Last weekend, the Democrats in the Senate refused to vote for a Continuing Resolution to fund the US government.
Why ? Because they wanted a law to legalize the thousands of illegal aliens in a status called “DACA” or Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was an American immigration policy that allowed some individuals who entered the country as minors, and had either entered or remained in the country illegally, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit.
Thus these illegal aliens were given the right to remain and to work in this country. Why ?
The policy was established by executive action rather than legislation; however, participating individuals were sometimes referred to as Dreamers after the DREAM Act bill, a bipartisan bill first proposed in 2001 that was the first of a number of subsequent bills in the U.S. House and Senate attempting to provide a pathway to citizenship or other legal status for certain undocumented residents who immigrated illegally as children and subsequently completed some college or military service.[2]
This is mostly a myth.
Victor Davis Hanson explains some of the mythology.
College graduation and military service are often referenced as DACA talking points. In truth, some studies suggest that just one in 20 dreamers graduated from college. One in a 1,000 has served in the military. So far, about eight times more Dreamers have not graduated from high school than have graduated from college.
I examine military applicants and am unaware of any “Dreamers.”
Then again, are the DACA people just 700,000 ? Or are they millions ?
To be eligible, illegal immigrants must have entered the United States before their 16th birthday and prior to June 2007, be currently in school, a high school graduate or be honorably discharged from the military, be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, and not have been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor or three other misdemeanors, or otherwise pose a threat to national security. The program does not provide lawful status or a path to citizenship,[39] nor does it provide eligibility for federal welfare or student aid.
They are widely eligible for free college education or, at least, to be given resident status for tuition.
Many of these people entered as “Unaccompanied Minors. “
A significant number are teenaged gangsters like the MS 13 gangs in Maryland and Virginia.
Almost one-third of 214 U.S.-based MS-13 gang members arrested in an international sweep were invited into the United States by President Barack Obama’s “Unaccompanied Alien Children” policy.
The successful “Raging Bull’ sweep was announced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Deputy Director Tom Homan in a joint press conference at ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
Millions are fleeing paradigms that they apparently judged as wanting, either politically, economically, or socially, or all that and more. Why, then, would foreign nationals have ceased romanticizing their new generous hosts upon their arrival and begun idealizing, instead, their rejected birthplace? And if these are their true feelings on the matter, why did they leave?
Second, there rarely is expressed any formal analysis of why one wishes to enter the United States and leave one’s home country.
What, then, exactly makes a naturally rich Mexico rather poor and naturally poor New Mexico rather rich? Why is Venezuela a mess and Colorado is not? Has anyone prohibited Mexico from reformatting its constitution to ensure an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a free-market economy, the protection and free sale of private property, a bill of rights, unfettered free speech, a meritocratic civil service, transparency in law enforcement, and an ethnically blind culture?
The “Dreamer” group of illegals may, in fact, number in the millions and we must be vigilant to ensure that any compromise on immigration is limited to the most attractive segment. The DACA group may simply be the front for millions of unemployable peasants, many of whom do not even speak Spanish, let alone English.
Trump seems to have outmaneuvered the Democrats last weekend. Their quick collapse on the shutdown may indicate that they misjudged the public. The hard left among them resent the quick surrender by their leadership.
Many Democrats are incensed about the deal Senate Democrats reached with Republicans on Monday, the third day of a shutdown, to reopen the government.
On Monday, a bipartisan group of senators — including 33 Democrats — led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reached an agreement to fund the government until February 8.
The senators agreed to the deal in exchange for a promise from the GOP to vote on legislation to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects from deportation about 700,000 undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers and is set to expire on March 5.
But many Democratic lawmakers and activists, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris of California, denounced the deal, arguing that Democrats couldn’t trust Republican leaders to fulfill their promises on immigration, the issue at the heart of the disagreement between the parties.
Harris, a likely 2020 presidential candidate who voted against the deal, said McConnell’s promise on DACA “fell far short of the ironclad guarantee” she needed “to support a stopgap spending bill.”
They will try to get a better deal on illegal immigration next time but they should be refused. The next shutdown may be longer.
Trump needs to be strong on this issue and resist the weak kneed Lindsey Grahams.
Sens. Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin, who presented a compromise immigration plan to Trump, called out the President’s staff, saying they are blocking a deal.
“This has turned into an s-show and we need to get back to being a great country,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
At one point, Graham even spoke directly to Trump, as if he was watching, to appeal to him to reconsider his rejection of their bipartisan proposal on immigration and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Graham and Durbin are a pair of liars. They need to be ignored. There are red state Democrats who are not willing to die for illegal immigration.
It’s not at all clear to me why a DACA-Dreamer, at present between aged 18 and 36 — aged 31 in 2012 — is facing tragic hardship by being provided transport back to the nation of his or her birth.
Sending a child across the border? Well, bad, but perhaps no worse than the act of the adults who trafficked that child into the United States in the first place. But two wrongs don’t make a right and an actual minor child, I suppose, should not and ought not be sent away due to his guardians’ errors of paperwork.
But an actual ADULT with no paperwork? I’m not sure a free trip to an exotic land is exactly a penalty. Lots of people take such trips.
I’d like to hear Graham’s specific definition for “being a great country.” I suspect I know it, but it would be good to hear it, so that the cold hard facts of who these Dreamers are can be stood up against it. If those kids – some no longer kids – were actually graduating from college and entering the military at the rates the Democrats’ advertising suggests, a lot of conservatives would just shrug and ignore it, even if they didn’t like it. But the knowledge that this is not even close to true (even I didn’t know the numbers are as bad as listed above, though) has created a situation where they are willing to draw a line in the sand.
By chance I happened to hear David Brooks on PBS last week. Still the same old creased-pants sniffer. I was particularly taken by a comment he made that the GOP has gone completely crazy on immigration, that loons like Tom Cotton are now in charge, advocating limits on legal immigration, which is just completely nuts and totally out of step with public opinion.
Oh, really, Dave?
“Eighty-one percent of Americans want one million or fewer legal immigrants to the United States per year, according to new polling data released Monday by the Harvard-Harris poll, a number lower than the 1.38 million who came to the United States in 2015.”
http://freebeacon.com/issues/4-5-americans-want-less-immigration/
The Dems appear to be deciding now to go to the wall (ha ha) for illegals in a couple of weeks when the shutdown theater happens again. Madness.
Many of the DACA people were brought to this country as young children by illegal-immigrant parents and have little connection with their home countries. They are a sympathetic group and that is why the Democrats try to conflate them with illegal immigrants as a whole. There is probably a national consensus for a deal that allows people who were brought here illegally as children to become legal, while deporting the gangsters and other undesirables as well as the people who rushed the borders under tacit encouragement from the Obama administration, and building a wall. Maybe the Democrats and pro-amnesty Republicans will eventually agree to such a deal, which the Trump administration seems likely to go along with. Or maybe the Dems will hold out for everything they want, to please their leftist base. In the latter case there might be no deal and eventually the political consensus will shift more against immigration. The pro-amnesty pols act as though time is on their side, that their behavior isn’t radicalizing more American voters on this issue. But if that were the case Trump might not have been elected.
Sprinkling M13s around the countryside to grow into gangs from one coast to the other and in between, encouraging illegals to block Disneyland and highways while carrying offensive flags, making sure the grandparents of immigrants are getting medicare and social security, making sure that criminals are getting defense lawyers paid by the state, making claims that the newer figures the DOJ is releasing show as ridiculous (as in the VDH note) – those are ways to not only get all of America behind a southern wall but perhaps one around California as well. The Democrats seem to think it is a way to get Democratic votes but it is more likely a sure way to get really draconian voter vetting.
“Maybe the Democrats and pro-amnesty Republicans will eventually agree to such a deal”
They had 20+ years to do so, chose not to, hence Trump.
I see zero indication they are going to yield now.
Trump should lay out calmly and rationally a real comprehensive immigration plan, in an Oval Office speech, and dare the Dems to oppose it.
I can only think that the shutdown must have polled absolutely horribly, for Schumer et al to have caved on it so fast.
I can’t also help suspecting that the ordinary run of Americans are not terribly sympathetic to illegal aliens these days. Yeah, there a handful of so-called ‘Dreamers’ in college, an even smaller handful in the military, but when there is so high a proportion of illegal aliens in prison for non-immigration offenses – that’s a hard lump for regular Americans to swallow. Especially when there are so many who have been victimized by identity theft (to facilitate convincing ID papers for illegals), or have been in an auto accident where the other party was uninsured and illegal (and possibly drunk), and scrammed before the police showed up, or have to pay higher auto insurance rates because of this. And then there is the question of voting fraud, and career criminals who have been deported five or ten times before … No, I suspect that ordinary American citizens are quite thoroughly sick of the various problems brought about by illegal immigration, and not the least inclined to be sympathetic any more.
There is probably a national consensus for a deal that allows people who were brought here illegally as children to become legal,
The 700,000 who are the front group are a small fraction of the “Dreamers.”
The fact that the so-called DACA group are blocking Disneyland and protesting Schumer will NOT HELP.
I could see Trump saying, “OK the 700,000 are in and that’s it.”
Then what would they do ?
If the Dims shut down the government again, it will be a long one or I don’t know Trump.
I can’t see him caving to such blackmail.
Within the echo chamber of Democrat politicians, it seems that everyone is enthusiastic about open borders. Must have come as a bit of surprise to them to learn (from angry constituents, as well as polls) that they are well out the mainstream.
Still, negotiations over DACA could be fun. Maybe one of the conditions should be that the parents who broke the law by bringing their children into the US illegally should have verifiably now left the US and have a permanent bar against returning.
Maybe the DACA crowd should be offered a path to Resident Alien (legal Green Card) status only — no citizenship ever for a person who entered the country illegally. And a permanent bar against sponsoring relatives to enter the US.
Of course, any deal should include a provision making it an Act of Treason for any elected State or local official to take any action inconsistent with Federal immigration law — punishable by military firing squad. Those “Sanctuary Cities” could use some fresh faces in elected office.
The NRO column today makes sense, aside from the mandatory Trump bashing.
Schumer expects to have more leverage to extract better terms in 2019, given that the Democrats are universally expected, at a minimum, to gain seats in the House in November.
I’m not so sure and a shutdown for illegal immigrants seems such a gift to Trump, it’s hard to believe they will really do it.
The NRO column today makes sense, aside from the mandatory Trump bashing.
Schumer expects to have more leverage to extract better terms in 2019, given that the Democrats are universally expected, at a minimum, to gain seats in the House in November.
I’m not so sure and a shutdown for illegal immigrants seems such a gift to Trump, it’s hard to believe they will really do it.
Does anyone doubt at this point that the instant the Dems get control of the Congress + White House again, they will abolish the filibuster and ram through everything they want? Instant citizenship for all illegals, Medicare for all, etc.? Sure, they’ll get slaughtered at the next election cycle after that, but won’t their party activists say that passing Obamacare was worth a few cycles in the minority, and going way further will be also?
I still maintain that if Trump uses the bully pulpit, he will win on immigration. The bulk of the immigration restriction plan is quite popular.
If the Dims shut down the government again, it will be a long one or I don’t know Trump.
I can’t see him caving to such blackmail.
I was in DC this past weekend and visited museums where it was business as usual despite the shutdown. Probably the Trump administration told the Smithsonian to keep its facilities open for as long as possible. Many people in the Democrats’ leftist base appear not to realize that a long govt shutdown under Trump could be the inverse of what it was under Obama. Instead of squandering funds to have guards chase people from parks and teach the public a lesson about how much it depends on govt, it seems not unlikely that Trump would use a shutdown as an opportunity to permanently lower spending at executive agencies and teach the bureaucrats a lesson about how much they depend on the president. For this reason a long shutdown seems unlikely.
“Still, negotiations over DACA could be fun. Maybe one of the conditions should be that the parents who broke the law by bringing their children into the US illegally should have verifiably now left the US and have a permanent bar against returning.
Maybe the DACA crowd should be offered a path to Resident Alien (legal Green Card) status only ”” no citizenship ever for a person who entered the country illegally. And a permanent bar against sponsoring relatives to enter the US.”
Gavin makes some excellent points. The biggest issue is how to reduce the incentives for illegal immigration. We’ve been though this crisis cycle several times before and each time we reach a sub optimal immediate solution that increases rather decreases the attraction of sneaking in to establish residence, followed by legitimization. In each wave, the seeds of more democrat votes are sown and the process of border hoping expands. Beyond the short and long term political and economic issues are the massive assimilation and threat to the structures of our western culture.
Border security is obviously needed, badly needed considering the incentive structure we have in place to motivate the influx. It will not be sufficient. This is partially due to the size of the flow and partially due to the unlikliness of apprehension and lax consequences of being later detected, even for multiple transgressions. Catch and release is a failed enforcement method and is becoming more difficult in such sanctuary cess pools such a the Peoples Republic of California. The immigration enforcement system is simply overwhelmed by the magnitude and has become politicized and unaccountable.
It is time to begin to attach conditions for making exceptions to the law regarding these groups seeking special treatment. That is a very small step to getting back sovereignty.
Derath6
There is no way to make the punishment for being here illegally sufficiently high to outweigh the benefits of being here compared to being in any third world country.
So what needs to be put in place are crushingly punitive penalties on employers. As in, you get caught hiring illegals, and your rights to run a business are forever gone, you forfeit all your current business assets, etc
Exactly, Brian. Same observation re that wall thingy. It will have NOT limit unlawful immigration, just make it harder to accomplish.
However, your suggestion would most definitely work. (Which is why it won’t happen….) Not only is it cost effective. It puts the burden where it belongs: on those who would use the system to profit from others. (Paying low wages? Yep. But who supplements those wages with “free” emergency room (and hence more expensive) healthcare, “free” schools, etc. The employers violate the Bible’s injunction against grazing one’s cattle in somebody else’s field. They should face fines which get progressively steeper as one goes up the chain of command in the group hiring undocumented illegals. No need to tell ’em “no longer can you run a business”, ’cause that makes everybody else pay. Instead, the progressively steep fines that enlarge when caught again make the police inspection profitable and puts money into civil coffers to help offset the transposed costs of public services.
Such a system would nearly overnight erase jobs for unlawfuls. And hence erase at least a major chunk of the reason for thwarting border barriers. And produce significant incentive to solve problems in home countries (tough job; remember 1776, 1812, 1860) rather than fleeing those problems.
Mike K – Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt briefly covered the 34 House races where the GOP incumbent is retiring. The upshot is once you get past the ‘generic ballot’ fantasies (which should already be cooled down since the polling has dropped from the Dems up double digits to a more normal lead), 25 of those 34 races are in heavily GOP districts. Only about eight are in any danger of flipping, and he wasn’t including about any districts that might go the other way.
The only improvement that the Dems are likely to see in their position after the election is a few Dem Senators in states Trump won won’t have to face election for six more years, assuming they aren’t defeated this November.
Doesn’t matter. The Swamp continues to do exactly as it pleases.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/01/illegal-aliens-quietly-relocated-throughout-u-s-commercial-flights/
Brian’s suggestion for penalties on employers is more realistic than state and local officials. That would require a constitutional amendment because it’s been long established through legal precedent that the federal government can’t compel states to enforce federal law.
So what needs to be put in place are crushingly punitive penalties on employers. As in, you get caught hiring illegals, and your rights to run a business are forever gone, you forfeit all your current business assets, etc
Aside from the appallingly draconian nature of such proposed penalties, and the ripeness for abuse (e.g., report your competitors for hiring illegals), isn’t there something wrong with conscripting private employers to enforce laws that the govt is unwilling or unable to enforce itself? There’s been a verification system for employers since Simpson-Mazzoli and it hasn’t solved the problem. It seems unlikely that a further tightening of the screws on employers will do the trick.
We would have less of a problem if our pols didn’t declare periodic amnesties, didn’t refuse to police the borders seriously, didn’t otherwise tacitly encourage illegal immigration. Politically, it’s much easier to put the burden on employers.
Aside from the appallingly draconian nature of such proposed penalties
I didn’t exactly propose anything. I just gave an example of what would be required. And yes, it will have to be draconian in order to work, because the cost benefit to employers of hiring illegals is extremely high, so a slap on the wrist won’t work.
ripeness for abuse (e.g., report your competitors for hiring illegals)
I don’t get it. If you don’t hire illegals, your competitor can’t report you.
isn’t there something wrong with conscripting private employers to enforce laws
No, it wouldn’t be making them enforce the law, it would be making them follow the law, and not hire illegals.
There’s been a verification system for employers since Simpson-Mazzoli and it hasn’t solved the problem.
What’s the penalty? Obviously it’s not effective, to the extent that it is even enforced. Heck, CA is now talking openly about arresting employers who try.
We would have less of a problem if our pols didn’t declare periodic amnesties, didn’t refuse to police the borders seriously, didn’t otherwise tacitly encourage illegal immigration.
Absolutely. But the fact is we’re not going to build a 10m wall all along the southern border, and even if we did, people would still try to come, because the benefits to being here are so huge compared to staying there.
Like I said, I don’t see any possible punishment that is going to deter people. So I don’t see any alternative except to punish employers, and to do so harshly enough to far outweigh the costs of hiring them. We crushingly punish tax evaders as a means of deterrence. I don’t see massive financial penalties for this as being appalling in any way, if we’re actually going to be serious (which we’re not, so this is all a theoretical exercise anyway).
*that Anonymous post above was me, obviously.
One reason I think illegal immigration has grown so sharply the past 25 years is the welfare state.
I had a cleaning woman who had been legalized in 1986 in the amnesty. She was a hard worker and I paid her appropriately.
I had my boat painted ten years ago and the guy who did the painting was Mexican but probably legal.
I don’t think there is that much hostility to immigrants that work hard, even illegal ones.
I spent 30 years in medicine and surgery and treated a lot of illegals. I know some doctors who opened practices in Hispanic neighborhoods even though they were not Hispanic and did very well. That, of course, was before Obamacare and the other “reforms” that made medicine so much less attractive.
It’s interesting to see so many more “Urgent Care” clinics in Tucson. I wonder if it is related to illegal immigration ?
This is a complex problem that Democrats are making much worse as they encourage such immigration in hopes they will all vote D.
Labour has probably destroyed England with such a policy with Pakistani immigration.
Minnesota is having terrible problems with mass Somali immigration thanks to Obama.
MikeK: Remember the Mexican peso crisis in 1994 matching up nicely with the post-Cold War booming economy of the 90s in the US.
If the GOP can stay out of its own way, and make the Dems stand in the way of the current proposal being floated tonight by Team Trump, they (the GOP) will win this issue in a rout. That’s the politics. As for the substance, the one thing I don’t see people talking about yet is what it does for e-Verify and other employer-based issues.
The country is divided on this issue and therefore political deals are probably possible on the margins. For example, a wall may be politically doable, would be effective if properly designed and monitored, and may actually get built. Increased immigration enforcement is doable. A legislated path to legal residency for some illegals, first of all people who were brought here as children, is probably doable. What probably isn’t doable is any program that forces one side’s preferred agenda on the other side, such as open borders and amnesty on the one hand, or mass-expulsions of illegals, and harsh measures against employers, on the other. However, if more Americans are becoming concerned about illegal immigration and about the negative consequences for our civic culture of lax immigration policies, as Trump’s election suggests, then it may be that the political margins where deals are possible are shifting in the direction of more restrictive policies. In that case the Left may not be able to get a better deal than is possible today, and harsh anti-immigration measures eventually become conceivable if the Left keeps holding out for its preferred solutions.
I don’t get it. If you don’t hire illegals, your competitor can’t report you.
Sure they can. And even if you try to follow the rules some applicants will use fake documents. And if the incentives are there some people in the enforcement bureaucracies will look for anything that can be used to bust you.
“And even if you try to follow the rules some applicants will use fake documents. And if the incentives are there some people in the enforcement bureaucracies will look for anything that can be used to bust you.”
I haven’t heard any reason why E-Verify can’t work extremely well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Verify
It’s not perfect, but it sounds like it’s quite good and getting better. If an employer can show that they used the system, they should be considered safe from penalties.
Heck, I don’t see this isn’t already completely automatic–you have to fill out an I-9 when you hire someone anyway, and the E-Verify is just based on that.
Jonathan, when I think of objections to foreign nationals needing proof of legitimacy before getting hired, I remember my field service engineering experience in Mexico. At several different factories, even tho I was present on contract and had taken the proper border crossing steps, no work permit, no entry to factory. Period. Not negotiable. I had to prove I was legit. Confirmation of the documents I had and provided required no more than a phone call to verify. One trip I had crossed border south, but had forgotten passport which needed to get work permit. Wife fedexed passport which I got next day. But in meantime, I had to pass schematics, manuals, etc back and forth thru fence around factory. Sat outside and did prep work, getting familiar with wiring, marking drawings, making recommendations for procedure once inside, etc. But could not get inside without that permit.
I’ve been in U.S. factories where I knew that a lot of, even most of the work force was Hispanic, and a good part of those not legal, and most of those I had to speak Spanish with because they did not speak English. Including a factory near Gary,Indiana. Not El Paso, not Calexico,, not San Diego (in each of which I’ve met not legal Hispanics), but nearly as far N as on can go in U.S. without swimming in a Great Lake.
Sure, folks would certainly try to game the system, counterfeit permits, etc, etc. My wife tells me about her accounting contacts and problems they relate about that sort of thing, specifically focusing on phony OASDI (social security) info. But Brian is correct. If the gov’t *wanted* to solve the problem, it could be done. Not with many $B for a wall that won’t stop zilch. But with a system that would cost the U.S. citizens attempting to gain at the expense of other citizens.
But the Donk’s don’t want to do it: would remove potential voting block; would counter the virtue signaling that does not weigh actual costs of crooked, unlawful immigration; great chance to create taxpayer supported services they can control as they express concern for those unlawful immigrants among whom they won’t deign to live; immigration useful issue to farm votes from people who don’t know better; etc, etc.
Phants don’t like it either. Can’t boast about wall the lack of success which can be blamed on not enough wall, not enough guards, whatever, give us more $; very likely some crony capitalism going on with inexpensive labor desired (inexpensive on the payroll, anyway, even if not inexpensive to the taxpayer); meanwhile, can always gripe about the Donks and the social services unlawful immigrants consume; immigration useful issue to farm votes from people who don’t know better; etc, etc.
Simpson-Mazzoli was supposed to prevent illegals from getting hired. Obviously it hasn’t worked. Maybe E-Verify will do the trick but it’s inherently difficult to prevent voluntary transactions. It’s also morally troublesome, at least to me, to impose harsh penalties on employers for malum prohibitum violations. That’s like forcing landowners to absorb the cost of property confiscations for public use, or otherwise going after the deep pocket because you can. Why not build a wall? It hasn’t been properly tried.
” And even if you try to follow the rules some applicants will use fake documents”
California turned hard left after Gloria Allred trotted out an illegal who had used a fake SS number to work for Meg Whitman before she ran for governor against Brown.
It worked. Of course, the woman disappeared after she had served her purpose.
It didn’t help that Whitman and her neurosurgeon husband fired the woman after they learned she had used a false SS number.
That was used as evidence of Republican cruelty.
That was the last chance for California and I started thinking about leaving afterward.
We finally made the move a year ago.
That anonymous was me. I have gone to using Safari again and did;t notice it had blanked out my ID.
The penalty for hiring illegals is chump change compared to the cost benefits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_I-9#Penalties
“An employer who hires an unauthorized worker can be fined between $250 and $5,500 per worker.”
People fear the IRS way more than whoever it is who enforces the rules against hiring illegals, because if you cheat (or make a mistake) on your taxes, you get crushingly punitive financial penalties. If you got a slap on the wrist, far more people would cheat.
It will cost far, far less than the $25B for a wall to increase the penalties for hiring illegals and to step up enforcement of those rules, and it could be done starting immediately.
Heck, some enterprising IRS bureaucrat could probably figure out a way to have hiring illegals interpreted as tax avoidance (you’re taking an illegal, untaxed benefit of their lower wages relative to a legal worker).
An interesting article about Trump clamping down on H1Bs at an IT engineer’s company:
Trump quietly working behind the scenes on H1B Visas, personal story
Interesting. How do you like Reddit as a substitute for Facebook ?
Jonathan, is there some reason I;m on federation ? Is it because I’ve gone back to Safari ?
[Beats me. I have no idea why WordPress sometimes moderates comments by registered contributors. J]
Moderation.
We could get higher rates of compliance with many kinds of laws if we severely increased the penalties for noncompliance, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
“Interesting. How do you like Reddit as a substitute for Facebook ?”
I dunno ’bout facebook but reddit is about the best forum out there. It’s set up very well, so the users of each subreddit, can keep a post up for days, or drop it off the bottom of the page quite quickly. Hey, have a look at r/sociopath. ;)
Recommended!
What is the feeling here about the positions Trump set out – including wall, etc. On the surface they sound good – but I’m not sure of the details of the “chain migration” (thank God they seem to have given up on the insane “offensiveness” of that great standard demographic term) or of the rapidity of getting rid of the lottery, but at least it did something with the biggest of the issues.
Some of you have surely studied it more closely than I, so I’m curious. I’d like to get something in place and soon before the issue gets muddied by another generation’s entry. I think the country has a certain sense of survival – after earlier mass migrations we pulled back. I think we are trying to do that, now. It doesn’t mean immigration hasn’t built this country, but only when it is accompanied by assimilation. If the democrats keep calling their opponents racists, the outcome is not likely to be good for anyone – most of all them.
The current laws/regulations requiring employers to verify legal status will work, and are followed by some employers. I know this because I worked for one such company, so it is being done by some. The problem is that there is almost no enforcement mechanism on the part of the government. If employers violate this law there is little chance of being caught, and minor penalties for those that are. Better enforcement and stiff penalties would quickly end the flood of illegals, IMO.
Employers are already required to follow numerous Federal requirements (wage & hour laws, EEOC laws, collecting & reporting employment taxes, and more). Most of these are monitored for compliance, with swift action for non-compliance. Arguably, immigration laws are more important to the long term stability of the country than the laws that are strictly enforced.
Once again, what is needed is known, and not all that difficult, but the WILL is what’s lacking.
” If the democrats keep calling their opponents racists, the outcome is not likely to be good for anyone – most of all them.”
I think Trump is dangling this bait out there in the assumption that the Democrat leadership, Schumer and Pelosi, are afraid of their rank and file who will go nuts if they accept.
The Democrats have got themselves in a trap by assuming Trump is dumb. The white hot hatred they have encouraged is now the barrier to any sensible solution.
The Democrats only hope is, as usual, Republicans who can almost be relied upon to miss the subtlety of the offer.
One if the subtleties they miss is the 12 years until citizenship. The “Dreamers” are not all high school valedictorians.
Most are slow and did not finish high school and are involved in petty crime. Those are grounds for deportation.
The “Dreamers” know it and will rebel if the Democrats take the offer. They were demonstrating in front of Schumer’s home when he caved on the ill advised shutdown.
The Republican base would be wise to accept Napoleon’s advice.
“Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.”
The democrats are also being ripped apart by the conflict between progressives, and the very republican, since Clinton, main part of the party. Schumer and Pelosi are losing their grip on the party because of this.
If the progressives take the democrats and toss the old guard then you will have a serious fight. Otherwise it will be business as usual.
(Different Anonymous)
“The biggest issue is how to reduce the incentives for illegal immigration.”
That’s why I’m in favor of making it really, really hurt this time. Deport them all, no exceptions. Send an unambiguous message to the third world that we’ve had enough — the party’s over. Sending them all back regardless of anything positive they’ve done since their arrival will drive that message home. Any halfway measures will demonstrate that, given enough bad publicity, we can be rolled. Screw that. Our society’s design margin is exhausted.
And while we’re at it, put a total stop to chain migration; someone proposed exceptions for nuclear family only (i.e., father, mother, and direct blood children, but no grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.)
Also, end the anchor baby nonsense. Stipulate that one of the parents must already be a US citizen, and must have resided in the US for, say, three of the past five years.
Finally, I am tired of turning on the news to see illegal immigrants protesting and making demands of me and my tax dollars. I am even further tired of politicians who claim to speak for them. HOW CAN YOU CLAIM TO REPRESENT THEM??? THEY DIDN’T ELECT YOU. THEY’RE NOT US CITIZENS!! (Yes, I’m shouting — I’m pissed!)
I’m one of that 81% who says we have too much immigration. It’s time to go nuclear on this issue.
There is another point of view on this matter from an experienced former diplomat with knowledge of Mexico.
I also have long considered Mexico a major threat to America. I have dealt with Mexican diplomats at the UN, the OAS, and in Central and South America. They are first rate. They are patriotic, well-trained, dedicated, and hard working. They, almost to a man and a woman, are also possessed with a deep, deep animus towards the United States. At the UN and the OAS, for example, Mexico, in my experience, played the role of opponent to whatever we sought to do. They not only consistently voted against us, they collaborated with our opponents on resolutions and projects antithetical to our interests, and, for example, refused to oppose Cuban and Venezuelan human rights violations. They rarely passed on an opportunity to stick it in our eye.
Mexico had a major role in fostering guerrilla groups in Central America during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, backing off only when it became a hindrance to the NAFTA deal with the United States, and when some of the groups began operating in Mexico. Mexico is feared and resented throughout Central America as a bully and for its mistreatment of Central American migrants. The horror stories these migrants tell of their passage through Mexico are hair-raising and heartbreaking.
This is an interesting sidelight.
Some years ago, I mentioned to a senior colleague in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at State, my concern over the openly political activity engaged in by Mexico’s consulates and diplomatic personnel in the U.S. She acknowledged it was a problem but not one anybody wanted to take up. Well, it is now at a stage when it must be taken up. If the Trump administration is serious about protecting our borders and sovereignty the time has come for tough action on Mexico.
Again, what do we do about this ? I saw Vincente Fox on TV last week. At one time, I hoped he would be a reformer. He is just one more Mexican politician.
The last time I looked [a couple of months ago] the Remittances sent by Mexican invaders back to Mexico was more than Mexico [an OPEC member and one which incidentally has always backed OPEC against us since the first oil embargoes] makes from oil exports.
Their very presence is a crime. If they are here illegally, under the Simpson-Mazzoli act, their employment is illegal and the money is the proceeds of multiple crimes. Since it cannot be shown that taxes were paid on the funds, money-laundering can be called into play. I’m pretty sure that under the various permutations of the Patriot act that the president has the power to block transfers of funds out of the country both for counter terrorism and financial crime reasons.
You want to get the attention of the Mexican government, cut Mexico off from the American banking system and block the transfer of remittances [incidentally, if they move to trying to move cash across the border, that itself is a violation of Title III of the Patriot Act].
They will scream like ruptured Bann Sidh.
My GAS meter will be pegged on zero.
If they cannot send money home, a whole bunch of them will go home and be a problem for Vincente Fox and not us.
AH!, back in moderation.
Subotai Bahadur
[If anyone knows a way to whitelist individual WP commenters I’m eager to learn it. Jonathan]
I think that may have been what Trump was talking about when he said Mexico would pay for the wall.
The Memo comes out this week.
Enjoy.