Immigration Opinions, 8/10/18

Immigration Opinions, 8/10/18 Support the Center for Immigration Studies by donating on line here: http://cis.org/donate This email includes a wide range of views, provided for educational purposes. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by the Center for Immigration Studies  1. "Lawsuit Seeks to Require Federal Contractor to Break Immigration Laws," Dan Cadman 2. "Section 266 of the INA: A Forgotten Immigration Crime," Andrew R. Arthur 3. "Refugee Resettlement Is Costly," Jason Richwine 4. "Refugee Resettlement – Lifeline or Foreign Policy Tool?," Nayla Rush 5. "DHS Is Increasing Foreign Student Fees — But Not by Enough," David North 6. "Could TPS Be Back on the Table for Nicaragua?," Kausha Luna 7. "Venezuelan Migration Continues to Grow," Kausha Luna 8. "Rational Immigration Policies Needed," Georgie Anne Geyer 9. "Open Borders Are Not Libertarian so Long as America Is a Welfare State," Bruce Majors 10. "I'm an Immigrant — and Trump is Right on Immigration," Neil Gouveia and Susan Edelman 11. "Billions to be Saved by Tightening Welfare Rules," Spencer Raley 12. "A Fordham University Law Professor Gets a Failing Grade," Hans A. von Spakovsky 13. "Does Trump Have What It Takes to Win on Immigration?," Karin McQuillan 14. "Arab Living in Mexico Smuggles 6 Yemenis into U.S. Via Southern Border," Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles 15. "Immigration Will Not Make America Great Again," Spencer P. Morrison 16. "To Counter Trump, Vox Defends MS-13 as Nice Kids Who Ride Bikes, Work After-School Jobs," Jacob Perry 17. "NY Gov. Cuomo Still Trying to Skate on ICE," Jennifer G. Hickey 18. "In Canada, Border Enforcement Gains Support," Jennifer G. Hickey 19. "Cory Booker's Israel Faux-Pas Exposes Stunning Depths of Liberal Hypocrisy On Border Security," Scott Morefield 20. "July Jobs: The 'Trump Effect' Seems to be Creeping Back (Because of 'Zero Tolerance'?)," Edwin S. Rubenstein 21. "George Soros' Son Reveals the True Agenda Behind Flooding the West With 3rd World Immigrants," Chris Black 22. "The Communists Behind the 'Abolish ICE,' 'Occupy ICE' Agitation," William F. Jasper 23. "President Trump Can Solve the Immigration Crisis With Legislation That Died in 2013," Matthew Soerens 24. "On Immigration, the GOP Is the Grown-Up Party," Saritha Prabhu 25. "No Justice for Taxpaying Americans," Howie Carr 26. "Illegal Immigrants Not Exactly Flocking to Register to Vote in San Francisco," Jazz Shaw 27. "Anti-Immigration, Like Pro-Immigration, Is a Legitimate Political Position," Yuval Noah Harari 28. "Explaining the Indefensible," Peter Skerry 29. "To Solve Border Troubles, The U.S. Must Help Make Mexico Great Again," Dan DeCarlo 30. "Lawyers Defending Immigrant Children in Detention Are Relying on a Court Case From the 80s," Kevin Johnson 31. "Trump's Latest Immigration Injustice is a Malicious Travesty," Shikha Dalmia 32. "It's Not About 'Illegal Immigration,' It's About Keeping Certain People Out," Jack Holmes 1. Lawsuit Seeks to Require Federal Contractor to Break Immigration Laws By Dan Cadman CIS Immigration Blog, August 8, 2018 . . . Superficially, this suit doesn't have anything to do with immigration, it has to do with labor laws. But strip away the thin veneer and it's easy to see that it is just one more effort using "lawfare" to dismantle effective immigration enforcement. . . . One such facility is operated by the GEO Group in the state of Washington. As is consistent not only with ICE practice in its own facilities, but with the federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service, the aliens detained there are permitted to perform various chores. In return, they receive a nominal amount of money that they can use to purchase commissary items. . . . The premise is simple: Allowing detainees to do these tasks helps maintain calm and quiet because restless minds and idle hands often become restive and dissatisfied. That in turn can lead to disruptions or worse, something that is to be avoided at all costs in a place of confinement where detainees or inmates outnumber their guards. But using a novel approach, alien advocates in Washington filed suit against GEO Group for paying the detainees $1 per day for their chores, which is significantly less than a state law mandating a minimum employee wage of $15 per hour. It's important to note that GEO Group pays a daily amount commensurate with what would be paid to other federal prisoners and detainees; it didn't pick this figure on its own. . . . https://cis.org/Cadman/Lawsuit-Seeks-Require-Federal-Contractor-Break-Immigration-Laws Return to Top ******** ******** 2. Section 266 of the INA: A Forgotten Immigration Crime By Andrew R. Arthur CIS Immigration Blog, August 6, 2018 . . . There has been a lack of clarity in recent weeks about the criminal provisions governing illegal entry into the United States. For example, Fox News reported last week that Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) was "confused" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Matthew Albence's statements concerning aliens who have been detained because they have "broken a law". The law in question is section 275(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which renders initial illegal entry a misdemeanor, and a subsequent offense a felony. But another provision of the INA (section 266(a)), which would apply criminal penalties to aliens present in the United States after an illegal entry who have failed to register under the INA, has not received the same attention, either by the public or, apparently, by ICE. By way of background, section 262 of the INA applies a duty on "every alien now or hereafter in the United States" age 14 or older who "has not been registered and fingerprinted" under specified provisions of the law and who remains in the United States for 30 days or more "to apply for registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of such 30 days." . . . There are several reasons to discount this finding. First, Justice White failed to reference any case brought under section 266 of the INA wherein a conviction was not secured against an alien under the scenario he described. Second, no reasonable argument can be made that aliens who enter the United States illegally are unaware of the fact that they could have sought legal entry if they had obtained the necessary visa. This is important, because the visa-issuance process includes registration under section 221(b) of the INA. Bypassing this process demonstrates that those aliens are aware of the fact that there is an application and registration requirement, logically imposing a duty on them to determine whether registration would be required following illegal entry into the United States. Third, the majority of the court concluded that failure to register "without more" was sufficient to satisfy the criminal standard in section 266(a) of the INA, a position that even the Obama administration's Justice Department apparently conceded. In April 2013, Jon Feere, former CIS legal policy analyst, noted that the U.S. Attorney's Manual stated: "If the alien is undocumented and has been in the United States for longer than 30 days, he or she has also violated" section 266(a) of the INA. That language remains in the manual. . . . https://cis.org/Arthur/Section-266-INA-Forgotten-Immigration-Crime Return to Top ******** ******** 3. Refugee Resettlement Is Costly By Jason Richwine CIS Immigration Blog, August 10, 2018 The purpose of refugee policy is primarily humanitarian, and policymakers need to determine how best to help refugees given limited resources and possible disruption to host nations. However, advocates for expanding the number of refugees admitted to the United States have lately portrayed their position as a win-win — not only is refugee resettlement a moral imperative, it is also in our nation's economic self-interest! Last fall, a leaked (and apparently unfinished) report from the Department Health and Human Services claimed that refugees pay more in taxes than they receive in services. A less comprehensive NBER working paper came to the same conclusion last summer. Both papers neglect substantial costs that invalidate their conclusions. (For details, see the links above.) More fundamentally, both implicitly assume that today's refugees are just like yesterday's. In the 20th century, the United States took in several groups of higher-skill refugees — for example, Cubans after Castro's takeover, South Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon, Soviet dissidents in the 1980s, Eastern Europeans in the 1990s, and so on. Today, refugees come mainly from less developed parts of the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. . . . https://cis.org/Richwine/Refugee-Resettlement-Costly Return to Top ******** ******** 4. Refugee Resettlement – Lifeline or Foreign Policy Tool? By Nayla Rush CIS Immigration Blog, August 7, 2018 . . . Concerns of hosting states: Help the millions here and set the pace for refugee return . . . Lebanese President Michel Aoun is clear about what his country needs, and it's not resettlement of a handful of the refugees hosted by his country to the West. Aoun saw Lebanon's unemployment rate climb to an unprecedented 46 percent with the presence of 1.86 million Syrian refugees on its soil. (The number is Aoun's estimate.) "Today, The United Nations thanks us for our humanity in dealing with the Syrian refugees," Aoun said. But as he told EU official Johannes Hahn, such thanks "do not feed bread" to the refugees. "You have to resolve the refugee case before we ourselves become refugees," he said. Syrian refugees now make up over a quarter of Lebanon's population. Lebanon has been pushing for Syrian refugees to return to safe areas in Syria, a move UNHCR deems unsafe. The relationship between Lebanese officials and UNHCR turned sour lately, with Lebanon accusing the UN refugee agency of purposely discouraging Syrian refugees from returning home. Gratitude and/or resettlement have little bearing on hosting countries. What the Lebanese government (and most likely other host governments in the region) wants is financial aid to ease the impact of refugee presence on their economy, education, environment, health system, etc. The top priority remains working towards refugee return. . . . https://cis.org/Rush/Refugee-Resettlement-Lifeline-or-Foreign-Policy-Tool Return to Top ******** ******** 5. DHS Is Increasing Foreign Student Fees — But Not by Enough By David North CIS Immigration Blog, August 8, 2018 We learned this week that foreign students are more than three times as likely to stay illegally in the country as nonimmigrants as a whole, and we heard several weeks ago that the Department of Homeland Security was — after a gap of 14 years — finally thinking about raising the DHS fees for foreign students. . . . Last month, the Department of Homeland Security proposed — for the first time in 14 years — to increase its fee for newly arrived foreign students by $150. It will be $350 per student, up from $200. DHS also proposed that new certifications for institutions wanting foreign students would be raised from a ridiculously low $1,700 to a still unrealistic $3,000. My sense is that those of us interested in keeping the levels of illegal immigration down to a dull roar should all email (or write) to DHS suggesting that these fee increases are both long overdue and insufficient. The fees should be raised still further, and immediately. . . . https://cis.org/North/DHS-Increasing-Foreign-Student-Fees-Not-Enough Return to Top ******** ******** 6. Could TPS Be Back on the Table for Nicaragua? By Kausha Luna CIS Immigration Blog, August 5, 2018 . . . In recent months the number of asylum applications by Nicaraguans in neighboring Costa Rica and other countries has increased dramatically. Currently, an average of 200 asylum applications are being lodged daily in Costa Rica. Per Costa Rican authorities, nearly 8,000 asylum claims by Nicaraguan nationals have been registered since April, and some 15,000 more have been given appointments for later registration as the national processing capacities have been overwhelmed. Arriving Nicaraguans are being hosted by an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Nicaraguan families living already in Costar Rica. Panama, Mexico, and the United States have also recorded a growing trend of asylum claims by Nicaraguans during the first half of 2018, with a significant peak in June. However, the numbers in these countries remain in the low hundreds. DHS estimates that there are approximately 5,300 Nicaraguans who hold TPS under Nicaragua's designation. The number is much smaller than that of TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador (262,000), Honduras (86,000), and Haitians (58,000). However, the repression by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has garnered significant attention from the media, general public, and the White House. It will be interesting to see if politicians will call for Nicaragua's re-designation for TPS as the expiration date nears, unrest in the country persists, and emigration flows continue to grow. Nevertheless, if Nicaragua is not designated for TPS again, beneficiaries have other options. They could even apply for asylum, which would add to the recent increase in Nicaraguan asylum applications in the U.S. . . . https://cis.org/Luna/Could-TPS-Be-Back-Table-Nicaragua Return to Top ******** ******** 7. Venezuelan Migration Continues to Grow By Kausha Luna CIS Immigration Blog, August 10, 2018 . . . Amidst their welcoming disposition, host countries are experiencing internal pressure to prioritize domestic needs. The arrival of Venezuelans has caused concerns relating to the impact on the wages and employment rates of host populations. There is also fear of an increased threat of diseases and epidemics with the fall of Venezuela's health system. Others have emphasized the prospect of increased crime or social tensions. In turn, Mexico and Colombia have reportedly begun to deport Venezuelans, Brazil militarized its northern region, and some host countries have also pulled back on granting special residency permits. There is consensus that the outflow of Venezuelans will continue, and some experts predict the displacement could surpass the number of Syrians displaced by Syrian the civil war. . . . https://cis.org/Luna/Venezuelan-Migration-Continues-Grow Return to Top ******** ******** 8. Rational Immigration Policies Needed By Georgie Anne Geyer GoDanRiver.com, August 2, 2018 . . . But is there a middle ground that might offer us some solutions to our dangerous immigration situation? As someone who has covered these issues for more than four decades, I am convinced of the need for the rational and the reasonable in a world where greed and grievance, recrimination and resentment, are becoming the watchwords of the day. Here are four reasonable ideas: First, a wise leader would see immigration from a historical point of view. Today, according to U.N. agencies, there are some 60 million desperate human beings wandering the world, seeking a better place to land. At the same time, climate change is driving people from formerly amenable homelands, and worse is to come, with water shortages, dried-up farm lands and the veritable destruction of low-lying countries swallowed by rising seas. It's not enough to say, as many do, "This has always happened." This is different. Second, immigrants themselves must drop the easy and tiresome cries of "racism" and "discrimination." There probably was racism in Mesut Ozil's case, but Turkey's Erdogan himself severely messed up the discussion and gained Germany's righteous anger by unconscionably campaigning for the votes of Turkish-Germans last spring — in Germany. Did the famous soccer player perhaps not understand this? Do immigrants not have responsibility for the stability of their countries of citizenship over their countries of heritage? Third, there is no room — not in today's world, and really not ever — for sloppy sentimentality regarding immigration. Nation-states are absolutely necessary for the peace and prosperity of the world as it is organized, and those states have not only the right, but the responsibility, to maintain stable societies. Those who embrace a sentimental doctrine of "open borders" or "everybody come" are as guilty of moral casualness and destroying stability as those who cruelly take children away from their parents at the border and then lose them. . . . https://www.godanriver.com/opinion/columnists/geyer_georgie_anne/rational-immigration-policies-needed/article_d2d75a64-9693-11e8-a714-93850ce7a4f0.html Return to Top ******** ******** 9. Open Borders Are Not Libertarian so Long as America Is a Welfare State What morality—and what electoral strategy—prioritizes the right of a Honduran to cross the border over the right of an American not to be forced to feed, house, and clothe her family? By Bruce Majors The Federalist, August 2, 2018 . . . Dalmia in a 2012 survey reported that economists' estimates of the increase in U.S. gross domestic product produced by immigrant labor was between $6 billion and $22 billion. Dalmia quotes Caplan on how immigrant labor overall increases or has no effect on American wages, although it does specifically lower the wages of less-skilled and less-educated American workers. This illustrates the granularity of the effects immigration has in the economy. Dalmia claims immigrants tend to move to states that do not have extensive welfare programs, minimizing immigrants' effects on the taxpayer. One could rephrase this: Why should working and middle-class people in rural counties, the people who gave their Electoral College votes to Trump, not Hillary Clinton (or Gary Johnson), be happy to vote for people supporting unrestricted immigration, when these Americans have worked to own a middle-class home, a home now subjected to property taxes to pay for the daycare of illegal immigrant children (and the children of illegal immigrants) that is necessary for those immigrants to take jobs in the local chicken processing plant? On social media, libertarians tend to argue that immigrants, even illegals, pay taxes too, through their rent to their property-tax-paying landlords. The average annual per child expenditure of an American public school is $12,000, and as high as $29,000 in Washington, D.C. and other jurisdictions. The idea that many immigrants, living crowded into low tax assessment properties, pay anything like $12,000 annually in property taxes per child they commit to the local school is prima facie ridiculous. . . . http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/02/open-borders-not-libertarian-long-america-welfare-state/ Return to Top ******** ******** 10. I'm an Immigrant — and Trump is Right on Immigration By Neil Gouveia and Susan Edelman The New York Post, August 4, 2018 . . . I learned a lot about American culture and traditions from watching sit-coms: "Three's Company," "Diff'rent Strokes," "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons." I went to some of the worst elementary and middle schools in the South Bronx but won a scholarship to Monsignor Scanlan High School and escaped a cycle of subpar education. It gave me the discipline I was not exposed to in the public school system. I earned a bachelor's degree in communications from St. John's University in Queens and a master's degree in education from Baruch College. Those experiences shaped my "conservative" views on immigration. It took five years after we arrived in the US before we could apply for citizenship. While I was exempt because of my age, 13, mom and dad had to prepare for a naturalization test on American history and government. Mom was the nervous one — she did not have a formal education and the thought of taking an exam terrified her. She and my dad studied for hours to answer the 100 questions that could seal their fate. On test day, an immigration officer asked 10 questions, and my parents had to answer at least six correctly. Dad passed easily, but mom barely made it. At the official ceremony, I stood with my parents, bursting with pride, as they took the citizenship oath and pledged allegiance to the US flag. At that moment, I, too, became an American citizen. If under age 18, the children of a naturalized parent are automatically granted the same status. . . . https://nypost.com/2018/08/04/im-an-immigrant-and-trump-is-right-on-immigration/ Return to Top ******** ******** 11. Billions to be Saved by Tightening Welfare Rules By Spencer Raley ImmigrationReform.com, August 7, 2018 . . . This is not a radical new change. In fact, the United States has always reserved the right to refuse citizenship to anyone who could not demonstrate an ability to financially support themselves and their families. Public charge clauses were first codified into federal law with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1882 which, in part, gave the federal government authority to restrict the entry of "any person unable to take care of him or herself without becoming a public charge." Unfortunately, the likelihood of an individual to become a public charge is hardly considered in the immigration process anymore. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/07/clarifying-the-public-charge-rule-could-save-taxpayers-billions/ Return to Top ******** ******** 12. A Fordham University Law Professor Gets a Failing Grade By Hans A. von Spakovsky National Review Online, August 7, 2018 . . . Editor's Note: Hans A. von Spakovsky imagines a response to Zephyr Teachout, a New York attorney-general candidate and associate professor at Fordham law school, from her constitutional-law professor. . . . Dear Prof. Teachout: It is with great regret that I inform you of a revision to the grade you received in Constitutional Law 101 as a first-year student here at Duke University School of Law. I have changed it to an "F." You really left me no choice in this matter, given your recent bizarre assertion that as New York's attorney general, you would have the authority to prosecute federal law-enforcement agents for enforcing federal immigration law. Perhaps your volunteer work for Howard Dean's presidential campaign kept you from class the day we covered Clause 2 of Article VI of the Constitution? That's the provision that states: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States, which shall be made in Pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. As your classmates learned that day, this is what is known in legal circles as the "supremacy clause." It specifies that federal law takes precedent over state law, and it "binds all legal actors," which would include even the attorney general of the state of New York. . . . I don't wish to belabor this point, but I do very much want to repair this apparent deficit in your Con Law educational experience. The plain fact is: a state attorney general cannot prosecute a federal law-enforcement officer for carrying out his duty to enforce federal law. This includes the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Any state attorney general who attempts to do so would be in violation of her oath to support the Constitution of the United States. . . . https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/zephyr-teachout-fordham-law-professor-gets-failing-grade/ Return to Top ******** ******** 13. Does Trump Have What It Takes to Win on Immigration? By Karin McQuillan American Thinker, August 8, 2018 . . . The GOP is chock-full of politicians who personally favor amnesty and high legal immigration and who fear the mainstream media more than Trump and his voters. They want to curry favor with Hispanic voters in their districts by continuing chain migration. They rely on rich donors who hire non-Americans. Like other elitists, they feel virtuous by being kind to illegals. They seem to enjoy demonstrating their power to ignore voters. The good of the country is of the least importance to them. Trump knows he needs new tactics. He has started to threaten a government shutdown if that's what it takes to get border funding. This is supposedly to pressure Democrats, but it is equally a shot across the bow of the GOP. At the moment, these threats are classic Trump intimidation, not an action plan. During a congratulatory call to Rush Limbaugh, President Trump admitted that he had conceded to Ryan and McConnell and agreed to no "fund the wall" shutdown before the midterms. Trump said he personally thinks a showdown on immigration during the September budget vote is worth the political risk, as after the midterms they may not get as favorable a bill. (This suggests the question: what is less favorable than zero? Because all we have is zero.) Does Trump need political savvy and tools outside his usual skill set to outmaneuver these lifelong politicians on their home turf, the halls of Congress? Once the Kavanaugh confirmation is behind us, will Trump be freer to go after McConnell? Will Trump, the consummate deal-maker, roll up his sleeves and get the immigration deal through Congress, garnering the votes he needs one by one? Or will Trump's paradigm-busting approach find an unforeseen way through the Congressional roadblock? . . . https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/does_trump_have_what_it_takes_to_win_on_immigration.html Return to Top ******** ******** 14. Arab Living in Mexico Smuggles 6 Yemenis into U.S. Via Southern Border Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, August 2, 2018 . . . This is hardly an isolated case. Foreigners from nations with terrorist ties have been slipping into the U.S. via Mexico for years and Judicial Watch has exposed several plots as part of an ongoing investigation into the critical national security threats that grip the region. In one operation exposed by Judicial Watch, Mexican drug cartels smuggled nationals of terrorist countries into a small Texas rural town near El Paso Texas. To elude the Border Patrol, they used remote farm roads to reach stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso. Judicial Watch also uncovered State Department records confirming that "Arab extremists" are entering the U.S. through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network "cells." Among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI, identified via a cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey's studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities (watch a Judicial Watch documentary on it here). For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI's most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. In fact, as one of the world's most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico. . . . https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/08/arab-living-in-mexico-smuggles-6-yemenis-into-u-s-via-southern-border/ Return to Top ******** ******** 15. Immigration Will Not Make America Great Again By Spencer P. Morrison American Thinker, August 6, 2018 . . . But every once in a while a seemingly convincing argument is made. Ruchir Sharma's piece in the New York Times, entitled "To Be Great Again, America Needs Immigrants," is one such piece. Not only does Sharma rely on uncontested data, but his logic seems solid. But looks can be deceiving. Sharma's argument suffers from two main problems: Sharma misunderstands how economies grow, and he conflates gross domestic product (GDP) with prosperity. Machines, not men Sharma claims economic growth depends primarily upon extra population, not productivity: . . . This is wrong. Technology, not population, drives long-run economic growth. Consider: economic growth occurs when either more stuff or better stuff is made. For example, America's economy grows when it produces more cars or (all else remaining equal) more luxurious or fuel-efficient cars. This applies to all economic output, whether goods or services. . . . https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/immigration_will_not_make_america_great_again.html Return to Top ******** ******** 16. To Counter Trump, Vox Defends MS-13 as Nice Kids Who Ride Bikes, Work After-School Jobs By Jacob Perry The Federalist, August 9, 2018 . . . This context is wholly absent from Vox's presentation. The video succinctly describes the origins of MS-13 as "a group of teenagers, hanging out, smoking pot, listening to rock music" who eventually became "juvenile delinquents involved in street crimes who were stuffed into American jails." Vox specifically defends MS-13 against Trump's charge that the gang is a drug-smuggling criminal cartel. The voiceover states, "that's not really the case" and notes that the group "doesn't have global ambitions." Hannah Dreier, a ProPublica reporter showcased in the video, says "MS-13 is not really involved with the international drug trade." Senior Vox reporter Dara Lind adds that "the organization doesn't have that kind of sophistication to really play with the major players." These assertions are made despite the fact that there is a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary. . . . http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/09/counter-trump-vox-defends-ms-13-nice-kids-ride-bikes-work-school-jobs/ Return to Top ******** ******** 17. NY Gov. Cuomo Still Trying to Skate on ICE By Jennifer G. Hickey ImmigrationReform.com, August 8, 2018 . . . With his re-election campaign in full-swing, Cuomo must kiss the rings of the open border left-wingers who demand the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including his Democratic Party opponent, activist Cynthia Nixon. But polls show average voters oppose the "abolish ICE" movement and support stronger immigration law enforcement. Given his political nature, the governor is trying to effectively abolish ICE through his policies that obstruct agents from carrying out their duties, but not actually saying he wants to abolish ICE. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/08/ny-gov-cuomo-still-trying-to-skate-on-ice/ Return to Top ******** ******** 18. In Canada, Border Enforcement Gains Support By Jennifer G. Hickey ImmigrationReform.com, August 7, 2018 . . . Asked their views on "irregular border crossers," a majority – 67 percent – of Canadians define the situation created by a massive surge in illegal aliens from the U.S. and an almost equal number lack faith in the government to handle the surge. The sentiment is shared by those of all political stripes. On the question whether "too many" illegal immigrants have been given entry to the country, 65 percent of Conservative Party voters say yes, while more than half those who identified as Liberal and New Democratic party agreed. Furthermore, the number of Canadians who feel their government has been too "generous" to illegal aliens increased from 53 percent last year in September 2017 to 58 percent in the recent poll. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/07/in-canada-border-enforcement-gains-support/ Return to Top ******** ******** 19. Cory Booker's Israel Faux-Pas Exposes Stunning Depths of Liberal Hypocrisy on Border Security By Scott Morefield Townhall.com, August 6, 2018 We all know most liberals are hypocrites, but they can't help it, not really. After all, hypocrisy is intertwined into the very essence of holding to policy positions so utterly nonsensical on their face that defending them requires pretzel-shaped distortions of reality that would make a circus acrobat shudder. But among a sea of hypocrites, some are more hypocritical than others. Enter Senator Cory Booker, who was recently photographed at Netroots Nation - that gathering of Lenin wannabees, each of whom hoping to top the last one's efforts to come up with a nuttier way to purge the kulaks for good this time - holding a sign bearing a pro-Palestinian movement slogan. . . . https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2018/08/06/cory-bookers-israel-fauxpas-exposes-stunning-depths-of-liberal-hypocrisy-on-border-security-n2507081 Return to Top ******** ******** 20. July Jobs: The "Trump Effect" Seems to be Creeping Back (Because of "Zero Tolerance"?) By Edwin S. Rubenstein VDare.com, August 5, 2018 . . . Equally important: the immigrant working-age population was just 827,000 higher this July than the previous July, as opposed to a year-over-year gain of 962,000 in May. The immigrant workforce had been growing by over 1 million year-over-year since January, peaking at an appalling 2.2 million in April. So this too is an improving trend, although still not back to the success of Trump's first year: the immigrant workforce actually shrank in the last five months of 2017. This pattern of sudden deterioration in American worker protection followed by steady recovery was also seen in 2017. But whereas 2017's overall improvement must mostly be attributed to the "jawboning" effect of Trump's election, there are now numerous executive actions, including the sharp reduction in the refugee intake, to which Trump can point. However, these can only have marginal, and easily-swamped, effect. Only legislation—a border wall to stop the illegal alien flow; a second Operation Wetback, including E-Verify, to get the illegal alien stock self-deporting; above all a moratorium on legal immigration—can secure the fruits of the current economic expansion for American workers. . . . https://vdare.com/articles/national-data-july-jobs-the-trump-effect-seems-to-be-creeping-back-because-of-zero-tolerance Return to Top ******** ******** 21. George Soros' Son Reveals the True Agenda Behind Flooding the West With 3rd World Immigrants By Chris Black InvestmentWatch Blog, August 10, 2018 . . . So, what's up with multiculturalism (George Soros' Open Society foundation has all its fingers and toes into that pie), open borders (idem), and so on and so forth? Well, as Alex Soros clearly puts it: it's the Jews looking over their own interest, thus pushing for diversity and multiculturalism in the West (where many of them live) to prevent Jews from being prosecuted by the goyim. If you have another view over what Alex Soros told the New York Times reporter (I don't think he was waterboarded or anything the like), please, enlighten me. Here's another take on "multiculturalism" from an American Jewish researcher: You must also know that Jews identify themselves as white people in the US and Europe, while whites are the true minority of the world, as they make for approximately ten percent of Earth's population (and declining fast). However, you only see diversity and multiculturalism pushed in European countries, or in the US, which is basically an extension of the Old Continent in the New World. Jews never push for multiculturalism or "vibrant" diversity in Israel, which recently passed a law declaring itself a Jewish ethnic state by any metrics. Keep in mind that the US was 90 percent white until 1965, when JFK changed the immigration law, which, prior to that year, was focused on bringing up immigrants to the US mostly from Europe. Since the sixties, the US started upgrading its "diversity level" via importing immigrants from Latin America and other "shithole countries", along with pushing cultural marxism and hardcore leftist indoctrination in its campuses and mass media. Now, America is ~63 percent white and according to demographic studies, whites are to become a minority in the US by the year 2045. A generation from now basically. If you don't know what that means, look at Brazil, South Africa or other shining examples of multicultural societies. . . . http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/george-soros-son-reveals-the-true-agenda-behind-flooding-the-west-with-3rd-world-immigrants/ Return to Top ******** ******** 22. The Communists Behind the "Abolish ICE," "Occupy ICE" Agitation By William F. Jasper The New American, August 4, 2018 Fighting for equality and social justice. Yes, that's how it was played by the group-think propagandists of the Fake News thought cartel. The damning background information on these "activists" is available with a few clicks on a search engine. Reporters and pundits will spend untold hours digging into musty archives to find (or fabricate) a factoid from the distant past that can be twisted and used to smear a conservative as a "racist" and a "xenophobe," but remain steadfastly, willfully blind and mute when it comes to their ideological compadres on the extreme left. So it has gone throughout the nation in one city after another. Activists from the various communist fringe groups — many of whom openly identify with the RCP, WWP, CPUSA, RAR, etc. — carry out their subversive (and often violent) anit-American attacks with the confident assurance that their comrades in the media not only won't expose them but will portray them in the most favorable light possible. . . . https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/29709-the-communists-behind-the-abolish-ice-occupy-ice-agitation?vsmaid=409&vcid=8714 Return to Top ******** ******** 23. President Trump Can Solve the Immigration Crisis With Legislation That Died in 2013 By Matthew Soerens Fox News, August 7, 2018 . . . The 2013 bipartisan bill would have provided $46 billion for border security improvements. That's nearly double the $25 billion President Trump is now pressing for to build the wall on our border with Mexico. . . . But fortunately, if congressional Republicans and the president are willing to practice "the art of the deal," reviving the 2013 Senate bill would give them a proven way forward – one that would fund border security, end the diversity visa lottery, and shift to a merit-based immigration system with the support of a substantial number of Democratic votes in Congress. Immigrants crossing our border with Mexico – who comprise a slight majority of the roughly 11 million immigrants in the U.S. unlawfully – would have covered much of the expense of building the wall under the 2013 legislation because they would each be charged $2,000 in fines, paid gradually, to earn permanent legal status. Far from the free grace of amnesty, the 2013 bill required those who had either crossed our border or overstayed a visa illegally to make amends. The legislation also provided protection for immigrants brought to the U.S. in violation of the law as children – the Dreamers, who President Trump has said include "some absolutely incredible kids" who should have a pathway to citizenship. . . . http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/08/07/president-trump-can-solve-immigration-crisis-with-legislation-that-died-in-2013.html Return to Top ******** ******** 24. On Immigration, the GOP Is the Grown-Up Party By Saritha Prabhu The Tennessean, August 3, 2018 . . . Democrats aren't listening to the people on immigration Listening to Democratic Party leaders and their media supporters talk about immigration gives me massive cognitive dissonance. Their argument has a strange up-is-down, black-is-white quality to it: Uncontrolled illegal immigration is no problem! Border protection is racist and offensive! Arresting and deporting criminal aliens, even those that are violent, is immoral! Enforcing our immigration laws is racist! And now, of course, it has amped up — several Democratic leaders are openly talking about abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. The logical corollary to this is: Let all or most of the 7 billion people on planet Earth — decent people, criminals, terrorists, everyone — be able to come across the border to live in America. And all this when increasing automation threatens to destroy what jobs we currently have. . . . https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/08/03/immigration-republicans-democrats/882120002/ Return to Top ******** ******** 25. No Justice for Taxpaying Americans By Howie Carr The Boston Herald, August 08, 2018 . . . But the real double standard kicks in when the undocumented Democrat gets to the courtroom. A taxpaying American can only dream of the kid-gloves treatment these Third World fiends get. Here's a 2016 headline: "If Springfield market owner illegally cashing food stamps had been U.S. citizen punishment would have been greater, judge says." This one involved a 56-year-old Dominican bodega owner who was running an EBT-card scam for illegal immigrants in Springfield — stop me if you've heard this one before. He stole $38,000 and didn't do a day in jail. As Judge Tina Page said, "Had he been a citizen of the U.S. he would in all likelihood be serving a substantial sentence." But if he'd been imprisoned he'd have been deported, and God knows we don't want to deport Dominican welfare fraudsters — or Dominican heroin dealers. Freeing Dominican heroin dealers (and future cop killers) is the specialty of Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley, who cut loose a Dominican heroin dealer with no prison time, as the prosecutor put it, "to help him avoid deportation." Are you starting to notice a pattern here? Sometimes law abiding taxpayers get murdered because of this double standard of justice for welfare-collecting noncitizens. . . . http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/howie_carr/2018/08/carr_no_justice_for_taxpaying_americans Return to Top ******** ******** 26. Illegal Immigrants Not Exactly Flocking to Register to Vote in San Francisco By Jazz Shaw Hotair.com, August 5, 2018 Citizenship is something to be desired and it carries many benefits, with the ability to directly participate in direction of our government being one of the greatest. It's an incentive to follow the rules and complete the naturalization process. With liberal efforts to continually extend more and more benefits to illegal aliens, that incentive is erased. Expanding the right to vote in this fashion is probably the final frontier in that process. So basically none of San Fran's non-citizens are registering to vote. You might think the city's elected officials might take some sort of a hint from that. Sadly, they appear to be taking away precisely the opposite message. . . . https://hotair.com/archives/2018/08/05/illegal-immigrants-not-exactly-flocking-register-vote-san-francisco/ Return to Top ******** ******** 27. Anti-Immigration, Like Pro-Immigration, Is a Legitimate Political Position A book excerpt from "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" By Yuval Noah Harari The Economist, August 6, 2018 . . . Debate 1: The first clause of the immigration deal says simply that the host country allows immigrants in. But should this be understood as a duty or a favour? Is the host country obliged to open its gates to everybody, or does it have the right to pick and choose, and even to halt immigration altogether? Pro-immigrationists seem to think that countries have a moral duty to accept not just refugees, but also people from poverty-stricken lands who seek jobs and a better future. Especially in a globalised world, all humans have moral obligations towards all other humans, and those shirking these obligations are egoists or even racists. . . . Pro-immigrationists tend to demand a speedy acceptance, whereas anti-immigrationists want a much longer probation period. For pro-immigrationists, if third-generation immigrants are not seen and treated as equal citizens, this means that the host country is not fulfilling its obligations, and if this results in tensions, hostility and even violence—the host country has nobody to blame but its own bigotry. For anti-immigrationists, these inflated expectations are a large part of the problem. The immigrants should be patient. If your grandparents arrived here just forty years ago, and you now riot in the streets because you think you are not treated as a native, then you have failed the test. The root issue of this debate concerns the gap between personal timescale and collective timescale. From the viewpoint of human collectives, forty years is a short time. It is hard to expect society to fully absorb foreign groups within a few decades. Past civilisations that assimilated foreigners and made them equal citizens—such as Imperial Rome, the Muslim caliphate, the Chinese empires and the United States—all took centuries rather than decades to accomplish the transformation. . . . https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/08/06/anti-immigration-like-pro-immigration-is-a-legitimate-political-position Return to Top ******** ******** 28. Explaining the Indefensible By Peter Skerry The American Interest, July 30, 2018 . . . My colleague's refusal to differentiate between the claims of immigrants and refugees reflects the posture of the Catholic Church generally. Consider, for example, how at a Mass celebrated along the U.S.-Mexican border in February 2016, Pope Francis failed to draw any such distinctions and criticized the United States for denying entry both to Mexican migrants seeking to work or join relatives here, and to women and children fleeing economic, social, and, political chaos in Central America. The refusal to critically evaluate such claims and the intellectual confusion that sustains them are hardly limited to Catholics, or even to other believers. It is a refusal strongly reinforced by Americans' deeply engrained, virtually mythological misunderstanding of our history as "a nation of immigrants." As historian John Higham pointed out decades ago, Emma Lazarus's famous 1883 sonnet affixed to the pedestal of the Statute of Liberty praised "the Mother of Exiles" for welcoming not ordinary migrants but victims of anti-Jewish pogroms in Czarist Russia. Today, these people would be designated refugees. And yet the Statue is the symbol of our self-understanding as an immigrant nation. . . . There are two overlapping but distinct sources of confusion here. The first is definitional: who precisely is a refugee and how does a refugee differ from a migrant—or from an immigrant? The second is political and arises as participants in the global debates over these issues adapt their goals and frame their appeals to suit varied and changing contexts, constituencies, and audiences. . . . https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/07/30/explaining-the-indefensible/ Return to Top ******** ******** 29. To Solve Border Troubles, The U.S. Must Help Make Mexico Great Again By Dan DeCarlo The Federalist, August 6, 2018 Helping the Mexican government regain this basic aspect of their sovereignty should be a top priority for the Trump administration, as many of the negative facets of the current Mexican-U.S. relationship, such as the large numbers of illegal migrants and drugs pouring over the southern border are facilitated by the illegal smuggling networks run by the cartels. These cartels would not exist in their present robust form if the Mexican government was actually able to maintain its proper sovereign authority. . . . http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/06/solve-border-troubles-u-s-must-help-make-mexico-great/ Return to Top ******** ******** 30. Lawyers Defending Immigrant Children in Detention Are Relying on a Court Case From the 80s By Kevin Johnson The Conversation, August 2, 2018 . . . In the 1980s, the Reagan administration aggressively used detention of Central Americans as a device to deter migration from Central America, where violent civil wars had caused tens of thousands to flee. As a result, the government held in custody Central Americans arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border, including many who sought asylum in the U.S. because they feared persecution if returned home. Immigrant rights groups filed a series of lawsuits challenging various aspects of the detention policies, including denying access of migrants to counsel, taking steps to encourage them to "consent" to deportation, and detaining them in isolated locations far from families and attorneys. One suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1985 on behalf of Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old from El Salvador. She had fled violence in her home country to live with an aunt who was in the U.S. But Flores was detained by federal authorities at the U.S. border for being undocumented. The American Civil Liberties Union charged that holding Flores indefinitely violated the U.S. Constitution and the immigration laws. The Flores case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. . . . The Flores settlement created a framework agreed to by the U.S. government that addressed how migrant children were to be treated if they were detained. It is a landmark settlement in no small part because Central Americans continue to flee violence in their homelands and the U.S. government has responded with mass detention of immigrant children. Although the Flores settlement was agreeable to the Clinton administration, the Trump administration wants to detain families, including children, for periods longer than permitted by the Flores settlement. . . . https://theconversation.com/lawyers-defending-immigrant-children-in-detention-are-relying-on-a-court-case-from-the-80s-100918 Return to Top ******** ******** 31. Trump's Latest Immigration Injustice is a Malicious Travesty By Shikha Dalmia The Week, August 9, 2018 . . . The Department of Homeland Security is finalizing rules that would make it vastly easier to brand immigrants deemed "likely" to qualify for even minimal social services a "public charge" and make it harder for them to enter the country if they are abroad — or, if they are here, obtain green cards or citizenship or otherwise upgrade their immigration status. It might not even matter if these legal immigrants personally consume these services. It would reportedly be enough that their American children or spouses do. By some estimates, 20 million immigrants may be affected. . . . http://theweek.com/articles/789027/trumps-latest-immigration-injustice-malicious-travesty Return to Top ******** ******** 32. It's Not About 'Illegal Immigration,' It's About Keeping Certain People Out The cartoonish nature of The Trump Era once again throws things into sharp relief. By Jack Holmes Esquire.com, August 7, 2018 . . . So even if it's just an immigrant's child who uses benefits—a child who may be an American citizen—the parent, a legal immigrant, can be penalized. Across the board, the policy could mean forcing people to choose between food and healthcare for their family or a future as a U.S. citizen. According to Stephen Miller, you can't have both. This is a willful attempt to immiserate people and try to force them out of the country—just as the family separation policy put us in a contest of cruelty with Central American drug gangs. This policy could impact 20 million immigrants or more, some of whom could be rejected despite earning 250 percent of the poverty level. . . . https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a22661941/donald-trump-cut-legal-immigration-stephen-miller/ Return to Top ******** Visit Website