is standing still. The fees for a ag worker and a tech venture capitalist are the same? Sounds fair to me.
This is the game I play with Steve. A little more exciting than pickle because of playing it off the screens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt-1F8SKVfQ
Steve had Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi over to house to play pickleball for a charity fundraiser. Video: https://www.facebook.com/thearfoundation/videos/2071995819478947/
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/la-made-1-3b-in-illegal-immigrant-welfare-payouts-in-just-2-years
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Never Trumper Roberts sides with the anti-constitutionalists on the Court.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/supreme-court-ruling-census-citizenship-question-1385304
Supreme Court deals setback to Trump administration attempt to add Census citizenship question
By TED HESSON and JOSH GERSTEIN 06/27/2019 10:59 AM EDT
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The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt an unexpected blow to the Trump administration's move to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, ruling that official explanations for the move were implausible and legally inadequate.
In a surprising decision, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberals on that point. The high court returned the case to lower courts for further action, raising doubts about the administration getting the go-ahead to add the question before upcoming deadlines to finalize the census questionnaire.
Several lower courts previously found that the administration violated federal regulatory law when it added the question.
The administration argued that citizenship data will assist with anti-discrimination provisions in enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. However, critics contend that immigrant households could skip the census over fears the information could be used to scrutinize their legal status.
Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that the administration’s rationale appeared to be “contrived“ and suggested that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross presented a misleading rationale for adding the question when he said it had been requested by Justice Department officials to protect the rights of minority voters.
“In the secretary’s telling, Commerce was simply acting on a routine data request from another agency,“ he wrote. “Yet the materials before us indicate that Commerce went to great lengths to elicit the request from DOJ (or any other willing agency). … We are presented, in other words, with an explanation for agency action that is incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency’s priorities and decisionmaking process.“
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" .Never Trumper Roberts sides with the anti-constitutionalists on the Court."
I agree
I no longer think Roberts is being impartial
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/scotus-blocks-donald-trump-administration-from-including-census-citizenship-question/
We can't ask on a census if someone is a citizen
but we can ask if the latin caucasian etc
" On March 26, 2018 the U.S. Dept of Commerce announced[13] plans to re-include a citizenship question in the 2020 census questionnaire which has not been included on the short form since 1950.[14] The Decennial Census had a “long form” distributed to a sample of households receiving a Census form in three Census years (1980, 1990, 2000),[15] which included a question on citizenship.[16] The Census Bureau relies on the American Community Survey, based on samples of the U. S. population for more detailed questions of interest to policy-makers.[17]"
The Left's argument that a citizen question would intimidate illegals?
But my understanding is that privacy census data is very strictly protected
How else will we ever be able to determine how many illegals are here?
For Gods sake
Again the Left/ with Roberts protectsthem rather than citizens !
We need Ginberg's seat to really have a conservative Court
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http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2019-06-26.html#read_more
wonder why they keep coming.
look no further then our beloved RNC
wonder why states keep turning blue
and none ever turn red
look no further then our beloved RNC
wonder why the country will soon become a Democrat socialist country .........
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the citizen question has been on the vast majority of census since 1820:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cal-thomas-censoring-the-census-us-citizenship-question-is-about-politics-not-the-law
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/barr-census-citizenship-question-sees-legal-way-to-add-it/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHlWUHYA6aY
Sadly this is about what is happening
:cry:
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Democrats will reportedly favor the wall if they win the election. Fascist coercive socialism requires a wall to keep people in.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dems-change-mind-on-border-wall-after-realizing-it-could-be-used-to-keep-people-in-once-country-switches-to-socialism
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Democrats will reportedly favor the wall if they win the election. Fascist coercive socialism requires a wall to keep people in.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dems-change-mind-on-border-wall-after-realizing-it-could-be-used-to-keep-people-in-once-country-switches-to-socialism
Oh, you will be able to leave, just not with a passport or any assets.
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Majority of Hispanic voters approve of citizenship question on U.S. census.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/9/55-of-hispanic-voters-approve-citizenship-question/
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Seven Facts About Obama’s Immigration Record Liberals Refuse to Admit
BY MATT MARGOLIS JULY 8, 2019
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson visits the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Nogales Placement Center June 25, 2014 (Barry Bahler/Department of Homeland Security)
For months, Democrats accused President Trump of manufacturing a border crisis for political purposes. Because of this, they’ve generally refused to work with Trump or Republicans to do anything about it. They’re singing a different tune now, however, but instead of blaming Trump for manufacturing a crisis, they’re blaming him for the crisis. All the negative news we’re hearing from the border has Democrats pouncing, hoping to pin the blame on Trump and policies.
But when you look at the facts, it’s clear that while the crisis wasn’t manufactured, the Democrats’ outrage is. For years, they’ve stood idly by as the issues they now are hoping to turn into political footballs were going on in plain sight without a peep. Why? Because when it happened under Barack Obama they cared more about his image than the immigrant children and families they pretend to be advocating for today.
Below are seven facts about Obama’s immigration record that liberals are in complete denial over.
7. Obama deported a lot of illegal immigrants.
Despite Obama’s embracing of open borders and amnesty during his presidency, he actually deported a sizable number of illegal immigrants during his eight years in office. According to government figures, “During Obama's eight years in office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported over 3.1 million unauthorized immigrants. Most unauthorized immigrants who were apprehended inside of the country, not at the border, were convicted criminals, according to DHS.” Obama's immigration policy overall was still very much defined by his support of amnesty and open borders, but his administration still deported illegals. A lot of them.
6. Obama kept immigrant children in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
In July 2015, a district court judge found the Obama administration to be in violation of the Flores Agreement, which requires the government to provide safe and sanitary conditions for immigrant minors, including food, drinking water, medical care, and other accommodations. The New York Times reported the following on the ruling:
In a decision late Friday roundly rejecting the administration’s arguments for holding the families, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last summer fail to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children.
Judge Gee also found that migrant children had been held in “widespread deplorable conditions” in Border Patrol stations after they were first caught, and she said the authorities had “wholly failed” to provide the “safe and sanitary” conditions required for children even in temporary cells.
The opinion was a significant legal blow to detention policies ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in response to an influx of children and parents, mostly from Central America, across the border in South Texas last summer. In her 25-page ruling, Judge Gee gave a withering critique of the administration’s positions, declaring them “unpersuasive” and “dubious” and saying officials had ignored “unambiguous” terms of the settlement.
The Obama administration not only fought the ruling, but continued to “detain children in deplorable and unsanitary conditions in CBP facilities in violation of the settlement and the court's orders.” Where was the outrage?
Dishonest Dems Use Obama-Era Photo to Launch Investigation into 'Kids in Cages' at the Border
5. Obama tear-gassed immigrants at the border.
That’s right, multiple presidents, including Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Obama used tear gas to control crowds of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. This fact was actually acknowledged by the left-wing fact-checking site FactCheck.org:
Statistics CBP emailed to FactCheck.org show that, from fiscal years 2012 to 2018, border agents used the chemical compound 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS), which is commonly known as tear gas, in 126 incidents. Of those, 79 occurred during the five full fiscal years under President Barack Obama. That’s a little over one incident per month from fiscal 2012 to 2016. CBP sent us annual, not monthly figures.
Border agents also regularly used pepper spray. According to FactCheck.org, “Border agents used it in 540 incidents from fiscal years 2012 to 2018, and 434 (or 80 percent) of those were during the five full fiscal years under Obama.”
4. Immigrants died trying to cross the border into the United States under Obama.
Democrats pounced on the now infamous photo of a Salvadoran man and his nearly two-year-old daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande trying to come into the United States. To them, Trump and his policies were to blame. Of course, hundreds of immigrants die every year trying to get into the United States, but apparently, only Trump is individually culpable for it when it happens on his watch. Democrats who might concede this point might believe that the problem got worse under Trump because, well, Trump! But according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, there were fewer deaths at the border during Trump’s first two years than there were during Obama’s first two years.
3. Obama let immigrant children into the hands of human traffickers.
Yes. It’s true. The U.S. Senate investigated human trafficking of children who came into the United States, and the report did get national media coverage. Just no national outrage. In January 2016 the Washington Post reported that “The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers.” Under Obama, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the HHS Department, “failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations.”
“It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who started the Senate investigation. It happened, and it happened on Obama’s watch.
2. Obama separated families at the border.
The most common rebuttal I’ve heard on social media to the issue of which administration built the cages housing immigrant children is that Trump separated families at the border, while Obama did not. In their minds, the moment Trump became president, unaccompanied minors stopped coming across the border, and instead, it was full of families, that were then thoughtlessly ripped apart by an evil and mean Trump administration. Well, the left doesn’t want to see this, but the separation of families at the border was a continuation of an existing policy that preceded Trump (and Obama) and Obama absolutely separated families at the border.
1. Obama built the cages for immigrant children.
Not even Snopes could deny this one. Two former Obama administration officials have publicly acknowledged this fact, and the media even reported on the migrant detention facilities that were built by the Obama administration—but those reports lacked the outrage you see today. There is a lot of photographic evidence of migrant detention facilities during the Obama years, with children crowded in caged areas, sleeping on concrete floors, that just didn’t resonate with the media or the political left at the time. It's almost as though they were trying to protect Obama's legacy.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/seven-facts-about-obamas-immigration-record-liberals-refuse-to-admit/
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https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/us-house-passes-bill-removing-country-cap-on-green-card-119071100130_1.html
this news comes out same time Amazon trying to mitigate this politically with this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-to-spend-700-million-training-100000-employees-digital-age/
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Time to leave;
Mexico and America is "ours":
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/07/17/time-to-go-new-polling-shows-that-mexico-is-adopting-a-more-trumpian-outlook-on-n2550184
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2019/07/illegal-aliens-released-from-local-custody-commit-more-crimes-honduran-freed-10-times/
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/supreme-court-gives-trump-go-ahead-to-fund-the-wall/
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https://buffalonews.com/2019/08/03/multiple-gunmen-reported-in-active-shooting-at-el-paso-shopping-center/
The majority of the immigrants will vote for the party of free stuff and will make America a single party country .
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at least some of these shootings would not have happened.
and yes we are being invaded
what else do you call caravans heading north and people by the millions overstaying their visas etc
and yes politicians on both sides and big corps have screwed the rest of Americans over.
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https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/08/02/suketu-mehta-i-am-an/?fbclid=IwAR0BO_x_XxEEunhgL8_w5DtO0WAs851IbxaGpGLC7Nj84IDye44wbWdFRN0
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https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/08/02/suketu-mehta-i-am-an/?fbclid=IwAR0BO_x_XxEEunhgL8_w5DtO0WAs851IbxaGpGLC7Nj84IDye44wbWdFRN0
I look forward to the day when he is ejected and deported.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-claims-he-is-seriously-considering-ending-birthright-citizenship-for-children-of-illegal-immigrants/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-claims-he-is-seriously-considering-ending-birthright-citizenship-for-children-of-illegal-immigrants/
Good.
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/judge-whose-sister-heads-la-raza-rules-130-year-law-encouraging-illegal-immigrants-unconstitutional/
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https://www.conservativereview.com/news/judge-whose-sister-heads-la-raza-rules-130-year-law-encouraging-illegal-immigrants-unconstitutional/
And they Wonder how Trump gets elected president.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/on-the-border-officials-see-dividends-from-trumps-deal-with-mexico
Trump accomplishment?
"That’s not to say the migrants aren’t crossing – they are – but the numbers are down significantly from the levels seen in the spring. And while the furious heat of the summer months is a factor in discouraging migrants, Sector Chief Patrol Agent Felix Chavez says that the Trump administration’s push to get Mexico to cooperate with immigration efforts has paid dividends."
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https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459190-trump-officials-say-children-of-us-service-members-overseas-will-not
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https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2019/08/28/no-u-s-hasnt-declared-children-military-servicemen-born-abroad-arent-citizens/?fbclid=IwAR1pmMY6PbZ1pc-94f1xMg0jgeISZBH3YLNK2mbNauJItOoXMPKZIVkMuoc
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wife-of-former-marine-to-be-deported-to-mexico-friday-after-20-years-in-u-s/?fbclid=IwAR35BfrSW0hJnXDfZ4oqlFhoK_YREcuVXJXbIicEuqFwR9cszFRNgEaLMxE
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wife-of-former-marine-to-be-deported-to-mexico-friday-after-20-years-in-u-s/?fbclid=IwAR35BfrSW0hJnXDfZ4oqlFhoK_YREcuVXJXbIicEuqFwR9cszFRNgEaLMxE
World's smallest violin...
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Bad optics.
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Bad optics.
I guess we should just continue to reward those who violate our laws then.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/08/exclusive-excerpt-michelle-malkin-open-borders-inc-whos-funding-americas-destruction/
I remember seeing Doctors Without Borders booths at national doctor conventions circa 1990.
I am not clear. Are American Churches behind a lot of this.?
Still not clear where the money for this is coming from .
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/09/22-million-in-u-s-are-not-a-citizen-census-survey-finds/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/09/22-million-in-u-s-are-not-a-citizen-census-survey-finds/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
No big deal, only about half will vote in 2020.
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It has got to be higher
this does not include all the illegals
but the good news as per MSM is diversity is our (democrat party) strength!
and the dupes in the can part look the other way for campaign finance or other bribes : case in look at Mike Lee.
these people come from countries where they know the power of bribery.
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"It has got to be higher
this does not include all the illegals"
Yes, wouldn't you think it's at least twice what they say or what they can count?
Here is"Fact Check" telling us Pew says 10.7 (2016) and another group saying 10.8 (2016), Homeland Security saying 12 million (2015).
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/illegal-immigration-statistics/
Usually we hear a wide range like 11-22 million. Now that we count 22 million, does that mean there are really 40 million-plus?
I thought the census was not going to count illegals...
And be careful what you say; isn't illegal to call them illegal in some jurisdictions?
Some say they shouldn't be included in the Census at all.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/12/no-illegal-immigrants-not-included-census/
Why does a person not legally in the country get representation?
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here in nj I would say, easily 1/4 to 1/3 of the people were born somewhere else or were born here no non - citizens.
Easily
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/PST045218
It is plainly obvious these numbers are under the true number.
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/250k-fine-for-calling-someone-an-illegal-alien-in-new-york-city/
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"Those who enter the US illegally and those who employ them are disrespecting the rule of law and showing disregard for citizens who follow the law."
- Donald J Trump, 2016 Barack Obama, 2005
https://twitter.com/OliverMcGee/status/949805882401067008
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Who knew Obama was such a white nationalist?
"Those who enter the US illegally and those who employ them are disrespecting the rule of law and showing disregard for citizens who follow the law."
- Donald J Trump, 2016 Barack Obama, 2005
https://twitter.com/OliverMcGee/status/949805882401067008
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"Who knew Obama was such a white nationalist?"
"Those who enter the US illegally and those who employ them are disrespecting the rule of law and showing disregard for citizens who follow the law."
- Donald J Trump, 2016 Barack Obama, 2005
https://twitter.com/OliverMcGee/status/949805882401067008
------------------------------------------------------
Yes, he would look out of place in the kkk robes but spoke the same words as Trump (and Bill Clinton) when they were winning national elections.
Out in the heartland and so-called rust belt, ordinary Democrats support having a guarded border, some are pro-life, many heat homes with a soon to be banned fossil fuel, and most reject the politics of AOC, Tlaib and Omar. Their party left them.
Oddly, most Hispanics (and blacks) favor having a secure border and a secure country. The white supremacist label doesn't fit us or them.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/somalis_have_changed_minneapolis.html?fbclid=IwAR2m4-p4lNKxvsjQaT_698ReDEdRS4M3YJbhGMUO3OcYM6eVVsWL0gzd3K4#.XaH4rqeTLZA.facebook
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/somalis_have_changed_minneapolis.html?fbclid=IwAR2m4-p4lNKxvsjQaT_698ReDEdRS4M3YJbhGMUO3OcYM6eVVsWL0gzd3K4#.XaH4rqeTLZA.facebook
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/somalis_have_changed_minneapolis.html
All the rest of the above URL allows Facehugger to track who clicks on it from this website.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/10/ny-times-tidal-wave-mass-immigration-hands-virginia-democrats/
What is it that attracts all these foreigners to the Dems and what do we do about it?
besides telling them about "jobs"
obvious that don't work
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ccp:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/10/ny-times-tidal-wave-mass-immigration-hands-virginia-democrats/
What is it that attracts all these foreigners to the Dems and what do we do about it?
-------------------------
Dismantle the welfare state and immigrants will come for freedom and free enterprise.
Dismantle the government state and much of Virginia would have to scramble for work.
Interestingly, in the Trump economy black males are the new conservative constituency. Blacks and Hispanics have more to lose with the waves of illegal immigrants than do whites in safe suburban areas,
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"Dismantle the welfare state and immigrants will come for freedom and free enterprise.
Dismantle the government state and much of Virginia would have to scramble for work."
Agreed
but how do we do that
with 1/5 of people in US foreign born with most are crats
The Dems are blocking everything
and the foreigners are flooding the US everyday.
Even Trump has not been able to stop it.
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"Dismantle the welfare state and immigrants will come for freedom and free enterprise.
Dismantle the government state and much of Virginia would have to scramble for work."
Agreed
but how do we do that
with 1/5 of people in US foreign born with most are crats
The Dems are blocking everything
and the foreigners are flooding the US everyday.
Even Trump has not been able to stop it.
Must WIN an election. Uphill battle, maybe not winnable.
Last time we had majorities that included McCain, Flake, Corker, etc. and majority alone is not "control" of the Senate.
Trump mentioned reforming 'entitlements' in his second term. I don't know if he will. I don't know if he can. We all know it won't happen if the other side wins.
They lose by over-stepping. We are losing the messaging war. Trump has one election opportunity to make a dent in that.
Someone needs to tell young people, what your radical teachers and profs told you in school is wrong.
TRY OFFERING THIS:
[Quote from: Crafty_Dog on December 23, 2015]
American Creed=
Free minds, free markets, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of contract, right of self-defense (hence guns and knives, etc) property rights, privacy, all connected with responsibility for the consequences of one's action.
All this from our Creator, not the State nor majority vote.
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powerful , connected , and rich friends than I do that is for sure:
https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2019/11/13/meet-the-american-students-last-lobby-n2556395
It pays to know someone.....it pays to be illegal.... it pays to have anchor babies.
The rest of us not connected powerful or rich get the shaft as always........
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Note that this was written in 2004
N GEOPOLITICS
The Geopolitics of Immigration
9 MINS READ
Nov 28, 2019 | 10:00 GMT
.
(GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP/Getty Images)
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Pilgrim and Puritan settlers who arrived in New England in the early 17th century brought with them the tradition of Thanksgiving that was adopted by waves of immigrants who followed. This analysis first published Jan. 15, 2004, examines the role immigration has played — and continues to play — in the evolution of the United States.
The United States came into being through mass movements of populations. The movements came in waves from all over the world and, depending upon the historical moment, they served differing purposes, but there were two constants. First, each wave served an indispensable economic, political, military or social function. The United States — as a nation and regime — would not have evolved as it did without them. Second, each wave of immigrants was viewed ambiguously by those who were already in-country. Depending upon the time or place, some saw the new immigrants as an indispensable boon; others saw them as a catastrophe. The debate currently under way in the United States is probably the oldest in the United States: Are new immigrants a blessing or catastrophe? So much for the obvious.
What is interesting about the discussion of immigration is the extent to which it is dominated by confusion, particularly about the nature of immigrants. When the term "immigrant" is used, it is frequently intended to mean one of two things: Sometimes it means non-U.S. citizens who have come to reside in the United States legally. Alternatively, it can mean a socially or linguistically distinct group that lives in the United States regardless of legal status. When you put these together in their various permutations, the discourse on immigration can become chaotic. It is necessary to simplify and clarify the concept of "immigrant."
Initial U.S. immigration took two basic forms. There were the voluntary migrants, ranging from the Europeans in the 17th century to Asians today. There were the involuntary migrants — primarily Africans — who were forced to come to the continent against their will. This is one of the critical fault lines running through U.S. history. An immigrant who came from China in 1995 has much more in common with the Puritans who arrived in New England more than 300 years ago than either has with the Africans. The former came by choice, seeking solutions to their personal or political problems. The latter came by force, brought here to solve the personal or political problems of others. This is one fault line.
The second fault line is between those who came to the United States and those to whom the United States came. The Native American tribes, for example, were conquered and subjugated by the immigrants who came to the United States before and after its founding. It should be noted that this is a process that has taken place many times in human history. Indeed, many Native American tribes that occupied the United States prior to the foreign invasion had supplanted other tribes — many of which were obliterated in the process. Nevertheless, in a strictly social sense, Native American tribes were militarily defeated and subjugated, their legal status in the United States was sometimes ambiguous and their social status was frequently that of outsiders. They became immigrants because the occupants of the new United States moved and dislocated them.
There was a second group of people in this class: Mexicans. A substantial portion of the United States, running from California to Texas, was conquered territory, taken from Mexico in the first half of the 19th century. Mexico existed on terrain that Spain had seized from the Aztecs, who conquered it from prior inhabitants. Again, this should not be framed in moral terms. It should be framed in geopolitical terms.
When the United States conquered the southwest, the Mexican population that continued to inhabit the region was not an immigrant population, but a conquered one. As with the Native Americans, this was less a case of them moving to the United States than the United States moving to them.
The response of the Mexicans varied, as is always the case, and they developed a complex identity. Over time, they accepted the political dominance of the United States and became, for a host of reasons, U.S. citizens. Many assimilated into the dominant culture. Others accepted the legal status of U.S. citizens while maintaining a distinct cultural identity. Still others accepted legal status while maintaining intense cultural and economic relations across the border with Mexico. Others continued to regard themselves primarily as Mexican.
The U.S.-Mexican border is in some fundamental ways arbitrary. The line of demarcation defines political and military relationships, but does not define economic or cultural relationships. The borderlands — and they run hundreds of miles deep into the United States at some points — have extremely close cultural and economic links with Mexico. Where there are economic links, there always are movements of population. It is inherent.
The persistence of cross-border relations is inevitable in borderlands that have been politically and militarily subjugated, but in which the prior population has been neither annihilated nor expelled.
Where the group on the conquered side of the border is sufficiently large, self-contained and self-aware, this condition can exist for generations. A glance at the Balkans offers an extreme example. In the case of the United States and its Mexican population, it also has continued to exist.
This never has developed into a secessionist movement, for a number of reasons. First, the preponderance of U.S. power when compared to Mexico made this a meaningless goal. Second, the strength of the U.S. economy compared to the Mexican economy did not make rejoining Mexico attractive. Finally, the culture in the occupied territories evolved over the past 150 years, yielding a complex culture that ranged from wholly assimilated to complex hybrids to predominantly Mexican. Secessionism has not been a viable consideration since the end of the U.S. Civil War. Nor will it become an issue unless a remarkable change in the balance between the United States and Mexico takes place.
It would be a mistake, however, to think of the cross-border movements along the Mexican-U.S. border in the same way we think of the migration of people to the United States from other places such as India or China, which are an entirely different phenomenon — part of the long process of migrations to the United States that has taken place since before its founding. In these, individuals made decisions — even if they were part of a mass movement from their countries — to move to the United States and, in moving to the United States, to adopt the dominant American culture to facilitate assimilation. The Mexican migrations are the result of movements in a borderland that has been created through military conquest and the resulting political process.
The movement from Mexico is, from a legal standpoint, a cross-border migration. In reality, it is simply an internal migration within a territory whose boundaries were superimposed by history. Put differently, if the United States had lost the Mexican-American war, these migrations would be no more noteworthy than the mass migration to California from the rest of the United States in the middle of the 20th century. But the United States did not lose the war — and the migration is across international borders.
It should be noted that this also distinguishes Mexican population movements from immigration from other Hispanic countries. The closest you can come to an equivalent is in Puerto Rico, whose inhabitants are U.S. citizens due to prior conquest. They neither pose the legal problems of Mexicans nor can they simply slip across the border.
The Mexican case is one-of-a-kind, and the difficulty of sealing the border is indicative of the real issue. There are those who call for sealing the border and, technically, it could be done although the cost would be formidable. More important, turning the politico-military frontier into an effective barrier to movement would generate social havoc. It would be a barrier running down the middle of an integrated social and economic reality. The costs for the region would be enormous, piled on top of the cost of walling off the frontier from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.
If the U.S. goal is to create an orderly migration process from Mexico, which fits into a broader immigration policy that includes the rest of the world, that probably cannot be done. Controlling immigration in general is difficult, but controlling the movement of an indigenous population in a borderland whose frontiers do not cohere to social or economic reality is impossible.
This is not intended to be a guide to social policy. Our general view is that social policies dealing with complex issues usually have such wildly unexpected consequences that it is more like rolling the dice than crafting strategy. We nevertheless understand that there will be a social policy, hotly debated by all sides that will wind up not doing what anyone expects, but actually will do something very different.
The point we are trying to make is simpler. First, the question of Mexican population movements has to be treated completely separately from other immigrations. These are apples and oranges. Second, placing controls along the U.S.-Mexican frontier is probably impossible. Unless we are prepared to hermetically seal the frontier, populations will flow endlessly around barriers, driven by economic and social factors. Mexico simply does not end at the Mexican border, and it hasn't since the United States defeated Mexico. Neither the United States nor Mexico can do anything about the situation.
The issue, from our point of view, cuts to the heart of geopolitics as a theory. Geopolitics argues that geographic reality creates political, social, economic and military realities. These can be shaped by policies and perhaps even controlled to some extent, but the driving realities of geopolitics can never simply be obliterated, except by overwhelming effort and difficulty. The United States is not prepared to do any of these things and, therefore, the things the United States is prepared to do are doomed to ineffectiveness.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-3412616/How-Labour-turned-London-foreign-city.html?
-
as always the LEFTist media twists the logic around for the advantage of the Democratic Party:
the illegals are now portrayed as heroes while Trump the villain:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-two-undocumented-housekeepers-took-on-the-president--and-revealed-trumps-long-term-reliance-on-illegal-immigrants/2019/12/04/3dff5b5c-0a15-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html
-
with no say from average citizens:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/06/house-passes-bill-opening-backdoor-immigration-route-for-wealthy-chinese/
-
This is classic corrupt Democratic machine politics
gaining control over labor and using them to garner more votes:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/dangerous-pro-act-would-give-illegal-workers-more-rights-than-americans/
"open ballots" nothing more corrupt then that !
the fact that we are talking illegals - well how corrupt is that !
-
https://pjmedia.com/trending/new-jersey-gives-illegals-drivers-licenses-how-long-before-they-get-the-vote/
by November of 2020 for sure
The Dems don't care about us - only their own power
-
https://pjmedia.com/trending/new-jersey-gives-illegals-drivers-licenses-how-long-before-they-get-the-vote/
by November of 2020 for sure
The Dems don't care about us - only their own power
Yes
-
https://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/beauty-and-the-east-surgeons-define-perfect-arab-woman-1.862471
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/04/donald-trumps-immigration-judges-boost-deportation-numbers/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=todays_hottest_stories&utm_campaign=20200104
-
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/09/20/about-a-mile-of-new-wall-built-each-day-along-mexico-border-pentagon-says/
-
The number of families caught crossing illegally went from 84,486 in May to a mere 9,000 in November.
As the El Paso Times put it, “the policy has proved to be a virtual wall.”
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/06/trump-is-quietly-winning-bigly-at-the-border/
-
Two more promises kept! Please post on that thread :-)
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-planning-to-divert-additional-7-2-billion-in-pentagon-funds-for-border-wall/ar-BBYVkbJ
Just like they build around rich leftist estates.
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-planning-to-divert-additional-7-2-billion-in-pentagon-funds-for-border-wall/ar-BBYVkbJ
Just like they build around rich leftist estates.
Yes.
-
Generally, lets use the Homeland Security thread for Border Defense matters.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7921831/Donald-Trump-unveils-crackdown-birth-tourism.html?ito=social-facebook
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-most-common-language-in-every-state-map-2019-6?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-insider-main&utm_source=facebook.com
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-most-common-language-in-every-state-map-2019-6?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-insider-main&utm_source=facebook.com
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-most-common-language-in-every-state-map-2019-6?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-insider-main&utm_source=facebook.com
Very interesting. Are we the only ones who speak Somali?
The Spanish peaking population is unevenly distributed as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_Spanish-speaking_population
-
"Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA 5,971,483 5,604,740 350,609 6.3%"
-
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA 5,971,483 5,604,740 350,609 6.3%
interesting because I was just at the Camden NJ DMV getting one of those "real ID's " this past week
and there were maybe 4 white, 6 American Blacks and everyone else (~ 40) was Latino.
HOw many born here or arrived here , legal or not I have no idea.
not so much Mexican but more like Caribbeana - DRs etc, one said from Venezuela .........
Enjoyed the tour of the battleship New Jersey afterwards .......
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/28/working-class-voters-betrayed-by-globalization-turn-to-trumps-gop-democrats-werent-looking-out-for-me/
PSSSSST,
but neither is the GOP . (except Trump):
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/28/the-list-123-republicans-foreign-workers/
They are all screwing us over.
:-(
-
I feel we should make and exception to the controlling immigration
Venezuelan girls can have an easy route to green cards .
https://www.google.com/search?q=venezuelan+girls&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4tpHszrDnAhUKl3IEHU27DhMQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1440&bih=789
:wink: :-D
-
:evil:
-
:-o :-o :-o :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-criminals-would-be-protected-from-deportation-under-bill-aoc-and-other-house-democrats-back
-
".https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-criminals-would-be-protected-from-deportation-under-bill-aoc-and-other-house-democrats-back"
Last night, I told Katherine I added 6 months to my life watching this on Tucker.
I haven't laughed that hard in months.
He is so funny when dismembering the logic of the Left.
-
Don't agree with much of his analysis of Middle East and of Russia, but love him. Super bright, super articulate, spectacular rhetorical pugilist, class act (most of the time!) and true American. I watch him every night without fail.
-
Don't agree with much of his analysis of Middle East and of Russia, but love him. Super bright, super articulate, spectacular rhetorical pugilist, class act (most of the time!) and true American. I watch him every night without fail.
So glad he got rid of the douche-y bow tie.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/20/report-mick-mulvaney-claims-u-s-needs-more-immigrants-because-country-running-out-of-people/
I am not sure what a "closed door meeting" in England is all about.
-
Not sure what his thinking is, but it is worth noting that
a) the ratio of working people to retired people continues to decline (2 to 1? now and headed lower)
b) US birth rate below replacement
c) millions of jobs going unfilled because of lack of qualified people
-
Immigration and the Courts
The Supreme Court hears challenges to judicial law-making.
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 28, 2020 7:01 pm ET
The Constitution grants Congress plenary authority over immigration policy, but liberal judges have increasingly usurped the law. On Monday the Supreme Court will consider if immigrants whom Congress has deemed deportable can seek sanctuary in the courts.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) establishes rules and procedures by which immigrants may be removed from the country. To prevent federal courts from getting clogged, Congress created special immigration courts with multiple levels of administrative appeal and limited federal judicial review of cases.
In Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, a Sri Lankan man caught after crossing the Mexican border illegally is challenging the INA’s expedited removal. The law lets the government use streamlined procedures to deport anyone unlawfully present in the country for less than two years.
The man applied for asylum, but two asylum officers and an immigration judge determined that he failed the “credible fear” test for staying in the U.S. A district judge rejected his legal challenge because the INA lets immigrants appeal only specific factual findings in federal court, none of which the plaintiff contested. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the INA’s expedited procedures violate the Constitution’s Suspension Clause protecting the writ of habeas corpus.
This is the principle that prisoners have a right to challenge the legal process by which they are detained. The Supreme Court has only once found a violation of the Suspension Clause—in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which involved enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay. But habeas corpus protects against unlawful executive detention, and the traditional remedy is release. The plaintiff here is not saying he was detained unlawfully, and the government wants to release him back to Sri Lanka. He isn’t seeking a habeas writ. He wants more procedural rights to stay in the U.S.
Under the Ninth Circuit ruling, anyone who steps foot into the U.S. would be entitled to a hearing before a federal judge. This would jam the courts and encourage more false asylum claims.
The High Court on Monday will also consider another judicial end-run around immigration law in Nasrallah v. Barr. An immigration judge concluded that a Lebanese immigrant who pleaded guilty to two felonies involving illegal trafficking of cigarettes was removable under the INA. The law bars federal court review of removal orders for aliens who commit criminal offenses such as his.
But the man sought protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). The law lets immigration judges defer removal for immigrants who are more likely than not to be tortured if returned to their home country.
After a Board of Immigration Appeals found the man’s claim lacked credibility, he challenged his removal order in court. While the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and seven other circuits have held that the INA does not allow federal review of such claims, the Seventh and Ninth Circuits have ruled otherwise.
Note the plaintiff here is challenging how the immigration judges decided the facts of his case, not the law per se. But Congress expressly amended the INA in 2005 to bar judicial review of removal orders for criminal immigrants except for constitutional claims under the CAT. It did so to prevent courts from getting inundated by immigrants making false torture claims to defer their removal.
Now some liberal judges are burrowing tunnels under immigration law and leaping over the Constitutional separation of powers. Down this road lies chaos—and not only at the southern border.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/06/donald-trump-rejects-lindsey-grahams-push-for-daca-amnesty/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=best_of_the_week&utm_campaign=20200307
-
https://americanpostgazette.com/articles/scotus-rules-on-immigration?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_content=20200423220337
-
https://anncoulter.com/2020/06/10/why-you-no-longer-recognize-your-country/
The Democrats have thrown the values of our country down the drain to buy off immigrants
-
his campaign is crashing
No money coming in from Peter Thiel and likely others:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/15/koch-group-amnesty-advocate-lobbied-trump-on-daca-in-white-house-meeting/
-
https://patriotpost.us/articles/76294-trump-admin-fails-to-end-daca-2020-12-08?mailing_id=5488&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5488&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
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of course,
she slips out of US
BEFORE FBI
arrests her :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9029379/How-suspected-Chinese-spy-targeted-California-politicians.html
She probably slept with George Soros too
who tipped her off
-
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/scotus-punts-trump-bid-exclude-151400658.html
for once common sense wins
rather then rabid anit US hatred and power grab by Dems
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/12/18/refugee-advocates-keep-americans-in-the-dark/ :cry:
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/12/18/refugee-advocates-keep-americans-in-the-dark/ :cry:
Funny how the COVID requires everything in the US to shut down, except the constant inflow of refugees and illegal aliens.
-
Manchurian Joe says "Hold my beer!"
-
Manchurian Joe says "Hold my beer!"
Gotta keep growing the permanent dem underclass!
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/percentage-immigrants-born-outside-united-states-by-state-2018-12
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/11/us-metro-areas-unauthorized-immigrants/
W gave up on even the thought of controlling immigration with the goal of turning them into republicans
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-isnt-option-anymore-why-110038064.html
this should reduce the number from 22,000,000 to 21,999,000
-
It is more than I thought:
https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=map+of+border+wall&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwir7Mb0hJnuAhVAF1kFHbgqD_0QjJkEegQIAxAB&biw=1440&bih=732#imgrc=SAQnG41X1ak24M
-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-isnt-option-anymore-why-110038064.html
this should reduce the number from 22,000,000 to 21,999,000
At least they can still vote!
-
https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/biden-immigration-package-to-offer-11-million-immigrants-pathway-to-citizenship/
At least we still have the constitution!
-
Very much worth noting is that the 11 million number is very outdated. As we have discussed here the quality Yale-MIT study of a year or two ago says 22-24 million so expect the 11 million number to double in very short order.
-
Very much worth noting is that the 11 million number is very outdated. As we have discussed here the quality Yale-MIT study of a year or two ago says 22-24 million so expect the 11 million number to double in very short order.
I have no doubt the number is much higher.
Enjoy Venezuela del Norte!
-
Very much worth noting is that the 11 million number is very outdated. As we have discussed here the quality Yale-MIT study of a year or two ago says 22-24 million so expect the 11 million number to double in very short order.
I have no doubt the number is much higher.
Enjoy Venezuela del Norte!
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/01/biden-push-illegal-alien-amnesty-quick-voting-daniel-greenfield/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/03/cesar-chavez-illegal-immigration-foe/
-
https://www.westernjournal.com/ap-biden-undoes-trump-admin-effort-collect-data-illegal-immigrants-2020-census/
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/46928383
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/46928383
[/quote
Leave them to die.
-
https://populist.press/biden-announces-3-cities-as-dumping-grounds-for-illegals/
-
https://populist.press/biden-announces-3-cities-as-dumping-grounds-for-illegals/
War by other means.
-
https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/15/biden-democrats-unveil-bill-citizenship-illegal-immigrants/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2906&pnespid=kO588vsBFFeNJXw.LNeMN_gIxCMPxKNZxoidMccF
-
the most massive presidential pardon in history
like all Dem bills we won't know the extent of it till it passes
(. we won't know how many illegals there are till we give them permanent residential status - but that will be covered up too)
I am guessing there are a good 25 million in the US now
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/congress-democrats-citizenship-immigration-reform/2021/02/18/id/1010510/
Bush types think all we have to do is win their hearts and minds over ( and the constant don't worry be happy - Latinos are conservative at heart)
that will work agains confiscation of other people's money to bribe the new people to vote for Democrats
:roll:
-
Yes, that's why you see so much conservative type political and economic policies in Latin America!
:roll:
the most massive presidential pardon in history
like all Dem bills we won't know the extent of it till it passes
(. we won't know how many illegals there are till we give them permanent residential status - but that will be covered up too)
I am guessing there are a good 25 million in the US now
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/congress-democrats-citizenship-immigration-reform/2021/02/18/id/1010510/
Bush types think all we have to do is win their hearts and minds over ( and the constant don't worry be happy - Latinos are conservative at heart)
that will work agains confiscation of other people's money to bribe the new people to vote for Democrats
:roll:
-
no, a majority of Americans are NOT for this:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/18/biden-plan-brings-deported-illegal-aliens-back-to-u-s-to-get-amnesty/#
:x
-
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/03/05/british-nurses-rejected-as-govt-prioritises-cheap-migrants-think-tank-claims/
sell out its own people by elites for their benefit
-
https://www.patreon.com/posts/48577928
-
"Our border, relatively open, while American fuel and food prices rocket. At this rate we soon will adopt millions — most speak no lick of English — even while homeless camps swell around America."
Dems response : "we need comprehensive immigration reform"
imply compromise
not saying all those here should stay then bring their families
friends
"paths to citizenship".
(immediate voting rights - no ID needed)
in other words we need compromise which means we need to change laws to suit their party - every time
and every time the lame Republicans tell us we "want to work across the aisle "
dems idea of border control is to stack it not with border protection agents but welcoming tents
food healthy care schooling and immigration lawyers
NO what we need is our darn politicians to *start enforcing existing laws*
no changes that always move us toward the Dem positions
2 yrs from now when the next election cycle comes around it will be too late, and of course that is part of the plan
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/03/16/w-h-border-coordinator-our-message-is-getting-out-less-than-smugglers-message/
everyone knows all they have to do is enforce existing immigration law
start sending them back
close the borders
could be done with stroke of a pen
I hope they come in and take jobs from minorities maybe then they will wake up
for voting for Democrats
-
https://api-esp.piano.io/story/estored/vib-ckmev5z4v446u06sf9osb0b8f/579023439/-1?sig=3a703e4b51a6cd7374ef0240c8248b0b029f263b7d3279eefc72aff859ffed18
-
https://api-esp.piano.io/story/estored/vib-ckmev5z4v446u06sf9osb0b8f/579023439/-1?sig=3a703e4b51a6cd7374ef0240c8248b0b029f263b7d3279eefc72aff859ffed18
A new poll set to be released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports indicates that 75% of Americans support voter ID laws that require voters to show photo identification before voting — including 60% of Democrats. Only 21% oppose such laws.
- This is important! Being right and having people agree with us seems to be a rare combination. When Newt wrote the Contract with America, he didn't choose his top issues, he chose the top top issues where the public agreed with Republicans. People maybe didn't believe Trump about the stolen election, but they do oppose vote fraud. Same for border security.
----------------------
CNBC: Harris expresses solidarity with Asian Americans
- Harris feels a solidarity with Asian American - sex workers. That may be all that is available to you when are young and all you have is a UC law degree, but you can go on from there to become POTUS - if you choose your clients wisely.
-
"A new poll set to be released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports indicates that 75% of Americans support voter ID laws that require voters to show photo identification before voting — including 60% of Democrats. Only 21% oppose such laws"
Democrats do not give a hoot
about this
no doubt majority of Americans want borders closed
and illegals sent the hell home
Democrats never ask what we Legal citizens think
-
"A new poll set to be released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports indicates that 75% of Americans support voter ID laws that require voters to show photo identification before voting — including 60% of Democrats. Only 21% oppose such laws"
Democrats do not give a hoot
about this
no doubt majority of Americans want borders closed
and illegals sent the hell home
Democrats never ask what we Legal citizens think
Yes. Democrats [who run the country in Washington] do not give a hoot about this.
To stop them we need find the divide between their radical policies and the less radical supporters out in the swing districts whose support they need to stay in power.
-
Yes.
-
https://populist.press/shocking-video-of-kids-in-cages-at-bidens-border/
I don't understand these pictures
when I first saw some I thought these were body bags
What the hell are those silver sheets / bags?
-
https://populist.press/shocking-video-of-kids-in-cages-at-bidens-border/
I don't understand these pictures
when I first saw some I thought these were body bags
What the hell are those silver sheets / bags?
Space blankets.
You should keep some in your car.
https://www.liveactionsafety.com/emergency-space-thermal-mylar-blanket-adult/
-
I do. A ground tarp with the mylar on one side too.
Edited to add: And two gallons of gasoline, and a trauma care kit, and , , ,
-
I do. A ground tarp with the mylar on one side too.
Good!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/069/444/184/original/dfa3fceb0a1dd26b.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/069/444/184/original/dfa3fceb0a1dd26b.png)
-
" space blankets "
good idea :)
-
I do. A ground tarp with the mylar on one side too.
Edited to add: And two gallons of gasoline, and a trauma care kit, and , , ,
Don't forget the North American Rescue Tourniquets, Quik Clot and Israeli Bandages...
-
https://cis.org/Arthur/Taxpayers-Spend-39269-Person-Night-Hotels-Illegal-BorderCrossers
-
https://cis.org/Arthur/Taxpayers-Spend-39269-Person-Night-Hotels-Illegal-BorderCrossers"
this is an investment in *democracy*
"we are a nation of immigrants"
I remember as a boy on my grandfathers knee hearing about his hotel stays,
food stamps, medicaid, tax free life when he came over .
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administrations-illegal-immigrant-hotels-to-cost-taxpayers-72000-per-border-crosser_3749306.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-26
-
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/29/exclusive-biden-cbp-will-return-migrants-kept-in-mexico-under-trump-to-west-texas-town/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/29/kamala-harris-has-no-scheduled-meetings-on-border-crisis-after-tasked-by-joe-biden/
-
A million new voters per year, as ccp calls them.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/03/border-crisis-surge-dhs-expects-500000-800000-family-group-illegal-migrants-in-2021/
Excuse me but aren't they breaking the law?
What happens when we break the law?
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/alleged-coyote-to-univision-bidens-benefits-gave-migrants-the-courage-to-illegally-enter-u-s?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro&fbclid=IwAR1F8eUSMZlxVb10_t-YSt_1PblC7X54_K4tNeIhI7nUr2TsCfPh8KRgZWY
-
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions?fbclid=IwAR1L7rsjcCFibFLEcO4iMewsl28E5L_vWzlY-m-GLLKO9o3CqXWGP_nR6aE
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/non-profit-orders-foster-parents-to-vacate-home-to-accommodate-migrant-children/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210331&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
-
ccp, This link of yours is interesting:
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-by-state/
-
"ccp, This link of yours is interesting:"
I am looking at it again
and notice 2 things
one it is 2016 estimate
two it claims total of 10.7 million illegals in US
Any one with vision can see it is more like double that
so these numbers are underestimates by probably half
that said it gives some idea of which states have the most.
-
2016 is old but probably the latest nos. they have.
Numbers are down because of 8 years of lousy Obama economy, not because of border enforcement.
Numbers understated by half may be understated.
Still, the differences and patterns are interesting. What is Maine doing right and who are the racist exclusionists up in Vermont?
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/more-than-a-million-illegal-immigrants-expected-to-cross-border-in-2021-official_3758925.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-04-02&mktids=1f427e2459d3cb32c0793c1634d1c407
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yesterday on.
one of Fox news
we see Jen Psaki ask Peter Doocy
if he was really concerned about the illegal children or just that they are coming here
he should fire back - you are not concerned about the children except that they are likely future democrat voters
would secr]ure the border if these people were predominantly Republican voters?
-
If the dems thought illegals would vote republican, the border wall would be bigger than the one in Game of Thrones.
yesterday on.
one of Fox news
we see Jen Psaki ask Peter Doocy
if he was really concerned about the illegal children or just that they are coming here
he should fire back - you are not concerned about the children except that they are likely future democrat voters
would secr]ure the border if these people were predominantly Republican voters?
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/4/ken-cuccinelli-rips-removal-trump-asylum-screening/
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https://patriotpost.us/alexander/78976?mailing_id=5749&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5749&utm_campaign=alexander&utm_content=body
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just not about Americans citizens :
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/new-york-fund-coronavirus-aid-undocumented-immigrants
reporter asks Kamala
" are you going to visit the border "
"not today " cackle cackle cackle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziIHBitAz9Y
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https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/new-york-fund-coronavirus-aid-undocumented-immigrants
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as a front for battling ILLEGAL immigration :
https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-considering-sending-cash-payments-to-latin-america-to-stop-illegal-immigration-report
what a con / sham
the MSM now can say they are fixing the "root cause"
and give them cover
in the pages behind the cover story
illegals are welcomed in and delivered all around the country for free
to seed more future Democrats into the population
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https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/04/13/exclusive-u-s-border-patrol-will-deploy-to-mexico-guatemala-border/
:wink: :roll:
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=9705163c959f2bb9db5b70c6d9f1e3fc_60783aa3_6d25b5f&selDate=20210415&goTo=B03&artid=0&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=washingtontimes-E-Editions&utm_source=washingtontimes&utm_content=Read-Button
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/071/634/055/original/9442d453a31f7253.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/071/634/055/original/9442d453a31f7253.png)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf16YtSOaUQ
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ice-pays-352day-199-days-house-1239-illegal-families
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https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2021/04/21/bloomberg-george-w-bush-is-a-portrait-of-failure/
he makes it so hard to keep liking him
which I once did ............
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https://nypost.com/2021/04/23/kamala-harris-isnt-at-the-southern-border-but-migrant-kids-are-getting-her-book/
Her 40 page "book":
with drawing of her on cover :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheroes_Are_Everywhere
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Evidence that what is happening at the border is a deliberately engineered invasion as part of a larger plan to dilute the vote of American citizens with "undocumented voters" (see HR-1)
-
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/05/04/vp_kamala_harris_central_american_migrants_do_not_want_to_leave.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Harris focused on addressing "root causes" of migration, including problems of corruption, poverty, and violence in Latin America."
Some of these countries have the highest murder rates in the world. From Harris' point of view, it is the victims and potential victims of these crimes entering. How do we know it's not the perps of these crimes coming in? One way we could know would be to use the legal system for immigration to screen and process the entrants and end unscreened, illegal entry.
Meanwhile, her administration stopped the already funded construction of the wall.
When they come here, they hire organized crime gangs to enter. Why would we assume these are the good ones? Among the illegals coming in are people from al Qaida, Yemen and so on.
Wouldn't we want to screen for covid if not for every other good reason?
Why not just require whatever ID, background check and waiting period we require for a citizen to get a gun for any person wishing to come in to our country and get legal protections and benefits.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From a political angle, if Kamala is taking ownership of this problem, she can be judged by the results. The results are catastrophic.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/05/10/amnesty-alliance-george-w-bush-talks-amnesty-with-zuckerberg-group/
Bush needs psychoanalysis
he left office in the garbage can
and gave rise to Obama
like his father gave rise to Clinton
now he has to impress all about being nice
not like the evil Trump
rinos just don't give a hoot about the majority
just how they play in DC , media , liberal historians
no more Bushes - no to Jeb
don't even insult us
even more so we have so many ex Bush people working with Democrats for God's sake
people who vote for Trump policies are NOT the enemy
Democrats are
-
78% say the border is in crisis. To the left and center in that group I would ask, how do you like being lied to?
It's not in crisis because Trump built a wall. It's in crisis because Biden halted the wall construction and has done everything possible to lure more people in, cf. promising no enforcement.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9605973/Photos-Iowa-jogger-Mollie-Tibbetts-body-shown-jurors.html
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9605973/Photos-Iowa-jogger-Mollie-Tibbetts-body-shown-jurors.html
https://www.theblaze.com/news/biden-secretly-transports-migrants-into-tennessee
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/22/dhs-grants-deportation-amnesty-100000-haitians/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=Y7%2F0H8P%2BTBzwp2F4MjCUkbiwf5Zmql%2BRykJe6uX2%2BqQyF70aciWMjZ33%2By4P4h%2BE&bt_ts=1621726703105
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/22/dhs-grants-deportation-amnesty-100000-haitians/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=Y7%2F0H8P%2BTBzwp2F4MjCUkbiwf5Zmql%2BRykJe6uX2%2BqQyF70aciWMjZ33%2By4P4h%2BE&bt_ts=1621726703105
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Dominican-Republic-Builds-a-4-Meter-Fence-On-Border-With-Haiti-20210511-0013.html
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https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/scotus-unanimously-rules-criminal-illegal-alien-trying-stay-united-states?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=brief-FP&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=2021-05-26&ats_es=639c4dfcf4902e5be56a6038ef508105
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https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/scotus-unanimously-rules-criminal-illegal-alien-trying-stay-united-states?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=brief-FP&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=2021-05-26&ats_es=639c4dfcf4902e5be56a6038ef508105
Right. How far over the edge is that when the most liberal members of the Supreme Court all vote to overturn the most liberal appeals court.
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June 1, 2021
View On Website
Open as PDF
Brief: Europe Braces for More Migrants
Countries are taking a variety of measures to prepare for the expected influx of migrants from Africa.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: Several years removed from the migrant crisis, Europe is still working to integrate new immigrants. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the migration episode raised serious questions about the viability of free movement within the bloc. Now that Europe is getting the pandemic under control, there are renewed concerns about another wave of immigration from Africa.
What Happened: European countries are taking a variety of measures to prepare for the expected influx of migrants from Africa. On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi met with his Libyan counterpart, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, to discuss irregular migration from Libya. Draghi said Rome was interested in helping rebuild Libya’s economy and affirmed Italy’s commitment to strengthen its institutional presence in the North African country. In Greece, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum presented draft legislation calling for tighter migration controls and simplifying deportations. And French President Emmanuel Macron warned of migration challenges if Europe’s development efforts in Africa fail.
Bottom Line: The post-pandemic economic and security environment in Africa incentivizes local populations to seek a better livelihood elsewhere, with Europe being the closest destination available. For Europe, what matters is avoiding a repeat of 2015-16, which would stoke domestic unrest and even violence at a time when governments are already facing heavy scrutiny over the pandemic and the adverse economic situation.
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https://www.bitchute.com/video/kWjDQLvlsqDu/
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https://www.bitchute.com/video/kWjDQLvlsqDu/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/708/326/original/c51f7ef80bbf4097.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/075/708/326/original/c51f7ef80bbf4097.jpg)
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set straight by Guatemalan's President for the plainly obvious:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harris-guatemalan-president-migration-top-priority-blames-us-surge
CNN will somehow twist it around and delete his part of the BS. "diplomacy"
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/07/supreme-court-temporary-protected-status-illegal-immigrant/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2680&pnespid=g_A0qvdKHxONsabfGcONdAojy.ixz_oVOmG2Tbzy
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Why else would Holt
a total lib go after Harris
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/08/nbcs-holt-challenges-kamala-harris-claim-that-weve-been-to-the-border-you-havent/
and I am tired of the same point about her visiting the border
Biden simply needs to enforce immigration law
but he will stall as long as he can
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/16/justice-department-deletes-trump-era-decisions-lim/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=Oq7IdBQMonuYG4PHwnuFp8k9uIMadj0L95lXj0I08711364cKgtb8lmNwnsnXfE5&bt_ts=1623885756588
So glad that Garland is not on the SCOTUS!
-
...
So glad that Garland is not on the SCOTUS!
Why we fight.
---------------------
Update, adding a link for photo / story below:
https://nypost.com/2021/06/17/images-show-33-migrants-crammed-into-u-haul-amid-100-degree-heat/
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At the border, rape, organized crime, human trafficking is the policy. If you voted Democrat, you supported this. If you don't support this, stop voting Democrat.
(https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/06/uhaul-heat-migrants-83.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1236&h=820&crop=1)
33 "immigrants" in a U-Haul trailer in Texas heat.
Imagine for a moment the politics reversed. Republicans were bringing in new voters to benefit themselves under these horrendous conditions. Imagine the outrage.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-biden-remove-harris-migrant-role-inaction-border
This makes no sense. Misses the point and contributes to the notion that it is simply Harris
refusing to enforce the law and Biden has nothing to do with it.
They should be demanding Biden to ENFORCER IMMIGRATION LAW as vast majority of Americans demand.
"due your duty and enforce the law" over and over again
just calling for someone who is intent on doing nothing to go the border misses the main point.
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THIS!!!
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/06/28/harvard-poll-public-oppose-biden-migration-policies-and-gop-messaging/
The DNC Biden MSM response :
we need more illegals to overcome the deficit in the polls
:-(
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=bbf60a65d2011677ebc8878adef77120_60e3058b_6d25b5f&selDate=20210705
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/economically-and-morally-more-immigration-is-right
I ask for the umpteenth time :
What is is about ILLEGAL this guy continues to ignore!?
We will not have a conservative party for the next 50 yrs if we keep allowing people to walk in
at their convenience.
How about we are trying to stave off socialism?!
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ccp: I ask for the umpteenth time :
What is is about ILLEGAL this guy continues to ignore!?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Even if they had a point, smart immigration is good, it would be an argument to change our laws, not an argument to ignore our laws.
Lawlessness is not good.
Murderous gangs controlling our border is not wonderful.
Rape of the women and girls coming in is horrible and unacceptable. Human trafficking is bad. It should be seen that way even by "liberals".
Covid along with terrorists and criminals unchecked at the border and having to deal with it after it all comes in is - an inefficient use of our resources, understatement.
Imagine the outrage if we put up with all this lawlessness just so conservatives could bring in more voters. The NYT/media and politicians would have a conniption. It wouldn't last a minute.
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".smart immigration is good "
Don't we already have millions of legal technical students workers in the US
It is not like I have yet to see a person of Asian or African decent who is not an IT worker -
at least in the last 15 minutes .......
-
A policy of immigration pause does not contradict the fact that immigration can be good.
Having the greatest minds of Asia come here to the greatest technical schools in the world such as M.I.T. and have them stay here after graduation is [partly] a great thing.
As we find out that an huge number of them, students, teacher and universities themselves have clandestine ties with the Communist Party of China who is essentially at war with us should make us consider a pause or interruption of current policy while we get a handle on what is happening.
If we did pause, more Americans would get into M.I.T., CalTech, etc. Pause at the southern border has merit as well. There used to be a goal of assimilation. We the people should have some say over who comes in.
Census offered in 59 languages
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/2020-census-gov-59-languages.html
Minnesotans speak over 100 languages at home.
https://www.minnpost.com/new-americans/2015/11/minnesotans-speak-more-100-languages-home-new-data-finds/
What common culture? It's racist to ask a stranger a question in English.
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394733.php
We know why!
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394733.php
We know why!
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dhs_secretary_threatens_cuban_refugees_07-14-2021.jpg
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dhs_secretary_threatens_cuban_refugees_07-14-2021.jpg)
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/federal-judge-blocks-daca-program-orders-dhs-to-cease-approving-applications/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=24475940
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Stretched agency staff unprepared for amnesty
Fee-paying legals face mass backlog
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The massive immigrant legalization program that Democrats plan to include in their upcoming budget would overwhelm the government’s citizenship agency, adding millions of new cases to an agency that is already running well above its red line, according to a secret internal study.
That secret study estimated an 11 million man-hour shortage at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2020, according to data reviewed by The Washington Times.
That was before the pandemic slammed the agency, further skewing its finances, and before the Biden administration added to its burden with a relaxed approach to border jumpers and plans to expand refugee admissions.
“If anything, it got worse this past year,” one agency employee said. “Now they want to throw an amnesty on top of that.”
Several past directors of USCIS say the agency cannot handle a major amnesty right now — either the full legalization of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants that President Biden proposed or a relatively smaller legalization of “Dreamers,” farmworkers and others that could cover more than 4 million people.
At a minimum, it would take 18 months to get up to speed, hire enough people to process applications and prepare to sniff out a fraud tsunami. Two years would be even better, said Emilio T. Gonzalez, who ran the agency under President George W. Bush and studied the lessons of the 1986 Reagan amnesty.
“We kicked it around, and we needed 18 months to two years,” he told The Times.
Joseph Edlow, who served as acting director under President Trump, recently delivered a similar evaluation directly to Congress. He told lawmakers that the agency, which he left six months ago, isn’t ready for mass legalization.
“The agency would simply not be able to handle it,” he told senators. “That agency needs to continue to grow financially before it can handle something like this. I just don’t think the resources are there in place right now to be able to handle that.”
USCIS, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, handles legal immigration. It is one of the rare agencies in the federal government that operates
almost exclusively without taxpayer money and relies instead on the service fees it charges migrants and visitors.
That means it must balance its workload with the fees it charges to hire enough people to process all the applications.
The secret staffing study, completed early last year under the Trump administration, projected that USCIS would receive 15 million applications in fiscal 2020. That worked out to about 18.8 million total adjudication hours.
The agency was projected to have enough staffing for only about 40% of the work, leaving a shortfall of 11 million man-hours of work.
USCIS didn’t dispute the numbers from the study. In a brief statement, the agency said it will do whatever Congress directs it to do.
“USCIS stands ready to execute any legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Biden. USCIS supports our elected officials making comprehensive immigration reform a priority,” said Joseph R. Sowers, an agency spokesman.
The path to citizenship under debate on Capitol Hill would go straight through USCIS.
The agency would likely receive millions of initial applications to enroll in the amnesty program and later get more waves of applications as people become eligible for more permanent status.
There is no way to add that kind of workload to USCIS without severe consequences, said John A. Zadrozny, who served as the agency’s chief of staff in the Trump era. He said it would either shift workers and create bigger backlogs for legal immigrants or short-circuit reviews of the amnesty cases.
“What you’ll probably see happen is the internal pressure to keep things moving will lead to sloppy applications being approved,” said Mr. Zadrozny, now director of the Center for Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute, USCIS is already under stress, Mr. Zadrozny said. The Biden administration’s more lenient approach to asylum applications at the border will add tens of thousands of complex cases to the workload. Asylum applications don’t require fees, so the agency will scramble for money to process them.
Mr. Biden wants to quadruple the number of refugees admitted this year and double it next year. Those cases, too, are fee-free and will place more strain on the agency, Mr. Zadrozny said.
Meanwhile, the agency has a backlog of citizenship naturalization cases.
Mr. Edlow said the agency also has a “front-log” problem. Thousands of applications are sitting in USCIS mailboxes waiting to be opened and put into the system. He said that backlog needs to be resolved before another major workload is added.
“Certainly, there needs to be a significant lead time that allows the agency to prepare and potentially allows Congress to provide emergency funding for the agency to hire additional adjudicators,” Mr. Edlow told The Times.
“Even with the preparation we would have to do, I don’t think the agency has the financial ability to staff up in the way it would have to in order to handle these requests in the time they would have unless you were to move everybody off current caseloads,” he said.
Rosemary Jenks, vice president of NumbersUSA, has tracked USCIS for years. She said the agency’s problems are well known on Capitol Hill.
Indeed, lawmakers regularly report complaints from constituents about the backlog at USCIS. Add an amnesty, and those complaints will soar, she said.
“And who pays the price? The people who are trying to do it legally, who did everything right, who are paying the fees. The people who are trying to naturalize, who mostly came in legally and are trying to become American citizens, their applications slow down. So everyone who did it the right way gets delayed,” Ms. Jenks said.
USCIS got a small taste of the problem during the Obama years.
When the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created, hundreds of thousands of applications flowed into the agency without an effective work plan. Personnel was moved to handle the Dreamers’ cases, creating backlogs elsewhere.
The last time the U.S. had a mass amnesty, in 1986, fraud was rampant.
Border Patrol agents saw border jumpers with pockets stuffed with old gas station receipts and photocopies of utility bills dating from years earlier.
They soon realized that the migrants hoped to use the documents to backdate their presence in the U.S. to meet the 1982 deadline for eligibility.
A New York Times piece in 1989 said the amnesty amounted to “fraud on a huge scale,” and postmortem reviews that found one-quarter of all cases were bogus.
Congress could spend taxpayer money to give USCIS a boost in hiring to help prepare for an amnesty, which would break with the philosophy that immigrants should pay for the privilege of coming to the U.S.
The idea appeals to some Democrats on Capitol Hill, who say the price is worth the legalization of long-term immigrants.
Mr. Gonzalez, the former USCIS director who studied the 1986 amnesty, said the right way to do it this time would be for USCIS to create an entire new branch of operations dedicated to the program.
That means, he said, a deputy director to oversee it, separate office space for receiving and working the applications, and defined funding that doesn’t take siphon from the agency’s other operations. Inperson interviews and strict background and fraud checks would be mandatory.
“You now have USCIS doing its day job, and then you’re going to require it to take care of all these millions of people that will fall under the one or two new legalization categories. You can’t do both of them at the same time. You’ve got to eat and sleep,” he said.
He said some migrants might complain about the burdens, such as the need to travel to one of the new offices, but it’s a small price to pay for what they would be getting.
“If you have to drive there and spend the night, oh well. It goes back to this is a grace, not a right. Legalizing illegal immigrants is never a right. It is a grace,” he said.
President Biden wants to quadruple the number of refugees admitted this year and double it next year. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gets no fees in those cases. ASSOCIATED PRESS
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https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2021/07/29/biden-officials-asylum-claims-bypassing-courts-expanding-eligibility/
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https://alphanewsmn.com/man-who-beheaded-woman-with-machete-had-ice-hold-on-his-record/
Court documents from Saborit’s prior criminal cases raise questions about whether he was in the country legally. In an order for release in Saborit’s 2017 domestic assault case, for instance, Judge Kevin Eide checked a box for “defendant has ICE hold.”
At his first court appearance Friday, Saborit asked the judge if he could be deported to his home country to avoid standing trial, according to KARE 11 reporter Lou Raguse, who was in the courtroom. The judge rejected the idea and set Saborit’s bail at $2.5 million.
Saborit also told the judge during his Friday court appearance that he hacked Thayer’s head off with a machete in self-defense.
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https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/08/04/graphic-10-migrants-dead-20-injured-in-smuggling-rollover-crash-in-texas-near-border/
The Right - > this is a totally preventable unnecessary tragedy ! Stop the insanity by simply enforcing the law.
The Left - > damn, ten less votes ! Look the other way. and keep em coming.
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https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/08/04/graphic-10-migrants-dead-20-injured-in-smuggling-rollover-crash-in-texas-near-border/
The Right - > this is a totally preventable unnecessary tragedy ! Stop the insanity by simply enforcing the law.
The Left - > damn, ten less votes ! Look the other way. and keep em coming.
Oh, they'll still vote.
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https://www.immigrationreform.com/2021/08/09/wash-post-biden-incoherent-border-policy-immigrationreform-com/?fbclid=IwAR18odqNZ0KzVoN2oGK_H0PHbPIiSP64ljAPggLmtc2aK4RQKcrEMLX2Gic
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Another Senator this morning made a statement about Afghans coming here:
1. Must be vetted, and
2. Are impossible to vet.
[Therefore, can't come here.]
https://hughhewitt.com/senator-bill-hagerty-r-tn-on-the-catastrophe-in-kabul/
Whatever is right, Biden will do the opposite. Our only hope is that I don't see the freedom seekers as a likely Dem constituency.
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My new tenants. Federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on "family status". Chilf traffickers and polygamists included?
Nearest major metro to Fort McCoy Wisconsin is Ilhan Omar's district, Minneapolis.
AP
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-child-trafficking-27d93a340c4834d497eb36e22bb72f42
U.S. officials are looking into reports that in the frantic evacuation of desperate Afghans from Kabul, older men were admitted together with young girls they claimed as “brides” or otherwise sexually abused.
U.S. officials at intake centers in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin have identified numerous incidents in which Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the “wives” of much older men. While child marriage is not uncommon in Afghanistan, the U.S. has strict policies against human trafficking that include prosecutions for offenders and sanctions for countries that don’t crack down on it.
One internal document seen by The Associated Press says the State Department has sought “urgent guidance” from other agencies after purported child brides were brought to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Another document, described to the AP by officials familiar with it, says Afghan girls at a transit site in Abu Dhabi have alleged they have been raped by older men they were forced to marry in order to escape Afghanistan.
The State Department had no immediate comment on the documents or the veracity of the details in them. Officials say that they take all such allegations seriously but that many of them are anecdotal and difficult to prove, particularly amid the crush of Afghan evacuees at multiple locations in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
An Aug. 27 situation report sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad as well as military command centers in Florida points to potential issues involving young girls and older men, some of whom claim to have more than one wife at Fort McCoy, a sprawling 60,000-acre (243-square-kilometer) Army base in Wisconsin. Relevant portions of the document, titled “Afghanistan Task Force SitRep No. 63,” were obtained by the AP.
“Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” the document says. “Department of State has requested urgent guidance.”
There was no immediate indication from the military or from the departments of homeland security and health and human services, which run the facility, that such guidance had been received.
At the same time, U.S. officials in the United Arab Emirates have expressed similar concerns, sending a diplomatic cable to Washington warning that some young Afghan girls had been forced into marriages in order to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Officials familiar with the cable say it describes allegations by several girls at the Humanitarian City in Abu Dhabi that they had been sexually assaulted by their “husbands” and seeks guidance on how to handle such cases. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal communications.
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-child-trafficking-27d93a340c4834d497eb36e22bb72f42
Rep. Tom Tiffany represents Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional District, within which sits Fort McCoy. Two weeks ago he paid a visit to check it out for himself. Rep. Tiffany discussed his visit with Tucker Carlson in the August 31 segment below — not a Special Immigrant Visa holder in sight. FOX News followed up with this story on the Tiffany segment.
Quotable quote (Rep. Tiffany): “They [the Afghans] were all there on parole. The parole authority is granted to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and he can just waive people in…People could leave the base…without the authority of the general that is overseeing Fort McCoy.”
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Maybe the bumper sticker can just say "Impeach". I don't want his name on my car.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=0950fdd10be0141ac66ea49dac380a19_61409e72_6d25b5f&selDate=20210914
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/11/bidens-dhs-refusing-to-disclose-where-in-u-s-illegal-aliens-are-being-sent/
Isn't it illegal to ship an illegal anywhere other than out?
can you even call them illegals anymore?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Losing the kids to the traffickers. Disgraceful.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/09/02/report-biden-admin-has-lost-one-third-of-illegal-alien-kids-n1475257
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Looks like Kristi Noem said no.
https://www.axios.com/afghan-refugees-each-state-data-bea47ca4-0212-4a41-98bd-a2ea9f15a5bc.html
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Laws, like voting no longer matter.
At some point, this will sink in...
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/11/bidens-dhs-refusing-to-disclose-where-in-u-s-illegal-aliens-are-being-sent/
Isn't it illegal to ship an illegal anywhere other than out?
can you even call them illegals anymore?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Losing the kids to the traffickers. Disgraceful.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/09/02/report-biden-admin-has-lost-one-third-of-illegal-alien-kids-n1475257
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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/faa-grounds-all-drones-near-texas-bridge-biden-admin-tries-hide-latest-border-catastrophe
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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/faa-grounds-all-drones-near-texas-bridge-biden-admin-tries-hide-latest-border-catastrophe
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395640.php
You aren't voting your way out of this.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/faa-grounds-all-drones-near-texas-bridge-biden-admin-tries-hide-latest-border-catastrophe
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395640.php
You aren't voting your way out of this.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/219/060/original/4a9af91af2818f24.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/219/060/original/4a9af91af2818f24.png)
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it is so remarkable to see the government to refuse to enforce the law
so the Dems can increase their power at the expense of its own citizens
if Republicans ever regain power they should send every illegal back
but of course they will not have the courage to do it
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***small print***. :
:A U.S. official told The Associated Press on Friday that the U.S would likely fly the migrants out of the country on five to eight flights a day, starting Sunday, while another official expected no more than two a day and said everyone would be tested for COVID-19. The first official said operational capacity and Haiti’s willingness to accept flights would determine how many flights there would be."
https://apnews.com/article/health-mexico-texas-caribbean-immigration-9a95f12bd4e425bcdc87d38fa2cad298
Besides can anyone imagine the AOC et. al. allegations of *RACISM* if they fly them all back to the Caribbean?
The Chamber of Commerce and the DNC and the Biden team should all be billed for all costs accrued NOT American taxpayers.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=2edc004d88747c50f446b862f39f1b71_61488849_6d25b5f&selDate=20210920
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https://nypost.com/2021/09/20/wh-defends-not-requiring-neg-covid-test-from-illegal-migrants/
Shouldn't they need two jabs and a card to come in illegally? In how many ways is this reasoning absurd and this policy dangerous?
https://nypost.com/2021/09/21/psakis-latest-lie-sums-up-bidens-upside-down-approach-to-immigration-vaccines/
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They don't want to risk the health of the replacement populations by giving them the death jab.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/20/wh-defends-not-requiring-neg-covid-test-from-illegal-migrants/
Shouldn't they need two jabs and a card to come in illegally? In how many ways is this reasoning absurd and this policy dangerous?
https://nypost.com/2021/09/21/psakis-latest-lie-sums-up-bidens-upside-down-approach-to-immigration-vaccines/
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https://noqreport.com/2021/09/26/none-of-the-12000-haitians-who-were-just-released-across-america-were-tested-for-covid/
Crisis? What crisis?
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"No one knows where they're going."
[I have a pretty good idea. Largest city closest to largest base is Minneapolis with a Muslim representative and the nation's largest Somali population.]
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/10/02/a-giant-can-of-worms-afghans-are-walking-off-u-s-bases-no-one-knows-where-they-are-n1521216
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".Crisis? What crisis? "
The crises if for the republican party
conservatism
and the future of the country
as we knew it.
none of that concerns MSM elites or the DNC
amazing how we have to just sit and watch while one party refuses to enforce the law
and does this
and bush has more subjects to paint portraits of ....
after Carter failed he pretended how nice he was building houses
after W failed he paint portraits and speaks about love or something like that
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/sheriff-brad-coe-kinney-county-tx-invites-fauci-come-check-border-says-haitians-brought-measles-leprosy-video/
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"No one knows where their going."
"No one knows where they're going."
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Will the masks that don't work for the Kung Flu at least stop the Leprosy in public schools? No? Oh well...
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their / they're
My first big screw up since the who / whom debacle. )
Distracted typing.
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Just being a smartass :-D
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Just being a smartass :-D
Yes, but we don't want to risk the 'coffee stains = faulty engine maintenance' perception.
https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/type-fallacy-coffee-stains-pull-trays-means-airline-engine-maintenance-properly-genetic-fa-q64676230
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https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2021/10/09/theyre-back-elites-want-to-break-wyoming-using-afghan-evacuees/
Your country is being killed in front of you.
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https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2021/10/09/theyre-back-elites-want-to-break-wyoming-using-afghan-evacuees/
Your country is being killed in front of you.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/illegal-immigrant-trafficker-warns-americans-leaving-tapachula-ready-war-video/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/12/dems-plan-c-amnesty-could-protect-71-million-illeg/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=%2BUpiMvjf2dJ8JHRZnh8bu6G9fPCBoZQL7MqCRRhxyO1yVBGaFZOSepQduyPWZIkU&bt_ts=1634070320062
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/13/dhs-drafts-plan-allow-fraudsters-keep-citizenship/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=1akWLh5WtI5k84nV0TOOW3ObJsyj8RPHwsTYEgfkjjcG9Qx7Ega%2BW5XSv3TyQjly&bt_ts=1634204729711
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/13/dhs-drafts-plan-allow-fraudsters-keep-citizenship/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=1akWLh5WtI5k84nV0TOOW3ObJsyj8RPHwsTYEgfkjjcG9Qx7Ega%2BW5XSv3TyQjly&bt_ts=1634204729711
You aren’t voting your way out of this.
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"Sky News understands the individual who has been arrested is a British citizen with Somali heritage"
not a white supremacist
the only difference between the foreigners who commit these crimes and many on the LEFT
is the foreigner carries out what the others are thinking
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From my post above:
"the only difference between the foreigners who commit these crimes and many on the LEFT
is the foreigner carries out what the others are thinking"
Proof of what I said is in the pudding :
https://populist.press/liberal-journalist-mocks-murder-of-conservative-politician/
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/10/18/mehlman-shhh-dont-tell-anyone-but-mayorkas-just-abolished-ice/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=6qhhCnwZaP0Z3.Depz6oT4iKoRnzXZZuP.nj2OZptQBmxeMEj9vrr1Xfz_JqhWGmUlH_yoTj
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/096/175/original/3d9aae633a12422c.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/096/175/original/3d9aae633a12422c.jpg)
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I've said for decades on this board
the immigrants of today are NOT the immigrants of yesteryear
some are
but most not.
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/email-shows-biden-ordered-afghanistan-evacuation-flights-be-filled-with-unvetted-refugees/
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/396222.php
Deb Heine, Dissident @NiceDeb
This is your black pill that elections no longer matter in this country. You don't do something this politically toxic unless you have future elections locked up.
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Fk.
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Fk.
MUST!VOAT!HARDER!
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/137/063/original/25fcd957a4cf53fd.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/089/137/063/original/25fcd957a4cf53fd.jpg)
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/biden-sent-70-secret-night-flights-of-migrants-from-border-to-florida
Am I the only one worried about the CO2 emissions of all these planes flying illegals into the US interior?
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/biden-sent-70-secret-night-flights-of-migrants-from-border-to-florida
Am I the only one worried about the CO2 emissions of all these planes flying illegals into the US interior?
Unvaccinated as well!
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/biden-administration-sends-notices-to-appear-to-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-immigrants-inside-us_4094405.html?utm_source=hardwallnewsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-09-1&mktids=b99ab46962fbb2cd33fefe5a95f7ca93&est=TziE%2F%2BRKfmpC9tNzW9vSM7L9qTJTsFFTSNXyEIoIoQYlW74AjpPMtM3i64G97ahS5kXs
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/11/16/gop-sen-braun-dems-appropriating-money-to-tear-down-trumps-border-wall/
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/11/16/gop-sen-braun-dems-appropriating-money-to-tear-down-trumps-border-wall/
All the makings of Civil War Two. More than one Kyle Rittenhouse likely to come, even if he can't make it.
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/11/16/gop-sen-braun-dems-appropriating-money-to-tear-down-trumps-border-wall/
All the makings of Civil War Two. More than one Kyle Rittenhouse likely to come, even if he can't make it.
Kyle believed in the system and was acting defensively. Those that follow won’t.
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Generally I see The Wall as a Homeland Security issue and rules pertaining to Immigration belonging here.
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Barely one-fifth of Arizona voters support efforts by Democrats to include an amnesty provision for illegal immigrants in the “Build Back Better” legislation currently pending in Congress, and most would vote against a member of Congress who supports the proposed amnesty.
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/arizona_voters_oppose_amnesty_for_illegals_in_build_back_better
--------------------------------------------------
To be fair, that's probably better support than he has for Bidenflation or leaving Americans and arms in Afghanistan.
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Judges’ deportation orders drop
Biden administration’s approach shows up in nation’s courts
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Biden administration’s more lenient approach to illegal immigration is now showing up in the nation’s immigration courts, where over the final three months of the last fiscal year, judges issued deportation directives in less than a third of cases.
That’s down dramatically compared to 2019 and 2020, under the Trump administration, when 80% of cases resulted in either removal orders or grants of voluntary departure.
Department officials said the numbers are the result of the administration’s push to expand the reach of “prosecutorial discretion,” cutting thousands of migrants loose, even though judges did not rule in their favor. Instead, cooperation between Homeland Security’s lawyers and the migrants has resulted in record rates of cases being dismissed or terminated, which amounts to a tacit OK for those migrants to remain illegally in the country.
The more relaxed approach comes even as a border surge has meant about half a million migrants were caught and released by Homeland Security over the last year. Yet the immigration courts issued only about 40,000 or so deportation orders.
Experts said that mismatch is particularly troubling because it could help entice others to make the illegal journey, figuring they’ll take their chances with the immigration courts.
One source within the department, who has tracked developments but was not authorized to speak publicly about them, said it
appeared the new team was “pushing to break the immigration court system.”
As part of the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), the immigration courts are the usually unseen backbone of the nation’s immigration consequences delivery system. Immigrants without documentation who aren’t immediately ousted come to the courts for hearings, and the judges render decisions that give teeth to U.S. immigration law.
Cases are prosecuted by lawyers at Homeland Security’s deportation agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Changing patterns of illegal immigration over the last decade have put new strains on both ICE and EOIR. The immigration courts ended fiscal year 2021, on Sept. 30, with 1.4 million pending cases, by far the record.
And even as the workload grew, judges completed just 115,000 cases in the fiscal year, the lowest figure in more than 25 years. Some of that is because of the coronavirus pandemic, “but not all of it,” a department official said. The official said there’s been a “complete de-emphasis” on actually completing cases.
“That level of dysfunction is unprecedented at any government agency and should warrant an offi cial investigation,” the official said.
There are also a couple hundred thousandcases that appear to be missing from EOIR’s docket. While about half a million border jumpers were caught and released or transferred by Customs and Border Protection over fiscal year 2021, the immigration courts registered only about 250,000 new cases.
EOIR, in a statement to The Washington Times, said its records reflect the cases, known in government- speak as “Notices to Appear” or NTAs, that Homeland Security has actually filed with the courts. There are “a variety of reasons” why Homeland Security would hold on to the records, EOIR said.
At some point, those NTAs should be registered with EOIR. But for now, that means as bad as EOIR’s numbers seem to be, the reality is even worse, with hundreds of thousands of additional cases that will be added to the agency’s workload once Homeland Security submits them.
“There’s something funny going on there but I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is,” said a second Justice Department source.
Andrew R. “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge and now resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, said he anticipates the Biden administration will respond to that crush of cases by scrapping some cases.
“They’re just going to ditch some cases, they’re just going to focus on the core ones,” Mr. Arthur told The Times. “People who were caught before 2020, a lot of those cases are just going to fall by the wayside.”
He said the government would need to go on a crash course of hiring for new immigration judges just to tread water with that future workload.
Yet EOIR just completed its slowest hiring year since 2017. And the judges aren’t doing much work anymore.
The agency ended last fiscal year with 559 judges, who completed 114,751 cases, or slightly more than 200 per judge. By contrast, two years earlier, 442 judges completed 276,993 cases, or more than 600 per judge.
The Biden administration last month announced it was canceling a caseload target imposed by the Trump administration.
EOIR told The Times in its statement that it is trying to get more judges in the pipeline, with 19 to be added to the ranks this week and to be fully invested next month, once they complete new judge training.
“There are many variables that affect the immigration judge hiring process and it is not unusual for immigration judge hiring rates to fluctuate from year to year,” the agency said.
EOIR is authorized for 634 immigration judges, and the Biden administration has asked Congress to approve money to hire another 100 judges in its 2022 budget.
Overall, the Biden administration’s approach to EOIR has been to try to expunge as much of the Trump legacy as possible.
The agency’s director, a career official, was ousted, and Attorney General Merrick Garland overturned several immigration rulings made by the Trump Justice Department intended to limit iffy asylum claims. Immigrant-rights groups argued valid claims were also being blocked by the Trump-era changes.
And over the summer, ICE issued new guidance urging prosecutors to look for reasons to drop cases.
The results are just beginning to be seen, department sources said.
Of the NTA cases where EOIR rendered initial decisions in 2019 and 2020, judges ordered issued a deportation directive about 80% of the time. In 2021, that dropped to about 40%. For the final three months, when Biden policies were most firmly entrenched, the rate was just 32%.
Cases granted, where the migrant wins his or her claim, have risen slightly. But the real change has been on terminations or dismissals — effectively dropping proceedings and giving a tacit OK for the migrant to remain. Those decisions rose from about 8% in 2019 and 2020 to 42% in the just-ended fiscal year.
Cases that were terminated or dismissed are usually relatively weak, Mr. Arthur said. Otherwise, if the migrants had a strong case, they would insist on their asylum claim fully adjudicated because winning asylum brings a permanent legal status and the eventual chance at citizenship. A termination or dismissal doesn’t bring a permanent legal status, though many will be able to apply for work permits.
EOIR, in its statement to The Times, said it’s not focused on the ratio of deportation orders.
“In the exercise of justice, our adjudicators decide each case, including motions to terminate or dismiss, and requests for voluntary departure, on its merits and in accordance with U.S. immigration law, regulations and precedent decisions, without consideration of how those outcomes feed into aggregate data including the ratio you mention,” the agency said.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association counters has cheered the rising dismissals, saying they often represent cases where those facing deportation had a valid claim to make before a different agency, such as the State Department or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
A rising rate of dismissals and terminations is part of a “common-sense” approach to setting priorities for enforcement, AILA says.
MORE LENIENCE: Under the Trump administration, about 80% of illegal immigration cases resulted in either removal orders or grants of voluntary departure. That number is now less than a third of cases. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Immigration courts ended the fiscal year with 1.4 million cases pending. Some of the backlog can be attributed to the pandemic, “but not all of it,” an official said. ASSOCIATED PRES
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https://thehill.com/latino/582254-historic-immigration-reform-included-in-house-passed-spending-bill
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/11/15/22770255/democrats-immigration-budget-reconciliation-plan-c
Love this BS :
"The American public has never been more supportive of immigration, with a third saying that it should be increased. In 1986, the last time Congress passed a major immigration reform bill, only 7 percent of Americans supported increasing immigration levels. "
So a third of the American public supports more immigration (more then 1986)
is so vast it should be supported
And of course the "third" who do are all immigrants since 1986 or employers who benefit from cheap labor
The vast majority of Americans do not support MORE immigration
let alone illegals
So how much of this bill goes to immigration lawyers to pay for their work for illegals
as opposed to going for a wall that would work?
Billions most likely
another payoff for the Democrat lawyers in bills that are written by lawyers
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/13/kamala-harris-announces-1-2b-private-sector-investment-in-central-america-as-border-crisis-continues/
get companies to "invest in their products" to get the people hooked
and Kamala now has some BS she can shit all over us about the success she had fixing the root causes
And we are just supposed to be dumb ass dolts -----
watch the media hounds giving her 5 thumbs up for her hard work .
:wink:
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/16/parliamentarian-rejects-democrats-bid-stick-immigr/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=NR3FN2%2FvlYVdtYSPRutyFof77yHgN9sqPZD0tudkErI%2BqRwHPEkcVZL%2BvpG39DCT&bt_ts=1639699597157
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/586381-democrats-mull-hardball-tactics-to-leapfrog-parliamentarian-on-immigration
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["allegedly" of course]
https://www.lowellsun.com/2020/07/31/one-judge-we-trust-wont-elude-justice/
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ari-j-kaufman/2022/01/05/biden-administration-does-not-plan-to-release-annual-deportation-report-n1547306
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https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime/ive-been-failed-by-the-system-teen-walks-away-free-in-st-louis-after-neighbor-says-he-broke-her-nose-left-her-in-bruises/63-ba5fbdd6-e0cb-429c-be84-09f1fc2f8b34
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https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime/ive-been-failed-by-the-system-teen-walks-away-free-in-st-louis-after-neighbor-says-he-broke-her-nose-left-her-in-bruises/63-ba5fbdd6-e0cb-429c-be84-09f1fc2f8b34
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/muslim-inbreeding-huge-problem-and-people-dont-want-talk-about-it/
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https://populistpress.com/outrage-as-biden-gives-soros-164-million-for-sickening-reason/
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https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/crime/ive-been-failed-by-the-system-teen-walks-away-free-in-st-louis-after-neighbor-says-he-broke-her-nose-left-her-in-bruises/63-ba5fbdd6-e0cb-429c-be84-09f1fc2f8b34
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/muslim-inbreeding-huge-problem-and-people-dont-want-talk-about-it/
https://nypost.com/2022/02/08/iranian-man-carries-wifes-head-after-honor-killing/
How soon until he is here?
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With Dem Party and big tech help :
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/19/dhs-chief-mayorkas-strips-border-protections-us-graduates/
At this rate 1.5 billion people will move here ......
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I would describe that as Puppet Joe obeying his Big Tech masters.
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I would describe that as Puppet Joe obeying his Big Tech masters.
Yes. This.
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Homeland Security seeks narrow ‘public charge’ definition
Court to weigh Trump defense
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Biden administration has moved to make it more attractive for immigrants to sign up for welfare, laying down a marker just days before the Supreme Court is slated to take up the issue in a legal challenge seeking to restore stricter Trump-era rules.
The Homeland Security Department released a proposal to raise the bar for becoming a “public charge.” Joining programs such as Medicaid won’t be counted against most immigrants, it said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said immigrants “will not be penalized for choosing to access the health benefits and other supplemental government services available to them.”
The proposal, announced late last week, tries to unwind a Trump-era policy that pressured immigrants to pay their own way.
That policy is set to go before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
“While America is indeed the land of opportunity, it’s not the land of the welfare state,” Arizona
Attorney General Mark Brnovich told The Washington Times.
Mr. Brnovich is leading the defense of the Trump-era rules because the Biden administration has refused to do so. Mr. Mayorkas said the rules were “not consistent with our nation’s values.”
The issue before the justices is whether Arizona is allowed to step in. The Trump administration had been handling the defense but lost in lower courts.
Federal law has allowed the government to block immigrants likely to become public charges as far back as 1882. Immigration records from the early 1900s show that about half of would-be immigrants stopped at entry in any given year were rejected on the grounds of public charge.
Congress has updated the law several times, most recently in 1996 to encourage immigrants to prove they are self-sufficient.
What constitutes a “public charge” is not defined in the law, and Republican and Democratic administrations have sparred over ways to interpret it.
The Clinton administration drafted tentative guidance in 1999 that was relatively permissive toward immigrants’ use of welfare. The guidance penalized immigrants chiefly for using cash programs such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income.
Two decades later, the Trump administration said the law demanded a stricter approach and released a formal regulation in August 2019 that covered noncash welfare such as food stamps, Medicaid benefits and housing assistance. Immigrants found to be using those programs could be penalized in applications to become lawful permanent residents — the key stop on the path to citizenship.
Numerous lawsuits were filed, and judges sided with the challengers. The Trump administration was appealing those rulings.
When the Biden administration took office, it sided with the challengers and declined to defend the 2019 rules.
The Biden administration then used the judicial rulings as a basis to terminate the Trump policy, in the words of one appeals court judge, “ensuring not only that the rule was gone faster than toilet paper in a pandemic, but that it could effectively never, ever be resurrected, even by a future administration.”
Enter Mr. Brnovich, who asked the courts to be allowed to mount a defense of the Trump rules.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the request. Now the Supreme Court will decide what to do.
In Wednesday’s oral arguments, Arizona will face off against San Francisco and Santa Clara, two California jurisdictions that sued to stop the 2019 rules and won in lower courts. Even though it’s no longer defending the Trump-era regulation, the Biden administration also will be present.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will urge the justices to block Arizona from arguing when the administration won’t.
If the Biden administration’s “sneaky” strategy goes unchecked, Mr. Brnovich said, administrations will be able to circumvent the usual regulatory process and work with like-minded interest groups to end federal regulations they don’t like.
“It’s sue-and-settle on steroids,” he told The Times.
The public charge policy is just one of several cases in which the Biden administration agrees with court challenges of Trumpera rules.
The fact that the high court took the case suggests that at least four justices have concerns.
Arizona asked the court to take up its intervention request and the broader argument over the Trumpera rules, but the justices limited the case to the intervention issue.
In a filing last week, though, the Justice Department informed the justices about the Homeland Security proposal to reaffirm the Clinton-era standards.
The key part of the proposal is to define “likely to become a public charge” — language from the law — as “likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.”
Homeland Security said the 2019 rules had scared more than 2 million immigrants and family members, even those not subject to public charge rules, into avoiding benefits such as Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor.
About 1.3 million didn’t sign up for food stamps, Homeland Security says.
The government said the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the risks inherent in having fewer people with health care coverage.
The Trump-era rule was supposed to save the government about $3.8 billion a year because fewer people were signing up for benefits.
Fears that immigrants would be blocked from adjusting their status never materialized. The rule was in effect from February 2020 to March 2021. Out of more than 47,000 applications filed, just five were affected by the stiffer 2019 rules.
Immigrants will be able to line up for more government services without penalty under a proposed Homeland Security Department policy. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich wants to defend Trump-era welfare limits for immigrants. The Biden administration has refused to do so. The Supreme Court will hear their arguments Wednesday
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2022/02/23/the-continuing-border-crisis-n2603655
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-border-wall-has-been-breached-more-than-3000-times-by-smugglers-cbp-records-show/ar-AAUwpuh
we need armed guard towers
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/10/joe-biden-previews-goal-u-s-latin-america-dramatically-expand-access-legal-immigration/
they just continue to spit in our faces...
-
after they find out they are Democrats. :wink:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-reverses-course-allows-ukrainian-001955813.html
-
https://www.newsmax.com/jackbrewer/illegal-immigration/2022/03/10/id/1060556/
-
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2022/04/defense-firms-should-hire-ukrainian-afghan-refugees-navys-top-admiral-urges/363985/
-
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2022/04/defense-firms-should-hire-ukrainian-afghan-refugees-navys-top-admiral-urges/363985/
Must.Virtue.Signal.Harder!
:roll:
-
Dunno. There is a certain logic there. Americans are not stepping forward in sufficient numbers, and as the article states, it could be a solid landing for someone to build a life in America for his family and him.
-
Dunno. There is a certain logic there. Americans are not stepping forward in sufficient numbers, and as the article states, it could be a solid landing for someone to build a life in America for his family and him.
Ah, the famed Afghan work ethic has it's chance to shine!
-
Wit acknowledged :-D
What about the Ukes?
-
Wit acknowledged :-D
What about the Ukes?
Good news for the strip clubs and parts of America that haven't yet had the pleasure of having eastern european organized crime mafiyas operating in their cities. Improved sales for retailers that sell gold chains, leather jackets, mirrored sunglasses and tracksuits!
-
can they
stop this?
with this administration ?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/04/05/mayorkas-title-42-strategy-ensure-migrants-get-any-way-to-stay/
-
can they
stop this?
with this administration ?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/04/05/mayorkas-title-42-strategy-ensure-migrants-get-any-way-to-stay/
Just.vote.Harder!
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/former-french-intel-chief-all-multicultural-societies-are-doomed
Can't happen here!
-
"Can't happen here!"
right, and we know it is already happening here
and Democrats are hell bent and accelerating it
then with the likes with the big liar Baraq label anyone who complains as racist crazies etc.
he really is the great snake.
-
means the Dems have almost achieved there goal of diluting American with so many immigrants
many illegal that soon they will be majority along with the communist Americans
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/10/poll-over-half-of-americans-say-biden-must-get-tough-on-illegal-immigration/
of course this is a CBS poll so it would be biased in favor of mass immigration
-
https://populistpress.com/biden-secret-flights-busted/
I have no idea how accurate this is but here are estimates
of NJ illegals
probably does not include their children born here who are suddenly US citizens
so real number would be even higher in that regard if they were included:
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/NJ
pop of NJ est. 8.8 million. - but who knows ?
I wonder how many vote ?
here is another estimate :
5% of total pop in NJ ( I would guess higher ):
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-new-jersey
-
Some fascinating data in there!
-
IMMIGRATION
Afghanistan evacuees find clashes with U.S. laws
Records show sex, violence offenses
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The 77,000 Afghans evacuated to the U.S. have all been processed and released from military bases, but not before racking up a striking number of criminal entanglements including violence against women and sexual assaults on children.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia charged a man with molesting a 14-yearold girl. As investigators dug into his phone, they said, they found child pornography among thousands of photos he kept. They have now charged him with that offense, too.
Another evacuee stands accused of bashing his wife with a cellphone charger and slashing her wrists with a razor blade. Investigators say he was mad at his wife for taking one of the seats at an evacuee meeting, while his brother had to stand.
Still another evacuee is awaiting sentencing after a jury found him guilty of groping a child. He defended his actions to investigators, saying it was part of his culture to hug and kiss children.
In New Jersey, Khan Wali Rahmani was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. According to court documents, he became upset when he thought another evacuee was “staring” at him during religious rites. He told investigators he grabbed a metal pipe and smashed the man in the back of the head.
Mr. Rahmani claimed self-defense, though the federal investigator who wrote the criminal complaint dryly noted that he attacked “while Victim #1 kneeled in prayer.”
The bad behavior extends beyond the camps, too.
In Missoula, Montana, prosecutors have charged an evacuee with raping an 18-year-old girl in his hotel room.
In Wisconsin, an evacuee who arrived with his wife and six children and held himself out as a liaison to the community where they settled now stands charged with sexual assault. A woman who had been working with the family said the evacuee told her he had never talked to a woman like her before, said they should act like brother and sister and then tried to get her to fondle him.
Rep. Thomas P. Tiffany, a Wisconsin Republican who has been keeping an eye on evacuees who were sent to Fort McCoy in his state, said, “The cultural differences are stark.”
“It’s part of the reason you have to go slow with any type of immigration situation. We should expect assimilation into our country, and when you just wave in almost 80,000 people of a very different culture than America, you’re inviting real upheaval in local communities,” the congressman told The Washington Times.
Evacuees were supposed to be allies — those who assisted the American war effort and who usually had some English ability and acculturation with Americans. In reality, a majority lack those ties. Who got out was determined more by who was able to make it to the airport.
Once in the U.S., the Afghans were spread out among eight camps run by military bases.
Experts said many of the people who arrived lack the acculturation that authentic allies, who worked with U.S. troops for years, would have had, and that is contributing to difficulties in resettling.
American communities have opened their doors and their wallets to help resettle evacuees. The military has won rave reviews for its ability to stand up the evacuee camps at eight bases across the country.
The vast majority appear to be settling in without criminal entanglements, and some have even started to look for ways to return the generosity of their hosts. In one stirring story, an evacuee in Indiana made headlines after he signed up for the Indiana National Guard, saying he was “grateful” for the opportunities the U.S. had given him.
But there have also been some significant hiccups with the evacuee population, many of which have gone unreported.
New Mexico State Police told The Times that they responded to 85 service calls from the Afghan camp at Holloman Air Force Base. Among them were more than a dozen battery accusations, six domestic violence calls, two prostitution alerts, three disorderly callouts, two child abuse accusations, one indecent exposure and 13 suspicious circumstances reports.
When the Defense Department’s inspector general conducted a review of the base’s handling of Afghan evacuees, the entire section on security was redacted.
Reports on some of the other seven bases that house evacuees exposed serious hiccups and challenges.
At Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, investigators said military and federal law enforcement officers found Afghan leaders in the evacuee camp were hushing up crime reports, particularly domestic violence incidents.
At Fort Pickett in Virginia, base security said they received reports of abuse of women and children, as well as some thefts, but the military police felt they had “limited law enforcement authority” over the evacuees. State and local police, meanwhile, were stretched too thin to be of much assistance.
Even when law enforcement recommended felony charges —in one incident of a stolen vehicle and another case of physical abuse — local magistrates lowered the charges to misdemeanors and the evacuees were “quickly” sent back to the camp, the inspector general said.
The crime reports also never got attached to the culprits’ files. Security personnel told the inspector general that meant families that might choose to sponsor Afghans — helping them find jobs, locate housing or connect to services — would never know of their troubles while at Fort Pickett.
At Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, the inspector general said security personnel found they had “limited options” when dealing with misdemeanors such as thefts or simple assaults. They tried to get the U.S. attorney’s office to prosecute, but in most cases, the federal prosecutor declines.
Base officials’ normal recourse for anyone else in that situation would be to restrict access to the installation, but offi cials decided that would contradict the welcoming posture the U.S. was trying to maintain to the evacuees.
Instead, they issued warning letters. Over the first two months, the base had to issue 12 warning letters.
The U.S. attorney’s office for western Wisconsin declined to discuss its specific reasons. “We base all of our charging decisions on facts and law and the principles of federal prosecution,” spokesperson Myra Longfield said.
Mr. Tiffany, the congressman from Wisconsin, said prosecutors faced tricky decisions about how to handle the evacuee population.
He said the blame lies on the Biden administration for the way the evacuees were brought in the first place, under the homeland security secretary’s power of parole, rather than a formal immigrant visa or refugee status.
“It goes back to the ham-handed way in which our federal government — in particular the Department of Homeland Security — has dealt with this issue, and it was we’re just going to put these people on the planes and get them out of Kabul and to America rather than sorting out their immigration status first,” he said.
Among the cases that have emerged from the camps is that of Alif Jan Adil, accused of molesting a teenage girl under a blanket. According to investigators, he said they were in love, but when confronted by an Afghan translator who said it was against his culture, he became remorseful and admitted guilt.
When investigators went through Mr. Adil’s phone, they said, they also found child pornography. He now stands charged with that crime in addition to aggravated sexual battery involving the girl.
The girl told authorities her mother threatened to kill her “because she had brought negative attention to their family for making these allegations.”
In another case from Wisconsin, investigators said an evacuee struck his children, choked his wife and threatened to kill her.
“He beat me many times in Afghanistan to the point I lost vision in both eyes,” the woman told authorities. She said her husband also threatened to send her back to Afghanistan for the Taliban to “deal with.”
Mohammad Imaad was convicted of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to time served.
Every criminal prosecution The Times has reviewed involved a male defendant. In nearly every case, the victim was a woman.
One exception was in New Jersey, where Mr. Rahmani is accused of beating a man he thought was staring at him during prayers.
Another exception was in Wisconsin, where a man was charged with attempted sexual assault of two young teen boys.
There could be other cases under investigation. Federal prosecutors said they can’t talk about referrals that haven’t been charged.
One high-profile case out of Fort Bliss involved a female soldier who said she was assaulted by a “small group” of male evacuees. No charges have been filed in that case.
As the first charges emerged in September, Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, said the numbers were still comparatively low.
“I’ve done some research,” the general said. “What we’re seeing is law enforcement violations that are on par, and in most cases significantly lower than, similarly sized populations across the U.S.”
He also pointed out that cases were reported to authorities by fellow evacuees.
At the time the general made his remarks, he said, eight cases were under investigation.
Neither the Homeland Security Department nor U.S. Northern Command would divulge final criminal investigation numbers, but Northern Command said it sticks by the general’s evaluation.
“From DoD’s perspective, due to efforts at each task force to provide cultural training and education, incidents of crime dramatically reduced over time to average well below most similarly sized populations across the country,” Northern Command told The Times in a statement.
Homeland Security, in its response to questions about criminal behavior by evacuees, detailed the database screening Afghans went through before being brought to the U.S. and warnings delivered to Afghans about breaking the law once they were in the country.
“If individuals engage in criminal activity or additional information becomes available that raises a concern, the U.S. government takes action, which can include prosecution, revocation of parole, and placement into removal proceedings,” the department said.
The Times reached out to several Afghan American organizations for this article but received no response.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2022/04/22/democrats-hint-will-keep-border-barrier-if-gop-oks-more-legal-migration/
of course Romney will
jump to make this deal
I say no deal
it is a scam
anyway
we already have ~. 70 - 80 million people in this country born elsewhere
-
https://summit.news/2022/04/22/afkrainians/
-
https://summit.news/2022/04/22/afkrainians/
https://summit.news/2022/03/31/report-someone-is-making-a-fortune-out-of-giving-non-ukrainian-migrants-fake-ukrainian-passports/
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Mayorkas
Is a Cuban Jew ?
actively working against our laws in place
against the people of the United States
and we have to just sit and take it
We just cannot let these Biden people get away with this.....
just wait
vote much. harder !
-
Mayorkas =
Kaganovich
one of the very very few who survived Stalin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_Kaganovich
what a disgrace
I am no longer proud
-
Mayorkas =
Kaganovich
one of the very very few who survived Stalin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_Kaganovich
what a disgrace
I am no longer proud
Weird how two percent of the US population manages to get to positions of power and then appears to gleefully use those positions to sabotage the country from within.
It’s kind of like how 13 percent of the US population commits around 50 percent of the murders. It’s a thoughtcrime to even think it, much less say it.
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Mayorkas
Is a Cuban Jew ?
actively working against our laws in place
against the people of the United States
and we have to just sit and take it
We just cannot let these Biden people get away with this.....
just wait
vote much. harder !
6 republicants voted to confirm him.
MUST!
VOTE!
HARDER!
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Mayorkas
Is a Cuban Jew ?
actively working against our laws in place
against the people of the United States
and we have to just sit and take it
We just cannot let these Biden people get away with this.....
just wait
vote much. harder !
6 republicants voted to confirm him.
MUST!
VOTE!
HARDER!
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/04/29/mayorkas-looks-to-divert-va-funding-to-illegal-immigrants-n465790
-
" Weird how two percent of the US population manages to get to positions of power and then appears to gleefully use those positions to sabotage the country from within."
But almost never before they get ***their cut*** which is alway safe :
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2021/06/22/heres-how-much-secretary-of-homeland-security-alejandro-mayorkas-is-worth/?sh=6f8c0483710f
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/105/541/009/original/4df445b295c4f560.webp
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/105/541/009/original/4df445b295c4f560.webp)
-
https://twitter.com/DCRauthor/status/1520215153505095680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1520215153505095680%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.revolver.news%2F
We have magic soil!
-
as per associated press:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/09/poll-nearly-half-republicans-say-democrats-using-mass-migration-import-voters/
I believe the crats are lying when they say no
but I do not believe 53% of Republicans can be this stupid
-
https://im1776.com/2022/05/17/renaud-camus-interview/
-
Nice find!
-
https://www.dailyveracity.com/2021/07/30/yes-you-are-being-replaced/
-
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/1525991879820574721
-
https://im1776.com/2022/05/17/renaud-camus-interview/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/784/756/original/4dd0239ca65cff03.mp4
-
https://im1776.com/2022/05/17/renaud-camus-interview/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/784/756/original/4dd0239ca65cff03.mp4
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/744/932/original/ba4cb5af0c3291ba.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/744/932/original/ba4cb5af0c3291ba.png)
-
https://im1776.com/2022/05/17/renaud-camus-interview/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/784/756/original/4dd0239ca65cff03.mp4
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/744/932/original/ba4cb5af0c3291ba.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/744/932/original/ba4cb5af0c3291ba.png)
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/107/352/721/original/a43f8ef62605d622.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/107/352/721/original/a43f8ef62605d622.png)
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/25/cnns-juliette-kayyem-demands-federal-government-suspend-immigration-enforcement-in-uvalde/
I was wondering how many of these people are illegal/legal
but beyond that my question
is
what enforcement?
there is none.
-
https://breaking911.com/maryland-ms-13-gang-member-gets-life-for-role-in-grisly-murders-racketeering/
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/regarding_the_uvalde_shooter_are_we_really_being_told_the_truth.html
-
was Ramos here illegal?
I also wonder why one Dem congresswoman stated we should have a moratorium of immigration enforcement in Ulvade .
:wink:
-
https://summit.news/2022/05/30/ukrainian-women-in-sweden-told-to-dress-modestly-to-not-provoke-muslim-men/
It should start working any minute now!
-
https://twitter.com/Jayswoolsocks/status/1532129473201676288
The vehicle appears to be AZ DPS.
-
https://summit.news/2022/05/30/ukrainian-women-in-sweden-told-to-dress-modestly-to-not-provoke-muslim-men/
It should start working any minute now!
https://summit.news/2022/06/02/they-found-our-fear-amusing-say-football-fans-targeted-by-migrant-gangs-before-champions-league-final/
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/1/135-million-new-illegal-immigrants-settled-us-unde/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=P4ZugUInha4RExoea7OrANljRiAcCZc19s02UfrhzhRhZw%2BWum27uLf867TeOQAC&bt_ts=1654087299665
-
https://cis.org/Report/ForeignBorn-Population-Hit-Record-47-Million-April-2022%29
-
do not enforce law and help future Democrat voters who will have anchor babies
into the country in direct opposition to the law:
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-dhs-releases-illegal-aliens
if we ever win in '24 we cannot let this man get away with this.
-
Deport the millions of illegals!!!
Very much worth noting is that apparently Latino citizens have dramatically shifted to pro-Republican. Let's discuss this on the Politics thread.
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jul/5/dhs-erases-barrier-legal-status-some-illegal-immig/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=A3uY%2BXdF1uq5oIkhyB6ZFBU2DmVZrw7pjMgLaCCLp0B66t%2BZcXnZWs1dsBRnyxTI&bt_ts=1657100724754
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jul/10/dhs-creates-backdoor-amnesty-illegal-immigrants-un/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=3u6A%2FWzHAUPLdR1Kkqu5SNJf%2FED2JT%2FhXKPZYZruIfxN9pjB%2Fzwt%2BqVHz1XBIg%2FQ&bt_ts=1657473218784
-
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/07/12/a_visit_to_us_immigration_court_where_the_action_isnt_841634.html
-
Trump says rapists crossing our borders.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-rapists-murderers-crossing-border-calls-biden-not-visiting-disgraceful-1598228
Oops. The rapist was an illegal:
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/joseph-vazquez/2022/07/14/gross-twitter-omits-alleged-ohio-rapist-was-illegal
-
" The rapist was an illegal:
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/joseph-vazquez/2022/07/14/gross-twitter-omits-alleged-ohio-rapist-was-illegal"
but 10 yo's mother says not true :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11016277/Mom-Ohio-girl-10-got-abortion-Indiana-raped-defends-SUSPECT.html
VERY WEIRD
VERY POLITICAL
when it should not be ......
-
" The rapist was an illegal:
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/joseph-vazquez/2022/07/14/gross-twitter-omits-alleged-ohio-rapist-was-illegal"
but 10 yo's mother says not true :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11016277/Mom-Ohio-girl-10-got-abortion-Indiana-raped-defends-SUSPECT.html
VERY WEIRD
VERY POLITICAL
when it should not be ......
Not unusual for a mother of a child victim to facilitate the crimes. The motivations vary.
-
Not an area with which I am familiar. What might be some of those reasons?
-
Not an area with which I am familiar. What might be some of those reasons?
The perp is acting as a source of financial security would be the most common.
-
Not an area with which I am familiar. What might be some of those reasons?
The perp is acting as a source of financial security would be the most common.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213421001411
-
"Not unusual for a mother of a child victim to facilitate the crimes. The motivations vary."
true
or mother is afraid of the perp's retribution
or if he is gang or cartel etc.
or psychological control by the perp of mother
same as domestic abuse where women continue to stay with men who beat them up etc.
I guess worse case scenario the mother was lending her daughter out to this guy for something in return
Perhaps she belongs behind bars too?
-
:cry: :cry: :cry:
-
https://populistpress.com/soros-linked-group-wins-nearly-172-million-federal-contract-to-help-border-crossers-avoid-deportation/
could go to 900 + million if extended thru 2027
on top of hundreds of millions of our money it also receives for work prison reform
effectively we are paying for our own destruction......
-
Yes we are.
https://populistpress.com/soros-linked-group-wins-nearly-172-million-federal-contract-to-help-border-crossers-avoid-deportation/
could go to 900 + million if extended thru 2027
on top of hundreds of millions of our money it also receives for work prison reform
effectively we are paying for our own destruction......
-
I clicked on that but am not seeing the headline you reference.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/17/for-democrats-better-to-import-rapists-than-be-called-racist/
For Democrats, Better To Import Rapists Than Be Called Racist
An illegal immigrant raped the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who got an abortion. Build the wall.
By Josiah Lippincott
July 17, 2022
The story was a perfect liberal talking point. Just days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, news media breathlessly reported that a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio was forced to leave the state to seek an abortion.
It was catnip for MSNBC Boomers and liberal white women. The story spread like wildfire; Joe Biden referenced the case in public remarks, asking Americans to “imagine being that little girl.” I myself even overheard one large middle-aged woman loudly yelling about the case while on speakerphone here in rural Hillsdale, Michigan.
But the actual initial reports about the case were so extreme and so devoid of details that many wondered if it had even happened. U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost were publicly skeptical. It fit the narrative too perfectly. The activists pumping the case up had plenty of reason to lie. It wasn’t as if journalists were going to start asking any skeptical questions.
As it turns out, the incident did happen, but it isn’t the narrative blockbuster abortion advocates wanted.
A case that was meant to show the evils of America’s white male patriarchy and its burgeoning post-Roe theocratic “Handmaid’s Tale”-style dictatorship ended up being a story about the insanity and brutality of America’s immigration policies.
The 10-year-old’s rapist wasn’t—as liberals no doubt secretly hoped—a blond-haired, blue eyed, Trump-supporting redneck but a 27-year-old Guatemalan illegal alien by the name of Gerson Fuentes. The girl’s mother is also an immigrant, who by all accounts does not speak English.
It gets worse. When Telemundo interviewed the mother, she defended Fuentes saying that the media had lied about him. When the abortion initially occurred, Fuentes was listed as a minor, in an apparent attempt to prevent prosecution for child rape.
In the overheated imaginations of America’s liberal Zoom class, the various peoples of the world are all the same. Given enough resources, everyone will become urbane, feminized, and homosexual—just like they are! Mass immigration will lead to the birth of a new, diverse, rainbow coalition country teeming with “people of color” and authentic ethnic cuisine like New York’s bodega burritos.
Reality is a tad harsher. Attitudes toward child and female sexuality in Latin America, for instance, are not nearly as enlightened as liberals would like to imagine. The organization Girls Not Brides reports that Guatemala has one of the highest rates of “Child, Early and Forced Marriage and Unions” in Latin America—with 1 in 3 girls entering into a union before the age of 18—often to partners who are significantly older.
Guatemalan health authorities reported that in 2020 more than 1,000 births in the country occurred in girls between the ages of 10 and 14. Rural communities made up of indigenous Mayan people groups report the highest rates of such young marriages or unions.
And it is precisely these groups—impoverished, uneducated, low-wage laborers—who flock to America. This is perfect for our ruling class. Big businesses need cheap serfs for servile low-skill labor, the Democratic Party needs a constituency to weaponize against the white middle class, and liberals need objects of pity. Win-win-win!
If a few million women and girls are trafficked and raped in the process, well, that’s just part and parcel of life in the 21st-century global economy. Better to import rapists than be called racist!
If our rulers really wanted to reduce the number of 10-year-olds needing abortions they’d build the wall and crackdown on immigration. If the Guatemalan pedophiles can’t get here in the first place, then they can’t rape anyone. And if they can’t rape girls then those girls won’t need abortions.
Abortion doesn’t solve rape. It doesn’t undo the crime. Killing the child created as a byproduct of violence doesn’t lessen the trauma to the mother. Oftentimes, it makes it worse.
I know a young woman who was raped by an adult authority figure when she was 13. Her mother forced the girl to get an abortion, telling her that the child in her womb was “just a clump of cells.” Years later, the victim researched the abortion procedure she had undergone. She was horrified. She became extremely angry at her own mother and was filled with longing for the child that had been taken from her. Far from easing the pain of her sexual assault, the abortion made it worse. In her case, nonconsensual sexual abuse had been succeeded by yet more nonconsensual bodily violation.
Liberals latch onto the cases of child rape in the abortion debate as a wedge to support abortion everywhere for everyone. It’s why CNN host Dana Bash pressed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem about the Ohio case live on air. But zeroing in on such a devastating and difficult case is an absurd way to think about lawmaking. Abortion advocates press pro-lifers with difficult questions about extreme cases like these as “gotcha” logic traps.
But two can play that game. One can always come up with radical thought experiments that reveal the limits of general rules and moral prohibitions.
For instance: Would you commit adultery if it meant keeping your family out of devastating poverty? Would you eat human flesh if the only other option were starvation? Would you murder a million people to save a billion lives?
These thought experiments pose difficulties that do not easily admit principled responses. But they also don’t help us think through the decisions we face in our actual daily lives. They don’t help us live. Instead, they serve as a means to weaken our moral commitments. What good is it to sit around thinking up justifications for cannibalism, adultery, rape, and murder? How is that good for us.
Good legislators recognize this problem. They do everything in their power to craft policies that make hard cases of extreme necessity rare and unlikely. They focus their aim and thought on general cases and rules that help ordinary people live good lives.
The vast majority of women in America who got abortions under Roe v. Wade were not the victims of rape or incest. They weren’t minors. Their lives were not in real danger from pregnancy.
Moral equivocations between a 10-year-old rape victim and a 26-year-old marketing manager who forgot to make her one night stand wear a condom are absurd. The latter, in the abortion debate, is orders of magnitude more common than the former.
On the general scale, abortion introduces all kinds of problems. Legal abortion in America weakened the family, promoted sexual license, and encouraged mothers to view their children as disposable burdens. These attitudes have done enormous damage. The chaos of modern family life in America is evidence enough of the evils of the sexual revolution.
That’s how serious people think about politics—by focusing on the most common effects of a given policy. Pondering radical thought experiments is for college sophomores in dorm rooms, not adults making real decisions.
If our leaders really wanted to get serious about child rape, they would focus on stopping rapes from happening in the first place. Strong borders and effective enforcement of the laws are the first place to start.
But, for that, we need serious rulers. We don’t have them.
-
That was a well reasoned read.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/sweden-9-year-old-girl-raped-nearly-killed-ethiopian-migrant-claimed-minor-just-obtained-residency/
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/17/for-democrats-better-to-import-rapists-than-be-called-racist/
For Democrats, Better To Import Rapists Than Be Called Racist
An illegal immigrant raped the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who got an abortion. Build the wall.
By Josiah Lippincott
July 17, 2022
The story was a perfect liberal talking point. Just days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, news media breathlessly reported that a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio was forced to leave the state to seek an abortion.
It was catnip for MSNBC Boomers and liberal white women. The story spread like wildfire; Joe Biden referenced the case in public remarks, asking Americans to “imagine being that little girl.” I myself even overheard one large middle-aged woman loudly yelling about the case while on speakerphone here in rural Hillsdale, Michigan.
But the actual initial reports about the case were so extreme and so devoid of details that many wondered if it had even happened. U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost were publicly skeptical. It fit the narrative too perfectly. The activists pumping the case up had plenty of reason to lie. It wasn’t as if journalists were going to start asking any skeptical questions.
As it turns out, the incident did happen, but it isn’t the narrative blockbuster abortion advocates wanted.
A case that was meant to show the evils of America’s white male patriarchy and its burgeoning post-Roe theocratic “Handmaid’s Tale”-style dictatorship ended up being a story about the insanity and brutality of America’s immigration policies.
The 10-year-old’s rapist wasn’t—as liberals no doubt secretly hoped—a blond-haired, blue eyed, Trump-supporting redneck but a 27-year-old Guatemalan illegal alien by the name of Gerson Fuentes. The girl’s mother is also an immigrant, who by all accounts does not speak English.
It gets worse. When Telemundo interviewed the mother, she defended Fuentes saying that the media had lied about him. When the abortion initially occurred, Fuentes was listed as a minor, in an apparent attempt to prevent prosecution for child rape.
In the overheated imaginations of America’s liberal Zoom class, the various peoples of the world are all the same. Given enough resources, everyone will become urbane, feminized, and homosexual—just like they are! Mass immigration will lead to the birth of a new, diverse, rainbow coalition country teeming with “people of color” and authentic ethnic cuisine like New York’s bodega burritos.
Reality is a tad harsher. Attitudes toward child and female sexuality in Latin America, for instance, are not nearly as enlightened as liberals would like to imagine. The organization Girls Not Brides reports that Guatemala has one of the highest rates of “Child, Early and Forced Marriage and Unions” in Latin America—with 1 in 3 girls entering into a union before the age of 18—often to partners who are significantly older.
Guatemalan health authorities reported that in 2020 more than 1,000 births in the country occurred in girls between the ages of 10 and 14. Rural communities made up of indigenous Mayan people groups report the highest rates of such young marriages or unions.
And it is precisely these groups—impoverished, uneducated, low-wage laborers—who flock to America. This is perfect for our ruling class. Big businesses need cheap serfs for servile low-skill labor, the Democratic Party needs a constituency to weaponize against the white middle class, and liberals need objects of pity. Win-win-win!
If a few million women and girls are trafficked and raped in the process, well, that’s just part and parcel of life in the 21st-century global economy. Better to import rapists than be called racist!
If our rulers really wanted to reduce the number of 10-year-olds needing abortions they’d build the wall and crackdown on immigration. If the Guatemalan pedophiles can’t get here in the first place, then they can’t rape anyone. And if they can’t rape girls then those girls won’t need abortions.
Abortion doesn’t solve rape. It doesn’t undo the crime. Killing the child created as a byproduct of violence doesn’t lessen the trauma to the mother. Oftentimes, it makes it worse.
I know a young woman who was raped by an adult authority figure when she was 13. Her mother forced the girl to get an abortion, telling her that the child in her womb was “just a clump of cells.” Years later, the victim researched the abortion procedure she had undergone. She was horrified. She became extremely angry at her own mother and was filled with longing for the child that had been taken from her. Far from easing the pain of her sexual assault, the abortion made it worse. In her case, nonconsensual sexual abuse had been succeeded by yet more nonconsensual bodily violation.
Liberals latch onto the cases of child rape in the abortion debate as a wedge to support abortion everywhere for everyone. It’s why CNN host Dana Bash pressed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem about the Ohio case live on air. But zeroing in on such a devastating and difficult case is an absurd way to think about lawmaking. Abortion advocates press pro-lifers with difficult questions about extreme cases like these as “gotcha” logic traps.
But two can play that game. One can always come up with radical thought experiments that reveal the limits of general rules and moral prohibitions.
For instance: Would you commit adultery if it meant keeping your family out of devastating poverty? Would you eat human flesh if the only other option were starvation? Would you murder a million people to save a billion lives?
These thought experiments pose difficulties that do not easily admit principled responses. But they also don’t help us think through the decisions we face in our actual daily lives. They don’t help us live. Instead, they serve as a means to weaken our moral commitments. What good is it to sit around thinking up justifications for cannibalism, adultery, rape, and murder? How is that good for us.
Good legislators recognize this problem. They do everything in their power to craft policies that make hard cases of extreme necessity rare and unlikely. They focus their aim and thought on general cases and rules that help ordinary people live good lives.
The vast majority of women in America who got abortions under Roe v. Wade were not the victims of rape or incest. They weren’t minors. Their lives were not in real danger from pregnancy.
Moral equivocations between a 10-year-old rape victim and a 26-year-old marketing manager who forgot to make her one night stand wear a condom are absurd. The latter, in the abortion debate, is orders of magnitude more common than the former.
On the general scale, abortion introduces all kinds of problems. Legal abortion in America weakened the family, promoted sexual license, and encouraged mothers to view their children as disposable burdens. These attitudes have done enormous damage. The chaos of modern family life in America is evidence enough of the evils of the sexual revolution.
That’s how serious people think about politics—by focusing on the most common effects of a given policy. Pondering radical thought experiments is for college sophomores in dorm rooms, not adults making real decisions.
If our leaders really wanted to get serious about child rape, they would focus on stopping rapes from happening in the first place. Strong borders and effective enforcement of the laws are the first place to start.
But, for that, we need serious rulers. We don’t have them.
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2022/07/20/ohio-man-rapes-10yearold-n2610564
'Ohio Man' Rapes 10-Year-Old
Ann CoulterPosted: Jul 20, 2022 4:44 PM
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
'Ohio Man' Rapes 10-Year-Old
I, for one, am tickled pink that our ruling class has finally come out against child rape. This is something new. For several decades now, the position of government officials, both political parties, think tanks, the Bush family, district attorneys and the entire media has been: We're going to foist primitive, peasant cultures on America and then lie to the public about how this is changing our country.
We recently found out about one big way that third-world immigrants are enriching us. Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the media began talking nonstop about a "10-year-old rape victim" who couldn't get an abortion in Ohio and had to travel to Indiana. The "10-year-old rape victim" was discussed on a loop on MSNBC and even made it into a speech by President Joe Biden.
But then, a bunch of spoilsports started questioning whether "10-year-old rape victim" existed. The attorney general of Ohio said on July 12 he had no evidence of a 10-year-old rape victim, despite the reporting of such a crime being mandatory.
With their backs against the wall, the pro-abortion crowd broke longstanding strictures against mentioning the rapey-ness of our "New Americans" by producing the rapist: Gerson Fuentes, 27, an illegal alien from Guatemala.
CARTOONS | STEVE KELLEY
VIEW CARTOON
Oh, now I see.
The abortion ladies thought they could get away with revealing the child rape victim, while refusing to reveal the child rape perpetrator. When that failed, they wantonly defied the rest of their coalition and told the truth about one of the Democrats' pets, an illegal immigrant.
Once the pro-abortion crowd identified the rapist, nothing about the story was surprising. It has all the earmarks of an immigrant child rape:
The crime is particularly vile -- CHECK!
The raping had been going on for some time -- CHECK!
The mother defended her daughter's rapist -- CHECK!
The rapist is shocked that anyone thinks he did anything wrong -- CHECK!
Luckily, I am Johnny on the Spot when it comes to immigrant child-rapists, having included nearly 100 such cases in my book "Adios, America!" -- as well as the sensational, flood-the-zone news coverage the U.S. media devote to criminal immigrants. (Sarcasm.)
As far as I know, there's only one group in the country trying to keep a running tally of immigrant child rapes: North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (NCFire.info). Here's NCFire's list of illegal immigrant child rapists in North Carolina, so far this year.
2022 Monthly Child Rapes by Illegal Aliens:
6. June 2022: 20 illegal aliens arrested for 42 child rape/child sexual assault charges
5. May 2022: 18 illegal aliens arrested for 42 child rape/child sexual assault charges
4. April 2022: 19 illegal aliens arrested for 72 child rape/child sexual assault charges
3. March 2022: 30 illegal aliens arrested for 110 child rape/child sexual assault charges
2. February 2022: 27 illegal aliens arrested for 84 child rape/child sexual assault charges
1. January 2022: 18 illegal aliens arrested for 96 child rape/child sexual assault charges
Again, that's only in a single state. And only when the immigrant is illegal.
WHY DOESN'T THE PUBLIC KNOW ABOUT THIS?
Unfortunately, our media are too busy reporting on apocryphal gang rapes by the Duke lacrosse team and "frat boys" at the University of Virginia to bother mentioning the epidemic of child rape by immigrants from peasant cultures pouring into our country by the million.
Recommended
10-Year-Old Rape Victim's Mom Is in Domestic Relationship With Child's Alleged Illegal Alien Rapist
Mia Cathell
How far into the stories about UVA and Duke did you have to read to find out that the (falsely) accused rapists were "privileged white men"?
By contrast, whenever the media deign to mention an immigrant rapist, the story will appear in -- at most -- one local newspaper. Further, both the heinous nature of the crime and the immigration status of the rapist will be hidden. (How about a news report on the Duke lacrosse case, appearing exclusively in the local paper at the bottom of page A-18, titled, "Area Men Arrested.")
In 2013, an illegal alien from Guatemala, German Rolando Vicente-Sapon, was convicted of kidnapping his 16-year-old cousin, transporting her to the U.S. (also illegally), and holding her as his sex slave for years.
Only one newspaper in the country reported the story: the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Quiz: Was the headline --
"Illegal Alien Sentenced for Incest, Child Rape, Kidnapping and Sex Slavery," OR
"Man Guilty in Case of Human Smuggling"?
I think you know the answer.
There's no question that the national media would never have breathed a word about the Fuentes case -- but for the doubters. So a big shoutout to the feminists for putting abortion-on-demand above open borders. If only politicians cared as much about our country as pro-choicers do about abortion.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/sweden-9-year-old-girl-raped-nearly-killed-ethiopian-migrant-claimed-minor-just-obtained-residency/
https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/17/for-democrats-better-to-import-rapists-than-be-called-racist/
For Democrats, Better To Import Rapists Than Be Called Racist
An illegal immigrant raped the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who got an abortion. Build the wall.
By Josiah Lippincott
July 17, 2022
The story was a perfect liberal talking point. Just days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, news media breathlessly reported that a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio was forced to leave the state to seek an abortion.
It was catnip for MSNBC Boomers and liberal white women. The story spread like wildfire; Joe Biden referenced the case in public remarks, asking Americans to “imagine being that little girl.” I myself even overheard one large middle-aged woman loudly yelling about the case while on speakerphone here in rural Hillsdale, Michigan.
But the actual initial reports about the case were so extreme and so devoid of details that many wondered if it had even happened. U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost were publicly skeptical. It fit the narrative too perfectly. The activists pumping the case up had plenty of reason to lie. It wasn’t as if journalists were going to start asking any skeptical questions.
As it turns out, the incident did happen, but it isn’t the narrative blockbuster abortion advocates wanted.
A case that was meant to show the evils of America’s white male patriarchy and its burgeoning post-Roe theocratic “Handmaid’s Tale”-style dictatorship ended up being a story about the insanity and brutality of America’s immigration policies.
The 10-year-old’s rapist wasn’t—as liberals no doubt secretly hoped—a blond-haired, blue eyed, Trump-supporting redneck but a 27-year-old Guatemalan illegal alien by the name of Gerson Fuentes. The girl’s mother is also an immigrant, who by all accounts does not speak English.
It gets worse. When Telemundo interviewed the mother, she defended Fuentes saying that the media had lied about him. When the abortion initially occurred, Fuentes was listed as a minor, in an apparent attempt to prevent prosecution for child rape.
In the overheated imaginations of America’s liberal Zoom class, the various peoples of the world are all the same. Given enough resources, everyone will become urbane, feminized, and homosexual—just like they are! Mass immigration will lead to the birth of a new, diverse, rainbow coalition country teeming with “people of color” and authentic ethnic cuisine like New York’s bodega burritos.
Reality is a tad harsher. Attitudes toward child and female sexuality in Latin America, for instance, are not nearly as enlightened as liberals would like to imagine. The organization Girls Not Brides reports that Guatemala has one of the highest rates of “Child, Early and Forced Marriage and Unions” in Latin America—with 1 in 3 girls entering into a union before the age of 18—often to partners who are significantly older.
Guatemalan health authorities reported that in 2020 more than 1,000 births in the country occurred in girls between the ages of 10 and 14. Rural communities made up of indigenous Mayan people groups report the highest rates of such young marriages or unions.
And it is precisely these groups—impoverished, uneducated, low-wage laborers—who flock to America. This is perfect for our ruling class. Big businesses need cheap serfs for servile low-skill labor, the Democratic Party needs a constituency to weaponize against the white middle class, and liberals need objects of pity. Win-win-win!
If a few million women and girls are trafficked and raped in the process, well, that’s just part and parcel of life in the 21st-century global economy. Better to import rapists than be called racist!
If our rulers really wanted to reduce the number of 10-year-olds needing abortions they’d build the wall and crackdown on immigration. If the Guatemalan pedophiles can’t get here in the first place, then they can’t rape anyone. And if they can’t rape girls then those girls won’t need abortions.
Abortion doesn’t solve rape. It doesn’t undo the crime. Killing the child created as a byproduct of violence doesn’t lessen the trauma to the mother. Oftentimes, it makes it worse.
I know a young woman who was raped by an adult authority figure when she was 13. Her mother forced the girl to get an abortion, telling her that the child in her womb was “just a clump of cells.” Years later, the victim researched the abortion procedure she had undergone. She was horrified. She became extremely angry at her own mother and was filled with longing for the child that had been taken from her. Far from easing the pain of her sexual assault, the abortion made it worse. In her case, nonconsensual sexual abuse had been succeeded by yet more nonconsensual bodily violation.
Liberals latch onto the cases of child rape in the abortion debate as a wedge to support abortion everywhere for everyone. It’s why CNN host Dana Bash pressed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem about the Ohio case live on air. But zeroing in on such a devastating and difficult case is an absurd way to think about lawmaking. Abortion advocates press pro-lifers with difficult questions about extreme cases like these as “gotcha” logic traps.
But two can play that game. One can always come up with radical thought experiments that reveal the limits of general rules and moral prohibitions.
For instance: Would you commit adultery if it meant keeping your family out of devastating poverty? Would you eat human flesh if the only other option were starvation? Would you murder a million people to save a billion lives?
These thought experiments pose difficulties that do not easily admit principled responses. But they also don’t help us think through the decisions we face in our actual daily lives. They don’t help us live. Instead, they serve as a means to weaken our moral commitments. What good is it to sit around thinking up justifications for cannibalism, adultery, rape, and murder? How is that good for us.
Good legislators recognize this problem. They do everything in their power to craft policies that make hard cases of extreme necessity rare and unlikely. They focus their aim and thought on general cases and rules that help ordinary people live good lives.
The vast majority of women in America who got abortions under Roe v. Wade were not the victims of rape or incest. They weren’t minors. Their lives were not in real danger from pregnancy.
Moral equivocations between a 10-year-old rape victim and a 26-year-old marketing manager who forgot to make her one night stand wear a condom are absurd. The latter, in the abortion debate, is orders of magnitude more common than the former.
On the general scale, abortion introduces all kinds of problems. Legal abortion in America weakened the family, promoted sexual license, and encouraged mothers to view their children as disposable burdens. These attitudes have done enormous damage. The chaos of modern family life in America is evidence enough of the evils of the sexual revolution.
That’s how serious people think about politics—by focusing on the most common effects of a given policy. Pondering radical thought experiments is for college sophomores in dorm rooms, not adults making real decisions.
If our leaders really wanted to get serious about child rape, they would focus on stopping rapes from happening in the first place. Strong borders and effective enforcement of the laws are the first place to start.
But, for that, we need serious rulers. We don’t have them.
-
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-az-border-wall-move-could-help-one-their-own-win-re-election-border-official-says
This makes sense
There HAD TO BE A POLITICAL REASON WHY DEMS WOULD DO THIS NOW WITH ELECTION COMING UP.
Certainly it is not for preventing illegals coming in .
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/400326.php
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/08/19/poll-bidens-migration-is-invasion-says-54-percent-majority/
what would really make polls like this more meaningful is to ask the respondent if they were born
in US
60 million or more are here legally illegally work visas and the rest
so no doubt that will result in many denying an "invasion "
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us-mexico-border/2022/08/21/id/1083970/
so 4.9 million + 14.3 million estimate os of 2019
puts # now at 19 million +
i bet it is a lot more......
https://www.fairus.org/issues/illegal-immigration
I wonder how many vote ?
They get free DNC membership cards
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11134711/Giorgia-Meloni-facing-backlash-sharing-video-Ukrainian-woman-raped-Italy.html
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in the name of equity and diversity
I think a bill should be passed
than projects be built for low income people and illegal immigrant in high priced location
such as Martha's Vineyard, Palm Beach , Palm Springs
the ritze Hampton areas and the rest
-
all lawyered up ( I am sure some mensch in paying the lawyer fees for them)
and their shysters want criminal investigation into the bus ride to MV
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/18/ron-desantis-migrants-lawyers-criminal-investigation
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https://summit.news/2022/09/19/he-didnt-expect-this/
-
https://anncoulter.com/2022/09/22/show-us-the-way-rich-liberals/
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/23/doj-47-in-minnesotas-somali-community-charged-with-stealing-250m-in-covid-19-funds-from-child-nutrition-program/
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What the heck is going on with Minnesota
Was it always left wing ?
I know it was only state to vote for Mc Govern but ........
-
IIRC Sen. and then VP Hubert Humphrey were from the "Farm & Labor Party" (or some name like that) from MN.
-
Long history but the MN party is called the DFL, so called merger of Democrat Farmer Labor even though all farmers and perhaps majority of labor now vote R.
Humphrey was moderate compared to today's evil woke. HHH was tough on crime, made a name for himself stopping the Chicago mob from setting up in Minneapolis.
Mondale was the last honest lib. Was chosen as moderate Carter's running mate to unite the party. Famous Mondale line as Dem nominee in 1984, "Ronald Reagan and I will both raise your taxes. He won't tell you. I just did." Reagan won 49 states after that. Never admitted again by a Dem.
In the latest scandal you have Dems in power, giant spending, all fraud and no oversight.
If you don't punish the party in power now, when would you?
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https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/09/the-culture-transplant-how-migrants-make-the-economies-they-move-to-a-lot-like-the-ones-they-left.html
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/republicans-warn-dhs-secretary-mayorkas-he-could-be-impeached-soon_4779140.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
but like impeachment of the Prez it requires 2/3 vote to convict
so other then hassling Myorkas there will be no consequences for willful dereliction of duty
and willfull failure to enforce the law
trying to think of some other way to enforce immigration law
defending the BP and giving the money to the States ?
but then some states will not enforce law either - Kalifornication for example.....
:roll:
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/las-vegas-stabbing-suspect-us-illegally-criminal-record-california/
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https://anncoulter.com/2022/10/06/darkness-at-dune-the-nightmare-of-marthas-vineyard/
I know I am dreaming
this would never happen...
-
shysters ( idea probably Larry libs ....)
trying to claim that illegals sent to MA are "crime victims"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-sheriff-puts-martha-vineyard-030858922.html
-
https://edwest.substack.com/p/swedens-mysterious-turn-to-the-right
-
https://edwest.substack.com/p/swedens-mysterious-turn-to-the-right
A natural and fully expected turn to the right.
-
There may be less there than seems to meet the eye.
I saw a report that the Right's win came more from the Muslim groups splitting off from the Left to form their own political party.
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/542/745/original/7ed3bbe554ba430a.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/542/745/original/7ed3bbe554ba430a.jpg)
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Good thing
but why did it take the prospects of heavy election losses for this to happen - just before an election:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/23/feds-175-illegal-aliens-including-those-who-killed-americans-arrested-nationwide-sting/
watch this headline on CNN MSNBC PBS NYT WP NBC CBS ABC LAT
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https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1078496926058700800
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1592928904112922625
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/dnc-continues-to-cite-2005-number-on-illegal-immigration-studies-indicate-real-figure-likely-3-times-higher_4879007.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
who knew ?
=====================
Number on Illegal Immigration, Studies Indicate Real Figure Likely 3 Times Higher
Jeff Carlson
Jeff Carlson
November 22, 2022 Updated: November 22, 2022biggersmaller Print
0:00
13:06
1
Commentary
Last week, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed at a press conference last week that the country needs new immigrants to combat declining reproduction rates and a low population growth rate.
Schumer said his “ultimate goal” was to help not only the so-called “dreamers,” but to “get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many,” illegal immigrants are living in the United States. This raises the question: Just how many illegal immigrants are there in the United States?
In reality, the number of illegal immigrants in this country is actually a multiple of the 11 million number that is frequently quoted by politicians.
In fact, Democrats have been using this now-fictitious 11 million number for nearly 20 years. And during the intervening time period, illegal immigration has gotten worse, not better. Weak enforcement, porous borders, and ongoing effects from the passage of NAFTA have only exacerbated the issue. As has ongoing talk of future amnesty from Democrats in Congress, which serves as a magnet for migrants. And chain migration, which was enabled by the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, allows former illegal immigrants to sponsor their family members, causing massive demographic and cultural shifts.
Schumer has been pushing some sort of Amnesty program for illegal immigrants over the span of his entire 30-year career and his efforts go all the way back to 1984, when President Reagan was in office. At the time, Reagan stated during a presidential debate that “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though some time back they may have entered illegally.”
Epoch Times Photo
President Joe Biden (L) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (R) listen as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks at an event at the White House in Washington, on Aug. 9, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Reagan’s comments paved the way for the disastrous Immigration and Control Act of 1986 which made any illegal immigrant who entered the United States before 1982 eligible for amnesty.
It was Reagan’s greatest failure as a president. To be very clear, Reagan was well-intentioned—but he misjudged the trickery of the DNC. As author Daniel Horowitz noted in 2018, “Every bad outcome on immigration has emanated either from the unelected branches of government or legislation that was sold to the American people as doing the opposite of its actual intent.”
The 1986 bill—which would become to be known as The Reagan Amnesty—was a sweeping immigration reform bill that was sold to the American public as a crackdown, a solution to what was even back then perceived as a border crisis.
Under the bill, there was supposed to be tighter security at the Mexican border, and employers would face strict penalties for hiring undocumented workers.
As the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) noted in 2021: “the path to citizenship was not automatic and supposedly contained several conditions: immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for Military Selective Service. Illegal aliens with felony convictions or three or more misdemeanors were ineligible for amnesty.” Unfortunately, there was little enforcement of these requirements.
The single biggest flaw in Reagan’s Amnesty lay with those in Congress who had promoted the Act in the first place. While Reagan saw the 1986 deal as a compassionate solution to a pre-existing problem, members of Congress—particularly Democrats, along with some Republicans—saw it as an opportunity to gain voters. Once amnesty was enacted, members of Congress simply refused to implement the restrictions contained within the Act, preventing any real action to combat illegal immigration or the unauthorized hiring of illegal aliens by employers.
Political advocacy groups also worked to undermine the enforcement of immigration laws. Leading these efforts in Congress were former Senator John McCain and Schumer. Reagan had been tricked and betrayed.
Indeed, illegal immigration quickly climbed to record levels after Reagan’s Amnesty, with the number of illegal immigrants more than doubling in the ten years following the passage of the 1986 Act.
Ronald Reagan
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan speaks at a rally for Senator Durenberger on Feb. 8, 1982. (Michael Evans/The White House/Getty Images)
By 1996, illegal immigrants were estimated to be over 8 million—far exceeding the roughly 3 million illegal immigrants who were granted amnesty status in 1986. In early 2005, the left-leaning Pew Research Center came out with a new study whose stated intention was to estimate the numbers of “foreign-born persons living in the United States without proper authorization.”
Pew’s study found that “the number of undocumented residents reached an estimated 10.3 million in March 2004 with undocumented Mexicans numbering 5.9 million or 57 percent of the total,” effectively validating official government numbers.
Here’s where things get a bit interesting. Rather than using a percentage increase, Pew settled on a static influx of immigrants of 485,000 per year. They did so by establishing a baseline number of 8.4 million immigrants based on an analysis of 2000 Census data—which was derived from a rather loose methodology.
Pew then simply divided the difference between the 2000 estimate and their 2004 estimate, coming up with an estimated 485,000 illegal immigrants arriving per year. Despite their own historical data showing exponential growth in illegal immigrants, there was no accounting for any percentage increase. According to Pew, there was a simple, static number of illegals coming each year.
Using this rather simplified method, Pew determined that as of March 2005, the undocumented population had reached approximately 11 million including more than 6 million people from Mexico. The study found that most of these people had come to the country after 1990. The study also determined that about 80 to 85 percent of the migration from Mexico in recent years has been undocumented.
Finally, the study found that more than two-thirds (68 percent) of the undocumented population lived in just eight states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, and North Carolina.
It is this extrapolated figure of 11 million illegal immigrants from Pew’s 2005 study that continues to be used by Democrats to this day—more than 17 years later.
Epoch Times Photo
A vehicle containing six illegal immigrants is stopped by Galveston Lt. Constable Paul Edinburgh as they were being smuggled from the U.S.–Mexico border by a couple from Oklahoma, in Kinney County, Texas, on Aug. 28, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
But interestingly enough, there was another detailed study (pdf) that was also done in 2005 by Bear Stearns Asset management. Right at the start, the study by Bear Stearns acknowledged what was widely accepted as fact: The accuracy of the official immigration statistics were widely regarded as incomplete.
Instead, The Bear Stearns study looked at things like school enrollments, demand for public services, foreign remittances, border crossings, and housing permits, noting that these other statistics “point to a far greater rate of change in the immigrant population than the census numbers.”
Bear Stearns found that in 2005, “the number of illegal immigrants in the United States may be as high as 20 million people,” more than double the official Census Bureau figure. The study found that “the total number of legalized immigrants entering the United States since 1990 has averaged 962,000 per year.” By way of contrast, Bear Stearns noted that “several credible studies indicate that the number of illegal entries has recently crept up to 3 million per year, triple the authorized figure.”
The study rightly observed that “Illegal immigrants work very hard to conceal their identities and successfully avoid being counted” noting that “Census officials and academics underestimate the ingenuity and the efficiency of the communications network among immigrants.”
The Bear Stearns methodology—done for the benefit of its investors rather than political groups—seems to be based on more trustworthy, quantifiable data. We have another data point as well, a Yale Study from 2018. This study, which relied “on a range of demographic and immigration operations data,” found that there were as many as 29 million illegal immigrants, with an estimated mean of 22.1 million in the United States in 2018.
As the study itself notes, they used an “extremely conservative model” to do “a sanity check on the existing number.” Like the Bear Stearns study, the Yale researchers note that “the survey method doesn’t effectively reach a group with incentives to stay undetected.” As one of the authors of the study noted, “What we’re saying is the number has been higher all along.”
Not to be outdone, the Pew Research Study decided to once again provide their own estimates of illegal immigrants—this time for the year 2017. Recall that Pew said there were roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in 2005—using a methodology I would politely describe as questionable. Bear Stearns said the number for 2005 was close to 20 million. Although it would require an extremely small growth rate, the 2018 Yale study effectively validated the Bear Stearns Study. In 2017, Pew found that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States had fallen from 2005 by half a million, to 10.5 million illegal immigrants. The study claimed that illegal immigrants had peaked at 12 million in 2007 and fallen steadily from there.
How did Pew arrive at such a low, counterintuitive number that contrasts dramatically with other studies?
US-JUSTICE-SUPREME-COURT
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington on Oct. 3, 2022. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
That question is hard to answer as the methodology used is somewhat indecipherable—something which Pew referred to as residual estimation methodology. The number of illegal immigrants was derived by taking the number of foreign-born U.S. residents and then subtracting the “estimated lawful Immigrant population.” In other words, they simply created the numbers.
Extrapolating between the 2005 Bear Stearns Study and the 2018 Yale Study—which found that the illegal immigrant population was as high as 29 million in 2018 using a model which its authors admit was based on an “extremely conservative” model, it would seem reasonable to say that the illegal immigration population was at least 30 million by 2020—probably higher.
And while that number is admittedly nothing more than a rough guess, it’s a guess based on these underlying studies that validate each other, even if conservatively so. Moving forward, for the years 2020–2022, we actually have some data that it seems can be conservatively relied on. We know this because the numbers were based on data quietly released by the Biden administration late at night on Oct. 25.
According to FAIR’s analysis of the data, since President Joe Biden took office, around 5.5 million illegal aliens have crossed our borders, as FAIR notes, “a crisis of epic proportions.” To reach this number “FAIR’s figure contains the 4.4 million nationwide total reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as approximately 1.1 million ‘gotaways’ who have entered the country undetected per agency sources.”
Epoch Times Photo
Illegal immigrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2022. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
As Fair’s president Dan Stein noted: “We cannot even begin to reverse this disaster so long as our nation’s immigration policies are in the hands of someone who is bent on compounding it. No matter how late at night this administration releases data, the numbers still speak for themselves.”
We have the studies from Bear Stearns and Yale that validate each other and conform to what we have been seeing transpire at our borders. We also know that the methodology used in Pew’s 2017 study is highly questionable, so much so that it should be discarded from serious consideration.
Does anyone actually believe the number of illegal immigrants in our country is now lower than in 2005? Pick whatever number you like, I think the number of illegal immigrants is probably in the 35–40 million range—but we can all agree that the 11 million figure touted by Democrats is utter nonsense. The thing is, they know that it’s nonsense. They also know that passage of a new amnesty would provide them with a huge influx to their voting base.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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There is also the rather well-regarded Yale-MIT study of a few years ago that found 22-25 million the likely number.
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/southern-border-patrol-title-42/2022/11/28/id/1098169/
millions more who claim they are in danger for their lives
taking the immigration attorney business cards waiting for them at the border
and all the planning to get them set up in swing regions
in the meantime Biden allow Chevron to drill - IN VENEZUELA !
I can't see any reason why this makes sense except to stick it in our faces
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assuming 5 milion
multiply this by 50 x:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Stadium
more than 26 states :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
if one thinks there are even just 20 mill in US now
that is more than every state other then California and Texas
total disgusting dereliction of duty
to enforce law
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Rant warning. What if Republicans were as tough as Leftists? An idea comes to mind. Since the motive is political (more Democrats) and the timing is political (come while Democrats are in power), we need to (also)
make this political.
Biden won't go to the border because he doesn't want news cameras to go there. So we take everything political that we can there.
Wherever it is the Biden cabal doesn't want cameras to go, that's where we go. Want to negotiate a budget? Meet us at the border. Want a comment on the last stupid thing Trump said or did? Meet us at the border. Want a Republican guest on a Dem political show, Slay the Nation, Meet the dePressed, here is Sen ____ coming to us from the border. CPAC? At the border. GOP headquarters? Move it to the border. Republican debates? At the border. National convention? At the border.
Words didn't work. Must lure the cameras there. That's what they did with (Obama's) children in cages videos, and horseback whipping, or whatever that was.
Like ccp's post of Ohio State football stadium, show them what 3 million people (per year) looks like. Show them what 20 and 30 million people look like, standing in front of you when you wait to vote or hope to get social security.
One caller to a show this morning (of central American origins, legal immigrant) said, they're all coming. Because they can.
We lost the last three elections. There can be no 'more of the same'. Hoping Dem voters see the dismal results of Dem policies didn't work.
Attach border protection to the farm bill. To health care spending. To food stamp funding. All of it. Attach border protection to shutdown funding.
THEY shut our government's prime purpose down, to protect our borders. THEY can own it. No debt payments, no money for anything until the border is secured.
Like one politician said, what have you got to lose?
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good idea
of course the MSM will ignore any meetings at the border
though
putting it in bills good idea too
if only we had the Senate
we could stick to President Ron Klain and force him to veto it
of course he will claim racism
and in humane
and we are always a country of immigrants
we need to get rid of the asylum loophole as well
I am dreaming that if we can only change the amendment that states people born here are automatic citizens
and add some limitations
#1 you cannot not be just visiting
#2 you are not simply here on school visa or work visa
#3 you are not here illegally
I can see green cards
as ok
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"we need to get rid of the asylum loophole as well"
THIS NEEDS TO BE FRONT AND CENTER. EVERYTHING ELSE RIGHT NOW IS FLOWING FROM THIS.
"I am dreaming that if we can only change the amendment that states people born here are automatic citizens
and add some limitations
#1 you cannot not be just visiting
#2 you are not simply here on school visa or work visa
#3 you are not here illegally"
YES!
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/voters-2-1-say-amnesty-makes-illegal-immigration-worse
In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, voters 46%-23% said that granting amnesty would make the illegal immigration problem in the U.S. “worse.”
Among Democrats, 36% think amnesty makes illegal immigration “better” and 38%: “not much difference.” Which means almost all others know, amnesty makes illegal immigration worse.
To Democrats, better means more illegal immigration.
I can't believe the lack of outrage over our open border, run by Mexican gangs bringing us human trafficking, deadly fentanyl the largest killer of our people 18-45, allowing an invasion larger than the population greater than all but the two largest states, while enriching and enlarging themselves.
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/12/23/fentanyl-now-biggest-killer-americans-18-45-years-old/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
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"Among Democrats, 36% think amnesty makes illegal immigration “better” and 38%: “not much difference.” Which means almost all others know, amnesty makes illegal immigration worse."
one important factor I have not ever seen included in these polls
is how many of survey respondents born elsewhere.
one would think many of these are born elsewhere
thus skew the results
are the people answering the survey even citizens , eligible to vote ( or should I say do vote)
anyone can say they are a Democrat or Republican
just wondering
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We need to be aware of these arguments.
===================================
America Needs More Immigration to Defeat Inflation
Only Foreign Workers Can Alleviate U.S. Labor Shortages
By Gordon H. Hanson and Matthew J. Slaughter
December 19, 2022
Page url
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-needs-more-immigration-defeat-inflation
Consumer prices in the United States rose at an annualized rate of 7.7 percent in October, the ninth straight month above seven percent, thanks to still surging demand and stumbling supply. All eyes are fixed on the U.S. Federal Reserve to cool demand by hiking interest rates. But monetary policy has always worked with long and variable lags, which makes the Fed’s job of trying to shape the decisions of the country’s 122.4 million households, 164.5 million workers, and 35.1 million businesses even more daunting.
There is something else that U.S. policymakers could do to battle inflation, however. They could expand immigration for both skilled and less skilled workers to boost the supply capacity of the U.S. economy. More immigration would help meet today’s excess demand for labor, which over time would limit wage and price growth. In October, there were an astonishing 10.3 million job openings in the United States, 4.3 million more than the total number of unemployed Americans. In the short term, expanding the number of H-1B visas for skilled professionals and H-2B visas for seasonal nonagricultural workers would help employers overcome this acute labor shortage. In the longer term, doing so would also help cool inflation.
THE GREAT IMMIGRATION SLOWDOWN
Despite the sensational headlines about chaos along the U.S.-Mexican border, immigration to the United States has been effectively flat for the last decade. Between 2011 and 2021, the share of the U.S. population that was foreign born nudged up only slightly, from 13.0 percent to 13.6 percent, reflecting a dramatic falloff in foreign labor inflows. Whereas net immigration to the United States was 890,000 arrivals per year during the first decade of the millennium, that number fell by nearly half to 480,000 per year in the succeeding decade.
The immigration slowdown was caused in part by the Great Recession that began in 2007 and the sluggish recovery that followed, which deterred some foreign workers from coming to the United States. But U.S. immigration policy also made it harder for aspiring migrants to enter the country. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States cracked down on undocumented immigration but kept the supply of temporary work visas fixed. Because each new cohort of temporary visa holders replaces a previous cohort, and because the U.S. economy grows every year, a constant supply of visas is a recipe for an increasingly native workforce.
In 2019, the United States issued roughly the same number of H-1B and H-2B visas as it did a decade earlier. The same is true of J-1 visas for sponsored foreign visitors, many of whom end up working at U.S. universities or research facilities. The only visa category that has grown substantially since 2010 is the H-2A, which grants temporary admission to agricultural workers. After the outbreak of COVID-19, all these programs were temporarily halted as U.S. embassies around the world paused most consular services. Today, most U.S. embassies are slowly restoring their visa-processing efforts, but consular staffing has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.
The rapid decline in immigration has made it harder for U.S. labor markets to function properly. In addition to offsetting the long-term decline of U.S. birthrates, foreign-born workers have the virtue of being much more mobile than native-born workers. When job growth picks up in one region or drops off in another, workers born abroad are the first to respond, helping reduce regional misallocations in the U.S. labor supply. Without these workers, the U.S. economy can find itself tied in knots, as it has during the pandemic.
The U.S. hospitality industry is a case in point. In 2019, 22.0 percent of job holders in entertainment, accommodation, and food services were foreign born. The pandemic has been particularly hard on businesses in these sectors, making it difficult for them to find workers. And because the supply of U.S. visas has remained stagnant, these businesses have not been able to rely on immigrants to fill their vacancies. By the end of 2021, the share of entertainment, accommodation, and food service workers who were foreign born had slipped to 18.4 percent—a drop of more than 3.5 percentage points. Meanwhile, the job vacancy rate in the hospitality industry has increased markedly; in October 2022, 9.2 percent of jobs in accommodation and food services were vacant, well above the economy-wide rate of 6.3 percent.
WHERE ARE THE WORKERS?
Expanding the H-2B visa program, which authorizes the temporary employment of nonagricultural foreign workers for up to nine months, would be an obvious solution to this problem. Common jobs for H-2B visa holders include restaurant worker, meat processor, and construction laborer—precisely the jobs for which U.S. companies are desperate to hire and for which American workers seem to be chronically scarce.
Yet Congress has set a limit of just 66,000 H-2B visas per year—a tiny fraction of the current 1.8 million job openings in construction and food services alone. For the 2021 fiscal year, an additional 22,000 visas were made available to U.S. employers willing to attest that no American workers were “willing, qualified, or able” to perform the jobs they wished to fill. But with millions more jobs sitting vacant than there are unemployed Americans, this one-time supplement was a drop in the bucket. A much higher cap, as much as ten times the current one, should be authorized for 2023.
Increasing the number of H-2B visas will not crowd out U.S.-born workers. According to research by the economists Michael Clemens and Ethan Lewis, firms that win the H-2B visa lottery and hire foreign workers tend to also slightly increase the number of American workers they employ—and boost their revenues. In other words, foreign workers on H-2B visas complement, rather than replace, U.S.-born workers in less skilled jobs. This finding resonates with a larger body of research showing that immigrant workers have at most a modest effect on the wages of native-born workers.
Why not congratulate every foreign-born graduate with the gift of a visa?
The United States should also dramatically expand the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to create new jobs for highly educated foreigners for three to six years. Right now, the United States caps the number of new private-sector visas at 85,000—65,000 for workers who possess a bachelor’s degree or higher and 20,000 for workers with at least a master’s degree. For decades, demand for H-1B visas has far exceeded supply. In the 2022 fiscal year, 308,613 people sought H-1B visas before the U.S. government stopped accepting applications.
The low cap on H-1B visas constrains not just the U.S. labor supply but also U.S. productivity growth. Highly skilled immigrants boost innovation in several ways. They generate more patentable ideas and technologies than do U.S.-born workers, and they are more likely to found companies. Companies that scale up their hiring of skilled immigrants also tend to scale up their hiring of native-born workers, underscoring once again that the two categories of workers complement each other. Moreover, skilled immigrants tend to boost the wages not just of skilled native-born workers but also of less skilled native-born workers.
Expanding the number of H-1B visas issued each year would increase U.S. supply capacity by both addressing labor shortages and spurring productivity growth. Perhaps one of the simplest ways to do this would be to give more H-1B visas to foreign-born individuals who have already self-identified as both highly skilled and willing to live in the United States: foreign-born students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities. Last academic year, there were 914,095 such international students in the United States. This coming spring, why not congratulate every one of these foreign-born students who graduates with the gift of a new H-1B visa?
A POLITICAL WINNER
Given how politically divisive immigration is in the United States, any plan to expand visa programs may seem unrealistic. Critics will inevitably ask how the United States can consider admitting more foreigners when it appears to have lost control of its borders.
But the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexican border is hardly unrestrained. Although the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended or expelled a record number of migrants in 2021 and 2022, these numbers give a highly misleading impression of how many people are actually entering the country. In the 2022 fiscal year, for instance, the Border Patrol recorded 2.4 million “encounters” on the U.S.-Mexican border. But of these, 1.1 million resulted in the deportation of migrants to Mexico under Title 42, a provision that the United States has used to summarily expel migrants during the pandemic. Ironically, because Title 42 expulsions leave no record of an entry attempt—and therefore no legal repercussion that might prevent a migrant from trying to cross the border again or even applying for a U.S. visa—its use may have encouraged migrants to rush to the border. The number of encounters therefore likely substantially exceeds the number of individual migrants who have attempted to cross into the United States and, by an even larger margin, the number who have succeeded. Expanding H-2B visas would create an alternative legal entry route.
Those Border Patrol encounters that did not result in expulsion (1.3 million of them in the 2022 fiscal year) largely involved migrants seeking asylum, which the United States grants to those with a credible fear of persecution at home. Some applicants are now in the United States awaiting immigration hearings, which are likely years away; many others have already been denied entry and remain abroad. In another irony, the United States’ success in impeding illegal entry has left asylum as the only viable option for many would-be migrants, probably contributing to the recent surge in asylum applications. For this reason, increasing the number of H-1B and H-2B visas could have the additional benefit of unburdening the asylum system.
Perhaps surprisingly, expanding immigration could also be a political winner. Most Americans are broadly supportive of immigration, although Democrats are more supportive than Republicans. In a national survey in July 2022, Gallup asked respondents, “On the whole, do you think immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today?” Seventy percent said “a good thing.” This positive sentiment was widely shared by men (71 percent) and women (68 percent); across major age groups (especially the young—83 percent of those aged 18 to 34); and across all educational cohorts, even among those without any college education (64 percent). Republicans were close to evenly split on the question (46 percent said immigration was a good thing and 45 percent said it was a bad thing), whereas large majorities of independents (75 percent) and Democrats (86 percent) had a positive view. But much of this partisan difference seems to stem from Republican worries about illegal immigration, not legal immigration through channels such as the H-1B and H-2B visa programs.
Support for allowing highly skilled immigrants to enter the United States is even greater and more bipartisan. An August 2022 survey by the Economic Innovation Group found that 71 percent of registered U.S. voters supported more skilled immigrants coming to the country—including 83 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Republicans, and 72 percent of independents. And a majority of Americans from both parties—82 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats—said that immigration reform should be a top priority in the next 12 months. Expanding the H-1B and H-2B visa programs should be at the center of any such reform.
EVERY TOOL IN THE TOOLKIT
The sharp increase in inflation and its stubborn persistence have commanded the attention of economic policymakers worldwide. Although there is little agreement over who is to blame, there is widespread acceptance that central bankers will be the ones to slow price increases now. Yet just as the pandemic has exposed new vulnerabilities in the labor market, it has highlighted the need for more expansive policy solutions to resolve supply bottlenecks and labor shortages.
Immigration policy should be part of the anti-inflation toolkit. Expanding the H-1B and H-2B visa programs would immediately ease U.S. labor shortages, which make it more costly to produce goods and provide services—cost increases that companies pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The exact extent to which this dynamic is driving the current inflationary trend is difficult to quantify, but there is no question that it is playing a major role and that addressing labor shortages would help. The U.S. government needs to fight inflation with everything it has. More immigration can be part of the solution—if policymakers let it
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"The rapid decline in immigration has made it harder for U.S. labor markets to function properly"
50 million people in this country born elsewhere!
"But the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexican border is hardly unrestrained"
Sure I believe this statement!
BTW
Hanson is a Harvard prof
Slaughter is a Dartmouth prof
libs hiding behind their credentials to publish propaganda
and making assertions
that are ridiculous
and untrue
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Also to be noted is the argument that rising wages for the working class are a problem.
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"The sharp increase in inflation and its stubborn persistence have commanded the attention of economic policymakers worldwide. Although there is little agreement over who is to blame, there is widespread acceptance that central bankers will be the ones to slow price increases now. Yet just as the pandemic has exposed new vulnerabilities in the labor market, it has highlighted the need for more expansive policy solutions to resolve supply bottlenecks and labor shortages."
I don't know. This sounds like code for
"we cannot secure the border without immigration reform!"
he says nada about 30 million illegals in the country
if they are so worried about "skilled labor"
why not say
"only college or graduate school grads need apply"
but they mix it all in to one big mix
like shyster crats
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Yup.
These are the arguments for which we have to be ready.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/12/19/chief-justice-john-roberts-puts-brakes-on-bidens-ending-title-42-at-border/
[for now]
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There are economic arguments for legal immigration. Seems to me legal immigration isn't the issue today.
There are no positive economic arguments I know of for abandoning sovereignty and rule of law.
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There are no positive economic arguments I know of for abandoning sovereign and rule of law.
except it helps shyster crats win at the polls
the entire SW is purple or blue now
W's theory
let bygones be bygones
let them all in and win them over
(with some minor success - but not near enough to win elections)
my theory
CLOSE THE BORDER
and win them over ..... with our values
no big government largess
( I admit not clear this is even possible frankly)
case in point
dear BLACKS vote for us Republicans and for reasons that include freedom. liberty opportunity
American exceptionalism yada yada)
versus
dear BLACKS vote for us Dems and we will send you checks for $250,000 to 350,000!
good luck with our arguments
that elephant in the room
said
we still have to try somehow......
I am at a loss on how to reach them.......
confused in NJ
admittedly
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"CLOSE THE BORDER and win them over ..... with our values no big government largess ( I admit not clear this is even possible frankly)"
We did well with Latinos this past election. I think social issues (vote for us because they will cut off your son's penis and whack your daughter's breasts, they are batshit crazy and we are not, we are the reason you came) have considerable promise.
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and I might add
celebrate
gay pedophiles
shaking there asses in front of children
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Immigrant workers rebounded past U.S.-born workforce after pandemic
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
There is no shortage of immigrant workers in the U.S. economy, according to a new study released Wednesday that challenges a growing chorus of voices arguing the country needs more foreign labor to keep the economy humming.
Using U.S. Census Bureau data, the Center for Immigration Studies calculated there were 29.6 million foreign-born workers — both legal and illegal immigrants — as of November. That’s up from 27.7 million workers in 2019.
But among native-born workers, the workforce rate is down 2.1 million compared with three years ago, said Steven A. Camarota, chief author of the study and director of research at the center, which advocates for stricter immigration policies.
“If you think that there are missing workers, then it’s the native-born we’re missing,” Mr. Camarota said. “The immigrant labor force participation rate is above what it was in 2019.”
The study comes amid a massive push to open the doors to more newcomers.
From Capitol Hill to the pages of national newspapers to the top of the Federal Reserve, policymakers say a shortage of foreigners is holding back the U.S. economy.
The Washington Post blamed the “anti-immigrant” policies of former President Donald Trump and the pandemic for slashing new immigration by half from 2019 to 2021. The New York Times said a “sharp slowdown” in immigration left the U.S. short 3.2 million immigrant workers, relative to the trend line before 2017.
In a speech late last month, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said labor imbalances are fueling the current painful rise in inflation. He said part of that problem is one million “missing workers” due to slower immigration during the pandemic.
Mr. Powell said temporary guest workers have rebounded from pandemic depths, but are still below 2019 rates, while new permanent residents, or green-card holders, are “well below” levels of the last decade. And he said, despite the rise in illegal immigration at the border, the overall number of illegal immigrants may not have increased.
Mr. Camarota said Mr. Powell’s data may have been true at one point, but now it is out of date.
Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, the monthly survey that the Labor Department uses to calculate employment rates, he found there was a pandemic dip, with working immigrants dropping from 27.7 million in November 2019 to 25.6 million a year later.
But in the ensuing two years, the economy has added back 4 million immigrants to the workforce.
That’s about in line with the trend line dating back to 2010, and significantly above the trend line if it were drawn back to 2000.
It’s also 1.9 million more than there were in 2019.
One place where there is a dearth compared with 2019 rates is among U.S.-born workers.
Before the pandemic, 74.1% of native-born people of working age — between 18 and 64 — were in the labor force. It slipped during 2020 but has recovered, though at 73.5% it remains below the 2019 level.
That works out to 44.9 million U.S.-born working-age Americans not in the labor force.
Mr. Camarota said they may be out for many valid reasons, including disabilities or taking care of children or older relatives. Some are also enticed out of the workforce by economics, figuring the life they can live on government assistance is better than the marginal tradeoff of the wages they could earn in a job.
Mr. Camarota said there are costs to lower workforce participation, including higher rates of substance abuse, crime and obesity.
“We face a stark choice as a country: either we figure out how to get more people back in the labor force who are working age, or we accept all the social problems and pathologies that come with low labor force participation and bring in more immigrants,” he said.
The notion of more immigrant workers tracks with other Center for Immigration Studies research showing overall immigration has soared under President Biden.
Immigrants are now 14.74% of the total population, which nearly matches the all-time high of 14.77% set in 1890.
Among those immigrants, 6.2% came since 2020, and roughly a third came since 2010. Another 27% arrived in the first decade of this century, according to Mr. Camarota’s figures.
He said of those who arrived since the start of the Biden administration, roughly 60% came illegally.
-
above post good response to previous post from Harvard Dartmouth professors
position that immigration is down and we need MORE people to flood the country and more work visas
-
he actually took at a small bottle of booze to take a swig during the interview
cannot find whole interview now but here is the end of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlCJAS5cydk
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/us/politics/biden-border-crossings.html
I listened to part of Biden's propaganda
basically
he allows for illegals to simply more or less to take a ticket while waiting to be released into the US
just come to the border and hold on while *we* find a way to get you in .
he also tells them simply to claim asylum ......
and NYT calls this a "crackdown"
and of course he keeps calling the system broken [when it is not]
and blaming Republicans for not agreeing to *immigration reform*
which is code for making it even EASIER for immigrants to come here en masse
he of course also totally stated a false number for those coming in illegally
not the millions
just "thousands"
-
ok /biden to "visit the border" as per many Fox news hosts
as Hannity keeps repeating for 2 yrs and then then next comment out of his revolving mouth is "fentanyl"
problem is this is far more than fentanyl
and Biden visiting the border will be turned into a 3 card monty
that does nothing to stop illegals from flooding in but allows the left wing media
to falsely claim that he is working very hard to "fix the problem "
[by making it even worse - as we here all know he would]
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/08/joe-biden-to-finally-visit-u-s-mexico-border-two-years-after-taking-office/
gaslighting shysters continue to destroy this country
Schumer now taking the other strategy - [also expected but i only wondered what took so long]
claiming flooding the country with immigrants is necessary to replenish our younger generation supply to pay for todays and tomorrows seniors
so now we should all just shut up and be grateful for 30. million ( soon to be 35 million illegals)
-
https://news.yahoo.com/listen-people-side-migrants-mexico-110952368.html
The LEFT : HUMANITARIAN CRISES!
The Right media pundits trying to make this about "criminals", "terrorism" and "fentanyl", "cartels". [while true most who come here are not in that category and misses the point]
WILL NOT WORK AGAINST THE SOB STORIES
HANNITY & COMPANY
ARE DIVERTING THE REAL PROBLEM
can't we come up with better arguments for God's sakes
instead of beating the same drums that do not work!
:x
-
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/biden-border/2023/01/08/id/1103489/
I can't believe this headline!
Of all the stupid things
for God's sake - he is the President - he KNOWS what is going on at the border
now he will turn this visit around since the found a way to weasel the message to claim he is "clamping" down when he is not
and indeed as noted by Andrew McCarthy making it even worse
For God's sakes why cannot Republicans get their messages straight
just yelling fentanyl , cartels , terrorism while all true is NOT ENOUGH
yes CD we are so f''''d
dreading the BS clown show tomorrow with the media DNC Biden Mayorsky all in sink with their lines prepared to play us for dupes once again tomorrow.
-
I'm reading that authorities have swept a couple of thousand street sleeping migrants out of Prez Magoo's line of sight.
-
Biden Bows to Blackmail on Migrants
The administration rewards Venezuelan trafficking with 30,000 new visas.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady hedcutBy Mary Anastasia O’GradyFollow
Jan. 8, 2023 5:19 pm ET
The Cuban military dictatorship has unleashed three destabilizing rafter crises since taking power in 1959. They occurred in 1965, 1980 and 1994-95, all years when a Democrat was in the White House. During the Obama administration, more than 120,000 Cuban migrants found their way to U.S. ports of entry from 2014-16, mainly via Central America.
There was no attempt by Fidel Castro to flood American shores with desperate balseros during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush despite their hard-line policies against Cuba. Donald Trump faced caravans arriving at the southern border starting in 2018 but by the end of 2019, the numbers of migrant “encounters” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection had dropped precipitously.
This partisan dichotomy is worth noting in light of the human train-wreck at the southern U.S. border since President Biden took office. Is the migrant crisis merely a spontaneous flood of huddled masses yearning to breathe free, or is it an organized assault on U.S. law and order similar to Castro pranks of old?
Flight data from Venezuela to Mexico collected by the nongovernmental organization Center for a Secure Free Society, or SFS, and interviews the center has done with migrants at the U.S. border suggest the latter. In a paper due out in March, SFS director Joseph Humire presents research to show that Caracas has played a key role in facilitating the migrant spike since 2021.
Using migrants as weapons is essentially an act of war. Yet on Thursday the U.S. announced that it will grant an additional 30,000 visas a month to Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians if they apply from their home countries. Mr. Biden sets a bad precedent in bowing to blackmail as so many of his Democratic predecessors did.
Enemies of Western liberal democracies have a long tradition of sparking migration crises to extract geopolitical concessions from governments that appear vulnerable to extortion. In a 2016 essay in the journal Military Review titled “Migration as a Weapon in Theory and in Practice,” Tufts University political science professor Kelly Greenhill defined the strategy as “coercive engineered migration.”
Weak nations, Ms. Greenhill explained, can capitalize on the desperation of their populations “to achieve political goals that would be utterly unattainable through military means.” Clearly “the idea that states such as Cuba, Haiti, and Mexico could successfully coerce their neighbor, the United States, with the threat of military force is absurd,” Ms. Greenhill wrote. But “the tacit or explicit threat of demographic bombs” to force the U.S. to negotiations, is not. Cuba was successful in this strategy during the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Ms. Greenhill’s essay doesn’t mention Venezuela but in recent years it may have become the most aggressive practitioner of the geopolitical coercion that she described.
Venezuela wants desperately to get out from under U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and restore its legitimacy. It made progress last year by forcing U.S. talks with dictator Nicolás Maduro to free American hostages and feigning interest in negotiating a return to democracy. But the large numbers of people desperate to leave the country also scream opportunity.
Many migrants are opponents of the regime, and exile is a way of purging dissidents. But it isn’t enough that they leave. Caracas delights in the destabilizing effects of large numbers of migrants on Uncle Sam’s doorstep. Those eventually employed in the U.S. will send back dollar remittances, which will prop up Venezuela’s economy.
Some seven million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, when the economy hit the skids. But in most of those years, migrants went largely to neighboring countries in South America. When Mr. Biden arrived in the White House, things changed.
Mr. Humire told me last week that “immigration agents encountered nearly 190,000 Venezuelans along the U.S.-Mexico border in the latest fiscal year ending September 30, a 375% increase over the previous fiscal year.” Organized crime trafficked many of those people on land but the evidence collected by SFS suggests that it wasn’t without help from Caracas.
According to SFS, in 2021 and 2022 the majority of the direct flights to Mexico from Venezuela were operated by Conviasa, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, or other, smaller state-owned or state-controlled airlines. SFS found that Venezuelans it interviewed at the border, who had arrived in Mexico by air, had purchased packages from Venezuelan travel agents. The packages included the necessary government-issue travel documents to enter Mexico and contacts with human smugglers who facilitated the ground journey to the U.S. border.
Mr. Biden could clamp down on Mr. Maduro’s trafficking network by imposing sanctions on fuel and service providers to the Venezuelan airlines. Instead, he has opted to reward the exploitation of the refugees. Problem not solved.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
-
even before they get to the border (conveniently ONLINE no less)
the LEFT has to pretend they find this not to their liking :
so LEFTist Yahoo guy tells story the Democrats are upset by this policy:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-angers-both-left-and-right-with-new-immigration-policy-173142110.html
Me:
the Left is NOT outraged by this like we are
not equivalent! so don't straw man us that it is .
our side is screwed their side is not . PERIOD!!!( In Gutfeld style :-D)
-
Nicaraguans, Cubans (most are Republican)
Haitians (why not calls that this is racist?)
and Venezuelans
I cannot find the reasons for this posted anywhere
Isn't it curious that I cannot find anyone asking why just these 4 countries?
Democrats never do anything that is not somehow in their political interests.
-
Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega- commie Caudillo
Cuba: Post Castro Commie dictatorship
Haiti: Megafustercluck
Venezuela: Mega inflation, Hugo Chavez- commie caudillo (PS a couple of years ago we were hearing of inflation at 1,000,000%. Was this accurate? What happened?
-
***Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega- commie Caudillo
Cuba: Post Castro Commie dictatorship
Haiti: Megafustercluck
Venezuela: Mega inflation, Hugo Chavez- commie caudillo (PS a couple of years ago we were hearing of inflation at 1,000,000%. Was this accurate? What happened?***
I hear you but whenever did any of the above stop the Dems from importing voters?
Cubans I can see due to majority vote republ
but I doubt the others are likely to be republican
but maybe...
-
In that the criterion should the rule of law, it should not matter but FWIW those fleeing commies tend to be hard line anti-commies.
-
quote author=ccp
***Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega- commie Caudillo
Cuba: Post Castro Commie dictatorship
Haiti: Megafustercluck
Venezuela: Mega inflation, Hugo Chavez- commie caudillo (PS a couple of years ago we were hearing of inflation at 1,000,000%. Was this accurate? What happened?***
---------------------------------------------------
We've now proven we an attract migrants from these "sh*thole countries".
Next step would be to have the entry fee, control and screening responsibility go to the US taxpayer instead of the criminal military terrorist gangs.
Even if we wanted the people, why do we have to take fentanyl, drug and human trafficking with them and build these gangs into rich, powerful nation states?
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/17/watch-republican-maria-salazar-lectures-americans-in-davos-illegal-aliens-are-owed-amnesty/
humiliate America at Davos?
lecture us citizens there ?
what ?
they come here illegally and she lectures us about dignity
:x
-
https://dailycaller.com/2023/01/19/victor-davis-hanson-mexico-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-joe-biden-illegal-immigration/
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11688597/Now-theyre-coming-CANADA-Northern-border-sees-743-spike-migrants-trying-cross-US.html
:-o :x
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/17/watch-republican-maria-salazar-lectures-americans-in-davos-illegal-aliens-are-owed-amnesty/
humiliate America at Davos?
lecture us citizens there ?
what ?
they come here illegally and she lectures us about dignity
:x
The global government operates from there. The WEF calls the shots now.
They have decided that Europe and America are to be genocided by the ClotShot and hordes from the 3rd world.
Wait, you didn't get to vote about that?
-
".They have decided that Europe and America are to be genocided by the ClotShot and hordes from the 3rd world."
oh, come on .
-
".They have decided that Europe and America are to be genocided by the ClotShot and hordes from the 3rd world."
oh, come on .
Millions of illegals surging in, why aren't they required to take the ClotShot?
https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/joe-bidens-covid-vaccine-strategy-shots-kids-not-illegal-immigrants
"The Biden administration is being duplicitous regarding COVID. It continues to approve emergency authority and promote COVID-19 vaccines and is now pushing for young children—even babies—to receive risky and needless COVID vaccines. But it simultaneously seeks to terminate the authority for border agents to help reduce the public health risks of COVID. Instead, it keeps our border open to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, permits them to refuse vaccination, and then allows them to travel elsewhere in the country, without consequence."
-
***obviously*** it is because the powers to be only want to kill American citizens
as you say
-
***obviously*** it is because the powers to be only want to kill American citizens
as you say
You have an alternate explanation?
-
to get as many illegals here as fast as possible
-
to get as many illegals here as fast as possible
https://gab.com/Matt_Bracken/posts/109772464658813667
The invasion of America is ongoing, 24/7.
Mostly healthy fighting-age men who do not speak a word of English.
They don't just "appear by magic" at our southern border.
Anybody on the planet can fly to Ecuador with no visa.
From China to Cameroon, they come.
Waiting buses take them to the north of Colombia, where they walk across the Darien Gap in Panama, then they catch river boats to waiting buses that take them to Costa Rica. Then they take more waiting buses country by country right to the U.S. border.
All this is assisted at every stage by the U.N., the U.S. govt, and the NGO "cutouts" who do their bidding. Mayorkas and "Biden" are behind this treasonous invasion up to their eyeballs.
New Ben Bergquam video at link. I was with him, Michael Yon and Oscar Blue in Panama last week.
-
" I was with him, Michael Yon and Oscar Blue in Panama last week."
???
-
to get as many illegals here as fast as possible
https://gab.com/Matt_Bracken/posts/109772464658813667
The invasion of America is ongoing, 24/7.
Mostly healthy fighting-age men who do not speak a word of English.
They don't just "appear by magic" at our southern border.
Anybody on the planet can fly to Ecuador with no visa.
From China to Cameroon, they come.
Waiting buses take them to the north of Colombia, where they walk across the Darien Gap in Panama, then they catch river boats to waiting buses that take them to Costa Rica. Then they take more waiting buses country by country right to the U.S. border.
All this is assisted at every stage by the U.N., the U.S. govt, and the NGO "cutouts" who do their bidding. Mayorkas and "Biden" are behind this treasonous invasion up to their eyeballs.
New Ben Bergquam video at link. I was with him, Michael Yon and Oscar Blue in Panama last week.
I agree, treasonous. To the extent we help them, support these countries and organizations doing this and to the extent we aren't doing everything in our power to stop it, it's treasonous.
-
that treasonous Mayorkas
could have easily ordered that immigrants get corona shots
but he didn't; probably used excuses
to avoid so he could ship them in faster , avoid the fact they are bringing in diseases with them etc.
look at the CDC flu map
New Mexico is still orange
this state has been red the entire flu season - far more then any other state.
Unless it is a flawed reporting (BS data ) issue, I can't think of any other reason other then illegals flooding in with flu etc.
here is another parasitic disease
that illegals are likely bringing in although not clear if common or not [probably not]:
https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/leishmaniasis/epi.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7998217/
-
" I was with him, Michael Yon and Oscar Blue in Panama last week."
???
Matt Bracken and Michael Yon have been working together on documenting the current invasion of the US.
-
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/01/19/n-j-expands-health-care-coverage-to-all-children-regardless-of-immigration-status/
"Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, noted that families seeking to be immigrants often must save money for expensive naturalization applications or DACA renewals. With the expansion of insurance access, Torres said, health care costs are one less thing migrant families have to worry about.
“Racial disparities continue to persist in New Jersey, and by providing coverage for our kids in these early years of their lives, we are making bold strides to begin addressing these gaps,” said Torres.
The work is not over, Torres added, as future governors must ensure the program continues to receive funding as immigrant communities grow. "
"immigration justice " - what the heck are they talking about
-
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/01/19/n-j-expands-health-care-coverage-to-all-children-regardless-of-immigration-status/
"Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, noted that families seeking to be immigrants often must save money for expensive naturalization applications or DACA renewals. With the expansion of insurance access, Torres said, health care costs are one less thing migrant families have to worry about.
“Racial disparities continue to persist in New Jersey, and by providing coverage for our kids in these early years of their lives, we are making bold strides to begin addressing these gaps,” said Torres.
The work is not over, Torres added, as future governors must ensure the program continues to receive funding as immigrant communities grow. "
"immigration justice " - what the heck are they talking about
It means we get to pay for the 3rd world invaders.
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/fiery-uk-anti-refugee-protest-after-minor-girl-records-adult-migrants-proposition
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11738375/DAVID-JONES-investigates-bloody-death-Swedens-liberal-dream.html
No magic soil?
-
https://rmx.news/crime/after-9-year-old-swedish-schoolgirl-luna-was-strangled-into-a-coma-by-ethiopian-migrant-teen-her-family-faces-a-black-hole-with-no-bottom/
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/128/442/546/original/88c34462dbb90543.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/128/442/546/original/88c34462dbb90543.jpg)
Guess how California just changed it's laws.
-
https://dnyuz.com/2023/02/25/alone-and-exploited-migrant-children-work-brutal-jobs-across-the-u-s/
:x
-
https://dnyuz.com/2023/02/25/alone-and-exploited-migrant-children-work-brutal-jobs-across-the-u-s/
:x
The worse scenarios are those being sold into sex trafficking. The numbers are massive and the open borders advocates are responsible.
-
When in LA I used to get spam emails offering the sexual services of "hot young Latinas who were just begging for it" etc all the fg time.
-
:cry:
-
https://who13.com/news/nebraska-men-allegedly-killed-planned-to-eat-bald-eagle-officials-say/
"Nebraska men"
-
take down our statues
and now our national bird !
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-reveals-plan-for-largest-domestic-deportation-operation-in-american-history/ar-AA18eJZi?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a3a3cc768174caab592dfb0745ba7ec&ei=29
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-reveals-plan-for-largest-domestic-deportation-operation-in-american-history/ar-AA18eJZi?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a3a3cc768174caab592dfb0745ba7ec&ei=29
Yes!
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2023/03/old-and-in-the-way/
-
:cry: :cry: :cry:
-
https://twitter.com/TheCynicalHun/status/1635124569760751621
-
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2023/03/14/biden-pick-pushes-magic-answer-to-nullify-popular-border-laws/
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2023/03/14/biden-pick-pushes-magic-answer-to-nullify-popular-border-laws/
more Democrat lawfare on immigration
the great replacement theory
and the MSM yawns
:x
-
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2023/03/14/biden-pick-pushes-magic-answer-to-nullify-popular-border-laws/
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2023/03/14/biden-pick-pushes-magic-answer-to-nullify-popular-border-laws/
more Democrat lawfare on immigration
the great replacement theory
and the MSM yawns
:x
A non-european immigrant with no respect for the Heritage Americans? Unpossible!
-
No need to go to race-- most Progs are white.
-
No need to go to race-- most Progs are white.
I know, magic soil! The white progs want to import masses from the 3rd world because they are natural conservatives!
-
No need to go to race-- most Progs are white.
-
No need to go to race-- most Progs are white.
Race is just a construct, like gender!
-
I think my point is understood.
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2023/03/kanakengeld/
-
https://nypost.com/2023/03/24/kent-police-lists-rape-as-a-non-emergency-crime/
Magic soil not working.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/07/ny-times-u-s-imports-poverty-as-young-migrants-make-up-44-of-poor-children/
THE LEFT they come here for new life , to escape danger persecution etc.....
unsaid is the obvious : they are future Democrats .
if they were to be future Republicans
we would here the LEFT screech that they are threatening out workers, the unions would be screaming, the border would be closed ala every dc operative in existence.
-
This should be a very potent point, but likely will not gain traction , , ,
-
rarely said is the obvious that Democrats support open borders to increase their roles
(just like the Church)
instead we here pundits playing dumb and asking each other :
"why do you think they are not enforcing immigration law"
so darn frustrating they can't /won't just state the totally obvious !
Mark Levin finally said a week or two ago on his Sunday show the obvious :
the Left are trying to wipe us (repubs /conserv) out as stated here for yrs
-
https://gatesofvienna.net/2023/04/the-invasion-and-ethnic-cleansing-of-a-small-archipelago/
-
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/01/voyageurs-wolf-project/
-
in 6 days
on May 11
woe is us
-
Yup.
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rush_of_1889
now numbers in the millions
-
it is Cinco de Mayo day for ALL when the flood gates open (but don't worry : Biden sent 1,500 Nat Guards to border :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo
I hear they celebrate Gettysburg in Mexico .
-
https://washingtonengager.com/2023/05/serial-killer-obama-dreamer
-
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2804348
didn't Yon bring this up recently at the Darien gap
about TB
it is on rise
in US
BUT NO MENTION FROM ILLEGALS BRINGING IT IN AND NOT BEING SCREENED
I had many immigrants who we tested for TB ; but they were legal and had to be tested
and screened
I can just here the authors of the article stating they do not want to make this political and just focus on the medical need for screening
rather then immigration
when in the same journal we see race , abortion , LBGTQ etc topics presented all the time and always with LEFT wing agenda
-
>10,000 per day
and almost surely much higher
how can they count all of them ?
3.65 MILLION per yr
on top of millions since Biden elected
on top of 20 to 30 million overall here illegally
but who really knows
a good 10 % of people here should be removed .
of course that will never happen
US citizenship
replaced with ward of the Democratic party controlled government
-
This will literally change everything. In a horrific way.
>10,000 per day
and almost surely much higher
how can they count all of them ?
3.65 MILLION per yr
on top of millions since Biden elected
on top of 20 to 30 million overall here illegally
but who really knows
a good 10 % of people here should be removed .
of course that will never happen
US citizenship
replaced with ward of the Democratic party controlled government
-
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404374.php
This will literally change everything. In a horrific way.
>10,000 per day
and almost surely much higher
how can they count all of them ?
3.65 MILLION per yr
on top of millions since Biden elected
on top of 20 to 30 million overall here illegally
but who really knows
a good 10 % of people here should be removed .
of course that will never happen
US citizenship
replaced with ward of the Democratic party controlled government
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/555/426/original/212bc5e0639ea739.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/555/426/original/212bc5e0639ea739.jpg)
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404374.php
This will literally change everything. In a horrific way.
>10,000 per day
and almost surely much higher
how can they count all of them ?
3.65 MILLION per yr
on top of millions since Biden elected
on top of 20 to 30 million overall here illegally
but who really knows
a good 10 % of people here should be removed .
of course that will never happen
US citizenship
replaced with ward of the Democratic party controlled government
-
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404407.php
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/555/426/original/212bc5e0639ea739.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/555/426/original/212bc5e0639ea739.jpg)
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404374.php
This will literally change everything. In a horrific way.
>10,000 per day
and almost surely much higher
how can they count all of them ?
3.65 MILLION per yr
on top of millions since Biden elected
on top of 20 to 30 million overall here illegally
but who really knows
a good 10 % of people here should be removed .
of course that will never happen
US citizenship
replaced with ward of the Democratic party controlled government
-
big "documentary" last night:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/politics/darien-gap-migrants-panama-what-matters/index.html
Only watched parts of it ( I mean really how long can anyone stand watching propaganda? you know is BS)
showed the hardships of the illegals traversing the gap
so we should all feel sorry for them and sympathize
and feel guilty and come to some conclusion that we should help them come here and offer them an open border - of cours
ZERO about stresses on citizens , the direct slaps to the faces of those immigrants who went through the legal process
and of course NOT A PEEP ABOUT HOW THIS IS THE FAULT OF BIDEN ADMINISTRATION.
THEY NEVER HAVE ANYONE ON THEIR SHOWS THAT SAYS TO THEIR FACES ;
IF THESE WERE FUTURE DEMOCRATS WOULD YOU STILL BE MAKING EXCUSES, CHEERING THIS ON AND PROMOTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
THEN WHEN THEY SAY IT WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE CALL THEM OUT AS *F'ING* LIARS.
-
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1657081966552834055?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2BDNQBdmE7cmX5OHhXWa-3QDRP_TbHG8UhVZ6rOYkYEHGTDS5ScaA-k4g
-
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1657081966552834055?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2BDNQBdmE7cmX5OHhXWa-3QDRP_TbHG8UhVZ6rOYkYEHGTDS5ScaA-k4g
"We need to be taken care of...."
-
Choose carefully what we ask for, for we shall get it-- good and hard.
-
damn the reparations cash could have gone to them - not illegals :wink:
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/05/13/california-faces-a-32-billion-deficit-this-was-not-an-easy-budget/
***Even “conservative” television outlets use the term “migrant crisis” rather than the accurate “illegal aliens.” Migrants migrate, they flow with work – in for planting, then out, then back in for the harvest, etc. – the invaders aren’t going anywhere, they have no intention of “migrating” away from their destination.***
good point ! whatever happened to the truth : ILLEGAL ALIENS
-
Should the legal process ever get that far, well over 95% of them should be adjudicated to be illegal.
The terminological fustercluck now is that DHS is giving a lot of them paperwork.
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/05/13/california-faces-a-32-billion-deficit-this-was-not-an-easy-budget/
***Even “conservative” television outlets use the term “migrant crisis” rather than the accurate “illegal aliens.” Migrants migrate, they flow with work – in for planting, then out, then back in for the harvest, etc. – the invaders aren’t going anywhere, they have no intention of “migrating” away from their destination.***
good point ! whatever happened to the truth : ILLEGAL ALIENS
It's literally the definition from Federal Immigration law. If you are not a US citizen/person you are an ALIEN. Some aliens are present in the US legally, some ILLEGALLY.
-
something very strange we have myorkas and his DNC propagandists running headlines
border surge did NOT HAPPEN
numbers down not up. (who the hell believes this )
*if* it is true it has NOTHING to with anything Biden
perhaps due to Gov Abbott placing razor wire
and Texas taking the matter into their own hands
of course even down 50% is an absurd number of illegal aliens entering the US just the same
-
My current and quite fluid understanding is that Biden/Mayrokas/DHS are handing out paperwork via online applications, emptying overcrowded facilities with no return dates, coordinating with the cartels to deliver human product out of camera sight, etc etc.
-
reads western journal
headline
https://www.westernjournal.com/chaos-confusion-nbc-host-tears-biden-border-chief-shreds-air-border-crisis/
funny I watch the interview as a debacle
myorkass has his spin all prepared
and lies , deceives, distorts , cherry picks and completely masks the administrations desire to have a large wave of democrat voters wipe dilute out Republican voters
Why does not anyone call him a liar and call him out on this?
[not that it would matter really]
-
reads western journal
headline
https://www.westernjournal.com/chaos-confusion-nbc-host-tears-biden-border-chief-shreds-air-border-crisis/
funny I watch the interview as a debacle
myorkass has his spin all prepared
and lies , deceives, distorts , cherry picks and completely masks the administrations desire to have a large wave of democrat voters wipe dilute out Republican voters
Why does not anyone call him a liar and call him out on this?
[not that it would matter really]
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/724/157/original/80d20fe816ede4d7.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/724/157/original/80d20fe816ede4d7.png)
-
https://twitter.com/ramzpaul/status/1658227521849118723/photo/1
(https://twitter.com/ramzpaul/status/1658227521849118723/photo/1)
-
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/05/21/white-house-bidens-migration-is-an-economic-strategy/
admit it is on purpose, but still do not state the real reason - more Democrat voters
and wipe out Republicans .
just because it is obvious does not make it so. only the msm can do that . :wink: :roll:
and republicans seem to be silent about it to.
O'Reilly asked Keven McCarthy about the "great replacement theory " [obviously more then just a theory ] and he refused to answer by talking around it.
Not sure why they fear stating the obvious for some reason.....
-
If you say what anyone can see, you are a Nahtzee! And an anti-semite! RaaaaAAaaaaaacist!
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/05/21/white-house-bidens-migration-is-an-economic-strategy/
admit it is on purpose, but still do not state the real reason - more Democrat voters
and wipe out Republicans .
just because it is obvious does not make it so. only the msm can do that . :wink: :roll:
and republicans seem to be silent about it to.
O'Reilly asked Keven McCarthy about the "great replacement theory " [obviously more then just a theory ] and he refused to answer by talking around it.
Not sure why they fear stating the obvious for some reason.....
-
Agree with both CCP and GM here.
Republican cowardice here has devastating political consequence to the lasting detriment of our country.
This forum serves as a redoubt from which the true case is made (one of many) will the goal of showing how it can be done.
-
https://sonar21.com/who-are-the-real-involuntary-celibate-violent-extremists/
-
I think crafty pointed this out a week or so ago
why did the numbers go down with end title 42?
we KNOW it is some smoke and mirrors scam the Biden administration is famous for:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/26/texas-sues-biden-administration-for-illegally-pre-approving-migrants-through-mobile-app/
illegals will be the scabs of those who will not agree to DEI or woke policies , I am thinking
if enough employees said "I am NOT going to play Woke DEI ball"
they could all be replaced by the illegals. the new meaning of "SCABS"
-
I think crafty pointed this out a week or so ago
why did the numbers go down with end title 42?
we KNOW it is some smoke and mirrors scam the Biden administration is famous for:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/26/texas-sues-biden-administration-for-illegally-pre-approving-migrants-through-mobile-app/
illegals will be the scabs of those who will not agree to DEI or woke policies , I am thinking
if enough employees said "I am NOT going to play Woke DEI ball"
they could all be replaced by the illegals. the new meaning of "SCABS"
The young, military age males are here to wipe out heritage Americans.
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/138/941/473/original/548fd3904da331d0.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/138/941/473/original/548fd3904da331d0.png)
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To be precise, given the LEO helmets the latter picture seems to be Britain.
-
To be precise, given the LEO helmets the latter picture seems to be Britain.
It is.
What did they die for?
-
King/Queen, NOT the Natural Law of the American Constitution.
-
King/Queen, NOT the Natural Law of the American Constitution.
Did they die thinking they were protecting their island home from invasion?
-
Your intended meaning is unclear.
In the case of WW2 (and perhaps WW1?) the answer would be "Yes".
-
Your intended meaning is unclear.
In the case of WW2 (and perhaps WW1?) the answer would be "Yes".
[/quote
So their nations could be invaded and destroyed now.
Good thing that can't happen here!
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/30/exclusive-trump-pledges-executive-order-day-one-presidency-to-end-birthright-citizenship-for-illegal-aliens-birth-tourism/
he makes a promise he cannot deliver
as this is 14 th amendment
so he is fuming un reality though the concept is needed
in my view
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/30/exclusive-trump-pledges-executive-order-day-one-presidency-to-end-birthright-citizenship-for-illegal-aliens-birth-tourism/
he makes a promise he cannot deliver
as this is 14 th amendment
so he is fuming un reality though the concept is needed
in my view
The 14th DOES NOT apply to persons illegally present and their spawn.
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/does-constitution-guarantee-citizenship-all-born-here-n411451
since not expressly addressed
Larry Lib and his lawyer listers will be all over this .
how many votes in Senate to pass would be needed
50 + VP , 60 , or even 67? to pass a bill that clarifies this once and for all?
-
My LINO take:
Perfectly reasonable action for the head of the executive branch to direct agency actions. APA (Admin Procedure Act) probably requires certain steps be taken to change existing regs e.g. period forpublic comment etc.
Assuming this goes through, then opponents got the federal courts.
-
total spitting in the face of legals and citizens:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2023/06/02/one-state-is-offering-free-college-to-illegal-immigrants-n2624003
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Fateh
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/06/04/washpost-op-ed-lets-celebrate-as-migrants-replace-americans/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Rampell
there are only two ways to stop this
1) either the illegals all have to vote Republican - which of course is impossible
2) or we get an illegal to take this person's job -
then I assure the celebration will stop !
-
https://frankspeech.com/video/harbinger-things-come-shocking-video-and-report-todd-benson-liberty-county-texas-has-been
Coming soon to a place near you.
-
Will be spreading that around!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/140/827/322/original/5aa31eb31673e651.mp4
This is because of slavery and LBJ!
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/140/827/322/original/5aa31eb31673e651.mp4
This is because of slavery and LBJ!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg)
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/williamdavis/2023/06/21/checks-for-illegal-aliens-could-be-coming-in-texas-n2624745
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4185342/old-hindu-wisdom
-
second
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/21/doj-fires-black-immigration-judge-edwin-pieters-on/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=ZI3xJ8TPPbBY6U5ecQzN4AfCPiKGvSbP4Zo4kzMgtK8a8I3ER9558WNEUlObI3KN&bt_ts=1687428588907
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/049/657/original/012624c62cf1333f.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/049/657/original/012624c62cf1333f.jpg)
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/140/827/322/original/5aa31eb31673e651.mp4
This is because of slavery and LBJ!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg)
-
https://twitter.com/Klaus_Arminius/status/1671469589169942531
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/049/657/original/012624c62cf1333f.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/049/657/original/012624c62cf1333f.jpg)
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/140/827/322/original/5aa31eb31673e651.mp4
This is because of slavery and LBJ!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/140/828/909/original/088f3820df652cb6.jpg)
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the LEFT of course has totally changed the topic and those on the right have jumped right in to the trap
ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS
CHANGED TO :
WE NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION !!!!! (meaning instead of coming in illegally simply change the laws so they come in legally just the same)
and of course the Redumblicans start chanting the same ..... line
we NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION
ME - no you don't just enforce the damn laws already on the books.
-
Exactly.
quote author=ccp link=topic=1080.msg160410#msg160410 date=1687522712]
the LEFT of course has totally changed the topic and those on the right have jumped right in to the trap
ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS
CHANGED TO :
WE NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION !!!!! (meaning instead of coming in illegally simply change the laws so they come in legally just the same)
and of course the Redumblicans start chanting the same ..... line
we NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION
ME - no you don't just enforce the damn laws already on the books.
[/quote]
-
https://anncoulter.com/2023/06/28/could-somebody-keep-trumps-promises/
I guess somehow Joy Reid thinks having millions of illegals in the US is good for American Blacks.
It reason must be to wipe the Republicans .
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/866/121/original/082f1b1fee2a8cbb.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/866/121/original/082f1b1fee2a8cbb.png)
Exactly.
quote author=ccp link=topic=1080.msg160410#msg160410 date=1687522712]
the LEFT of course has totally changed the topic and those on the right have jumped right in to the trap
ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS
CHANGED TO :
WE NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION !!!!! (meaning instead of coming in illegally simply change the laws so they come in legally just the same)
and of course the Redumblicans start chanting the same ..... line
we NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION
ME - no you don't just enforce the damn laws already on the books.
[/quote]
-
https://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2023/07/paris-beirut-of-europe.html
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/866/121/original/082f1b1fee2a8cbb.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/866/121/original/082f1b1fee2a8cbb.png)
Exactly.
quote author=ccp link=topic=1080.msg160410#msg160410 date=1687522712]
the LEFT of course has totally changed the topic and those on the right have jumped right in to the trap
ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS
CHANGED TO :
WE NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION !!!!! (meaning instead of coming in illegally simply change the laws so they come in legally just the same)
and of course the Redumblicans start chanting the same ..... line
we NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION
ME - no you don't just enforce the damn laws already on the books.
[/quote]
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg)
-
https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg
(https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg)
RAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaaacist!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg)
-
https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg
(https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg)
RAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaaacist!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/980/051/original/0cb4d2e028526ced.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/980/051/original/0cb4d2e028526ced.jpeg)
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg)
-
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/image0000057.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/image0000057.jpg)
https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg
(https://media2.locals.com/images/posts/originals/2023-07-04/91572/91572_ue7keqx343x3v69.jpeg)
RAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaaacist!
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/980/051/original/0cb4d2e028526ced.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/980/051/original/0cb4d2e028526ced.jpeg)
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/936/698/original/69d2c259283adcbe.jpg)
-
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/07/illinois-to-require-landlords-rent-to-illegal-aliens-as-housing-costs-surge/
-
Fk.
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4325610/poas-parasites-on-arrival
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4325624/the-invasion-continues-with-direct-aiding-and-abetting-by-wef-ccp-lieutenant-texas-governor-gr
-
third
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/4325620/yep-and-imagine-how-big-pharma-will-use-real-typhus-real-tb-real-malaria-dengue-and-more-as
-
more tax dollars to fund the illegal invasion needed
and Republicans should vote for this too!!!
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/08/09/hochul-ny-migrant-problem-because-of-the-border-situation-we-want-money-in-ukraine-package-and-work-permits/
as usual the big middle finger to most of the nation.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/illegal-immigrants-unleash-chaos-in-upscale-manhattan-neighborhood/?bypass_key=dGx6ODMvNDlNNlV4d3F3b0ZNd0IwZz09OjphMFJWTWpWNWJIVlVVMmQyVDFKUVNrbEZUVVZNZHowOQ%3D%3D?utm_source%3Demail&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=32495042&utm_source=Sailthru
-
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/migrants-refugees-illegal-immigrants/2023/09/14/id/1134411/
I can understand about WMT since when I go there a large portion of their customers are clearly illegal....
But Pfizer - smacks of a corporate payoff for the boast to its vaccine funding .....
In the end the rest of Americans simply get run over....
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/13/judge-again-declares-daca-is-illegal-setting-up-li/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=f4b7%2Bc9okgaGkkYfLQ5ljqTpTsIbigO07X3Kpm5e1QL7lnMgBLlpAM45RJRInUv%2F&bt_ts=1694695176072
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/illegal-immigrants-pouring-into-nyc-face-no-consequences-for-bad-behavior-residents-say/?bypass_key=YnhmT0g3YWZKWndDRnhuNDB6bzM3UT09OjpSbVl5VGxoS0x6QjRhVTV3T0ZsVk5qRlVNbWhzWnowOQ%3D%3D?utm_source%3Demail&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=32723304&utm_source=Sailthru
-
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/01/29/150501695/port-au-prince-a-city-of-millions-with-no-sewer-system
-
since the Repubs are so afraid of being labeled "xenophobic" (where did this word come from anyway?) , racist, etc they now ad hoc universally
substituted illegal alien with "fentanyl crisis".
Somehow, we always let the LEFT control the language and the debate.
There are so many immigrants in the US probably a third illegal we seem afraid to "insult them"
Hence, our Repub leaders are terrified to speak the truth:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/05/pharmacy-benefit-managers-the-big-insurance-con-that-drives-up-your-drug-prices-and-their-profits/
-
why can't we simply have an honest President?
is that asking too much? :cry:
https://nypost.com/2023/10/05/biden-says-he-cant-stop-border-wall-construction-blames-congress/
the fact that we are talking only about 20 miles
anyway seems to elude the media
this is just window dressing - the whole thing.
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/chicago-to-give-illegal-immigrants-up-to-9000-each-for-housing-costs-5511128?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2023-10-18-1&src_cmp=breaking-2023-10-18-1&utm_medium=email&cta_utm_source=News&est=j7b8BdPTSVPJKX3qS6w1pJT5ciWg6QjC4NeW2yP8v8L05GdpLcbsPfzYCR7TF3m3lrv7
-
https://www.city-journal.org/article/illegal-immigrations-terrifying-cost
(Doug). Why are there ANY costs of immigration not paid by the 'immigrants'?
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Highest number of border arrests in a year EVER:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/biden-border-crisis-over-two-million-encounters-reported-by-cbp-highest-number-ever-recorded-in-a-single-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=biden-border-crisis-over-two-million-encounters-reported-by-cbp-highest-number-ever-recorded-in-a-single-year
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I gather there is a dust up between DeSantis and Haley wherein he accuses her of advocating for taking Gazan refugees.
Where lays the Truth here?
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"Now let’s return to immigration. Do the work skills and ethic newcomers bring with them define them? Are those qualities the most important things they bring to our shores? Since they’re not robots and won’t actually just be cogs in the economy, no. Rather, the most important things they bring are their beliefs."
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/hidden_marxism_treating_immigrants_like_robots.html
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That is a perceptive point. I will be adding it to my repetoire.
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https://anncoulter.com/2023/10/25/staple-a-green-card-to-their-kill-the-jews-signs/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tensions-rise-between-new-and-established-migrants/ar-AA1j32k8?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=91012181f16d4721b39dc28b772cde1b&ei=12
what a cynical sick joke
on true citizens
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only a matter of time before enterprising Indian smuggles would get in to the free for all :
https://www.wsj.com/world/india/indians-are-entering-the-u-s-illegally-in-record-numbers-2cf19e38
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More than 10 million people have been reported illegally entering the United States since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the largest number in American history.
The influx of illegal immigrants total more than the individual populations of 41 of the 50 states.
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/illegal-border-crossers-total-over-10-million-biden-inauguration
If Democrats don't think that news will hurt them in the next election, why are they pretending to build a wall now?
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/texas/article-12663663/Venezuelas-worst-gangsters-criminals-cross-border-carrying-orders-dictator-Maduro.html
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1886 - give us your poor your down trodden your huddled masses
2023 democrats - give us your criminals , you terrorists, drug dealers, human traffickers, people who hate America who hate Jews who hate white people your communists your socialists freeloaders for they will vote for the democrat party
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DR. ETIQUETTE 🤦♂️
@DrEtiquette
The Government of Venezuela provides Hezbollah operatives with full packages of false identity documents. Hundreds of thousands of middle aged men from Venezuela have already entered the U.S. border. How many of them are Hezbollah operatives?
https://x.com/DrEtiquette/status/1719142397576200632?s=20
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Please post in Homeland Securty as well.
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https://amgreatness.com/2023/11/01/americas-immigration-daydream-is-coming-to-an-end/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/analysts-warn-that-pakistan-s-anti-migrant-crackdown-risks-radicalizing-deported-afghans/ar-AA1jEHfd?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b918061855c24dc58a4ea2280f363d9c&ei=13
this fits with their immigration agenda in the US
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Note the complete absence of discussion of which tribe they are -- e.g. Pashtuns or something else.
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Unsurprisingly the MSM is loathe to cover the impact Abbot’s bussing is having on the immigration debate:
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/illegals-vamoose-and-self-deport?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR2peDIHktpL7cYNKOnVjjvAuY9EMkTcJdWeMwuC2MNRXgdOInpQNSFUHuQ
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Heh heh.
DeSantis should get some credit too for the Cape Cod move.
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" Unsurprisingly the MSM is loathe to cover the impact Abbot’s bussing is having on the immigration debate:"
except to call it a "STUNT".
I don't know what you would call total deliberate negligence in NOT enforcing immigration law for benefit of one political party and their donors.
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Yes I think it was DeSantis first and Abbott joined in right away.
A note, I cringed when Michael Yon ripped hard on Abbott as worthless or worse.
We are lucky to have a few Republican Governors around. Wish I had one.
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"A note, I cringed when Michael Yon ripped hard on Abbott as worthless or worse."
Agreed.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=35e9f9270bb4ba4089253ab1f5a674bf_656600ff_6d25b5f&selDate=20231128
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To the extent that this piece fails to mention the dominant role of bringing in very extended family members and fails to consider benefit to America, it is disingenuous.
===========
The Border Crisis Stymies Needed Immigration Reform
Too many migrants are entering illegally, but the system for legal admissions has broken down as well.
Jason L. Riley
By
Jason L. Riley
Follow
Dec. 5, 2023 6:34 pm ET
Illegal border crossings continue to dominate the migrant debate, which is understandable given that we are, as John Adams put it, a nation of laws. Illegal entries have reached record highs in recent years, and the Biden administration’s response is best summarized as somewhere between incompetence and indifference.
Republicans want Democrats to pay a political price in next year’s election, and perhaps they will. But the situation on the border isn’t simply another political headache for the administration, like high gasoline prices or upticks in violent crime. Rather, it’s a major issue that could reverberate for decades—no matter which party wins next year.
(MARC: I just saw that 15+% of people here are foreign born)
For starters, porous borders compromise homeland security. The world is a dangerous place, as recent events have reminded us, and the government needs to know who’s entering the country. Increasingly, the southern border has become a portal not only for Central Americans but also for tens of thousands of foreign nationals from as far away as Asia and Africa. A large majority are economic migrants in search of employment and better living conditions. (and, as such should not be admitted) Still, the possibility that some small percentage is coming here to do us harm deserves more attention than it’s getting from the White House. (Well, that sure is understated!)
Releasing millions of “asylum seekers” into the U.S. interior with little clue of who they are or where they are headed may seem like madness, but Democrats in Congress think it’s a pathway to comprehensive immigration reform. (No, they think to dilute American citizens with undocumented voters) Which brings us to a second pressing problem with the current migrant mess. So long as the border problem persists at crisis levels, the debate over how to repair our immigration system for admitting people legally is going nowhere.
Donald Trump believes that foreign nationals reduce job opportunities for U.S. natives, but the fact remains that despite heightened levels of undocumented immigration, the country still has far more job openings than job seekers. (the millions of unskilled non-English speaking illegals are not likely to mesh up with our needs) The real problem is a labor shortage that hasn’t gone away even as wages have risen. (Not after inflation!!!) According to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, demographic trends are to blame, and more legal immigration should be part of any solution.
“The retirement of the Baby Boom generation is swelling the ranks of retirees entering the large entitlement programs that rely on labor taxes for their funds, raising the specter of a future of smaller cohorts of workers paying higher taxes in a slower-growing economy,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin writes in a new paper. “The reform of employment-based immigration can address the near-term scarcity of labor, as well as the looming demographic crisis created by low fertility and the retiring Baby Boom generation.”
Among the changes that Mr. Holtz-Eakin calls for is a less-restrictive H-1B visa program for skilled workers. The number of visas, which often go to graduates of U.S. universities, has been capped at 85,000 since 2004, even though more than 480,000 people are currently seeking one. Visa holders aren’t permitted to switch jobs or start businesses. In addition to the low cap, no country may receive more than 7% of the annual allotment, a rule that stymies nationals from populous countries such as India. “The result is long wait times for skilled workers and an inflexible system for employers,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin writes.
Opponents of the visa program argue that employers use it to hire foreign nationals at lower salaries than they would have to pay an American worker. But that would be a clear violation of the law,(and such violations would be enforced in the real world exactly how?) and academic studies repeatedly have shown that H-1B visa holders receive the same or higher pay than comparable U.S. professionals.
Mr. Holtz-Eakin stresses that our inefficient migrant policies are noticed by other countries and have put us at a competitive disadvantage in the international competition for human capital. Earlier this year Canada announced that it was offering 10,000 work permits to foreigners residing in the U.S. on H-1B visas. Within 48 hours of the program’s launch, all the slots were taken. “At present,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin writes, “the near-term outlook for labor is scarcity, the long-term trend is slowing population growth, and the United States’ global competitors are more successful in attracting high-skill immigrants.”
You can support more legal immigration and better border security at the same time, and polling shows that most Americans do. They understand that allowing more people to come lawfully will help reduce unlawful entries. Moreover, there is agreement among Democratic and Republican lawmakers that the system is dysfunctional and outdated. There is no reason we can’t upgrade our policies in a way that accommodates the aspirations of migrants and satisfies the demands of a 21st-century economy. But don’t expect to see bipartisan appetite for constructive reform so long as illegal immigration rages unchecked.
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I am one of the Americans who does not support increasing legal immigration
We don't need more visas
is not 15% of the pop being foreign born enough?
I suspect it is even more.
I like Jason, and see him all the time on conservative cable but when one reads this article one can smell the WSJ stench:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_L._Riley
WSJ is pro Wall Street.
Not necessarily pro middle class or even what is best in US interests overall.
recent article claims just the opposite - job openings and unemployment are more closely matching.
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Riley is right about the broad demographic trends-- without immigration we would be in demographic contraction, and we see where that has gotten Europe (and Russia!). Rather than quantity I would focus on quality-- benefit to America, instead of what we have now-- put in place by Sen. Teddy Kennedy decades ago. Uprooting this will be a major and vicious food fight.
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" Rather than quantity I would focus on quality-- benefit to America "
what is your definition of quality?
we have enough professors researchers with seemingly endless transfer of intellectual property
to CCP etc
though probably just as much is stolen via US citizens too.
I would rather have 25 low wage workers who will like America our Constitution fight for us in our military and do great lawn service then 25 graduate students who don't like America etc.
Jason only sees those with advanced degrees as "quality"
how is that working out?
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Feliz%20Navidad%21
https://nypost.com/2023/12/26/news/colorado-gov-jared-polis-ripped-for-cringy-feliz-navidad-rendition-as-migrant-crisis-surges-in-denver/
my translation : FU America and all Republicans and all lower and middle class people
dems are in power for good now!
:x
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-mexico-keep-border-crossings-133447779.html
who could have guessed
got to get as many illegals here as possible just in case Trump wins
Indeed they may as well offer the illegals border protection jobs
why bother to pretend we have a border protection/home land security force that is allowed to enforce the law.
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How’s this for a scam? In one instance the cost of the plane ticket to perpetrate the crime was more than the amount taken in the robbery:
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/03/purported-robberies-were-staged-to-support-fraudulent-visa-applications/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-he-will-mass-deport-migrants-with-225-year-old-law-fdr-used-to-remove-thousands-of-japanese-and-germans-during-the-second-world-war-and-cancel-every-biden-policy-that-has-caused-a-catastrophe-of-historic-proportions/ar-AA1mpGHw
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I am not so sure that is politically savvy or not to make the equivalence as noted.
Reagan apologized for this and paid some restitution 40 yrs later of course.
Japanese were legal citizens or residents, whereas today they are NOT.
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for nothing in return:
https://www.rawstory.com/mcconnell-gop-immigration/
so we have to "deal" to get an administration to do its Constitutional duty and enforce the law
and his deal is to continue to not enforce the law and give all the illegals jobs.....
so of a b...
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Left out is the idea that they need to be here legally, but the point about a worker shortage in Maine may have merit.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maine-has-a-workforce-shortage-problem-that-it-hopes-to-resolve-with-recently-arrived-immigrants/ar-BB1gXvLL?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=cd5060d6a23f4924a00cf3e75a4173e8&ei=28
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I boldly predict this newfound concern will last until the first week in November:
https://nypost.com/2024/01/19/news/biden-admits-border-isnt-secure-says-massive-changes-needed/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR1ItiX3Ij0WcI9zqeCduhT2Ri9-IUvZfMuN-fKTwvdfGdqxLbH7XTk6nAY
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Jame’s O’Keefe consistently sniff out big stories the rest of the MSM doesn’t have the independence or stones investigate:
https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1747736951044612265?s=20
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Respect for O'Keefe!
May I ask you to post that in the Homeland thread as well?
TIA.
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Don’t fall for the Senate’s ‘border security’ deal
No one in the room is really interested in solving this problem
By David N. Bossie
For the past three years, the uniparty in Washington has allowed President Biden’s deadly open-borders policy to deteriorate into a full-blown catastrophe without lifting a finger.
Only now — with the situation well past the boiling point and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, poised to amplify the critically important issue to Trumpian levels — is the Washington establishment rushing to throw the dangerously incompetent Mr. Biden a life preserver.
Make no mistake. This is part of a coordinated effort to stop Mr. Trump from being reelected, and it’s being led in the Senate by liberal Republican James Lankford.
Everything the Washington swamp throws at Mr. Trump, he deftly swats aside and moves forward like a man on a mission. Through a season of political indictments, sham lawsuits and an unconstitutional push to disenfranchise voters by throwing him off the ballot, Mr. Trump is stronger today than ever.
Mr. Biden and his cronies went too far when they implemented their government election interference strategy. And now — in an eerily similar fashion to 2016 — defenders of the broken status quo in Washington are in panic mode. The fentanyl, humanitarian and national security crises that Mr. Biden’s lawless border policy created just might be enough to propel Mr. Trump back to the White House because Mr. Biden has succeeded in making every city in the country a border town.
So, it’s time to inject some honesty into the illegal immigration debate. When it comes to the border-security negotiations taking place in the Senate, no one in the room is actually interested in solving the problem.
There’s nothing conservative about the Schumer-Lankford proposal. If there were anything remotely conservative about it, left-wing Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer wouldn’t put his name on the bill. Just look at the leaked outline of the alleged plan; legitimate border security measures are nowhere to be found.
Nothing about a border wall, nothing about enforcing immigration law, nothing about cracking down on sanctuary cities, nothing about increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, nothing about confronting the cartels, nothing about fentanyl. Let’s face it: Americans have come to realize that Mr. Biden opened our border on purpose, and no Democrat wants to fix it.
Perhaps the most infuriating part of the amnesty plan that’s percolating in the upper chamber of Congress is the line “5,000 migrants per day allowed in the U.S.” For the past two decades, we’ve come to know what language like this represents. It acts as a magnet for illegal immigration.
To make matters worse, we’ve all seen the headlines about the record 302,000 migrant encounters last month at the southern border. So, the Senate’s answer is to welcome 150,000 people to enter our country illegally per month. Let’s stop kidding ourselves: These kinds of liberal policies will only cause the border emergency to expand.
Republicans in the House did their job by passing the Secure the Border Act of 2023 several months ago. There’s a good reason that Mr. Biden, Mr. Schumer and the rest of the bipartisan open-borders caucus in the Senate have sat on the legislation for so long: It would secure the border in a way that reflects the wishes of Americans. If Mr. Biden or Senate leaders were listening to the American people, they would have put the Secure the Border Act on the floor, engaged in a transparent debate, offered amendments, and moved the bill forward. But that didn’t happen because of powerful special interest groups that benefit from an open border. Again, the only loser in this equation is the safety and security of Americans. Thankfully, there’s a candidate who is on their side: Mr. Trump. Every Republican in the Senate must come to their senses and get on board to kill this legislation. Over 8 million immigrants have entered the country illegally under President Biden, and God only knows how many millions of so-called gotaways are here as well.
This problem is destroying our national sovereignty and the rule of law. And let’s make one thing perfectly clear: This bill will serve only as an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign. Any Republican in the Senate who votes in favor of this disgraceful plan is supporting Mr. Biden’s reelection bid and hastening America’s lurch to lawlessness and socialism. That’s the bottom line.
The plan forward for Republicans in Congress should be to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas without delay, double down on the Secure the Border Act, and refuse to fund any aspect of Mr. Biden’s open-border policy for one more second.
Polls indicate that a vast majority of Americans reject what Mr. Biden is doing to our country with his border catastrophe. Republicans must stand firm for real border security at all costs and draw a sharp contrast with the radical left.
David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.
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If we win the Senate and keep the House and win the WH
we will be able to shut down the border
but, I am thinking the real challenge is deporting the illegals already here.
With birthright citizenship, and the spectacle of mass deportations I just don't see it.
I am afraid it is already too late.
To change the Constitution and rid of the mis used birthright citizenship would require I think 2/3 the Senate. Thus, we can forget about it.
any other thoughts on this are welcome.
:x
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1: We can already shut down the border. Witness what Trump did.
2: Legislation closing the various "asylum" loopholes is vital. So too adding immigration admin judges! Biden has appointed many, with predictable results.
3: Though the general assumption about birthright citizenship is similar to yours, as a strict legal matter there are very strong arguments to the contrary. Gov. DeSantis articulated them quite well during his townhall on FOX. Sen. Cruz too is on board with this. Yes, there will be strong resistance with plenty of nasty accusations, but our case is legit and we need to do the work to establish our arguments in the public mind.
4: Mass deportations will be a firestorm no doubt, with lots of Bambi eyes from the illegals and Trump will have his hands full, but this is the sort of thing where he has fire in the belly I think/hope and yes compromises will be necessary.
NOTE WELL the 65 minute convo I posted yesterday in more than one thread!!! Yes, the entire 65 minutes!
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Texas law enforcement preventing Border Patrol from cutting razor wire, despite a court order:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/01/texas-military-department-not-allowing-border-patrol-to-cut-wire-in-shelby-park/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=texas-military-department-not-allowing-border-patrol-to-cut-wire-in-shelby-park
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This is a huge fg deal. Though reasonable to follow it on this thread, I'd rather we follow it on the Homeland thread. See my posts yesterday: https://firehydrantoffreedom.com/index.php?topic=404.2950
What Abbot has done with his assertion of Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 is profound.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/01/25/republicans-stop-trying-to-do-immigration-deals-with-the-democrats-n2633939
In defense of Marco I can say he learned his lesson on immigration "reform" and "deals" with democrats
I cannot find it now but he was on yesterday or 2 days ago , I think Cavuto, pointing out how the Dems are playing games on immigration and how they want to turn the immigration around on Repubs by pointing out to the willing MSM that they want to fix the border and the Repubs refuse to make a deal.
I think he learned his lesson.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSdCFykZhU
Budd is one of my Senators.
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As well as a Ponzi scheme, according to this piece which paints a bleak picture for blue states:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/open-border-policy-not-accident
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Watters is reporting tonight a 100% approval rate for Biden among illegals.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAS
never heard of them till the MY post.
existed since 1881.
Not even impossible my Jewish grandparents who came circa 1900, were aided by them though I doubt it.
Difference between then and what they do around the world now, is the immigrants to US are ILLEGAL!
What do these libs keep ignoring this?
Would they do the same for those who will vote R?
BTW the Catholic Church seems all too happy supporting illegal Catholics to their ranks.
Any Muslims against illegals? I don't know.
Some American born Black Muslims might be.
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addendum
I look at this right vs left
more Democrat voters for the left and less political influence for us
AND
employer vs employee
more cheap labor for those who hire people and more competition for those who work for people
simple as that
nothing new.
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:-D
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/elon-musk-claims-biden-is-trying-to-get-as-many-illegals-in-the-country-as-possible-so-he-can-make-a-one-party-state/ar-BB1hHdhr?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=39ce65ac78d54bfcb8dc3002f4b6310b&ei=14
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/south-dakota-tribe-bans-governor-from-reservation-over-us-mexico-border-remarks/ar-BB1hKIDC?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=69adf9406ebe4ae698387365b3502192&ei=16
They can ban a governor from entering their reservation?
Sue Souix for illegals !
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My Border Patrol friends speak of this one in particular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohono_O%CA%BCodham_Nation
HEAVY drug trade going through while the agent are busy elsewhere changing diapers and making sandwiches.
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I was tempted to drop this in "Crime and Punishment" and indeed this report defies categorization as it treads all sorts of horrible ground, calling into particular question how the BBC's Africa editor could possibly report fairly given her clear biases, and one wonders what she was paid for her expert testimony, but I'll leave this here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13042143/Amid-disbelief-chemical-attacker-allowed-stay-Britain-BBC-editor-paid-help-15-Somalian-criminals-stay-UK-quits-Beeb-shocking-Mail-expos.html?ito=facebook_share_article-facebook_preferred-top&fbclid=IwAR0zLarEYGtqjNWwQ5KtG_LPrlsbD88c02X225OZxV1MoE0i4SI7Wjjr3-w
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Yes, this was the better thread-- an example of the challenges of getting criminal migrants deported.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-weighs-in-on-the-economic-impacts-of-illegal-immigration/ar-BB1hLJzi?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=c87279c1cc3e4c0eaa7f12b713a2ca22&ei=22
except for this:
"As a reminder, I am very much PRO increasing legal immigration significantly," Musk added. "I’m not anti-immigration, I’m just against a massive number of unvetted people flooding into America, which any rational person should be.
I don't know why we need more immigration legal as well as illegal
we don't need more:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/312701/percentage-of-population-foreign-born-in-the-us-by-state/
I don't care if they are all rocket scientists.
To claim we need more legal immigration is a form of virtue signaling.
If we increase the legal limit then what is the difference?
It is not just about vetting........
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https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/02/05/bipartisan-border-bill-worse-than-skeptics-predicted/
who could have guessed.
anytime shyster democrat lawyers are involved we the people are screwed.
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NY DA prosecuting Trump says he wants to put the illegals that attacked the NY cops last week on double secret parole. Or something.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13046721/manhattan-DA-alvin-bragg-migrants-attacked-cops.html?ito=facebook_share_article-facebook_preferred-floatingbar&fbclid=IwAR0BD-cl78x08xAkUqLuR8qgPF8xwpGUuJH-JBP2kETRK9pMxziMs-bbbbA
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2nd post. In a day with its share of infuriating stories (see above) this one is right up there:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/02/chinese-nationals-fasting-growing-group-of-border-crossers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chinese-nationals-fasting-growing-group-of-border-crossers
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DOA! Message sent and for once if report true, received. We’re done taking shit from uniparty.
All these illegals will need to be sent packing. We need to wing all 3 houses and nuclear option of no filibuster.
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This seems something of a seismic shift:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/02/05/mitch-mcconnell-turns-border-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2N7R7YpbsV2ZNfHjlsoIlMvVsje3d5eon5pb30LuM7cPcBYF1Ip1r5N7A
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2nd post. Funny how these ringleaders and others associated with these brazen crimes are here illegally and out on bail for other crimes against the law abiding:
https://nypost.com/2024/02/05/metro/migrant-moped-crew-busted-after-stealing-cellphones-right-out-of-nyers-hands-sources/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-weighs-in-on-the-economic-impacts-of-illegal-immigration/ar-BB1hLJzi?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=c87279c1cc3e4c0eaa7f12b713a2ca22&ei=22
except for this:
"As a reminder, I am very much PRO increasing legal immigration significantly," Musk added. "I’m not anti-immigration, I’m just against a massive number of unvetted people flooding into America, which any rational person should be.
I don't know why we need more immigration legal as well as illegal
we don't need more:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/312701/percentage-of-population-foreign-born-in-the-us-by-state/
I don't care if they are all rocket scientists.
To claim we need more legal immigration is a form of virtue signaling.
If we increase the legal limit then what is the difference?
It is not just about vetting........
A point of distinction and partial disagreement.
There are (more than) two valid sides to the legal immigration argument. There is only one valid side to the illegal immigration argument. Stop it.
I agree a pause in legal immigration might be a good idea as our melting pot is fully boiled over, but I would separate that idea from where we have nearly 70% support to secure the border. Let's do it.
Remember the lesson from abortion. Roe v Wade was a wrongly decided case and the Supreme Court finally fixed it. That was not a mandate to instantly and radically change all laws state and federal. Getting that first part done and taking a breath would have been a better political approach.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Post today: "GOP Will Never Get Another Border Security Deal This Good."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/05/border-deal-immigration-senate-republicans/
Think about that. First of all, the border security is for America and Americans, not for the GOP. Good grief. And secondly why won't we? Because, and it's a complete admission, the Democrats don't want the border and the country secured. Again, if you're a voter, think about that.
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"There are (more than) two valid sides to the legal immigration argument"
I tired googling how many foreign born in the US legally
and frankly I don't know what to make of it
some stats include here legally for specific reason
some student visas(higher then reports) ~ 60 million people in US born elsewhere.
some "refugees", some claim "asylum" (don't they all do this now?)
Perhaps ~ 50 mill "legally" but that seems to include those as above with borderline or dubious excuses.
Of course we need to allow for some legal pathways, however all the people who state/claim they are against illegal immigration, but then feel the need to shout out "we need to increase legal immigration" are clearly virtue signaling.
What evidence is there we would be so helped by more legal immigration.
Is Omar a legal resident?
(I know extreme example )
How many times do we hear people on TV quickly addendum/add on to their argument they are against [illegal] immigration
with something like , "don't get me wrong I am not against immigration, but only illegal immigration"
then the next associated thought or question presented is we should INCREASE legal immigration.
My thought is why ? I don't see it or think we need do that.
It is clearly people trying to avoid the "xenophobic" label in advance. VIRTUE signaling.
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ICE can arrest people? Who knew?
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/02/report-ice-in-phoenix-arrest-illegal-immigrants-accused-of-beating-nypd-cops/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=report-ice-in-phoenix-arrest-illegal-immigrants-accused-of-beating-nypd-cops
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Ken Buck will almost certainly be on CNN soon bashing Trump and the rest of the party ......
what a turn coat :x
the other 3 I have no idea who they are
of course crats were 214 nay 0 yeah
they are stuck together like crazy glue - they never fail
only we do.
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they stuck together, Dems, but were 100% wrong on this one.
The voters want and the nation needs the border secure, and Democrats are 100% stuck together wrong.
Now we know why Republicans won't impeach Biden over corruption. It's not that they don't have the evidence. They don't have the votes.
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Very disappointed with McClintock's vote against impeaching Mayorkas. He has been a strong and principled conservative for a long time now. Caught a bit of him on FOX this morning. He was reasoned in his defense, but I disagree.
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Mark Levin
gave a lot of details about the border bill
on Monday's radio / podcast
The entire thing is a shyster scam
would do nothing to slow let alone stop illegals flooding out borders.
basically a phony pittance to building the wall which has loopholes in it that would make it so that nothing on it gets done a perhaps a few miles so Dems can run around claiming they are building the wall
has 5,000 per month intake ok at which point myorkas or biden can start emergency closures (why at 5,000 when it should be zero) but this and all the entire bill is filled with loopholes so Biden or Myorkas can ignore even these absurd restrictions
provides money to help get illegals into the interior get them jobs fast track citizenship (would take 5 yrs - just in time for 2028)
pay for more shysters provide them for free to illegals
allow anyone to claim asylum etc
give border protection people a 15 % raise in effect bribing them to jump on board with promoting this.
off the top of my head this is part of it.
McConnel is that dumb or just a "f'in" liar.
Either way (I don't know which is worse) he is a disgrace
I did not hear anything in the bill that we would want that is favorable to Repubs
and tying it to Ukraine and Israel aid was a scam from day one.
Of course the WSJ thinks it a good bill
Since when did WSJ ever really look out for America or middle class?!
Modify message
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I don't usually take the time to listen to his almost 2 hr podcasts but the one from 2/5/24 has details I have not heard anywhere else:
https://cumuluspodcastnetwork.com/pods/the-mark-levin-podcast/
PS I don't know how anyone listen to this and NOT be outraged at how these elected officials lie to us and pull the wool over our eyes like we are stupid.
375 pages of lawyer crap
gobbledygoop
so in the end the bill succeeds in advancing the crats and we get nothing
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Well this seems to rain on some previous claims, not that the MSM will press the issue….
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/02/08/white-house-officials-admit-biden-has-authority-curb-migration/?fbclid=IwAR2ubHrypQNxdaPHdO_vzzStZdSfcV5dPIyNaKhCSZZ7HyvKrgI4nDmjTYA
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2nd post: VDH takes Biden &m Dems apart regarding border policy:
https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/08/the-absurd-democrat-border-con/?fbclid=IwAR0Q2qFu7z7MVXFzNDeL1AM0ZPjxtIpNNs0FVU8LiSXhbHwz-_jGJ-ZS5BQ
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https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2024/02/09/the-absurd-democrat-border-con-n2635023
anyone know clueless Martha McCallum's email so she could sent this to "bone up".
she must have McConnel et al. connections...... :?
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OTOH I have high regard for Martha, but it does seem on this one she has been babboozled.
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https://news.yahoo.com/flipping-script-biden-promises-hit-100047154.html
what a joke.
in a week he will forget when the bill was even recommended
I wonder if he read the bill and has any clue what is in it.
:roll: :wink:
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This is so stupid it is beyond the pale:
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/4458612-history-confirms-republicans-rejected-a-once-in-a-lifetime-immigration-opportunity/
Why don't we simply disband the R party would be a lot easier.
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https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1755328445679034779?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1755328445679034779%7Ctwgr%5E863881167cf21b71bbe1169f59033bb2635420f6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stateofunion.org%2F2024%2F02%2F10%2Fborder-patrol-chief-breaks-down-border-bill-declares-border-has-never-been-secure-over-last-3-decades-2%2F
I don't buy it.
the bill helps to process people to get in. not stay out!
what is this guy talking about?
martha doesn't mention he was appointed "chief" just since 6/23.
BY BIDEN of course.
why would he pick him?
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A 15% pay raise may have something to do with it too.
Regarding Martha, maybe her thought process is "Border Patrol would know."
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3.5 million migrant work passes help lift economy
Low wages to weigh down per capita growth
BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Biden administration issued nearly 3.5 million work passes last year to migrants, many of them caught and released at the border, and provided an unexpected boost to the economy.
The surge of migrants under President Biden helped stave off what some analysts predicted was a guaranteed recession and was poised to help keep the economy humming for the next couple of years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
CBO now figures that the labor force will have 5.2 million more people over the next decade than projected, making the economic numbers a bit rosier. The U.S. gross domestic product will be $7 trillion more, and federal revenue will be $1 trillion more.
“More workers means more output, more income, and that in turn leads to higher revenue,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel told lawmakers on Wednesday.
The findings provided a different perspective on the chaos in the immigration system under Mr.
Biden and delivered a new argument to immigrant rights advocates seeking to defuse anger over the border.
“We have an unexpected bounty in the American economy because of the unexpected surge in migration,” said Douglas Rivlin, senior director of communications at America’s Voice. “The reality is that immigrants and immigration are critical to economic growth and critical to the U.S.’s comparative advantage to other countries.”
CBO said it expects 3.3 million net new immigrants this year alone. An estimated 2.4 million of those are irregular migrants without legal visas who are jumping the border or being brought into the U.S. through the Biden administration’s legally iffy use of “parole” powers.
In 2021, the country netted just 600,000 irregular migrants.
Mr. Swagel said the new arrivals fill the U.S. labor force, boosting the economy’s productivity.
That’s not good news for people who must compete with the newcomers. CBO said the migrants are generally expected to work in low-wage jobs, “putting downward pressure on average wages.”
Given the larger population, it turns out that per capita GDP also will dip. In other words, the economy will be bigger, but the average worker will be slightly worse off, said CBO, predicting that real wages will be “slightly lower than they would have been otherwise” in the coming decade because of immigration.
That part is not mentioned enough, said Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies. He said the “bigger is better” argument obfuscates what it means for workers.
“If all that mattered was aggregate GDP, then India is a lot richer than Sweden. But what matters is per capita, and there’s no clear evidence that immigration increased per capita. In fact, because immigrants are poorer, it seems to lower it,” he said.
Mr. Swagel confirmed those calculations Wednesday in testimony to the House Budget Committee.
“The new immigrants will tend to go into industries that have relatively low productivity. That will lower the level of productivity of the country as a whole and lead to lower wages, on average,” he said.
Rep. Tom McClintock, California Republican, said that undercuts Democrats’ argument.
“So the party that keeps touting itself as the friend of the worker actually is advocating policies that are suppressing the wages of working Americans by flooding the labor market,” he said.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, countered that legalizing illegal immigrants could better boost the economy.
CBO, in a major demographic report last month, revealed the parameters of the current migrant surge. It calculated that immigration added a net of 2.6 million people to the U.S. population in 2022 and 3.3 million last year. It will add another 3.3 million this year.
Of those, 2.4 million lacked visas permitting them to be in the U.S.
Some, particularly those ushered through parole, could claim work permits immediately, helping fuel the nearly 3.5 million permits issued last year.
That was double the number of work permits issued in fiscal 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.
CBO figures migration will cool off after 2026 but still represent 70% of America’s total population growth. From 2040 on, all population growth will come from immigration because fertility rates alone are no longer high enough to increase the population.
Mr. Rivlin said those sorts of calculations challenge a central tenet of the Trump-infused Republican Party, which he said has become increasingly hostile to all immigration.
“It’s part of the great American success story that we forged a multiracial democracy out of people that came from everywhere from different types of circumstances and makes us the envy of the world,” he said. “Republicans really aren’t so sure about that. They really have been taken over by the nationalists and the White supremacists that see the multiracial democracy part of the success story as problematic.”
Mr. Camarota said relying on immigrants to power economic expansion carries dangers.
He released a report this week that found immigrants accounted for all the nation’s labor force growth from 2019 through 2023. Meanwhile, the number of U.S.-born people in the workforce dropped, with non-collegeeducated U.S.-born men particularly suffering.
Those labor force dropouts signal a host of social ills, but the migrant surge is obscuring it, Mr. Camarota said.
“We will never address this problem if we keep having high immigration because we don’t have to,” he said. “We’re experiencing all the social problems, but if we have the availability of immigrants, then the difficult question of how do you get working-age people back into the labor force just simply won’t be addressed.”
He said other questions include the country’s ability to assimilate.
CBO said the total foreign-born population of the U.S. hit 55.1 million in 2023, or 16.2% of the total. That shatters the Census Bureau record set in 1890, when immigrants accounted for 14.8% of the population
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They make an important point. We are not getting richer when real wages and per capita incomes are falling.
We really can't even evaluate legal immigration policy and worker needs until the flood is stopped and the ones not deported are assimilated.
A more urgent priority than getting more foreign workers in is to assimilate our existing underclass into the productive workforce, all who are able.
The influx of new, lower wage workers just makes the first rung of the economic ladder harder for those already left out.
In both cases, our welfare state mentality is killing us.
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They didn't. We just have a corrupt dishonest news media trying to pull the wool over our eyes again:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/senate-democrats-flipped-border-issue-185325986.html
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All part of being a sanctuary city run by the Dem machine:
https://nypost.com/2024/02/19/opinion/inside-mayor-adams-migrant-debit-card-boondoggle-no-bid-bank-gets-50-million-border-crossers-up-to-10000-each/amp/?fbclid=IwAR3xUDKK5HKmzmvtUkMbrD119nm3GZ5o09k7aRiVfIKbKbeBRruvFZYc02w
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https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/02/17/alejandro-mayorkas-impeachment-vote-reax-amanpour-sot-nn-vpx.cnn
his total jibberesh is
remarkable and Amanpour nodding her head in agreement, as if he is saying anything substantive or truthful is just so sad as the good example of
our government and media have colluded to deceive us.
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/104653-in-brief-the-kennedys-caused-todays-immigration-crisis-2024-02-23
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This piece establishes the foundation of our current immigration mess. Note whose parents ended up in the US due to JFK's policy changes and the impact those butterfly wings (ala chaos theory) has had on America:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-the-kennedy-family-caused-todays-immigration-crisis/
ETA: whups, I went to the source material cited in ccp's post above, thinking it was a source from Feedly, rather than one found here. Redundant and my bad in other words, but I'm leaving it here as the source piece is well worth a deep read.
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Paywall blocked after a few intriguing paragraphs. Any way we can see the whole thing?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/refugees/419976/#article-comments
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Where is Sharpton AOC Schumer and the rest ?
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2024/02/29/kathy-hochul-moves-forward-plan-prioritize-illegal-immigrants-ny-state-jobs/
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Biden tells sanctuary cities to cooperate with ICE, which has a shelf life of the day after the first Tuesday in November assuming Dems retain the White House.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-calls-for-sanctuary-cities-to-cooperate-with-ice-amid-furor-over-illegal-immigrant-crimes
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Bill Clinton on illegal immigration. Looks like a State of the Union address. These days saying the same would send the cancel klatch into hyperdrive:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2024/02/29/do-you-remember-when-democrats-sometimes-made-sense/
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except for DACA :
https://www.conservativereview.com/john-fetterman-s-newest-offer-to-republicans-will-upset-his-democrat-bosses-who-have-blocked-gop-immigration-bill-2667402699.html
Is Fetterman the new Joe Manchin?
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Please put in the Fetterman thread as well. TY.
Very much worth noting is that the Blob has now begun calling the illegal aliens "newcomers"-- even before their claims of asylum are assessed/adjudicated.
This is known as a "tell" :x :x :x
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Border folk get savage on hapless Joe:
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/04/too-funny-border-patrol-union-doubles-down-on-biden-dis-n4926979
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/let-me-finish-pete-buttigieg-torched-by-cnbc-host-joe-kernen-live-on-air-after-he-defends-biden-s-handling-of-border-crisis/ar-BB1joAVZ?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=e84b6750838e41b8af508f57144f4f67&ei=17
What does Karl Rove say about Democrats who lie like psychopaths?
We need a consensus?
We need to be bipartisan?
We need to reach across the aisle?
For us it is like Israel confronting Hamas
There is no compromise. We have already been down that road for decades, and look at the results.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-judge-gives-joe-biden-big-immigration-win-against-texas/ar-BB1jAju3?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=68795a98ea344aca9ce7c1a8a9232ca9&ei=20 :x
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more than half the country .
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/an-immigration-crisis-beyond-imagining/
It is worth noting some other firsts: Mexico’s crime syndicates and their paramilitary forces have never earned so much money from cross-border smuggling, and it is reported that their proceeds from human smuggling are surpassing those from drug smuggling for the first time.
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Steve Hayward, Powerlineblog:
'Replacement Theory' needs to be called "Replacement Fact".
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2024/03/Immigration-by-party.png
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/03/the-daily-chart-why-we-have-a-border-problem.php
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Didja know the southern border is so porous that Isis is set up there? Our friends in the FBI get around to saying so out loud:
https://justthenews.com/government/security/fbi-director-wray-warns-southern-border-smuggling-network-isis-ties?utm_medium=social_media&utm_source=facebook_social_icon&utm_campaign=social_icons&fbclid=IwAR0mLjjOa6ylmi92BmLgupydnFuu1wBPVhVgmUsqjtRTtoG1uPl2gfSErYs
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"FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators on Monday that there are “very dangerous threats” coming from the U.S.-Mexico border, including a smuggling network with "ISIS ties."
He should be going on MSM and telling the country
He should be at the WH telling them.
He should be notifying Myorkas
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-for-border-security-task-force-seeks-to-redefine-the-party-on-immigration/ar-BB1jMKjP?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=ae318feccf2849fea8dc1f757e462ea0&ei=46
Funny, not one says the cause is Biden and their party.........
what a joke
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This quote (found at the links) make a point I hadn’t considered: what would have happened to rural souther blacks that emigrated north during the Gilded Age if the US had loose immigration standards, with the imputation being industrialists in northern cities would have hired Europeans if they could have. It’s an interesting thought exercise:
2015 Nobel Prize winner in Economics for his analysis on consumption, poverty, and welfare, and the person to coin the term ‘deaths of despair’ with his wife (also an economist), Sir Angus Deaton has now changed his tune on immigration and believes it’s creating great inequality:
https://twitter.com/USTechWorkers/status/1767051094008664476/photo/1
https://x.com/USTechWorkers/status/1767051094008664476?s=20
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https://www.newsweek.com/us-refugees-work-permits-fast-track-uscis-digital-process-1878978
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12 cases of measles among illegals in Chicago:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/chicago-two-more-measles-cases-at-illegal-immigrant-shelter-pushing-total-to-12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chicago-two-more-measles-cases-at-illegal-immigrant-shelter-pushing-total-to-12
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-2009-half-a-million-border/
During a speech in 2009, then-U.S. President Barack Obama said, "We can't have half a million people pouring over the border [...].”
Snopes Rating: Correct
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But we can have 20 times that many pour in under Biden.
What changed?
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and notice wage stagflation also exists :
https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/15/recent-immigrants-have-filled-labor-gaps-boosted-job-creation-experts-say/
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https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2024/03/16/joe-bidens-deputies-quietly-block-haitian-exodus/
I wonder if THE REVERAND AL will this weekend on his show call this racist.
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so Amazon backed out of building in her district
it is doing just fine attracting new business anyway:
https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2024/03/17/look-whose-district-has-become-a-third-world-brothel-and-bazaar-n4927389
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJMMMcNXcAERJ2g?format=jpg&name=medium)
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Chinese American Joyce Chang head of global research for JP Morgan tells us immigration is good for the country!
rah rah rah hurray!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/jpmorgan-s-head-of-research-says-immigration-is-undeniably-a-good-thing-for-the-economy-as-the-bank-forecasts-even-higher-us-gdp-growth-this-year/ar-BB1kmZEu?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=cd465f6999994ccfa86b23624ec08a3b&ei=12
what about "illegal" do you not understand.
what about 10s of millions rushing the border uncontrolled do you not understand in your Wall Street elite
wealth - sell us out Wall Street schmuck .
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TX National Guard overrun by illegals. If this is a trend, it won’t end well. Worse yet, that’s fine by those favoring an open southern border who will use violence occurring in the wake of a human wave to argue TX needs to stand down:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/biden-border-crisis-illegal-immigrants-overrun-texas-national-guard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=biden-border-crisis-illegal-immigrants-overrun-texas-national-guard
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Folks seeking to immigrate legally via F1 (student) visas denied at record rate. So Hapless Joe in encouraging the low skilled destitute to hop the southern border illegally, while his admin denies students that, on average, pay $30,000/year to study here, often learning highly sought after skills that would benefit the US if these skills were used here are denied entry. Talk about government getting it 180 degrees backwards….
A Record Quarter of a Million International Students Denied Visas, 36 Percent of Applicants
Cato @ Liberty / by David J. Bier / Mar 19, 2024 at 2:25 PM
David J. Bier
This updates an earlier post.
Student visas are the primary jumping‐off point for most high‐skilled immigrants to the United States. Immigrants study at America’s elite universities and then find jobs here when they graduate—largely through the post‐graduate employment authorization program called Optional Practical Training. Despite the importance of these visas, the State Department rejected an unprecedented 36 percent of student visa applicants in 2023, surpassing 2022’s record.
Student visas are known as F‑1 visas. Figure 1 shows the F‑1 student visa denial rate compared to the visa denial rate for all other nonimmigrant (i.e. temporary) visa applicants. As it shows, student visas usually had a similar rejection rate to other nonimmigrant visa applicants. But from 2021 and 2023, student visas were denied at nearly twice the rate of all other applicants. The student visa denial rate increased from a low of 15 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2023.
In 2023, consular officers denied a record 253,355 student visas. As Figure 2 shows, more visas were denied in 2023 than were issued in 2002 and 2005. The staggering number of denials occurred even as the number of issuances remained far below the peak year of 2015. Even 2015, with far more applicants, had far fewer denials than in 2023. It now appears that the higher denial rates, which shot up in 2016, may have dissuaded some applicants from applying, and the absolute number of total student visa applicants has declined, and student visa issuances have declined 31 percent from 2015 to 2023.
It is important to understand that before a student can even apply for an F‑1 visa they must already be accepted into a government‐approved university. This means that the US Department of State turned down 253,355 students who would have likely paid roughly $30,000 per year or $7.6 billion per year in tuition and living expenses. Over four years that number rises to $30.4 billion in lost economic benefits to the United States.
The State Department does not separately delineate the reasons for student visa denials but nearly all nonimmigrant visa denials are for failing to prove “nonimmigrant intent” (that is, the desire not to move to the United States permanently). Applicants need to show sufficient ties to their home country that would impel them to return to their home country when their reasons for visiting have ended.
The nonimmigrant intent subjective standard can be enforced in a variety of ways. Consular officers are supposed to only consider someone’s “present intent” not considering how their intention might change if opportunities arise in the United States to stay legally. In practice, there is very little consistency in application.
The unprecedented denials occurred even though the State Department officials in Washington, DC attempted to return to a lower standard of evidence for students that existed before Trump. The Foreign Affairs Manual now states that students “should be looked at differently” because “typically, students lack the strong economic and social ties of more established visa applicants, and they plan longer stays in the United States.” It concludes that “the natural circumstances of being a student do not disqualify the applicant.” This change occurred in September 2021 before the start of fiscal year 2022.
The State Department hasn’t disclosed the denial rate by nationality in 2022 or 2023, but the rise and fall of Chinese students is the most important trend in student visa policy in recent years (Figure 3). Another ground for denial—which is far less frequent but affects mainly students from China—is Presidential Proclamation 10043, a Trump proclamation that bars visas for people who studied at any university that now works with the Chinese military in any capacity.
This order—which is retroactively applied to students who studied at such universities before the order was issued—was the basis for about 2,000 visa denials in 2021 and probably about 1,600 in 2022, though the exact figure is not published. The number for 2023 is not available yet, but while that is a lot of denials in absolute terms, and it certainly deters many more applicants, it would only explain 1 percent of total student visa denials in 2023.
What may explain the sudden increase in denials is the sudden increase in issuances for Indian students. After major delays during the pandemic, Indian consulates issued an unprecedented 130,839 student visas, by far the highest total for India ever. But according to data obtained by researchers via Freedom of Information Act requests, before the pandemic, US consulates in India were far more likely to deny students than US consulates in China. Indians accounted for a record 29 percent of all visa issuances in 2023, so their higher rate of denial could have affected the worldwide average more.
This theory is plausible, but the only country‐by‐country visa denial data that the State Department is releasing are for B visas for tourist and business travelers. For tourist visas, the two countries switched places with Chinese applicants now much more likely to be denied than Indian applicants (Figure 5). Whether this also happened with student visas isn’t known, and the fact that student refusal visa rates stopped closely tracking other nonimmigrant refusal rates complicates the issue. But it could imply that the problem isn’t specific to India and perhaps the increase in denials is coming more from China or elsewhere.
The bigger issue here is how Consular Affairs handles visa interviews. The head of the Consular Affairs division in India is Don Heflin. Heflin explained how student visa interviews work in April 2022:
Bring [bank statements] just in case the vice consul asks, but we are looking at this less than we used to. We know Indian families usually find a way [to pay].… Mostly it’s about explaining why this school and this curriculum makes sense to you. It’s what in American English we call the Elevator Pitch. You’ll have a minute and a half to tell us why this [school] makes sense to you. Don’t walk up and recite something from memory about the campus, the student body, and how old the school is.… Listen, I have a lot of Indian friends. I know that your father may have told you where you were going to go to school and what you were going to study. That’s fine. Tell us what he told you. Show us that it makes sense for you.
None of this information has anything to do with the legal requirements for a student visa. This absurd method of adjudicating student visas explains why India has a much higher than average student visa refusal rate even though Indian students are extremely successful in the United States. The United States should not pass on tens of billions of dollars in economic activity from these students just because they memorized their “elevator pitch” on why they want to study computer science in Kansas. It’s totally irrelevant. The administration needs to increase transparency about student visa denials and adopt a fair and uniform policy for reviews.
https://www.cato.org/blog/record-quarter-million-international-students-denied-visas-36-applicants
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seems like every day there is at least one headline telling us we should love immigrants (illegals)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/u-s-economy-saved-by-immigrants/ar-BB1krsXz?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b702a3cee296455a940d62c284dde6a9&ei=7
always from Wall Streeters or liberal sources
recently one by Paul Krugman :roll:
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https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/27/record-high-10-million-immigration-cases-completed-in-2023/
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on the illegal to do list
get pregnant then stop at the OB clinic then 9 mo to the hospital
anchors away
:x
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/latino-communities-rebuilt-baltimore-now-they-re-grieving-bridge-collapse-victims/ar-BB1kN0Rz?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=e3eb4e778b064cb8b5fa83eec74fb465&ei=23
no one is against Central and S Americans who come here to build a life.
but my continues question -> what is it about *illegal* you don't understand?
OTOH I don't know those who perished in the bridge collapse were not legal but of course that is not mentioned while at the same LEFT wing USA today tries to use it to further Democrat Party agenda
nonetheless without that knowledge.
So I am responding in kind.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=98e91b52b183630bc253e84fb345f1c7_660c0207_6d25b5f&selDate=20240402
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Repeatedly busted illegals arrested for ... well it ought to be chutzpah but read this and weep:
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/04/04/rap-sheets-like-these-and-we-still-cant-deport-them-n4927885
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Native-born Americans left behind as economy recovered from Covid. Immigrants, on the other hand, improved:
https://x.com/kausmickey/status/1776710930950447157
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https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/immigrants-renewing-work-permits-get-backlog-relief-in-new-rule
illegals :
thanks Joe Biden!
where is the mail in ballot to sign?
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/john-thune-alejandro-mayorkas-impeachment/2024/04/09/id/1160383/
of course, 67 votes needed to rid us of this lying treasonous criminal, but a trial would at least further expose him.
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/john-thune-alejandro-mayorkas-impeachment/2024/04/09/id/1160383/
of course, 67 votes needed to rid us of this lying treasonous criminal, but a trial would at least further expose him.
Right. A trial would expose him, not remove him.
The article gives the example of how to avoid the trial. Biden could replace Mayorkas since it is the individual, not the administration being impeached. That seems to be the only way out other than schedule the trial for after the election.
Otherwise, aren't they constitutionally mandated to have a trial? Wouldn't it take 60 votes to outright dismiss the charges?
Schumer's last act as Majority Leader: whatever they choose, Senate Democrats are feeding a movement destined to put them in the minority.
Thune wants to be Majority Leader and seems to be saying the right things in this case.
Let's see which affects swing state voters more, Trump's business valuations trial or exposure of the administration's collusion with the Mexican cartels to bring 10 million illegals into our country, including fentanyl that killed more than the Vietnam war, human trafficking that's now greater than the drug trade, violent crime to our cities and suburbs, and terror and espionage cells.
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https://www.oann.com/newsroom/denver-to-defund-police-fire-dept-in-order-to-fund-services-and-housing-for-illegal-newcomers/
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I noticed all 5 politicians from the mayor up to the governor are crats.
The crats all on board with wiping out the Rs by flooding the future electorate with new voters and bribing them with tax payer money.
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https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/grounds-deportability-when-legal-us-residents-can-be-removed.html
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https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test/naturalization-oath-of-allegiance-to-the-united-states-of-america
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HT Doug:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/denver-migrant-advocates-six-months-free-rent-food-not-enough-slap-face-offensive
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I don't need to hear that "we are a nation of immigrants"
that "my ancestors came" here on and on.....
First they came here legally
Second most were proud to be here
(A few brought their European socialism with them but they were drowned out.)
(The socialist party was always minority not a major party like the Democrats now)
Third they received no free tax payer funded benefits from existing citizens
"Our diversity is our strength ".
Well not without assimilation.
"All the [illegal] undocumented people are a net benefit ."
Prove it.
I see the opposite.
I could go on.
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"Our diversity is our strength " only if "E pluribus unum."
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"Our diversity is our strength " only if "E pluribus unum."
Thumbs up to this.
I would add, besides not having an open border, you can't combine open border with unlimited free stuff and attract the right people.
Settlers came here not for an easy life, but because they were willing to do whatever it took to survive and then prosper. Contrast that with the above. Some come here today and work really hard today, roofers come to mind, but getting paid 'under the table' isn't part of GDP. Prior to 1913, there was no federal income tax, there was no FICA, there was no IRS (it was a bureau, not a "service"). Working for money was not tax evasion. There was no war on poverty, and I assume not much offered for free food, housing, healthcare, transportation, education etc. You didn't get a free Obama phone. If you came without money you had to work immediately for your first meal.
Half of the first pilgrims perished the first winter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)
No, an open border today is not a continuation of how we started and became a strong nation.
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I read Gallagher's case to not impeach Mayorkas and then re - listened to the below Mark Levin podcast referencing his case for impeachment:
Start at the 30 minute mark and listen through the 46:25 mark:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ly/podcast/mark-levin-podcast/id209377688
Levin makes the case as did Congress that Mayorkas is NOT GUILTY of MALADMINISTRATION (as Gallagher concludes) but of HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.
I agree 100% with Levin, unless his study of it is incorrect but I doubt it.
Sure we all know Mayorkas would never have been convicted in a 51 to 48 Senate (assuming Murkowski stabs the Rs in the back again)
but at least the case would have been made, headlines, news stories highlighting the deliberate afront to the sovereignty of the US by its own Presidential administration would be worthy of the trial.