Archive for category Immigration
Immigration Follow-Up: Face Reality
Posted by Tom in Immigration, Politics on October 30, 2011
After seeing this morning’s RGJ article on the L.A. mayor coming to Reno on Harry Reid’s orders, to pander to Hispanic Americans for votes, I think an immigration follow-up on this month’s dinner is justified.
As I listened to Michael Savage, a right-leaning Ph.D. talk show host, rant on illegal immigration the other night, I wondered when the conservatives and indeed the Republican candidates would wake up to reality. The reality is that we live with immigrant Americans, some of whom are illegal and impart a cost to the system. But they are here and most are trying to be productive members of society. They have good family values, are honest and have excellent work ethics. These latter traits are in contrast to those found in many natural born entitlement types.
More important, the reality is that the 40 million legal immigrant Americans vote and are influenced in those votes by the redneck rants. The reality is that if we don’t deal with some of the more extreme rightist, redneck positions, they will vote with the socialists now in control of the Senate and executive branch. We must face reality: we will not as a society deport 11 million illegal immigrants.
The way to deal with the immigrants may be in small bites. Jim Clark offered a DREAM act that required only military service, knowing full well that even the military has educational requirements and, in fact, teaches as part of its programs. There may be other potential DREAM act entry routes such as, starting a successful business for a period of years. There are suggestions for programs that offer green cards to immigrants who would invest in real estate. Perhaps that could be expanded to those who invest in businesses that employ other illegals over a period of years. In each case, assimilation with proficiency in English should be a sine qua non.
Ty Cobb recently alerted us to this NY Times article suggesting several other small steps that would be directly beneficial to the society and economy:Beyond 2012 Field, Nuanced G.O.P. Views on Immigrants, by Jennifer Steinhauer.
We who are concerned with the future of this country should let our voices be heard.
Three Levels of Immigration Solutions
Posted by Tom in Immigration on September 4, 2011
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, penned an interesting article in the August 15th issue of National Review, To Reform Immigration, Legal and Illegal. The article sets out three position levels for presidential candidates, basic, upgraded, and premium. Note that he treats both legal and illegal immigration. I will attempt to thumb nail the suggestions as a prelude to our September dinner meeting:
The basic position for illegal immigrants has two elements: fencing and mandated employer E-Verification. Despite congressional mandate to double fence 700 miles of boarder the administration has not completed the job; in fact less than 1% has fencing that complies with the law. National mandated employer E-Verification will reduce demand for illegals by weakening the attraction of employment. Basic for legal immigration also has two objectives: ending the visa lottery and eliminating brother-sister chain migration. The lottery randomly provides green cards to 50,000 foreigners without any standards as to education or job skills or for that matter, wealth. The adult sibling visa brings 60,000 siblings each year to the country. This goes on ad infinitum when spouses and their siblings are considered. We are the only country to allow this without any real justification. With these two changes legal immigration could be reduced from 1.1 million to 1 million per year.
The upgraded position in each case includes the basic position plus the following: For illegals double deportations of both illegal criminals and non-criminals which will require expanded use of the “expedited removal” authority granted by Congress to avoid court processes. This in turn will require more detention beds and cooperation with local authorities. The Obama administration has refused this approach. Next, the US-VISIT program which checks entries and exits should be fully implemented. Obama has refused implementation which if used would prevent illegal immigration via overstaying short visit entries. With respect to legal immigration the upgraded program would end chain migration. We would continue to allow nuclear family immigration privileges, so foreign-born spouses and children would be covered. But there is no compelling reason to extend similar privileges to adult children or parents. This upgraded program would reduce future legal immigrations to 700,000 per year.
The premium program encompasses the first two program elements plus for illegal immigrants an end to birthright citizenship and for legal immigrants a reduction in skilled worker and refugee-asylum grounds. Each year we grant citizenship to 300,000 children of illegal immigrants or foreigners on temporary visas. Whether this requires a constitutional amendment or merely a statute is a matter of debate, but the change should be made. The skills and asylum admissions comprise about 150,000 entries per year. Both categories are often misused and should be reduced without losing their original purposes. If implemented the legal inflow would be about a half million per year.
Krikorian points out that this is by no means comprehensive of all the issues surrounding immigration but it hits the important points. I urge a full reading of the article.
DOJ Wants Foreign Interpretation of U.S. Constitution
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Immigration, Judiciary, Justice, Legal, Presidency on October 28, 2010
Not only is Obama’s Department of Justice corrupt in voter fraud cases which it should prosecute but won’t, but it now doesn’t object to foreign countries advancing arguments to interpret the U.S. Constitution in its suit against a State of the Union!
One more example of how un-American Obama and Holder really are!
Gabriella Stands Up For Immigration Sanity In Arizona
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Immigration, National Character on May 27, 2010
A beautiful naturalized US citizen stands up for Arizona’s immigration law.
Incompetent Administration Condemns Arizona…
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Entitlements, Homeland Security, Humor, Immigration on May 23, 2010
…but none of these idiots has read its immigration law!
Now the New York Post has a suggestion for these logically challenged idiots: “The Mexico model.” Some highlights: “Asked Wolf Blitzer: “If people want to come [into Mexico] from Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador or Nicaragua, they can just walk in?” “No,” responded Calderon. “They need to fulfill a form. They need to establish their right name. We analyze if they [don’t have] a criminal [record].” “Do Mexican police go around asking for papers of people they suspect are illegal immigrants?” asked Blitzer.“Of course,” said Calderon. “If somebody sneaks in from Nicaragua or some other country in Central America,” continued Blitzer, “they wind up in Mexico, they can go get a job?” “No, no,” Calderon replied. “If somebody [does] that without permission, we send back — we send them back.”
Then Hussein Obama’s number one on homeland security suggests that the Obama administration will refuse to enforce the U.S. law: “At week’s end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was backing up the head of the Immigration and Customs Service — who said that he might not deport illegals detained under that statute. “ICE has the legal discretion to accept or not to accept persons delivered to it by non-federal personnel,” said Napolitano. “It also has the discretion to deport or not to deport.”
Read more:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_mexico_model_2DyxJuFroueHqDGXMzB04K#ixzz0oo6JfueS
We do not enforce our own laws. When Arizona enforces them we condemn and boycott the state without reading the law. We are bankrupting our boarder states and nation by granting the rights of U.S. citizens to non-U.S. illegals! What’s wrong with this picture?
Two Hypocritical Presidents
Posted by Tom in Defense, Homeland Security, Immigration on May 21, 2010
Hussein Obama continues to denigrate and debase America. The latest, he stood side by side with Felipe Calderon and and joined in Calderon’s criticism of the Arizona law that authorizes enforcement of U.S. law on illegal entry into the U.S. He is a hypocrite because the U.S statute which he has not enforced is more susceptible to profiling than the Arizona law. Calderon is a hypocrite because the Mexican law on illegal entry is worse than the U.S. law in terms of its harsh application. But to stand by Calderon’s side while Calderon demeans one of these United States is unforgivable for any American president.
William Bennett and Seth Leibsohn have an excellent article on the subject in NRO: “Allowing the running down of a part of the United States by the head of a foreign government, at the White House, standing next to the president — who not only didn’t challenge him, but encouraged him — is a foreign- and domestic-policy catastrophe. And in any catastrophe, one has to ask what were the conditions or causes that led to such a thing. Did the president tell Mr. Calderón ahead of time it would be okay to blast away at Arizona, which is to blast away at the United States? Or, less likely, was nothing said ahead of time and Mr. Calderón simply took note of the administration’s statements about Arizona thus far? Or, had Mr. Calderón simply observed over the past year not only President Obama and his administration’s take-down of Arizona but President Obama’s other attitudes about America, such as his bowing to foreign leaders and his calling America “arrogant,” “dismissive,” and “derisive” of our allies?
“There are nearly half a million illegal immigrants in Arizona. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, while illegal immigrants make up 9 percent of the Arizona population, they are responsible for 22 percent of the felonies in Arizona and they constitute 11 percent of the state prison population. Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the United States, and Phoenix has the second-largest kidnapping problem in the world (second to Mexico City).”
“According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, kidnapping in Arizona increased 402 percent between 2004 and 2008, with almost 70 percent of the kidnapping cases submitted for prosecution involving illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants account for 16.5 percent of those sentenced for violent crimes; 18.5 percent of those sentenced for property crimes; 33.5 percent of those sentenced for the manufacture, sale, or transport of drugs; and 44.4 percent of those sentenced or forgery and fraud in the Phoenix area. And, according to DOJ statistics, three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz. — mostly by agents of alien-smuggling organizations. And one in five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. For example, most of the cocaine and meth consumed in America comes in from Mexico, and in some states, over 90 percent of the marijuana consumed is from Mexico.”
There is a compelling interest for the Arizona law because there is no adequate enforcement of the federal law nor adequate security of our Mexican boarder. Perhaps that’s why a majority of Americans agree with the Arizona position according to a recent Fox News Poll.
We Need Jobs–Let’s Import Them
Posted by Tom in Economics, Employment, Immigration, Technology on March 9, 2010
Robert Litan’s article in the March 8th WSJ, Visas for the Next Sergey Brin, makes a good point: “to create more jobs, let’s import employers.? Given the anti-job, anti-capital stance of the Obama administration, our 9+% stated unemployment rate will by administration forecasts not fall to the 5% area for at least another decade. As we are well aware the true rate is over 15% when the “given-ups” and underemployed are taken into account. And Obama has no intent to decrease the size of the socialist state or reform the ever expanding, deficit producing welfare programs.
So what do we need? We need wealth, capital willing to take risks and create jobs in the process. We need entrepreneurs to translate that risk capital into successful businesses and create jobs in the process. Thus the article’s title character: Sergey Brin the Soviet-born American who founded Google!
Litan treats the “Startup Visa Act” jointly introduced by Senators Kerry and Lugar which would create a new, two-year visa for immigrant entrepreneurs who attract at least $250,000 venture financing in America. The visa would become permanent if the firm adds at least five non-family employees, attracts $1M in financing, or earns $1M in revenue. Fully 25% of the technology companies in the U.S. were founded by immigrants.
The idea is a good one but as the article points out could use some improvement. Why set such a high capital raising bar? A lot of tech companies were started with family money and credit card debt! And why limit the capital to U.S. sources? Don’t we want foreign investment that creates U.S. jobs? Finally isn’t immigration that brings mere wealth to the country beneficial to job creation? So why not issue visas based on permanent residence and at least $5M of new capital invested in U.S. businesses?
The H-1B visas–applicable to high skilled immigrants–are strictly limited, 65,000 in 2010 down from 195,000 in 2003. Tech firms have long complained about this limitation. As the article points out these visas are a likely source of the entrepreneurs that will start the next Google.
Intelligent immigration policy can create jobs, improved technology, capital, and favorable demographic patterns to boot. Hopefully Obama’s union bosses won’t object!
Tom Motherway