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Concerned Citizens Drain Desert Water Tanks Intended For Illegal
Immigrants
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Judging by
their own actions, a group of people called "Humane Borders"
sees fit to leave clearly marked water tanks for the express
purpose of making it easier for illegal immigrants to cross the
desert.(1)
They make the claim that "border crossers are innocent, crossing
in search of a better life."(2)
Humane Borders' claim is unsupported and, in any case, is not
true. Some border-crossers may be only crossing to work,
but they still know that they are breaking the law. Let that
sink in: they know they are breaking the law. What
does that make them? Lawbreakers. In his own words, illegal
immigrant Laureano Miranda "We've heard that there are soldiers
and armed 'migrant hunters,' but we have to try," he said. "If
we don't make it [across the U.S. border] in three tries, then
we'll go back home."(3)
In addition to these allegedly peaceful lawbreakers, it is known
that violent criminals also cross the border illegally. An
immigration activist "says Humane Borders is helping illegal
immigrants, some he calls criminals, cross the border safely.
These are robbers, rapists, murders. [Setting up water stations]
is simply aiding and abetting criminal activity"(4)
This immigration activist's statement is correct. You may recall
some of my earlier research:
One thing that annoys me is that the sheer scale of the crime
associated with illegal immigration is simply ignored in most of
the major coverage. "While the news reporters talked about
illegal workers who perform jobs Americans refuse to perform,
they continue to avoid mentioning the tens of thousands of
illegal immigrants who prey on men, women and children -- US
citizens. It is these innocent Americans who are murdered, raped
and robbed because of an insane immigration policy. Criminal
aliens are entering the US in the tens of thousands and
remaining here as they join violent gangs such as MS-13, or they
choose to commit their mayhem solo."
And for those of you who say that it is unfair to associate the
violent beasts comprising MS-13 with "honest" hard-working
illegal immigrants, consider the following: "The violent MS-13
-- or Mara Salvatrucha -- street gang is following the migratory
routes of illegal aliens across the country, FBI officials say,
calling the Salvadoran gang the new American mafia." For those
of you who are unaware of this group of two-legged beasts,
"MS-13 -- the focus of a nationwide crackdown by FBI and federal
immigration agents -- has become known in recent years for home
invasion robberies, drug dealing and machete attacks on its
enemies. . . [and even] could be far more dangerous than thought
[apparently employing extremely well-honed paramilitary tactics
and using military-grade weaponry]."(5)
The fact is that the American People don't want illegal
immigrants here. We have laws to keep them out. We get annoyed
when the laws aren't enforced. We have reached the end of our
rope. We are sick of our government doing nothing. People go out
and put water stations up to help illegal aliens cross.
This has to stop. The people from Humane Borders say that each
week, they find "at least one or more of their 70 water tanks
vandalized, an act these volunteers say can kill. If they're
planning on getting their water at that location and they get
there and there's no water, then the next time they could get
water could be not before they die,"(6)
I would like to turn this insane idea on its head. If illegal
immigrants are counting on those water stations, it is because
the people who wish to aid and abet their unlawful behavior put
them there. There are always illegal immigrants who will cross
the border. The only ones who will die specifically because the
water stations are removed are those who decided to cross or
decided not to carry enough water specifically because they knew
of the water stations. So, it could be said that Humane Borders
is causing the deaths of illegal immigrants who were relying on
their water stations because, if not for them, they would not
have chosen to cross in the way that they did.
______________________________
(1) Lyon, Amber. "Vandals drain
desert water tanks intended for illegal immigrants," KVOA
News 4, Tuscon, Arizona, 2006 June 14,
http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5030576. (last
accessed 2006 June 14)
(2) Ibid. At paragraph 15.
(3) Rodriguez, Olga R. "Troops
Reducing Illegal Border Crossings" (AP), The Houston Chronocle,
World News, 2006 June 12, paragraph 24,
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3963542.html.
(4) Lyon at paragraphs 13-14.
(5) Realm of Sovereigns, "The
Mexican/Latino Invasion Finally Reaches the Front Pages,"
Sovereign Commentary, 2006 March 28, paragraphs 6-7,
http://sovrealm.blogspot.com/2006/03/mexicanlatino-invasion-finally-reaches.html,
citing: Kouri, Jim. "The Illegal Immigration Reform Scam,"
Men's News Daily, 2006 March 27, http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/03/27/the-illegal-immigration-reform-scam/;
Ward, Jon. "Gang follows illegal aliens," The Washington Times,
Metropolitan, 2005 May 05, http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050504-115113-3615r.htm;
and Johnson, Kevin. "MS-13 gang growing extremely dangerous, FBI
says," USA Today, 2006 January 05, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-05-gang-grows_x.htm
(6) Lyon at paragraphs 9-10.
Technorati Tags:
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News and Politics
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Migrants
Crime
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Mara Salvatrucha
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Back to top
Basic Pilot Program and worksite enforcement are key
By REP. TOM TANCREDO
August 22, 2006
WHY do millions of illegal aliens travel a long way at great
personal risk to come to the United States?
The answer is simple: because they know there will be a job
waiting for them when they arrive. Most often that job isn't
glamorous and doesn't pay well. But compared to where they come
from, mowing lawns, cleaning dishes or bussing tables — usually
for even substandard wages — is a better life.
To stop the massive flood of illegal immigrants, our
government must find solutions that address the
supply-and-demand at work. If we stifle the demand for illegal
labor — if we cut off the jobs — illegal immigrants won't come
in the first place.
Enforcing the laws against hiring illegal immigrants isn't
technically difficult. Much of the infrastructure for serious
worksite enforcement is already in place.
Since 1996, the Department of Homeland Security and its
predecessor organizations have operated the Basic Pilot Program,
which allows employers to verify the legal status of prospective
employees. Employers can simply go online, plug in the name and
Social Security number of an employee and within seconds find
out whether the information matches federal records.
Some employers claim that they can't tell the difference
between fake and real identifications, and when they suspect
that an employee's I.D. is fake, they're threatened with
discrimination suits by a legion of immigration lawyers.
If the Basic Pilot Program were mandated nationwide,
conscientious employers would have another tool to follow the
law and unscrupulous employers would have one fewer excuse to
justify hiring illegal workers.
Still, a few daring businesses might hire illegal workers
even if they were forced to participate in Basic Pilot. Without
a significant increase in the federal government's worksite
enforcement, they'd have reason to continue doing what they've
been doing.
In effect, the government did not do any worksite enforcement
until six months ago, when the Bush administration engaged in a
handful of raids. The government's notices of intent to fine
businesses for hiring illegal workers dropped nationwide from
417 in 1999 to three in 2004. When the government doesn't
enforce a law, it shouldn't be surprising that businesses refuse
to follow it.
That doesn't mean that we have to hire an army of new
enforcement agents. A modest increase in worksite enforcement
resources focused on high-profile raids would persuade many
illegal employers to get on the right side of the law.
An increase in penalties including jail time for illegal
employers would help, too, but the publicity alone would
probably have the requisite effect on the supply of illegal
jobs.
Worksite enforcement would also affect the supply of illegal
workers because fewer would make the long trip if, at the end of
it, there were a distinct possibility that the immigrant would
be shipped back to where he came from.
Taking a few simple steps to enforce the law would relieve a
severe financial strain on our public schools, hospitals and
welfare system. Taxpayers would get needed relief, and the
marketplace could finally reward American workers who have
suffered for so long from the wage depression caused by illegal
immigration.
But what about the rest, the illegal immigrants who aren't
coming for jobs?
In the post-9/11 world, that is the more difficult problem.
As the World Trade Center's twin towers were smashed to the
ground by terrorists — a number of whom were in this country
illegally — America lost the luxury of being "mostly" secure.
Hard-working Mexicans are not the only ones streaming through
our porous borders. Iranians, Syrians, North Koreans, Iraqis and
other illegal immigrants from nations that foster terror also
poured in, according to the latest five years of Border Patrol
data. One can only imagine what those illegals were coming for,
but it wasn't to "do the job no American will do."
Worksite enforcement is no panacea. America needs to get
tough on our borders and on illegal employers to make our
country secure. But if Congress and the president are serious
about solving our immigration problems, if they really want to
address the massive disobedience of our laws and the violation
of our borders, worksite enforcement is an effective first step
that can be taken today.
Back to top
Thousands start the perilous trek with offers in hand from U.S.
employers.
By Susan Ferriss -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, September 3, 2006
SÁSABE, Mexico -- Somewhere north of this Mexican cattle
outpost, U.S. National Guard troops man 24-hour observation
posts and better-equipped U.S. Border Patrol agents roam the
desert, searching for illegal immigrants.
Yet even as the Bush administration points to a drop in
apprehensions at the border as proof that the new security
measures are working, thousands of Mexicans and Central
Americans still gather daily in border towns like this, willing
to risk anything for a slot in the U.S. labor market.
"There's a lot of migra now, mucha migra, but I must keep
trying," said Felipe Pérez, 30, using the name migrants
collectively call the border forces.
Pérez wiped away rivulets of sweat as he shouldered his
backpack for a second attempt in 48 hours to climb over the wire
cattle fence dividing this section of Mexico's Sonora state from
Arizona. Once over, he planned to walk toward Phoenix, through
the kind of 100-plus-degree heat that killed 267 migrants in
Arizona alone last year.
But Pérez's determination is no blind desperation -- like
most others making the trek, he not only knows he'll find work
in the United States, he knows exactly what he will be doing,
for whom and where.
In a mix of Spanish and English, he ticked off his past
jobs: picking tomatoes in Florida and building homes in the
Rockies. Now, after a visit home to Mexico, he was eager to get
back to a construction job awaiting him in Colorado Springs.
No amount of enforcement, it seems, can counterbalance the
fundamental motivations for crossing the border illegally.
Hurricanes wreaked havoc in Mexico's far south and Central
America last year, prompting migration from places where it had
been rare. Small Mexican farmers increasingly find they can't
compete with bigger domestic producers or U.S. imports. Most
industrial and service jobs still pay a pittance south of the
border, migrants complain, and factory jobs assembling clothes
for U.S. chain stores pay poorly, too.
By contrast, there is no shortage of promises of jobs from
family and friends in the United States. Sometimes U.S.
employers even assure veteran undocumented workers that they
will hold a job open for them while they visit an ailing parent
or a pining spouse back home. GGGG
Heeding the call -- job waiting
Eliezar Reyes was pondering a second attempt at crossing
through Sásabe precisely because of a call from Florida to his
home in Veracruz state, Mexico.
"In January, the boss called me. I mean, he told someone
who speaks Spanish to call me and tell me there was work waiting
for me," said Reyes, 24.
Three years ago, Reyes started mowing golf courses in St.
Augustine, Fla., then moved into construction, earning $100 a
day. He took a break last November to visit his wife in Mexico.
His construction boss was able to reach him there, Reyes
said, because he had earned enough in the United States to have
a telephone installed back home.
For those lacking a close connection to a U.S. boss, the
smugglers known as coyotes make the link to employment.
In Tijuana, at a government-run shelter for underage
deportees, 16-year-old Juan José Pérez told his story. From
field work starting at age 12 in Mexico's Jalisco state, he had
gone on to work construction in San Diego.
"I was given the name of a gringo coyote, a Mr. Wilson," he
said. The man came to Pérez's Tijuana hotel to tell him whom to
meet for his trek over mountains east of Tijuana. The smuggler
also helped Pérez get a job renovating houses.
"Wherever you go there's corruption," Pérez said, eating
cereal on his bunk bed at the shelter. "The gringos at work
said, 'If the migra comes, you just run.' "
He'd be in the United States still, Pérez added, had he not
been caught driving a car without a license. GGGG
Hooked on migrant labor
Even before President Bush ordered National Guard troops to
the border in May, the United States had invested billions over
the past decade attempting to block illegal immigrants from
crossing in urban areas, such as Tijuana and El Paso.
That pushed migrants into Arizona's desert and other
isolated terrain, resulting in a 500 percent increase in deaths
between 1994 and 2004, according to the California Rural Legal
Assistance Foundation. More than 3,000 fatalities have been
recorded since the mid-1990s, and hundreds of bodies and bones
remain unidentified, according to the CRLA Foundation and
Mexico's Foreign Ministry.
Human rights activists have long objected to a border
policy they consider not only cruel but contradictory, given
that U.S. employers still hire undocumented immigrants.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major labor unions also
have become migrant allies. They're urging the House of
Representatives to look beyond border enforcement and support a
Senate bill to increase immigrant and temporary work visas.
Currently, low-skilled immigrant work visas are capped at 5,000
a year.
At the border, however, the political dispute often is
expressed in simpler, personal terms.
"It looks like they don't like us but they want us for the
work," said Oscar Galindo, 18, who had been deported earlier
that day to Nogales, Mexico, a city separated from Nogales,
Ariz., by a 10-foot metal fence.
Galindo had hoped to trade a waiter job paying $5 a day,
plus tips, in Tlaxcala, Mexico, for work in Queens, N.Y.,
restaurants with his uncle.
Traveling with Galindo was Federico Ramírez, 24, who hoped
to reach a place he called "Co-neck-tee-coot."
"New Haven," he added, where his parents have been living
since he was 16.
"My mother went, my father went, my sister went and now I'm
going," Ramírez said, trying to sound determined.
The two watched an American activist clean the injured feet
of Armando Chávez, 26, whose family in New York had agreed to
pay $2,000 in smuggling fees, on delivery.
Chávez grimaced as the volunteer from the Tucson-based No
More Deaths poured a saltwater solution onto his split toes. He
accepted a pair of new socks before limping toward a man
whispering advice about how to get over the line.
No More Deaths has drawn both criticism and praise for
providing water and food to migrants in the desert. Another
group, Humane Borders, has erected water stations marked by blue
flags.
"This is an issue that seems to cut to the hypocrisy of the
United States today," said No More Deaths volunteer Charles
Vernon, 30, a Colorado school bus driver, sitting in the shade
of a tarp, handing out water.
"These are jobs we need people to do," Vernon said. "But
we're going to make it as hard as possible for people to get
into the United States to do them." GGGG
Many workers, many stories
Virginia National Guard volunteer Sgt. Clyde Hester sat on
a hill just across the border from Vernon, scanning the horizon
through binoculars.
"I can see the point of view of these people; however, I've
got a job to do," said the Iraq veteran from Lee County, Va.
Hester wore a flak jacket and had an automatic weapon at
his side, but his orders were to observe and report suspicious
movement to the Border Patrol.
"We've got lots of unemployed people where I'm from,"
Hester said. "Of course, you have to find someone willing to
work. We got people on welfare for generations."
About 40 percent of the 6,000 National Guard troops on
border duty were sent to Arizona because of its popularity as a
crossing point. Packed vans unload scores of people daily in
Sásabe alone, dropping them near a statue of the Virgin of
Guadalupe.
Led by a smuggler, a group of young men approached the
Virgin, crossing themselves, then marched toward the fence with
the purposefulness of Army recruits on a training mission.
Dressed in black and camouflage, they carried heavy backpacks
and gallons of water.
"Fresno," one said, when asked where they were headed.
"Virginia," murmured another. "Washington," several said.
Nearby, a couple from Cancún piled out of a van with a
crying 3-year-old. The boy's mother, Sandra Luz Ordóñez, 23,
looked terrified, and with good reason: Another 3-year-old had
perished in the desert earlier in the summer.
Ordóñez's husband, Amilcar Rodríguez, said he was tired of
receiving what he considered poor wages -- less than $100 a week
-- as an electrician in the high-cost Cancún resort. Sandra
cleaned motels for $6 a day plus tips.
Their destination: North Carolina.
Joselino Velásquez, 36, who had accompanied them in the
van, was trying to get to Tennessee, where relatives work in
factories making chairs, batteries and car parts.
Last year's hurricanes, he said, left him with nowhere to
work in Chiapas state, on the Guatemalan border.
"The plantations just slid away, destroying all the coffee
and bananas," Velásquez said. GGGG
This day, it's too hot to cross
Two hours to the south, in another smuggling hub called
Altar, a group sat in a main plaza awaiting smugglers'
instructions.
Among them was Carlos Zozoya, 25, a Guatemalan who had
learned English doing landscaping in Florida, Georgia and
Michigan for more than five years. He had left the United States
to visit his mother and now wanted to head back.
When he was just 3, Zozoya's family fled civil war in
Guatemala and he grew up in a U.N. refugee camp in Mexico.
Though the family eventually gained Mexican residency, that
didn't assure economic stability. Many moved farther north, to
the United States.
Referring to the summer heat as well as the National Guard,
Zozoya said, "It is too hot now. We will try again to get across
in October or November."
Some others who had recently been deported said they, too,
were considering giving up -- at least for now. As Julio Adrian,
24, a Mexico City electrician and his sister, Norma, a
secretary, took refuge from the heat under the No More Deaths
tent in Nogales, they debated the risks of repeated attempts.
"It's Americans who kicked us out, and Americans who
received us and helped us here," Julio said. "Now we have to
decide whether to return to our ordinary lives, or keep going to
cross over to the American dream."
Deportee Elvira Sotelo, 45, said she had lived in
California and Salt Lake City for a total of 22 years before
returning to Guerrero, Mexico, a few months ago to see an ailing
sister.
In Utah, she said, she never went without work, at
McDonald's, Wendy's and "Carlos, Jr's." As she sat in the dark
outside a Nogales migrant shelter, she stared at a claim ticket
Border Patrol agents had given her when they took her backpack.
She never got her belongings back, she said, including some
Mexican pesos, gold earrings and a jacket.
Although she planned to try to cross again the next day,
Sotelo was nearly penniless and was contemplating work at a
clothing-assembly factory in Nogales.
City officials there are encouraging the migrants to
consider factory jobs in town, so they'll have some income and
be less likely to steal.
"I think I'll try it," Sotelo said, trying to sound
interested in the $80-a-week-pay. "They say it's a factory for
Wal-Mart."
SEEKING LABOR
A look at U.S. immigration policy through the ages:
1790:
United States requires two years of residency to become a
citizen.
1808:
Congress bans importation of slaves.
1816:
Effort to repatriate free slaves to Liberia in Africa
begins.
1845:
Influx of Irish immigrants after the Potato Famine.
1849:
California's Gold Rush prompts influx from all over,
including China.
1854:
Know-Nothing candidates sweep Congress, urge limits on
Roman Catholic immigrants and a 21-year wait before immigrants
can vote.
1860:
U.S. labor needs, turmoil in Poland lead to admission of
Poles, who will number about 2 million by 1914.
1868:
Japanese laborers contracted to work in Hawaiian sugar cane
industry.
1877:
After Chinese help build the U.S. railroads, Congress
issues a report citing criminal influence and moral impact of
the Chinese.
1880:
U.S. labor needs and crop failures in Italy usher in
admission of 4 million Italians.
1882:
Chinese Exclusion Act signed; businesses in the West
increase recruitment of Mexicans.
1892:
Labor demands contribute to opening of Ellis Island, the
admission point for 12 million Europeans in the early 20th
century.
1910:
Mexican Revolution prompts thousands to flee north, with a
million seeking security and work over the next 20 years.
1919:
Thousands of immigrant labor activists are deported after
raids led by U.S. attorney J. Edgar Hoover and the U.S. Bureau
of Immigration, then part of the U.S. Department of Labor.
1922:
Supreme Court rules Japanese immigrants are not eligible
for citizenship.
1924:
National Origins Act imposes immigrant quotas based on
heritage, severely limiting Eastern and Southern Europeans,
shutting out Japanese.
1929:
Great Depression begins. Massive forced deportation of
Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans follows.
1942:
Mexican bracero guest workers imported for farm and
railroad work at onset of World War II.
1943:
Chinese Exclusion Act repealed.
1952:
Immigration and Nationality Act allows all races to
naturalize. It sets no restriction on immigrants from the
Western Hemisphere, but it imposes quotas on others and gives
preference to skilled workers.
1954:
Ellis Island closes.
1965:
Immigration Act ends national origin quotas, establishes
yearly per-country quota of 20,000, mostly based on family ties.
Bracero program ends after more than 4.5 million temporary
permits are issued.
1986:
Immigration Reform and Control Act requires employers to
view, but not authenticate, identification proving legal
eligibility for work. Grants amnesty to 3 million based on
long-term work or residency history.
1992:
Addition of barriers and beefed-up Border Patrol begin in
San Diego and El Paso, Texas. Crossings shift to Arizona, where
migrant deaths escalate.
1996:
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
eliminates most judicial paths for the undocumented to legalize
via family or employer sponsors. Creates small pilot program to
check employee IDs by computer.
1997:
Central American Relief Act allows certain undocumented
Central Americans, Cubans and former Soviet Bloc natives to
legalize. Half of the planned 10,000 annual low-skilled
immigrant work visas are reserved for these applicants.
2000:
One-party rule ends in Mexico; President Vicente Fox and
President Bush discuss more work visas for Mexicans.
2001:
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks lead to Patriot Act, which
tightens scrutiny for visas.
December 2005:
House passes bill to make illegal immigration a
felony and to increase border security and document checks.
May 2006:
Senate passes bill to increase border security and ID
checks, along with the number of work-related visas. Congress
deadlocks. President Bush requests 6,000 National Guard
volunteers to support the Border Patrol.
Sources: University of California Davis School of Law;
Migration Policy Institute; Library of Congress; University of
North Carolina; U.S. Justice Department; U.S. Border Patrol;
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Ellis Island Museum;
American Immigration Lawyers Association.
About the writer:
·
The Bee's
Susan Ferriss can be reached at (916) 321-1267 or
sferriss@sacbee.
Back to top
What We Learned
From Randy Graf's Win
by Rep. Tom Tancredo
Posted Sep 15, 2006
A funny thing happened in Arizona's 8th District primary
election on Tuesday. A conservative former state legislator,
Randy Graf, faced off against the hand-picked candidate of the
retiring incumbent, liberal Republican Jim Kolbe and the entire
Republican establishment. The Kolbe clone had the backing of
the National Republican Congressional Committee, which had
decided that Graf was "too conservative for his district.”
The Republican voters in the 8th District of Arizona told the
NRCC and Jim Kolbe to take a hike and gave Graf a healthy 43%
plurality in a field of five candidates. Graf will likely
continue down the path of victory in November, unless the party
establishment chooses to interfere and works against an already
proven campaign organization.
In the more publicized Rhode Island race between liberal
incumbent Lincoln Chafee and a conservative challenger, at least
the party bigwigs were supporting an incumbent. The Arizona
race had no incumbent; it was an open seat. Yet the national
party elites intervened to help the liberal candidate, Steve
Huffman, against the conservative. What's the political
equivalent of "clueless"?
Arizona’s 8th District is not a liberal district. Moderate
Republican Kolbe was first elected in the Reagan landslide in
1984 and became increasingly liberal with each succeeding term,
but his constituency is as far from Rhode Island politically as
it is geographically. Washington insiders have always had a hard
time seeing over the horizon. Back in 1980, every "smart
Republican" in Washington knew Ronald Reagan was "too
conservative" to get the Republican nomination and they were
certain he was too conservative to beat Jimmy Carter. It must
be something in the water.
Arizona's 8th District encompasses the east side of Tucson and
the southeastern corner of the state, including 80 miles of the
Arizona-Mexico border. In 2004 the chickens came home to roost
for Kolbe. A conservative state legislator challenged Kolbe in
the 2004 Republican primary over the issue of border security
and government spending got 43% of the vote with very little
money and no outside help. Kolbe had opposed all efforts to
crack down on illegal aliens crossing the border and was a
cosponsor of House amnesty legislation that was very similar to
the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill. He was so openly hostile to
border security that the Tucson Border Patrol union local called
for his defeat. After his near-defeat in 2004, Kolbe announced
his retirement and Graf announced he would run for the open
seat.
Despite the efforts and the deep pockets of the party
establishment in support of Kolbe's
candidate, Randy Graf won. The bad news is, the national party
leaders who opposed him in the primary may abandon him and the
district to the Democrats. A Graf win in November would mean
they were wrong, and that would be just too embarrassing.
Randy Graf is an experienced legislator with impeccable
Republican credentials. He was
Republican majority whip in the Arizona House of Representatives
and highly respected by his colleagues. He has the endorsement
of 26 members of the state legislature, taxpayers groups, the
local Border Patrol union, law enforcement associations, the
Minutemen and pro-life organizations. The Democrat opponent has
the support of the public employee unions, the liberal news
media and probably 80% of the University of Arizona faculty.
The 8th District has a slight Republican edge in voter
registration and more than 100,000 independent voters. It is
undoubtedly a less conservative district than some others in
Arizona because of the influence of the university and a liberal
daily newspaper. Yet the No. 1 issue in the district in 2006 is
illegal immigration. Why? It has something to do with the fact
that 45% of the more than 2 million illegal aliens coming across
the Mexican border each year come through some part of the 8th
District. It could also have something to do with the epidemic
ID theft, auto theft, methamphetamine sales and gang violence
spreading across the southwest.
The citizens of the 8th District also might be upset by the
overburdened hospital emergency rooms and crowded school
classrooms. Many Democrat and independent voters may join
Republicans is saying the clock has run out on political
correctness and it is time to secure our borders.
Graf's biggest obstacle to victory in November will not be his
Democrat opponent, but the damaged egos of the Republicans who
backed Kolbe's hand-picked candidate. They have threatened to
pick up their marbles and go home. The national Republican
Party encouraged and legitimized this temper tantrum by funding
Huffman in the primary. They need to step forward and tell the
Kolbe faction in Tucson what Barry Goldwater told the
conservatives at the National Republican Convention in Chicago
in 1960: "Grow up!"
Graf was the voters’ choice in the party's primary, and the
Republican big wigs in Washington should give Graf the financial
support needed to win. Whether the wounds of a bitter primary
can be healed before November 7 all depends on which goal these
party blue bloods take more seriously—keeping this congressional
seat in Republican hands or punishing the man who challenged
Kolbe and beat him.
The "Graf can't win" slogan always did ring hollow, and now it
sounds merely petulant. Most voters can remember when that was
said of Ronald Reagan's candidacy in 1980. Like Reagan, Randy
Graf may have one more surprise in store for those slow
learners in Washington.
Back to top
By John Armor
September 19, 2006
Louis Barletta, mayor of Hazleton,
Pa., has thrown down the gauntlet to
those who think America belongs to
anyone who can walk across the border.
The American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) and a Puerto Rican group have
taken up the challenge. And the mayor
has upped the ante by hiring as defense
counsel the former head of immigration
in the Justice Department.
Step One in this legal clash, likely
to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, was a
series of three ordinances passed in
Hazleton. Propelled by several local
crimes apparently committed by illegal
aliens, and inspired by the mayor, the
City Council decided to fine landlords
who knowingly rent space to illegal
aliens. It also decided to deny licenses
to local businesses which knowingly hire
such aliens. Lastly, it declared English
would be the official language of the
town.
Step Two is the federal suit filed
by the ACLU against the town, claiming
it was "unconstitutionally" seeking "to
enforce immigration laws." Joining the
ACLU in filing the case was the Puerto
Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
This is an odd partner because legal
residents of Puerto Rico are American
citizens. Laws directed at illegal
aliens don't apply to them.
Step Three in many ACLU challenges
to local laws and actions often is
capitulation by the local officials.
Often when the ACLU files suit,
sometimes when it only threatens to file
suit, local officials cave to the
pressure, and throw in the towel. This
is due to the threat of budget-busting
legal fees, both to defend the local
decisions and to pay court-ordered fees
to the ACLU.
In this case, Hazleton has not
caved. Quite the contrary, it has girded
its loins for battle. It has engaged as
chief defense counsel, Kris W. Kobach,
formerly Attorney General John
Ashcroft's chief adviser on immigration
law. Also, Mountain States Legal
Foundation and the Federation for
American Immigration Reform have
volunteered staff and lawyers to defend
the town's position.
What is the likely fate of the three
ordinances? Easiest to predict is
English as the official language.
Several states have passed such laws.
Legal challenges have been brought and
decided. So long as the town's
ordinances have the usual escape clauses
for emergencies -- medical care,
appearances in court, etc. -- this law
will be found constitutional.
The ordinance on landlords should
also be upheld. Though the ACLU claims
the town is "enforcing immigration law,"
the law's effects are entirely within
city limits. Regulating housing stock
for the residents' health and safety has
been a normal function of municipal
government since the Middle Ages, in
England.
The ordinance on business licenses
should also be upheld. Again, the
licensing of local businesses for the
health and welfare of local residents
has been a normal power of municipal
governments for centuries.
Providing for the welfare of local
citizens is the very essence of
municipal government. The ACLU effort to
replace government by the town council
with government by an unelected judge is
a direct attack on the civil rights of
all citizens of Hazleton. The court
which ultimately dismisses the ACLU
attack on Hazleton should also award
serious fees and costs against the ACLU
and the Puerto Rican group in favor of
the town and its beleaguered taxpayers.
What are the larger consequences of
this legal war against Hazleton's
ordinances? Hazleton has a population of
only 30,000. Compared to America's more
than 300 million residents, including an
estimated 11 million illegal aliens,
Hazleton is a drop in the bucket.
Many other towns have picked up on
what Hazleton is doing. Some have
introduced or passed similar laws.
Others are interested, but hold back --
out of the ACLU line of fire until the
Hazleton case has been won. More and
more cities and states may adopt
Hazleton-like laws. The crimes and
public service costs of illegal aliens
would then be concentrated more and more
in cities and states that make
themselves "sanctuaries" for illegal
aliens.
This small case in a small town
could have an enormous effect. It could
generate from the grass roots, the
pressure on Congress to deal with the
problem of illegal aliens, rather than
speak platitudes and duck the problem
for another generation.
John Armor is an attorney who has
has practiced before the U.S. Supreme
Court for 33 years. This article was
written on behalf of the American Civil
Rights Union, www.theacru.org
Back to top
The Impact of New Immigrants onYoung Native-Born Workers,
2000-2005
September 2006
By Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada
CENTER FOR
IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Over the 2000-2005 period, immigration levels remained very
high and roughly half of new immigrant workers were illegal.
This report finds that the arrival of new immigrants (legal and
illegal) in a state results in a decline in employment among
young native-born workers in that state. Our findings indicate
that young native-born workers are being displaced in the labor
market by the arrival of new immigrants.
·
Between 2000 and 2005, 4.1 million immigrant
workers arrived from abroad, accounting for 86 percent of the
net increase in the total number of employed persons (16 and
older), the highest share ever recorded in the United States.
·
Of the 4.1 million new immigrant workers, between
1.4 and 2.7 million are estimated to be illegal immigrants. This
means that illegal immigrants accounted for up to 56 percent of
the net increase in civilian employment in the United States
over the past five years.
·
Between 2000 and 2005, the number of young (16 to
34) native-born men who were employed declined by 1.7 million;
at the same time, the number of new male immigrant workers
increased by 1.9 million.
·
Multivariate statistical analyses show that the
probability of teens and young adults (20-24) being employed was
negatively affected by the number of new immigrant workers
(legal and illegal) in their state.
·
The negative impacts tended to be larger for
younger workers, for in-school youth compared to out-of-school
youth, and for native-born black and Hispanic males compared to
their white counterparts.
·
It appears that employers are substituting new
immigrant workers for young native-born workers. The estimated
sizes of these displacement effects were frequently quite large.
·
The increased hiring of new immigrant workers also
has been accompanied by important changes in the structure of
labor markets and employer-employee relationships. Fewer new
workers, especially private-sector wage and salary workers, are
ending up on the formal payrolls of employers, where they would
be covered by unemployment insurance, health insurance, and
worker protections.
Introduction
During the last five years, new immigrants have accounted for an
overwhelming share of the growth in the number of employed
persons in the United States. Native-born adults and established
immigrants have been unable to capture much of the new
employment opportunities that have been created in the nation
since 2000. The number of employed persons in the civilian
working-age (16 and over) population rose by 4.835 million
between 2000 and 2005. During 2005, a total of 4.134 million new
immigrants were working in the United States. New immigrants who
entered the United States since 2000 and were still residing
here during 2005 accounted for 86 percent of the total increase
in employment in the nation over the 2000 to 2005 period.
Native-born and established immigrants accounted for less than
one-sixth of the total rise in civilian employment that occurred
in the nation over the past five years. These findings differ by
gender. Among men, new immigrants accounted for all of the rise
in employment, as the total number of employed men in the nation
increased by only 2.665 million while the number of employed new
immigrant males was 2.767 million during 2005. For the first
time since the end of World War II, there has been no gain in
employment among native-born men over a five-year period.
A substantial share of employed new immigrants appear to be
illegal workers, often employed in off-payroll jobs that are
increasingly concentrated in a newly emerging informal sector of
the American labor market. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates
that there were 4.4 million illegal immigrants residing in the
United States in 2005 who had entered the country since 2000.1
We estimate that 2.857 million of these new illegal immigrants
were actively participating in the labor force during 2005 and
that about 5.5 percent of the immigrant labor force was
unemployed.2
With a labor force of 2.857 million and an estimated
unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, we conclude that the number of
new illegal immigrants who were working in the United States
during 2005 was 2.7 million. This means that about two-thirds of
all employed recent immigrants in the United States were working
illegally during 2005 and that more than one-half (56 percent)
of the total rise in employment that occurred in the nation
between 2000 and 2005 was attributable to the growth in
employment among illegal immigrant workers.
The extraordinarily high share of new employment captured by
new immigrants was accompanied by a powerful shift in the
organization of the nation’s labor markets. In a subsequent
section of this report we will provide evidence that some
employers have begun to re-organize work in ways that
systematically exclude certain native-born workers, especially
those under the age of 35, from employment and that create work
that does not meet the basic labor standards that have been
developed over the years by federal and state legislation,
custom and tradition, and through labor-management/collective
bargaining agreements.
The ability of the nation’s teen and young adult (20-24)
population to become employed has deteriorated badly over the
past five years. Employment levels for all those aged 16 to 34
have fallen by more than 1.5 million between 2000 and 2005, even
as the total number of employed persons increased by more than
4.8 million over the same period of time. Several alternate
explanations might help explain this employment decline among
young people in the nation. Part of the explanation could simply
be associated with demographic change. Reductions in the size of
the teen and young adult age cohorts can result in employment
declines even though the likelihood of a member of that cohort
finding work doesn’t change. Alternately, changes in the
likelihood of becoming employed can reduce the number of young
people working. The first explanation has no validity since the
number of native-born people aged 16 to 34 rose as the echo
generation (baby boomers’ children born between 1978 and 1996)
moved into this age group in large numbers.
The number of native-born males aged 16 to 34 in the
population increased by nearly 1.1 million between 2000 and
2005.3
Rather than reducing employment levels, these demographic forces
would have been expected to increase overall employment levels
of native-born males aged 16 to 34. Indeed, we estimate that if
the proportion of native-born young males working during 2005
were the same as the share of native-born workers employed
during the full employment year of 2000, 1.721 million more
young native-born men would have been at work during that year.
Employment among native-born young men declined not because
there were fewer young men, but because their employment rates
declined precipitously. The employment to population (E/P) ratio
of young males has fallen sharply over the last five years. Some
of these declines are quite extraordinary and, in the case of
male teens, the 2005 E/P ratio was the lowest in the nation over
the entire 58-year period covered by the Current Population
Survey (CPS) teen employment series.
Among females, the trends in employment have been similar.
While the size of the young native-born and
established-immigrant female population has increased at about
the same rate as males, the number who are employed has declined
sharply. Similar to findings for their male counterparts, the
E/P ratio of native-born female teens and young adults fell
considerably over the last five years, accounting for all of the
decline in employment among young native-born females. If
native-born teen and young-adult females had been able to
maintain their employment rate at the same level as the full
employment year of 2000, then the number who were employed in
2005 would have increased by 1.382 million.
The decline in employment levels among native-born teens and
young adults implies that employers have turned to alternative
sources of labor supply to meet their labor requirements. One
alternative source of substitute labor is, of course, the
surging older worker population fueled by the baby boom age
cohort entering their pre-retirement years in the past five
years. These individuals represent a ready potential source of
substitute workers for teens and young adults. The other
potential alternative source of labor supply is the flow of new
immigrants to the United States since 2000. Large numbers of new
foreign workers, the majority of whom entered the United States
and work here illegally, also represent a ready source of labor
supply to take the place of native-born and
established-immigrant teens and young adults in the nation’s
labor markets.
As noted below, the job deficit for native-born male teens
and young adults in the nation was 1.721 million, while the
number of new immigrant male workers in the same age group in
2005 was 1.859 million (Table 4). If the jobs held by new
immigrant males aged 16 to 34 were made available to jobless
native-born males, then the job deficit among the native-born
would be completely eliminated. Among women, the substitution of
jobless native-born young women for recent young female
immigrants would result in the native-born female job deficit
declining by more than 60 percent. Overall, nearly 90 percent of
the native-born teen and young adult job deficit that has
emerged over the last five years would be eliminated if
native-born teens and young adults worked in jobs now held by
recent immigrants of the same age. While some mismatches in the
occupational composition of employment might occur between
native-born and foreign-born workers, the jobs held by these
groups are quite similar to jobs in all occupations
simultaneously held in large numbers by both foreign-born and
native-born workers.4
These findings strongly suggest that a major proportion of the
native-born job deficit of teens and young adults that has
developed in the United States over the past five years is the
result of newly arrived, young female, and especially male
immigrants displacing these potential workers from employment.
Native-born older workers are a much less-likely substitute for
employers who hire many fewer native-born teens and young
adults. Native-born older workers have differing levels of work
experience, expectations of hours and weeks of work, and are
paid at considerably higher wage rates than are teen and young
adult workers. Recent young immigrant workers are much closer
substitutes for young native-born workers compared to the aging
members of the baby boom generation.
Impacts of
New Immigrants on Young Adult Employment
Most studies of the economic impacts of immigration on
native-born workers have focused on wage and annual earnings
impacts rather than employment impacts. There is a general
tendency among labor market analysts to assume that, as a result
of labor market and wage flexibility, there are few job
displacement effects of immigration on native-born workers,
citing older studies to back up these opinions. Several more
recent statistical studies, however, indicate that less-educated
native-born workers, teenagers, and black males do suffer
employment declines as a result of immigrant labor inflows.5
Ethnographic research work in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New
York City, and other large central cities across the nation has
revealed that young immigrant workers are often preferred by
employers over poorly educated native-born workers, especially
those from inner city neighborhoods characterized by high
poverty rates.6
One might well expect the labor displacement effects of
immigration to be low in periods of full employment, when job
opportunities are abundant and vacancy rates are high, such as
the late 1990s in the United States when employment rose across
the board among both most native-born workers and new immigrant
workers. However, in more slack labor market environments, such
as the 2003-2004 period, one might well expect that a rise in
the supply of immigrant labor could generate displacement
impacts on native-born workers, especially among those in most
direct competition for available jobs with newly arrived
immigrant workers, such as young, native-born adults with
limited formal schooling, especially those in central cities.
To test whether the influx of new immigrant workers over the
2000-2003 period had an adverse effect on the employment
prospects of the nation’s young adults (16-24 years old), we
estimated a series of multivariate statistical employment models
for young adults, including a variable representing the relative
size of new immigrant inflows into the labor force of the state
in which the young adult resided at the time of the 2003
American Community Survey (ACS).7
The relative sizes of these new immigrant labor force inflows
varied quite considerably across states between 2000 and 2003.
The size of these immigrant inflows ranged across the 50 states
and the District of Columbia from a low of .2 percent to a high
of 3.9 percent, with a mean of 1.63 percent.
The dependent variable in this multivariate statistical model
was the employment status of a 16-24 year-old respondent at the
time of the 2003 ACS. The variable was a dichotomous variable
that took on the value of one if the respondent was employed
(either part-time or full-time) and the value of zero if he/she
was not employed at the time of the ACS. The right-hand-side
predictor variables included the gender, age, race-ethnic group,
and educational attainment of the respondent, the unemployment
rate of the state in which he/she resided at the time of the
survey in 2003, and the relative size of new immigrant labor
inflows into the state since 2000. We estimated these employment
probability models for all 16-24 year olds and for a variety of
gender, nativity, gender and schooling, and school enrollment
subgroups.8
The findings in Table 5 display the estimates of a one
percentage-point increase in the state labor force due to new
immigration on the probability of employment among young adults.
For the entire sample of 16-24 year olds,9
a one percentage-point increase in the state labor force due to
new immigration would have lowered the predicted employment rate
of such youth by 1.2 percentage points. The estimated impact was
highly statistically significant (.001). For a state with a
recent large influx of new immigrants (a three percentage-point
rise in the civilian labor force of the state), the probability
of employment among 16-24 year olds in that state would have
declined by a substantial 3.6 percentage points.
The estimated impacts of new immigrant workers on the
employment rates of 16-24 year olds were approximately the same
for the native-born as they were for all 16-24 year olds, but as
expected were considerably larger for men than for women (-1.6
percentage points for men versus -.9 percentage points for
women),10
and were larger for less-educated women than for women with some
post-secondary schooling.11
The finding of larger adverse employment impacts for men than
for women is not surprising given the relatively high share of
new immigrant workers that were men (66 percent). Larger adverse
impacts for less-educated workers were also expected given the
above-average share of new immigrant workers who lacked a high
school diploma and the weaker national labor market for
less-educated native-born workers during this time period. The
results in Table 6, thus, provide substantive empirical evidence
that the recent influx of new immigrant workers has resulted in
job losses for many subgroups of young adults in the nation,
especially in those states that were more heavily impacted by
new immigrant labor. Males, in-school youth, less-educated
workers, and black males appear to have been more adversely
affected than other demographic subgroups of young adults.
The availability of the public use micro data from the 2004
ACS allowed us to update our findings on the impacts of new
immigrant worker inflows in states on the employment
probabilities of very young adults. Given the continuing severe
labor market problems of teens and youth in their early 20s
throughout 2004, we selected 16-20 year olds for our analysis.
There were observations for approximately 74,000 youth in this
age group on the ACS public use files, of whom 58,600, or nearly
80 percent, were enrolled in school at the time of the ACS
survey’s completion.12
The dependent variable in these models is the employment
status of the respondent at the time of the survey. Those
employed respondents, including persons with a job but
temporarily absent due to vacation, weather-related factors,
etc., were coded as a "1" and all others as "0." In these
models, we control for a wide array of demographic and family
income background variables, the school enrollment status and
educational attainment of the respondents, the unemployment rate
of the state in which they lived, and the relative size of new
immigrant worker inflows since 2000.13
These regression models of young adult employment rates were
estimated for all 16-20 year olds and for a variety of gender,
race, and school enrollment subgroups. Estimates of the impact
of new immigrant inflows on the probability of employment of
young adults are displayed in Table 6.
For the entire group of 16-20 year olds, the presence of new
immigrants in their state’s workforce had a strong,
statistically significant, negative impact on the likelihood
that they will be employed. A one percentage-point increase in
the share of new immigrants in the state’s workforce will reduce
the probability of employment of young adults by 2.1 percentage
points. The effects of new immigrant workers are negative and
statistically significant for each subgroup of young adults in
Table 6, and are equally large for both men and women,14
but they are much larger for in-school youth than for
out-of-school youth (2.4 percent vs. 0.6 percent). The size of
the coefficient was highest for black men, implying that they
are the most adversely affected by new immigrant inflows.
New Immigrant
Workers’ Impact on the Job Market
The rise in immigrant employment, especially among
illegal workers, over the past decade has been accompanied by a
number of important changes in the structure of employment
relationships in U.S. labor markets. Recent years have seen the
growth in contractor employment relationships and the use of
independent consultants and off-the-books workers.15
These newly hired workers do not go on the formal payrolls of
the firms that hire them, and they typically are not paid
employee benefits such as health insurance and pension benefits
or covered by the Unemployment Insurance, workers compensation,
or Social Security systems.
These changing employment relationships are not simply
revealed in growing media coverage of labor market developments
at the local level, but also show up in the large differences
between employment changes registered by the two national
surveys used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate
monthly employment, the Current Employment Statistics Survey
(CES) payroll survey and the Current Population Survey (CPS)
household survey.16
The CES generates a monthly count of wage and salary payroll
jobs from a monthly sample of about 160,000 businesses and
federal, state, and local government organizations covering
400,000 individual establishments that participate in the
unemployment insurance system. The CES is considered by many
economic and financial analysts to be the primary source of data
on wage and salary job growth and decline in the nation and
among states and is a primary topic of discussion and analysis
in BLS’ monthly Employment Situation news release, which
is widely covered by the national media. One of the most
important uses of the CES data at the national level is to
measure the job-generating performance of the economy over the
course of the business cycle.
A second source of information on monthly employment trends
at the national and state levels is the findings of the CPS. The
CPS is a survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted
each month by the Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Unlike the CES, which measures only the number of
private and public formal payroll jobs, the CPS provides a more
comprehensive count of the number of employed persons ages 16
and older each month. The CPS employment count includes not only
workers in traditional wage and salary jobs, but also workers
outside the scope of the payroll employment survey, including
agricultural workers, the self-employed, independent
contractors, unpaid family workers, and some "under the table"
or "off-the-books" workers.17
The CPS survey counts each employed person only once, regardless
of the number of jobs he/she holds at the time of the survey,
while persons holding multiple wage and salary jobs will be
counted twice in the CES. Historically, the CPS and CES
employment measures have tracked one another fairly well.
However, during the past five years considerable differences
have emerged between the two surveys’ estimates of the overall
increase in the nation’s employment levels, with the CPS showing
much greater growth in private sector wage and salary
employment. These findings stand in sharp contrast to that
observed for earlier time periods.
During both the 1980s and 1990s economic expansions, the
growth in payroll employment levels in the nation was greater
than that measured by the household survey. Typically, payroll
employment levels in the nation grow rapidly during the early
stages of recovery from an economic recession. Rising Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) increases the demand for labor by
employers who then add more workers to their payrolls. Over the
period from the early 1960s though 2000, the nation experienced
five recoveries from economic recessions. On average, the
nation’s wage and salary employment levels increased by 11.7
percent during the first four years of recovery for these five
post-recession periods. The rates of new job creation varied
from a low of 7.3 percent during the early stages of recovery
from the 1990-1991 recession to a 16 percent rise in the
nation’s wage and salary employment levels during the recovery
from the recession of 1974-75.
However, the rate of job growth during the first four years
of recovery from the recession of 2001 has been much slower than
the historic pace of national payroll employment growth in
recovery periods. Despite robust rates of growth in real GDP,
strong growth in corporate profits, and a stock market boom, the
nation’s rate of new payroll employment growth was just 2.5
percent between 2001 Q4 and 2005 Q4. This rate of new job
creation was equal to only one-fifth of the historical average
rate of new job creation over the previous five recoveries
(Table 7). Why has the rate of payroll employment growth
been so slow over the past four years, given the strong overall
performance of the nation’s economy by most key economic
indicators? Increased labor productivity growth appears to be an
important explanation, but part of the answer is associated with
strong growth in off-payroll employment, especially among the
recent-immigrant population. Since the end of the 2001 recession
in the fourth quarter of 2001, payroll employment in the nation
increased by just 3.23 million jobs while the number of
working-age persons who were employed, according to the CPS,
rose at twice that pace, increasing by 6.446 million (Table 8).
Unlike the employment expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, when
payroll employment growth substantially outpaced that of
household employment, the current recovery is characterized by a
new pattern of job growth.
Over the entire 2000 to 2005 period, the nature of the
relationship between the employment growth estimates of the two
surveys has changed radically. Between 2000 and 2005, wage and
salary employment levels, as measured by the CES, rose by only
1.678 million or 1.3 percent while the CPS found that the number
of employed workers increased by 4.672 million over the same
period of time (Table 9). On an annual average basis, we find
that employment as measured by the CES business establishment
survey increased from 131.785 million during 2000 to 133.463
million by 2005, an increase in non-agricultural payroll jobs of
only 1.678 million. In contrast, the household survey found that
the number of working-age persons employed in the nation
increased from 136.934 million to 141.606 million, a rise of
4.672 million over the 2000 to 2005 period, a difference of
nearly three million.
The CPS household survey measured a rise in employment
that was nearly three times greater than that measured by the
CES over the 2000-2005 period. As we noted earlier, the CPS
and the CES use somewhat different employment concepts. The CPS
includes agricultural workers, the self-employed, independent
contractors, unpaid family workers, and some off-the-books
workers while the CES does not.
We have adjusted the CPS employment data to more closely fit
the CES employment concepts in order to obtain a more direct
comparison between the CPS and CES measures of employment change
over the 2000 to 2005 period.18
Our first adjustment was to exclude agricultural workers from
the CPS household survey employment count since the CES measures
only employment in the non-agricultural sector of the nation’s
economy (Table 10). After excluding agricultural workers,
non-farm employment as measured by the CPS survey increased more
considerably — by 4.976 million between 2000 and 2005 —
indicating that employment among agricultural workers declined
over this five-year period. It is important to note that recent
immigrants are about 1.8 times more likely to work in the
nation’s agricultural industries than are the native-born.
The estimated decline in agricultural employment over the
last five years suggests that this sector was not a major source
of new employment opportunities for new immigrants.19
Excluding agricultural sector employment from the CPS totals
further widens the difference between the CPS employment growth
estimate and the CES job growth estimate over this period,
raising the size of the gap in employment growth from 2.994
million to 3.268 million. The CPS estimate of new employment
growth rises to 2.95 times that estimated from the CES payroll
survey versus only 2.78 times when agricultural employment is
included in the CPS totals.
Much of the new payroll job creation that occurred in the
nation over the 2000 to 2005 period was concentrated in the
government sector. About 60 percent of the total rise in payroll
employment that was generated nationally over the last five
years has been on government payrolls. Native-born workers are
much more likely than immigrants, especially recent immigrants,
to work in federal, state, and local government agencies. During
2005, native-born workers were three times more likely to be
employed in a government job compared to employed recent
immigrants (Table 11). The CES estimated that between 2000 and
2005, federal, state, and local government payroll employment
increased by 1.023 million jobs while the CPS found that the
number of persons who said they were employed by the government
increased by 1.143 million. Thus, the CPS government employment
growth estimate was nearly identical to that of the CES.
Findings from the CES, however, reveal very small increases
in private sector wage and salary employment in the nation over
the past five years. The CES found that non-farm, private sector
payroll employment increased by just 665,000 jobs over the past
five years. In contrast, the CPS household survey estimated that
the number of persons employed in non-farm, private sector jobs
increased by 3.026 million.
The CPS estimate of non-farm, private sector employment
growth between 2000 and 2005 was more than five times larger
than that estimated by the monthly CES establishment survey.
Recent immigrant employment is heavily concentrated in the
private non-agricultural sector of the nation’s labor market.
While about three-quarters of all native-born workers are
employed in private wage and salary jobs, 86 percent of recent
immigrants report that they work for an employer in the private
non-farm sector.
Over the past five years, the relationship between the CPS
and CES estimates of employment growth rates has changed
dramatically. Instead of observing the pattern of substantially
more payroll job growth compared to increases in the number of
employed persons from the CPS prevailing in the 1980s and 1990s,
the employment data since 2000 reveal much higher growth in
employment measured by the CPS relative to the slow growth
registered by the CES. We also have analyzed the relationship
between the CPS and CES estimates of job growth at the state
level over the last five years. Our findings reveal that those
states that had large increases in the number of employed
immigrants were also those states with the largest gaps in
employment growth estimates between the Local Area Unemployment
Statistics (LAUS) program and the count of jobs from the state
CES survey. The LAUS program is a statistical program used by
states to estimate the monthly number of employed and unemployed
residents.
For example, the findings in Table 12 reveal that, while the
number of employed residents in the state of Texas increased by
733,000 between 2000 and 2005, total payroll employment levels
in the state increased by less than half of this amount, rising
by just 308,000 over the same five-year period. At the same
time, the number of new working immigrants in the state
increased by more than 388,000, the second largest increase in
the nation. A look at the top-20 states ranked by the size of
the CES-CPS employment growth gap reveals a fairly strong
connection between the size of the gap and the size of the
increase in the number of new immigrants employed in each state.
The correlation between the CES-CPS employment gap and growth in
employed immigrants is quite high. We estimate a correlation
coefficient of .79 between the absolute size of the difference
in employment change between the two jobs measures and the
change in the number of employed immigrants in each state over
the 2000 to 2005 period.
The above findings imply that large numbers of these new
immigrant workers are not appearing on the formal payrolls of
their employers. Instead, they are being hired as
independent contractors or completely off the books and being
paid in cash. Evidence from other data sets, field research by
the authors, and growing media stories support this assertion
that a high share of new immigrants, especially illegal
immigrants, are employed in the informal or "black" economy.20
In 2003 and 2004, only one-third of new employed
immigrants reported being covered by a health insurance plan at
work and fewer than one in five reported that they were covered
by a pension plan at work, versus nearly one-half of the
native-born.21
Among less-educated workers from Mexico and Central America, the
dominant sources of illegal workers, only about 15 percent
reported any health insurance coverage from their employers.
When unemployed, fewer than 10 percent report being covered by
unemployment insurance benefits.
The employment growth gaps between the CPS and the CES at the
national level were systematic in nature and specific to
particular classes of workers. The size of the employment growth
gap for the government sector of the labor market was quite
small. Government was among the least important sources of jobs
for employed new immigrants and access to government jobs is
largely confined to formal wage and salary positions. Few
illegal workers have the opportunity to find work in most
government organizations. Strict hiring protocols dramatically
limit the potential use of off-the-books work for many
government positions. The comparatively small employment growth
gap between the household and payroll survey for the government
sector appears to be the result of increasing use of workers as
independent consultants by some state and local government
agencies, a common practice in states such as Massachusetts.
In contrast, the CES data reveal little growth in the
nation’s non-farm private sector wage and salary jobs over the
past five years. These positions are ones in which the
overwhelming majority of employed Americans work. They are
characterized by a formal employer-employee relationship such as
that defined in the Social Security Act. Indeed, a hallmark of
formal payroll jobs is the automatic payroll deductions made for
employee contributions to the Old Age, Survivors, Disability,
and Health Insurance trust fund. Yet, in contrast to the very
slow private sector wage and salary job growth as measured by
the CES, the CPS reveals non-farm, private wage and salary
growth that was 5.5 times higher.
We find that the unprecedented gap between the household and
payroll surveys’ estimates of employment growth over the past
five years is primarily the result of concentrating new
employment growth in independent contractor and off-the-books
jobs. Employers in many sectors, especially construction,
landscaping, retail trade, office cleaning, and leisure and
hospitality industries as well as in private households where
strong job growth also has been reported in recent years, are
increasingly re-organizing work to take advantage of the
substantial influx of new illegal immigrants into the United
States since 2000. Many of these jobs are filled by illegal
immigrants who arrive on street corners, informal shape-ups, and
convenience store parking lots waiting for any of a number of
potential employers to come by and pick them up for a day’s
work.
Increasingly, the nation’s employers seem to be operating
outside of the legal framework that has defined U.S. labor
markets since the New Deal. Expansion of contract employment,
off-the-books workers, and black labor markets in an increasing
number of communities throughout the nation has meant that a
growing fraction of workers now provide their labor outside of
the fundamental worker protections that the nation had
previously taken for granted, including wage and hour laws,
worker safety and health mandates, and minimum wage protections
established over the past 70 years. These changes in labor
relationships also have reduced rates of unionization, lowered
the share of workers receiving key employee benefits, such as
health insurance, paid vacations, and pensions and have
decreased unemployment insurance, Social Security, and workers’
compensation tax receipts.
The growing inflow of illegal-immigrant workers has
contributed to a fundamental breakdown in the nation’s labor
laws and labor standards as the sheer volume of illegal hiring
activity overwhelms what has amounted to meager enforcement
levels of basic labor standards across the nation by federal and
state officials from both political parties.22
Absent renewed efforts to strengthen enforcement of both
border security and federal and state labor laws, these new
forms of work organization will continue to grow in the future.
The past formal relationships between workers and employers will
continue to unravel, undermining the unemployment insurance and
social security systems and basic worker protections that have
evolved in the nation over the last century. These adverse
effects on employer-worker relationships have to be taken into
account in any benefit-cost calculus of the impacts of new
immigration. Advocates of guestworker programs have been
derelict in addressing these key economic concerns.
End Notes
1 Jeffrey S. Passel, The Size and
Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the
U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population
Survey, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington DC, March 2006.
2 Our estimates of the size of the immigrant labor
force are based on applying population shares by age/sex group
and labor force participation rates for key age/sex groups in
the new immigrant population to Pew estimates of the number of
illegal immigrants for each of these age/sex groups.
3 All of this increase was among native-born males
aged 16 to 29. This age cohort increased in size by more than
1.6 million. However, this was partially offset by a decline of
537,000 in the number of native-born persons aged 30 to 34 in
the nation.
4 Steven Camarota found this was the case between
foreign-born and native-born workers in general: See Steven
Camarota, Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from
the Labor Market, 2000-2005, Center for Immigration Studies,
Washington DC, March 2006.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.html
5 For recent statistical evidence on the links
between immigrant worker inflows and the employment of native-
born workers, See: (i) George Borjas, "The Labor Demand Curve is
Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the
Labor Market," Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2003,
pp. 1335-1374. (ii) Paulo Tobar, The Employment Experiences
of Teens in Central City Labor Markets: The Influence of
Demographic/Human Capital Traits, Family Background, and
Environmental Factors, M.A. Workshop Paper, Department of
Economics, Northeastern University, Boston, 2004; (iii) Ishwar
Khatiwada, Andrew Sum, and Tim Barnicle, New Foreign
Immigrant Workers and the Labor Market in the United States,
February 2006.
6 See: (i) William Julius Wilson, When Work
Disappears, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1996; (ii) Katherine S.
Newman, No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner
City, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1999.
7 The immigration variable is defined as the ratio
of the number of new immigrant labor force participants in the
state between 2000 and 2003 to the size of the resident civilian
labor force of the state in 2003.
8 The models are linear probability models
estimated by ordinary least squares regression techniques. The
coefficient on the foreign immigrant labor force variable
indicates the percentage point change in the likelihood of
employment among the designated group from a 1 percentage point
increase in the state’s civilian labor force due to new
immigration.
9 There were 127,151 16-24 year old youth in the
ACS sample.
10 The difference between the coefficients of the
new immigrant labor force variable in the male and female
employment models was large enough to be statistically
significant at the .01 level.
11 In fact, the coefficient on the new immigrant
labor force variable was not statistically significant at the
.05 level in the model for women with 13 or more years of
schooling.
12 The ACS questionnaire asks respondents whether
they had been enrolled in school at any time in the prior three
months. If they answer "yes" to this question, they are
classified as enrolled in school. Persons must be attending a
school or college that will lead to the attainment of a regular
diploma or a college degree.
13 The new immigrant worker variable is measured
similarly to that for the previous models based on the ACS 2003
data. It is the ratio of the number of new immigrant labor force
participants in 2004 as a percentage of the state’s resident
labor force in 2004.
14 The modestly larger coefficient of the
immigrant variable in the male equation (.022 vs. .019 for
women) is not significantly different from that of women.
15 For a review of these changing job market
operations in Massachusetts and the United States, See: Paul E.
Harrington and Andrew Sum, "As Jobs Go Off the Books, Immigrants
Edge Out Some Native-Born Workers," Commonwealth, Volume
11, Number 2, 2006, pp. 83-90.
16 For a recent review of conceptual differences
between the two surveys, See: Mary Bowles and Teresa L. Morisi,
"Understanding the Employment Measures from the CPS and CES
Surveys," Monthly Labor Review, February 2006, pp. 23-38.
17 It is not clear that all off-the-books workers
will report their employment to the CPS interviewer despite
guarantees of confidentiality. Besides, immigrants have been
historically undercounted in the CPS survey.
18 Changes in multiple job holding can also be a
source of divergent growth in employment levels between the two
surveys. While important in the past, this factor appears to
have had little impact on the employment estimates of the two
surveys during the first half of this decade. The number of
persons who held multiple jobs remained virtually unchanged
between 2000 (7.556 million) and 2005 (7.546 million). See: U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings,
January 2001 and January 2006, Washington, D.C.
19 Jeffrey Passel estimates that fewer than 4
percent of all illegal workers in the nation worked as
agricultural workers in 2005.
20 See: (i) Naomi R. Kooker, "Hospitality
Immigrant Quandary," Boston Business Journal, April 2006;
(ii) Josh McHugh, "Notes from the Underground Economy,"
www.cnn.money.com , May 30, 2005; (iii) Casey Ross,
"Contractors: Stop the Illegal Insanity," The Boston Herald,
May 5, 2006; (iv) Peter Reull, "Shadow Workers: Towns Take Aim
at Illegal Restaurant Help," The Boston Herald, May 4,
2006; (v) Shawn Sutner, "Illegal Immigrants: These Workers Are
Often Anxious and in a Constant State of Fear," Worcester
Telegram, April 16, 2006.
21 These estimates are based on our analysis of
the March 2004 and March 2005 CPS work experience supplements,
which capture information on health insurance and pension
coverage.
22 The Washington Post recently reported
that, during 1999, only 182 employers were prosecuted for
unlawfully employing immigrants. Remarkably this figure fell to
just four prosecutions during 2003. See: Spencer S Hsu and Kari
Lydersen, "Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized," The
Washington Post, June 19, 2006.
Andrew Sum is the Director, Paul Harrington the Associate
Director, and Ishwar Khatiwada an Associate at the Center for
Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University..
Back to top
INVASION USA
Website
targets racist Hispanics
Aims to 'counter the false information dished out by
Mexican hate groups'
Posted: May 1, 2006
4:40 p.m. Eastern
By
Ron Strom
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Mexica Movement
activists protest in L.A. |
A website run by opponents of illegal immigration
highlights the tactics of Hispanic activists who defend
unlawful aliens, including the use of hate speech,
profanity and calls for whites to be deported.
WeHateGringos.com
begins with a warning that the site "contain graphic
examples of hate and racism that has and is occurring in
large cities and small towns across America."
States the site: "The website WeHateGringos.com is
dedicated to exposing the other side of illegal
immigration ... the side our president, many in
Congress, the media and especially the racist hate
groups do not want us to see."
WeHateGringos.com is meant as a response to the
League of United Latin America Citizens, or LULAC, which
reportedly created a website called WeAreRacists.com.
"It had photos of our friends, portrayed as racists.
We were infuriated and decided to build a website," the
newer site states.
While WeAreRacists.com is currently not an active
website, records indicate it is licensed to LULAC.
"WeHateGringos.com is online to counter the false
information dished out by Mexican hate groups and
spoon-fed to Americans by the mainstream media," states
the site.
An introductory Flash video includes audiotape of
speakers at rallies denouncing whites and proclaiming
that Latinos will take power in the United Sates.
States one pro-illegals speaker on the video: "We're
here to show White Anglo-Saxon Protestants of L.A., the
few of you who remain, that we are the majority; we
claim this land as ours. … If anyone is going to be
deported, it's going to be you!"
Another protester shouts: "Go back to Europe where
you came from; go back to England!"
Many photos of signs used in pro-illegals rallies are
included in the presentation, including "Minutemen,
you've taken on a fight larger than you can imagine,"
and "We are standing in Mexico here!" – presumably at a
rally in California.
Besides vulgar chants that cannot be reprinted, one
crowd shouts in rhythm: "Our land, our continent, we're
taking it back!"
Explains the FAQ page on the site:
"The photos and soundtrack (that make up the intro
video) are from real events that happened in California
and Virginia. It was never shown on the news, talked
about on radio, or written in the newspaper. We knew it
was about time to let all Americans know what we know.
Illegal aliens are not all 'good people looking for a
job.' Federally funded racist Hispanic organizations are
not simply 'educating' their people, they are inciting
illegal aliens to riot and to demand 'rights' that they
do not deserve."
The site is run by married couple Nathan and Linda
Muller. Linda has worked for the campaigns of Patrick
Buchanan and Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., the leading
opponent of illegal immigration in Congress.
Included on the site is a message board, with one
thread discussing today's rallies in favor of amnesty
for illegals across the nation.
Posted Linda Muller: "I put off all my shopping for
groceries, gas and other needs until today. I want
American business to know we do not need illegal aliens.
I almost wish I needed to go to the motor vehicle
department, the bank, or even the hospital. What a
pleasure it would be not to have to compete with illegal
aliens for services.
"The roads will be safer and less congested, too.
Maybe other Americans will notice that our country is
better off without illegals and decide deportation is
not a bad idea after all.
"It's a great day in the USA!"
As WorldNetDaily reported, the Mexica Movement
helped organize a large Los Angeles pro-illegals rally
in March. The organization believes it is the
"non-indigenous," white, English-speaking U.S. citizens
of European descent who have to leave what they call
"our continent," not illegal aliens.
Back to top
Jim Kouri
September 26, 2006
The Common Voice
In a move that has many
proponents of tough US border
security and illegal immigration
reforms scratching their heads
in puzzlement, Mexican President
Vincente Fox recently retained
the services of a well-known
Republican strategist to help
stop the rising tide of public
outcry over poor border security
and rampant illegal immigration.
President Fox reportedly
rehired the public relations man
and GOP political consultant who
is credited with helping Fox win
the presidency in 2000. Fox
wants Rob Allyn to curtail what
he perceives as a growing
anti-immigration political
juggernaut, especially when it
comes to illegal aliens from
Mexico.
When the House of
Representatives passed a key
bill that would provide an
additional 700 miles of border
fencing on the US-Mexican
border, and would make illegally
entering the US a felony, Fox
denounced the measure as
shameful. His foreign minister
called it stupid and
underhanded.
The Mexican government's
comments about US policy appears
to have backfired, with many
Americans demanding Mexico butt
out of American politics and
policy.
"Most Americans don't buy the
argument about illegals helping
the US economy. Illegal workers
depress wages, deplete available
social and healthcare services,
and creates crime problems,"
says homeland security expert
Sid Francis.
"If the Mexicans want
sympathy from US citizens,
calling them stupid and
underhanded isn't going to do
it."
The proposed immigration bill
falls short of giving President
Bush and President Fox their
desired "guest worker" program
that will benefit Mexicans
almost exclusively.
Fox, who didn't seek
reelection in 2006, did wish to
leave a legacy that provides
easier access to the United
States, so he turned to a GOP
insider to help him. The
conventional wisdom is that the
Republican Party is tougher on
national security and homeland
security, so they are the
leaders to whom he must plead
his cause.
So Fox called on GOP
strategist Rob Allyn, the man
who assisted George W. Bush in
beating Governor Ann Richards
for the State House in Texas.
When Vincente Fox, then governor
of Guanajuato state, began his
campaign for the Mexican
presidency, Allyn joined Fox's
presidential campaign, with the
stipulation that Allyn's role
remain secret.
According to the Los Angeles
Times, for three years, Allyn
worked clandestinely, helping
craft Fox's message of change,
as well as his TV commercials,
his polling and his wardrobe.
Allyn made dozens of trips to
Mexico, traveling under one of
three pseudonyms.
After the July election,
Allyn told the Dallas Morning
News he hid his work for Fox
because he didn't want to be a
political liability. Mexicans
are sensitive to foreign
interference, especially
involving the United States.
Some Beltway insiders believe
that Allyn, who also worked on
the Bush presidential campaigns,
may have been urged to help
Vincente Fox with immigration
public relations work by the
White House.
According to Rob Allyn, he
will attempt to sway public
opinion away from tougher border
security measures and increased
penalties for surreptitiously
entering the US. His strategy is
likely intended to change the
debate regarding illegal
immigration. Calls for tighter
illegal immigration measures are
growing louder in the United
States as Mexican and Central
American workers multiply
yearly.
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis
Ernesto Derbez, whose vitriolic
statements have made him very
unpopular with conservative
Republicans, said Allyn's
message should be that Mexicans
have sunk roots deep in their US
neighborhoods and that they
contribute more through their
work, taxes and families than
they take away in public
services. However, studies
conducted by several non-profit
organizations casts doubt on
that argument
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently
fifth vice-president of the
National Association of Chiefs
of Police and he's a staff
writer for the New Media
Alliance (thenma.org). He's
former chief at a New York City
housing project in Washington
Heights nicknamed "Crack City"
by reporters covering the drug
war in the 1980s. In addition,
he served as director of public
safety at a New Jersey
university and director of
security for several major
organizations. He's also served
on the National Drug Task Force
and trained police and security
officers throughout the country.
Kouri writes for many police
and security magazines including
Chief of Police, Police Times,
The Narc Officer and others.
He's a news writer for
TheConservativeVoice.Com and
PHXnews.com. He's also a
columnist for AmericanDaily.Com,
MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com,
and he's syndicated by
AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared
as on-air commentator for over
100 TV and radio news and talk
shows including Oprah,
McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline
News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His
book Assume The Position is
available at Amazon.Com. Kouri's
own website is located at
jimkouri.us
|
|
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Back to top
Illegal
Immigration: The treason lobby
By: William Calhoun | Published on 09/24/06
SmallGovTimes.com
An acquaintance who has worked in Washington DC for 35 years
recently said to me, "A dark cloud casts its sinister shadow
upon our nation's capital. And that dark cloud is the
pro-immigration treason lobby."
If anyone has not noticed, our country is under invasion. And
key Democrats and Republicans are doing nothing to save it. Some
of them even encourage the illegal invasion.
Why such treason? In the 1950s when our nation was under
invasion, President Eisenhower (via "Operation Wetback")
responded with troops and in less than a year deported almost 1
million illegals. Yet, many of our leaders say they are unable.
Rather, they are unwilling. They support something "higher" than
American sovereignty; that is to say, they support liberal
internationalism.
Many Democrats and Republicans have been hypnotized by the
sinister spell of liberal internationalism. Although they may
disagree over a few minor points, they all support the same
agenda: the weakening of states' rights, the proposition nation,
"free" trade & the NAFTA superhighway, the erosion of national
borders, and the expansion of unhampered and unrestricted
immigration policies. They are but cronies for big business and
mutinous multiculturalists, all at the expense of Middle
America. And if they have their way, they will transform the US
into a third-world wasteland.
In the Democratic Party the treason lobby is headed by Bill
Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, John
Kerry, Charlie Gonzalez, Nancy Pelosi, Russell Feingold, Loretta
Sanchez, and John Conyers.
In the Republican Party, the treason lobby is spearheaded by GW
Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Lindsey
Graham, Sam Brownback, Arlen Specter, and Mike DeWine.
The Constitution entrusts the protection of the US to our
elected leaders, and the above backsliders have failed in their
Constitutional duties.
Already 20 million illegals have invaded the US. They plan to
reclaim the Southwest and "kick every single white person out,"
as one Mexican recently said. They will not rest until the
Southwest is theirs and all the "gringos have been eliminated."
They are not Western; they are of Aztlan.
Doubt what I say? Just look at the ethnic composition of
Mexicans. Other than a small upper class of pure European blood,
the vast majority of Mexicans are either Amerindian or Mestizos
(mostly Amerindian with a few drops of Spaniard, or African,
blood). In short, they are not European. They are Asiatic.
These invaders do not self-identify with the West. They despise
it. Hispanics recently have demanded that all "European
elements" be removed from their liturgy, and Hispanics in
Southern California have banned all white authors from their
public schools. They have invaded the United States and have
"declared war upon gringo culture."
What are we to do? Until we are able to secure people in DC who
actually care for the US, patriotic Americans will be forced to
take matters into their own hands: chapters of the Minutemen,
militias, and strict anti-immigration local and state laws.
Perhaps the real solution lies at the local level. Lobby your
mayors, sheriffs, councilmen, and state legislators to run all
the illegals out of Dodge. They are our last hope. We know we
cannot rely upon the internationalist turncoats in DC.
Back to top
Pledge
to Mexican flag featured at Texas school
Principal says he was
pursuing 'diversity,' but wouldn't do it again
Posted:
September 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
The principal of an elementary school instructed his students
to stand during the recitation of a pledge to the Mexican flag
during a diversity assembly recently, and he's been trying to
backtrack ever since.
"We absolutely refuse to stand up and pledge allegiance to
another country's flag," a mother whose daughter attends the
school told talk show host
Chris Baker on AM 740 KTRH radio. "Where is the sensitivity
to the country and to the troops and the men and women that have
fought and died for this country?"
The mother, identified only as Amy, said school officials gave all the
children Mexican flags to wave and then asked everyone to stand
up and pledge allegiance to the Mexican flag.
"Get out!" Baker shouted. "What school is that?"
It was
Velasco Elementary in Clute, Texas, where Sam Williams is
principal.
Stuart Dornburg is a spokesman for the
Brazosport Independent School District which includes
Velasco, and he said Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 is a national
Hispanic Heritage Month and the assembly was a cultural
education activity in a district that values and respects
diversity.
But Amy said she got "glares" when she didn't participate and
when she "proudly" put the Mexican flag on the ground.
She said her husband was in Vietnam for three tours of duty,
and she has a son in the war now.
"Arrest that man immediately. Bring him to me," Baker said.
In a
report in The Facts, Williams said the response to his
action was "overwhelming."
"It's been a real trying ordeal and all I can say is I deeply
apologize if anyone was offended by it – and I can see that they
are," the principal said
He said the situation should have been done differently.
"There's no way that we would repeat it," he told the news
group.
Officials say there are 635 students from preschool age to
fourth grade in Velasco, and about two-thirds are Hispanic.
"We have stated in our mission statement that we are a campus
that is a beacon of hope for a culturally diverse population,”
Williams said.
The assembly was held Sept. 16, a day on which Mexico
celebrates its independence from Spain.
Baker said the recitation was especially offensive since the
U.S. is in the middle of a serious dispute over illegal
immigration and the huge ramifications the nation faces from not
having a secured border with Mexico.
"To blow it off as quote-unquote 'historical teaching
methods' either shows complete arrogance or a lack of the
ability to grasp the seriousness of the illegal immigration
issue to Americans," told his listeners.
On a
weblog, a fan identified as El Jefe Maximo said, "What's
needed is a dose of nationalism, with a pinch of religion, and
I'd throw in a dash of evil old imperialism as well."
Papa Ray told the same blog, "Homeschooling is looking more
and more attractive to me for my Sweet Sarah."
Williams was upset that parents took their complaints to the
radio waves.
"I would have graciously visited with that parent and
explained on-site what the intent was," he said.
"I really don't understand why President Bush is so gung ho
on giving these people 'a pathway to citizenship.' I would like
to see them given a pathway back to Mexico after they help to
build the wall," said Starblazer.
Back to top
By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 1, 2006
DENVER
Illegal immigration is an
environmental issue for Shela A.
McFarlin, who has seen firsthand the
tons of trash dumped in the fragile
Arizona desert by border-crossers.
Illegal aliens have turned parts of
the Southwest desert into environmental
disaster areas -- dumping an estimated
25 million pounds of trash in the
Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of
miles of roads through the wilderness
and destroying thousands of acres of
habitat with cooking fires that have
gone awry.
"The desert environment is fairly
sensitive, so we're concerned about the
damage to habitat, plants and animals,"
said Miss McFarlin, who authored the
Bureau of Land Management's 2006 report
on environmental damage from illegal
immigration. "It's not at all inviting
to see toilet paper, fecal matter and
backpacks by the thousands. Not at all."
Once the immigrants, both legal and
illegal, arrive, the scenario isn't much
rosier. Immigration is now the primary
factor in U.S. population growth, which
drives such environmental woes as
housing sprawl, pollution and traffic.
But don't expect your local Green
Party activist to grab a lawn chair and
join the Minutemen border patrols any
time soon: The mainstream environmental
movement is firmly and uniformly
agnostic on the issue.
"We've never taken a position pro or
con on immigration," Sierra Club
spokesman Eric Antebi said.
"We don't have the expertise to deal
with that [illegal immigration],"
Wilderness Society spokesman Ben Beach
said.
These responses exasperate
environmentalists such as Dick Lamm, the
former Democratic governor of Colorado
and a 30-year member of the Sierra Club.
Mr. Lamm broke ranks with the movement
years ago by insisting that a
responsible environmental policy has to
include population and immigration
controls.
He is among the most prominent of a
small-but-hardy band of
environmentalists who have tried for
years to push the movement toward an
anti-immigration stance. So far, they
haven't had much luck.
"The environmental movement refuses
to acknowledge that immigration and
population are environmental issues,"
Mr. Lamm said.
Why? Politics, he said.
"The environmental movement has gone
politically correct," Mr. Lamm said.
"They're committing political
malpractice by ignoring population."
But Jenny Neeley, Southwest
representative for Defenders of Life,
said her group hasn't taken a stance on
immigration reform in Congress because
"I don't think we're knowledgeable
enough to say, 'This will stop the
illegal crossings.'"
Faced with a difficult choice,
critics said, the environmental movement
has abandoned its primary mission --
protecting the planet -- rather than
deviate from the liberal establishment.
"They're still pretty much ignoring
it [illegal immigration] because it's
politically sensitive or because they
perceive it to be politically
sensitive," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman
for the Federation for Immigration
Reform. "Nobody denies that
environmental degradation is due in part
to population growth, and nobody denies
that the biggest reason for population
growth is immigration.
"But somehow, when they put together
A and B, it doesn't lead to C," he said.
Alienating illegals
Some environmentalists counter that
population control is an issue that
doesn't respect borders. Whether the
estimated 12 million to 20 million
illegal aliens in the United States
chose to live in New Mexico or Mexico
City, they are still part of a global
overpopulation problem.
"Do people who migrate to the United
States increase environmental stress? It
depends on where they would end up
otherwise. Los Angeles, for example,
could handle 10,000 Ecuadoreans more
easily than the Galapagos Islands
could," Sierra Club Executive Director
Carl Pope wrote in a 2004 article in the
group's magazine.
Alan Kuper, a longtime Sierra Club
member and a critic of its immigration
stance, said this is an unfair
comparison because Americans are greater
consumers of resources than people
living in other countries.
"That's the cop-out argument that
you get," Mr. Kuper said. "An individual
in the U.S. is responsible for
consumption or use of resources of about
30 times the resources a child in India
will use in his lifetime."
Critics also cite the group's
longstanding policy that calls first for
U.S. population control, then global
stabilization.
"Our immigration policy can't make a
dent in world poverty, and we take in
two times more immigrants as any other
country already," Mr. Lamm said. "The
question is how can the U.S. best help
the environment? By building a
sustainable society."
Other environmentalists acknowledge
that they tread lightly when it comes to
illegal immigration in order to protect
their work on other environmental
issues.
"Because it's such a charged issue
in this country, it's hard to get
involved without getting caught in the
crossfire," Mr. Antebi said. "We have a
history of working with a large number
of constituencies, and we want to
continue to work with them.
"If we'd gotten involved with the
immigration issue, we would have burned
a lot of bridges," he said.
The group would have burned those
bridges not just with its allies, but
with many of its grass-roots members.
"We tend to work with communities
that have a lot of immigrants," Mr.
Antebi said. "In California, the places
with the worst air pollution tend to be
the places with the largest number of
immigrants.
"If we took sides on immigration pro
or con, it would affect our
relationships with these communities,"
he said.
No environmental group has debated
the immigration issue more publicly than
the Sierra Club. In 2004 and 2005,
anti-immigration candidates attempted to
reverse the club's direction by running
for seats on its 15-member board of
directors. All of them lost, including
Mr. Lamm, in 2004.
The club came under fire in 2004
after a wealthy donor, Wall Street
investor David Gelbaum, told the Los
Angeles Times that he had warned Mr.
Pope in 1994 or 1995 that he would never
give another dollar if the club ever
took an anti-immigration stance.
In 1996, the club voted to adopt a
neutrality stance on immigration,
reversing its longstanding position in
favor of limiting immigration. In 2000
and 2001, Mr. Gelbaum donated a total of
$100 million to the organization.
Critics accused the Sierra Club of
selling out, but Mr. Antebi denied any
linkage between the events.
"This organization is too big and
too democratic in its grass-roots
leadership," he said, pointing out that
the club's policies are set by its
elected board. "No one person can wield
that much influence."
Besides, he said, Sierra Club
members hardly need to be bribed to
recognize the merits of avoiding the
immigration debate.
"It's not that crazy to figure out
why an organization like the Sierra Club
would not want to wade into an issue
like immigration," Mr. Antebi said.
"Protecting ANWR [Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge]? That's our
bread-and-butter. Reducing air-pollution
levels? That's our bread-and-butter.
Immigration? That's really not our
bread-and-butter."
Remembering ZPG
At one time, however, stabilizing
the U.S. population was indeed a central
tenet of the environmental movement. In
the 1960s and 1970s, when it was just
taking root, the call for "zero
population growth" was as loud and
insistent as the cry for cleaner air and
water.
In 1970, the Sierra Club adopted a
policy calling for the nation to "bring
about the stabilization of the
population first of the United States
and then of the world." Three years
later, Mr. Pope told the New York Times
that "we can't hope to absorb all who
want to come in. ... Immigration is a
sentimental symbol whose day is long
past."
By 1998, however, the environmental
movement was in full retreat from both
the population and immigration issue.
Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz of
NumbersUSA attribute the phenomenon to a
number of factors, including the drop in
U.S. fertility rates.
However, the researchers from the
immigration-reform group conclude that
the primary cause was demographics: The
immigrants were Hispanic, and there were
millions of them. Environmental leaders
soon decided they couldn't afford a
political skirmish with a large and
increasingly influential minority group.
"One of the main reasons the Sierra
Club leadership gave in 1998 for
avoiding the immigration issue was that
they dared not risk appearing to be
racially insensitive," the authors wrote
in their paper, "The Environmental
Movement's Retreat from Advocating U.S.
Population Stabilization (1970-1998)."
The authors quote Mr. Pope in a 1997
online message to members: "While it is
theoretically possible to have a
non-racial debate about immigration, it
is not practically possible for an open
organization like the Sierra Club to do
so. ... [Recent history] has caused me
to change my view of whether it is
possible for the Sierra Club to deal
with the immigration issue in a way
which would not implicate us in ethnic
or racial polarization."
While that calculation might be
correct, critics say, there's just one
problem: It puts environmental
protection second. The result has been
the birth of a hybrid political movement
made up of
environmentalists-cum-immigration hawks.
Among the leaders of the movement is
Mr. Kuper, a one-time Sierra Club leader
and retired physics professor. After the
1996 neutrality vote, Mr. Kuper founded
Sierrans for U.S. Population
Stabilization, a splinter group of
disgruntled members devoted to returning
the club to its "traditional population
policy."
The group developed a scorecard that
grades members of Congress on their
votes on the environment, immigration
and family-planning issues. Mr. Kuper
also regularly lobbies the League of
Conservation Voters to include
immigration on its list of issues.
Relations between the rebels and the
mother ship aren't always cordial.
During the 2004 and 2005 board
elections, the anti-immigration
candidates accused Sierra Club staffers
of playing the race card to undermine
their campaigns.
After the 2004 election, Mr. Pope
wrote an essay titled "The Virus of
Hate," which warned members against a
possible infiltration of the club by
racists. He said that some candidates
"on the losing side" had entered into an
"ugly alliance with individuals and
groups whose motivations are clearly
racist."
Mr. Kuper now includes a disclaimer
on his Web site denouncing racism under
the heading "No to racism, yes to
environmentalism."
Battle at the border
One issue that could pull the
environmental community back into the
immigration debate is the degradation at
the border. The Bureau of Land
Management estimates that only 1 percent
of the 25 million tons of garbage left
in the Southern Arizona desert has been
hauled off since 2002.
The hardest-hit areas include the
Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge,
which now includes about 200 miles of
illegal roads carved into the landscape
by trucks and off-road vehicles,
prompting the Wilderness Society to
issue an alert.
"The trash problem is staggering, to
say the least," said Defenders of Life's
Miss Neeley, whose group has been active
in cleanup efforts. "If you've seen it,
it's almost surreal."
The groups' solution, however, isn't
likely to warm the hearts of immigration
hawks. Instead of calling for a
clampdown on illegal immigration, both
groups have stern words for the U.S.
Border Patrol, calling on the agency to
make a stronger commitment to
environmental protection.
Miss Neeley said in a 2006 article
in an environmental group's publication
that the problem lies with the agency's
decision to push illegal aliens from
urban points of entry such as Nogales,
Ariz., to the desert. The idea was to
make crossing the border more difficult,
but the result has been the degradation
of protected lands, she said in the Sky
Island Alliance's newsletter.
The Border Patrol also needs to
drive on established roads and avoid
carving new ones through the wilderness,
environmentalists say. The groups also
are uniformly opposed to a border wall
or fence, which they say would cut off
wildlife migration routes.
What about the actual
border-crossers, who rarely stick to the
main highway?
"Of course, that's being done by
crossers, too, but we can't tell
crossers, 'Hey, you're breaking these
laws,'" Miss Neeley said.
The blame-the-Border Patrol response
exasperates agency spokesman Gus Soto,
who suggests that the illegal aliens,
drug smugglers and human smugglers bear
greater responsibility for the damage
than its officers.
"Unfortunately, they do choose to
point the finger at us, but you have to
remember, we're not the ones out there
crossing. We're not the ones out there
creating roads. We're trying to stop the
smuggling industry," Mr. Soto said.
The agency has implemented a
training program for its officers in
environmental awareness. Officers often
patrol sensitive areas via aircraft or
on horseback, and they feed their horses
only with seeds that are indigenous to
the region.
"We don't go off-road," Mr. Soto
said. "Before we do anything, we have to
do an environmental-impact study to make
sure it won't have a negative impact. We
don't want to leave an environmental
footprint in these sensitive areas."
The smugglers, on the other hand,
"will cross anywhere without concern for
the environment," he said. "It's the
smugglers that are doing this, not the
Border Patrol. We're going after the
people who are causing the environmental
harm."
They have their differences, but one
thing both the Border Patrol and
Defenders of Wildlife do agree on is
that something must be done to reduce
the total number of border-crossers. And
that's a start.
"If we don't start reducing the
total number of crossers, the problem is
only going to get worse," Miss Neeley
said. "And so far the environmental
community really hasn't had an adequate
response."
Back to top
A few localities want their officers to be able to do
federal duties
BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Faced with local concerns about illegal immigration, officials
in at least three Virginia communities are looking at a federal
program that allows local police to enforce immigration laws.
The move concerns some people, including in immigrant
communities, who say it could undermine efforts to build trust
be- tween police and immigrants -- legal or not -- who might
become more reluctant to assist police for fear of being
deported or seeing a relative forced from the country.
The Herndon Town Council voted last week to apply for the
law-enforcement training grant available through U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of
Homeland Security. The Culpeper County Sheriff's Office is
sending two officers for training in the coming months, and a
Manassas Town Council member also wants his colleagues to
consider the program.
In Herndon, the move follows the ouster in the May elections
of the former mayor and two council members who supported the
establishment of a day-laborer center in the town. The new
mayor, Stephen J. DeBenedittis, said in a statement that the
program is not designed to round up illegal immigrants in random
street operations. He did not return calls or e-mails seeking
comment.
Manassas City Councilman Jackson H. Miller echoed that
sentiment, saying, "It's not a program where our police start
going into the kitchens of our restaurants and start demanding
green cards."
The efforts are being driven, in part, by local frustrations
about the impact of undocumented residents on schools, social
services and judicial systems. In Culpeper, Town Councilman
Steve Jenkins is pushing for stricter enforcement of the local
ordinance governing how many unrelated people can live under one
roof. He also wants to tighten the ordinance's definition of
family and is considering pushing to officially designate
English as the town's primary language.
No locality in the Richmond area has asked for specific
authority to enforce federal immigration laws under the
homeland-security program. However, local police departments say
that under some circumstances, they have authority to detain
illegal immigrants until federal immigration agents can
investigate.
Virginia decided against seeking authority for the State
Police to directly enforce civil laws. State Police
Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty said his department initially
wanted to be certified under the federal program to help in
criminal investigations that involved gangs and other criminal
enterprises involving illegal immigrants. "We wanted it very
narrowly focused," he said
Flaherty said the administration of then-Gov. Mark R. Warner
concluded that the department had sufficient power under a 2004
state law that gives law enforcement greater leeway to hold
illegal immigrants if there is reasonable suspicion that they
are committing a crime.
Miller, who is a Prince William County police officer, said
he has spoken with constituents who are stunned that an
undocumented resident who is arrested for committing a crime is
not automatically deported. He said he recently arrested an
illegal immigrant who shoplifted and then punched two store
employees, but federal immigration officials were reluctant to
get involved because it didn't involve murder, rape or robbery.
Tim Freilich, legal director of the Virginia Justice Center
in Charlottesville, said such an instance points to the need for
comprehensive federal immigration reform, not empowering local
police to take up the slack.
"It's a terrible use of local law-enforcement resources," he
said, adding that the efforts imperil years of
community-policing efforts aimed at building trust with
immigrants.
Jose Osegueda, chairman of the Fredericksburg-based National
Organization for the Advancement of Hispanics, agrees that
immigration enforcement is not a local job. "We need local
police doing what their mission is. I don't think at any time
the mission of police was to work on federal issues," he said.
Freilich does not contest the legality of the program but
says his group will be carefully watching the implementation.
Miller acknowledges that funding is an issue. He said the
federal program provides money only for training, not for
implementation, including detaining petty criminals who might
otherwise be released if not for their immigration status.
"Nothing worthwhile is easy. Do we have the [jail] capacity?
If the political will is there, anything can be done," he said.
Culpeper County Sheriff H. Lee Hart said he would be remiss
not to explore available training. He is sending two officers,
one assigned to the jail and one who investigates gang activity,
for the training. He says the county has documented activity by
MS-13, the shorthand name for Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang
with Salvadoran roots that has a widespread presence in Northern
Virginia.
"I'm not saying we have a gang problem," he said. "But we
have to be proactive."
Freilich said illegal immigrants are not the only people who
should be concerned about local police being able to start
deportation proceedings. He noted that U.S. citizens and legal
residents are not required to carry proof of citizenship or
legal status.
"All Virginians should start thinking about what they're
going to say when a cop asks if they're legal," he said, adding
that stepped-up efforts could tear apart families that include
both legal and illegal residents.
Several other local and state law-enforcement and corrections
agencies nationwide are participating, including in Alabama,
Arizona, California, Florida and North Carolina.
In the Charlotte, N.C., area, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim
Pendergraph says his department has screened 1,500 possible
illegal immigrants and marked 650 for deportation.
Pendergraph agreed that funding is a concern, perhaps even
more so for small communities. His large department has 12
people assigned full time to the program and has received
federal funding partly because the department already houses
federal inmates.
He says the community has generally been supportive and that
he hasn't heard from employers complaining the efforts are
depleting the work force.
"The ones that we're seeing aren't working, quite frankly,"
Pendergraph said of undocumented residents. "Some people have a
misunderstanding that we're out with a net on street corners. .
. . I don't have the resources just to hunt for people who are
here illegally."
Staff writer Michael Martz contributed
to this report.
Back to top
By Alfred Tella
The Washington Times
Published October 1, 2006
Productivity is the offspring of human
creativity and the primary source of our economic well-being.
Productivity means doing things more efficiently, finding a
better way. In technical jargon, it is output per unit of input.
It is the wellspring of economic growth, the fabled goose that
lays the golden eggs. But the goose can come to harm, and we
need to be ever vigilant.
One threat to productivity today is cheap immigrant labor.
An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, mostly low-skilled,
poorly-educated Mexicans and other Latin Americans, have stolen
into and remain in our country. Their numbers increase by nearly
a half million yearly and if the president and the Senate have
their way the immigrant inflow is bound to accelerate.
The negative impact of illegal workers on American wages and
social welfare costs has been well documented and publicized.
But far less attention has been given to the detrimental effects
the excess supply of immigrants has on productivity. Following
is a summary of some of the more significant analyses.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for
Immigration Studies, in a paper on guest-worker programs,
explains how illegal immigration slowed productivity growth in
American agriculture. Take the case of raisin grapes.
The conventional harvesting method involves cutting the
grapes off vines by the bunch with a knife, then laying them on
paper trays and repeatedly turning them by hand for drying. In
the late 1950s, grape farmers in Australia, faced with a labor
shortage, came up with a more efficient way of producing raisins
whereby the grapes dried naturally on the vine and were knocked
into bins by a tractor-mounted harvester. Labor use was cut
drastically and yields skyrocketed.
Did this new technique spread among raisin farmers in
American? For the most part, no. The ready availability of cheap
immigrant workers blunted the incentive to make the expenditure
to switch to the more efficient method, with consequent
long-term losses to both farmers and consumers.
Because of the excess supply of immigrant labor in American,
notes Mr. Krikorian, the European Union is well ahead of us in
bringing new agricultural technologies to market, which could
result in the U.S. losing out to international competitors. But
if we were to restrict cheap foreign labor, modernization would
be spurred, not only in the farm sector says Mr. Krikorian, but
in services as well.
Others have arrived at similar findings. A study titled
"Alternatives to Immigrant Labor?" by agricultural researchers
Yoav Sarig (Agricultural Research Organization, Israel), James
F. Thompson (Department of Biological and Agricultural
Engineering, University of California-Davis), and Galen K. Brown
(Florida Department of Citrus), analyzed fruit and vegetable
crop mechanization in the United States. The authors found there
has been little investment in mechanized harvesting by growers
since 1980 because of the ready availability of cheap labor, and
"many workers were illegal aliens using falsified papers."
Philip Martin, professor of agricultural and resource
economics at the University of California-Davis, in a paper on
foreign workers, wrote: "In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak
harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes
used to make catsup in California were Braceros [Mexican
laborers] and growers testified that 'the use of Braceros is
absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry.' In
1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort
12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000
acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to
the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production,
and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products, which
helped to fuel the fast-food boom."
Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America
Foundation, recently wrote in the Financial Times: "The
availability of low-wage immigrant labor has caused the U.S. to
lag behind Japan, Australia and others with advanced mechanical
harvesting. And thanks to the glut of cheap labor, home
construction in the U.S. remains low-tech and inefficient. A
tight labor market would force rapid productivity gains in
nontraded domestic industries that today are labor-intensive."
In manufacturing, the story is similar. Economists Myriam
Quispe-Agnoli and Madeline Zavodny at the Federal Reserve Bank
of Atlanta in their study, "The Effect of Immigration on Output
Mix, Capital, and Productivity," developed a regression model
that showed "changes in the labor supply due to immigration
appear to lower labor productivity in both the low- and
high-skilled sectors."
Ethan Lewis, economist at the Federal Reserve of
Philadelphia, authored an econometric study, "Immigration, Skill
Mix, and the Choice of Technology," based on Census plant-level
data. The study examined the impact of low-skilled immigrant
labor on technology adoption in manufacturing. It concluded
plants with fast labor supply growth "adopted automation
technology more slowly... and even de-adoption was not
uncommon.... The relative supply of less-skilled labor reduced
demand for technology."
Unless and until effective immigration reforms, including
border protection, employer sanctions and benefit restrictions
are put in place, the tide of illegal immigrants entering our
country will not abate. If low-skilled immigrants continue to
increase their share of the work force, there likely will be a
further dampening of technological and productivity growth in
key sectors of the economy. America cannot afford that. It's not
that productivity isn't growing, but it could be higher.
Alfred Tella is a former Georgetown University research
professor of economics.
Back to top
|
Speakout: Illegal
immigration hurting Hispanics
By Waldo Benavidez
October 2, 2006
I am a fifth-generation
Hispanic and would like to express a viewpoint that has
not been a major part of the debate about illegal
immigration: the impact illegal immigration has on the
working poor of this country and the political impotence
it has injected into the Chicano community.
Hispanics see firsthand every day the drain illegal
immigration has on institutions such as school systems,
law enforcement, the criminal justice system, health
care and jobs, and as a factor in the depression of
wages. Our taxpayer-funded institutions are reeling from
this migration into the United States, particularly
those that are primarily supposed to be serving the
low-income people of this country. In my neighborhood,
low-income families are increasingly competing with an
endless flow of illegals for limited funds, resources
and basic survival necessities.
Those who defend illegal immigration argue that these
people are not harming anyone, "all they want is work,
they do not bother anyone" and "they only take jobs no
one else wants." This naive and simplistic rationale for
illegal immigration fails to acknowledge the
far-reaching and critical impact on low-income people. I
see it every day and I live on the front lines of this
invasion.
The competition for low-income housing is one example
of how those who advocate for illegals ignore the
working families who cannot compete for the high rents
landlords are demanding.
A family of four with one breadwinner, for example,
has a difficult time meeting the inflated rents being
asked for often-substandard housing, not to mention the
high costs of energy, food and clothing.
Immigrants, on the other hand, can pay whatever is
asked by landlords because they often pack four or five
times more working individuals into the unit and, by
pooling their resources, manage the often inflated rent.
Native Hispanics see their wages driven down and their
prices and rents driven up by this abused form of labor.
Too many elitist Hispanic organizations, funded by
liberal foundations, have become open-borders advocates,
focusing their attention on immigration advocacy, but I
fear it comes at the expense of the Latino U.S. citizen.
What about our own community? Education in this
country is in a crisis, with statistics for Latinos at
appalling levels in most cities while low achievement is
spreading at an alarming rate. The graduation rate for
Latinos is 20 percent or, in some cases, less.
Higher education is not even a consideration for many
young Latinos yet the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund and others choose to take policy
positions of increasing and packing more into the
already overburdened school systems by encouraging more
immigration from Mexico and other Third World countries.
They do a disservice to this country by overloading the
system to the point where the quality of education
suffers and schools become mere warehouses. Overcrowded
schools lead to more failure and the cycle continues.
Instead of holding Mexico accountable for its
immigration policies, these groups pander to and
collaborate with a country that uses the United States
as a means of abdicating its responsibilities to its
poorest citizens. At the same time, Mexico enhances its
own economy with a considerable amount of money sent
back each year by immigrants - anywhere between $15
billion to $30 billion. Is it any wonder that Mexico has
positioned itself in a win-win situation?
The painful reality is that many illegal immigrants
with fake Social Security cards are working in just
about every kind of employment there is. They are not
just picking and topping sugar beets and cleaning toilet
bowls, they are in federal and state government employ,
public school systems, the fast-food industry,
construction, building trades, the restaurant and hotel
industries, universities and factories . . . the list is
endless.
These are jobs U.S. citizens don't want? Take
McDonald's, the mega- hamburger corporation that employs
thousands of people. Instead of employing so many
immigrants, McDonald's could set up an after- school or
summer training program for our youth in high school who
in turn would receive valuable training and earn money
teenagers badly need. Maybe some youths would take a
greater interest in graduating if they had more support
from the business community!
I work full time trying to help my community and
Colorado, but illegal immigration is giving us
supply-side poverty that makes it almost impossible to
solve our problems. We need help, not so much in the
form of government programs, but to stop the endless
chain of poor (illegal) people who arrive in the United
States every day, every week, every month and every
year.
Longtime political activist Waldo Benavidez is a
social service agency director and is co-chair of Defend
Colorado Now. He is a resident of Denver.
Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News.
All Rights Reserved.
Back to top
Some Hispanics Pushing for
Dual Citizenship
08:42 AM CDT on
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
By LENNOX
SAMUELS / The Dallas Morning News
CHICAGO – The Mexican tricolor flaps on
some verandas along Pulaski Road, while the
U.S. flag takes pride of place on others.
Ranchera music blares from the Happy Dollar
Plus store as a vendor pushes his cart along
26th Street, selling mango-flavored frozen
treats to parched customers.
The intersection of 26th and Pulaski is
in the core of the Windy City, but by
sights, sounds and smells, it could be in
any town in Mexico. This is La Villita,
"Little Village," where about 100,000 people
live and work, maintaining the Spanish
language, traditions and culture of Mexico.
As President Bush and others call for
assimilation of Latino immigrants, some
Hispanics in La Villita and other parts of
the country, including North Texas, are on
what could be a collision course, pushing to
be fully binational, with equal rights in
Mexico and the United States and grounded in
both societies.
"We're never giving up our Mexican
roots," said Maria Cantú-Dougala, assistant
vice president of Second Federal Savings and
an American citizen. "I still consider
myself Mexican. That's where we're so
different from other immigrants. We just
can't give it up."
Effects on policy
Such views complicate any efforts to
change immigration policy to make it easier
for Mexicans to live and work in the U.S.,
and could even result in harsher migration
measures, some analysts and lawmakers say.
The U.S. must avoid "balkanization" and
has to maintain its national identity,
common culture and common English language
"or we will follow the path to the ash heap
of history like the Roman Empire," said U.S.
Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston.
"Arrogant nationalistic attitudes like
this, which are blatant violations of
American law, along with the uncontrolled
mass migration and marching with Mexican
flags have combined to push this country
over the tipping point in favor of
aggressive immigration law enforcement and
strict border security," said Mr. Culberson,
who has criticized White House immigration
policy as lax.
Migration expert Jonathan Fox said there
is a double standard on dual nationality in
the U.S.
"I don't see them worrying about U.S.
citizens fighting in the Israeli army. I
don't see any concerns when they're
fast-tracking for citizenship those
foreigners who join the [U.S.] military. I
don't see them asking that they burn their
[original] passports," said Dr. Fox, a
political science professor at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.
Dr. Fox calls the phenomenon of Mexicans
striving to be members of both U.S. and
Mexican societies "civic binationality." It
is one of several practices that suggest
immigrants are finding new ways to integrate
into the U.S., he said.
Full members of society
Many Mexicans want to go from being "less
than a full member of either society to a
full member of both societies," he said.
There are an estimated 42 million Latinos
in the U.S., almost 60 percent of them of
Mexican descent. The Pew Hispanic Center in
Washington estimates there are between 11.5
million and 12 million illegal immigrants in
the country, a majority of them Mexican.
Under Mexican law, Mexicans naturalized
in the U.S. may keep their Mexican
citizenship. And for the first time this
year, Mexico allowed its citizens abroad to
vote in the country's presidential election.
In the U.S., the growth in the number and
sophistication of associations that link
immigrants to their hometowns in Mexico has
helped the immigrants participate more fully
in American civic life while maintaining
close relationships with the mother country,
experts said.
"The migrant organizations reflect
broader changes in civic bi-nationality and
also drive them," Dr. Fox said.
Some of these groups, such as the
Binational Front of Indigenous
Organizations, have binational membership
structures, according to a report co-edited
by Dr. Fox.
In some municipalities, immigrants who
are not citizens participate in civic
affairs, including elections – though not as
voters.
Dr. Fox noted that in Los Angeles,
noncitizens work the phones in efforts to
get citizens to vote in local and state
elections.
Why so few applicants?
Some critics have questioned why more
legal permanent residents do not seek
citizenship.
"That process already exists for legal
immigrants who seek to be naturalized in the
United States. However, if illegal aliens
want this right, then I suggest they go back
to their countries of origin and proceed
through the lawful steps in order to reach
that goal," said U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.,
chairman of the Congressional Immigration
Reform Caucus.
Mr. Tancredo, a longtime immigration foe,
said that even the notion of dual
citizenship is "an oxymoron," and that being
an American citizen means renouncing all
prior allegiances and loyalties.
But the issue is not one of loyalty, said
Paula Cruz Takash, a sociology professor at
the University of California, Los Angeles.
"Anyone who understands that we have to
be thinking about global citizenship will
appreciate this notion of civic
binationality," she said. "Any country that
understands and encourages the acquisition
of not just one other language but maybe
others will be at an advantage as
globalization goes ahead."
A majority of Latinos, 57 percent,
believe immigrants have to speak English to
be part of American society, according to
Pew, while 41 percent say they do not.
Dr. Fox said many Mexicans do want to
become citizens but added that American
governments traditionally have done little
to push naturalization. "If they cared, they
would put billions of dollars on the table
to help people get through the citizenship
process," he said.
In North Texas, about 80 percent of the
approximately 1.5 million Hispanics are of
Mexican heritage, and there is no unanimity
among them about keeping a foot in both the
U.S. and Mexico.
Roberto Chavarría, 46, a Dallas
businessman who arrived from Mexico when he
was 14, says he has not really considered
becoming a citizen.
"I don't think it is so easy to change to
a citizenship one doesn't really feel," he
said. "Very few do it with conviction; they
do it for migratory reasons."
For Tereso Ortiz, an Oak Cliff resident
who became an American citizen 10 years ago,
duality is normal.
"We should practice American culture but
not forget where we come from," said Mr.
Ortiz, 57, who works as a butler. "I feel
American, but I don't stop feeling Mexican."
In Chicago, Ms. Cantú-Dougala's bank sits
right on the corner of 26th and Pulaski, and
its clientele is overwhelmingly Hispanic.
"Lots of people who come here have been
in this country 20, 30, 40 years and are not
interested in giving up their Mexican
citizenship," she said. "Even a lot of the
kids that were born here want to speak
Spanish and keep that Mexican-ness."
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said some
in Mexico may "have visions of the North
American Union ... where borders become less
important."
"But I see zero support for that in the
United States. I think our history and
traditions are so strong, and our identity
as unique people would never allow that to
happen."
Staff writer Sudeep Reddy in
Washington and Al Día staff writer Gustavo
Martínez in Dallas contributed to this
report.
|
Back to top |
By Aurelio Rojas - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 6:25 am PDT Thursday, October 12, 2006
A Yolo County judge's ruling upholding a California law that
allows public colleges and universities to extend resident
fees to illegal immigrants will be appealed, a lawyer for
the plaintiffs said Wednesday. "We fully intend to
appeal," said Kris Kobach of the Immigration Reform Law
Institute, adding the challenge will be filed within the
next few weeks in the 3rd District Court of Appeal in
Sacramento.
The class action lawsuit was filed last December on
behalf of out-of-state students, including two children of
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad.
The plaintiffs claimed that giving certain undocumented
immigrants lower-cost in-state tuition discriminates against
legal U.S. residents who are charged higher tuition.
They also argued the law -- which applies to California
community colleges, California State University and
University of California campuses -- violates federal
immigration reform legislation passed in 1996.
But Yolo Superior Court Judge Thomas Warriner concluded
last week the challenge to Assembly Bill 540, approved in
2001 by the Legislature, lacked legal merit.
"There has been no showing that Congress intended the
Immigration and Naturalization Act or any other federal
statute cited by the plaintiffs to occupy the field of
determining resident tuition rates at state universities and
community colleges," Warriner wrote in his decision.
Robert Rubin, legal director of the Lawyers Committee for
Civil Rights in San Francisco, argued the law does not
violate federal law because tuition benefits are not
restricted to illegal immigrants.
To qualify for lower in-state charges, a prospective
student has to have attended three years of high school in
California, graduated from a California school and met
admission standards.
"This important decision ensured the rights of all
long-standing residents of California, including
undocumented immigrants, to afford a state college or
university tuition," Rubin said.
But Kobach said "this is really just the first stage of a
multistage lawsuit."
At least nine other states have enacted similar
legislation. But, as Warriner noted in his ruling, no
federal agency "has rendered any opinion on the issue."
Bilbray said he was "frustrated" with the decision and
predicted legislation will be introduced in Congress to
settle the issue.
"If (states) want to violate the power of separations act
by encouraging illegal immigration with education, then
we're going to restrict education funds," Bilbray said.
But supporters of the law -- including Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Democratic challenger Phil Angelides --
say it makes fiscal sense to encourage all high-performing
students to pursue an education.
They also argue children brought into the country
illegally should not be punished for the actions of their
parents. AB 540 requires students to sign an affidavit
stating they have applied to become legal residents or will
do so if they become eligible.
Lawyers representing California's public colleges and
universities defended the law in court. School officials say
more U.S. citizens than illegal immigrants have benefited
from the law.
Only 371 students enrolled in the UC system during the
2005-06 academic year were undocumented immigrants admitted
under AB 540. The CSU system does not keep a tally.
Most of the students who have taken advantage of the law
attend the state's community colleges. During the first 2
1/2 years of the law, more than 18,000 did so.
Without the law, supporters say, many students would not
have been able to afford college.
In the California State University system, out-of-state
fees run about $10,000 more than in-state fees per year.
At the University of California, there is a $15,000
surcharge. At California's community colleges, in-state fees
run about $78 per course, while out-of-state students pay
$500.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for
Immigration Reform, called the state law a "state-sponsored
inducement to illegal immigration that needs to be
challenged."
Opponents of granting in-state tuition to illegal
immigrants are challenging a similar law in Kansas.
"The California case has already gotten further down the
road than the Kansas case," said Kobach, who is also
representing plaintiffs in that case.
Back to top
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 18, 2006
Law-enforcement authorities along the
U.S.-Mexico border are outgunned and
outmanned by drug smugglers armed with
automatic weapons, grenade launchers,
bazookas, improvised explosive devices
and state-of-the-art communications and
tracking systems, a congressional report
said yesterday.
"While the United States has taken
positive steps to secure its borders,
much more is needed to combat an
increasingly powerful, sophisticated,
organized and violent criminal network,
which seeks to move illegal contraband
... into our country for profit," said
the House Homeland Security management,
integration and oversight subcommittee
report.
The 39-page report said
drug-trafficking organizations and
alien-smuggling networks are
"proliferating and strengthening their
control" of key corridors along the
nation's Southwest; that Mexican drug
cartels wield "substantial control" over
the U.S.-Mexico border; and that
criminal organizations and networks are
"highly sophisticated and organized."
It also found that drug-trafficking
cartels, alien-smuggling networks and
U.S.-based street gangs, including
MS-13, are increasingly coordinating
with one another to achieve their
objectives, and that federal, state and
local law-enforcement report "new and
ever-increasing levels of ruthlessness
and violence" associated with the gangs.
The report echoes complaints from
the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition,
which repeatedly has said the federal
government's inability to secure the
Southwest border has resulted in a
dramatic rise in violence against U.S.
authorities and made it easier for
terrorists to enter the country.
Texas' Zapata County Sheriff
Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. told Congress in
March the cartels "have the money,
equipment and stamina" to bring
increased violence to the border, much
of it aimed at law-enforcement
authorities.
Sheriff Gonzalez told The Washington
Times at the time that the coalition --
which includes all 16 border sheriffs --
was concerned about terrorists using
Mexican drug and alien smugglers as
cover to cross the border.
Each year, hundreds of illegal
aliens from countries known to harbor
terrorists or promote terrorism are
routinely encountered and apprehended
while attempting to enter the U.S.
illegally, the House report said.
"The federal government has taken
positive steps to secure its borders,
but much more is needed to combat an
increasingly powerful, sophisticated,
and violent criminal network, which has
been successful in smuggling illegal
contraband, human or otherwise, into our
country," the report said.
"The growth of these criminal
groups, along the Southwest border, and
the potential for terrorists to exploit
the vulnerabilities which they create,
represents a real threat to America's
national security," it said. "It is
imperative that immediate action be
taken to enhance security along our
nation's Southwest border."
The report recommended enhancing
Border Patrol resources, constructing
physical barriers in vulnerable and
high-threat areas, and implementing
state-of-the-art technology, cameras,
sensors, radar, satellites and unmanned
aerial vehicles to ensure maximum
coverage of the nation's Southwest
border.
President Bush on Oct. 4 signed into
law a bill that calls for the hiring of
1,500 more Border Patrol agents and an
increase in the number of detention beds
for apprehended illegal aliens by 6,700.
Congress has approved a bill authorizing
the construction of 700 miles of fencing
along the U.S.-Mexico border, which Mr.
Bush has promised to sign when it gets
to his desk.
Mr. Bush also has called for
improving border security with high-tech
equipment.
Yesterday's House report also noted
that federal law-enforcement authorities
estimate that 10 percent to 30 percent
of the migrants seeking to illegally
enter the United States are apprehended
and 10 percent to 20 percent of the
drugs bound for this country are seized.
It said that in 2005, as many as 4
million to 10 million illegal aliens
crossed into the United States; and as
much as 5.6 million to 11.2 million
pounds of cocaine and 34.3 million to
68.6 million pounds of marijuana entered
the United States.
The report also called for an
expanded use of the expedited-removal
policy; building a secure communications
network for Border Patrol and state and
local law enforcement; and mandating a
comprehensive risk assessment of all
Southwest border ports of entry and
international land borders to prevent
the entry of terrorists and their
weapons.
During his testimony before a House
Judiciary subcommittee, Sheriff Gonzalez
said law-enforcement officers have found
many items along the banks of the Rio
Grande indicating ties to terrorist
organizations. He said Border Patrol
agents found a jacket near the border
with Arabic military badges, one with an
airplane flying over a building and
heading toward a tower.
Back to top
Feds
target marriage fraud
Mike Madden
Republic Washington Bureau
Oct. 14, 2006 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Enter a bogus marriage
to help an immigrant stay in the
United States and you could get paid
thousands of dollars.
If a new effort by federal agents
works out, you could also wind up in
prison.
Facing what authorities say is a
surge in fraud, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is
targeting phony-marriage rings,
document counterfeiters and other
large-scale operations that try to
evade laws about who can get
permission to work legally in the
United States. Task forces to combat
fraud have been set up in 10 cities,
modeled after one that started in
Washington, and ICE is planning a
second wave soon in more locations.
Phoenix, the largest city in the
state with the most
undocumented-immigrant crossings
from Mexico, could be considered.
Agents are focusing some of the new
attention on organizations that make
fake matches between U.S. citizens
and immigrants and help them apply
for benefits married couples qualify
for under immigration law.
The spouse of a citizen is entitled
to a visa that gives him or her
legal permanent residence. Known as
a "green card," a spouse can obtain
one without worrying about the
annual visa caps faced by those who
are sponsored by other relatives or
by employers.
"What you get when you marry a U.S.
citizen is essentially an
instantaneous green card, and with
that green card, you enjoy virtually
all the rights and privileges of a
U.S. citizen," said James Spero,
chief of ICE's identity and benefits
fraud unit, which oversees the task
forces. "You can come and go as you
please without any worry or regard
to law enforcement coming to arrest
you."
Agents aren't combing through
wedding announcements looking for
fraud. Rather, they are
concentrating on large and lucrative
marriage-fraud rings that may set up
scores of phony unions a year.
Patterns of suspected fraud spotted
by government workers or tips from
private citizens start most
investigations.
Recent busts have included one in
northern Virginia that officials say
took in as much as $6,000 from
immigrants paying for bogus
weddings.
One in Utah generated nearly $1.3
million in illegal fees, while a
Santa Ana, Calif., fraud
organization arranged 75 sham
marriages. Another based in New York
City reportedly netted more than $1
million.
Agents investigated some of those
cases for a year or more before
making arrests. Threat to
security
The notion of Uncle Sam asking
questions about a couple's finances
and married life to check whether
their union is legitimate may seem
odd, but authorities and experts say
marriage fraud helps undermine the
legal immigration system and could
pose a security threat.
"If you're here and you need to stay
for a long period of time, then
marriage fraud is the simplest thing
to do," said Janice Kephart, a
former staffer for the 9/11
Commission. In a post-commission
investigation, she found 16 cases
where suspected terrorists got green
cards through bogus marriages. "The
fraud is still so easy," she said.
Echoing Kephart's work, a Government
Accountability Office audit this
year found that U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, or USCIS, the
agency that processes applications
for green cards and other benefits,
needed to improve its ability to
detect fraud.
The agency processed more than 6
million applications for benefits in
fiscal 2005 and rejected about
20,000, or less than 1 percent, for
fraud, the report found. Critics say
the agency misses more fraud than it
detects.
USCIS officials responding to the
report said new anti-fraud efforts
already under way will improve their
detection efforts by analyzing fraud
risks and giving immigration
officers access to computer
databases used by law enforcement.
The agency is also involved in the
ICE fraud task forces, and USCIS
agents can refer cases to ICE for
criminal prosecution if they suspect
large-scale deception.
ICE investigated 3,591 cases
involving marriage and other types
of fraud in fiscal 2005, up more
than 55 percent from fiscal 2004.
Investigations led to convictions in
27 percent of cases in 2005, up
slightly from the 24 percent
conviction rate in 2004.
Phony marriages can lead to charges
of marriage fraud, visa fraud,
conspiracy and alien smuggling.
Penalties range from five to 10
years in prison. Costly
transactions
The marriage-fraud rings typically
find new business by word of mouth,
with organizers recruiting citizens
and immigrants within small social
circles in their communities, ICE's
Spero said. Immigrants pay $2,500 to
$6,000 for services, though in the
Santa Ana case, the lead organizer
pleaded guilty this summer and
admitted charging as much as $60,000
on occasion.
Citizens typically are paid $500 to
$1,000 upfront for marrying the
immigrants and receive payments
throughout the first year of the
bogus marriage until all the USCIS
applications have gone through and
the immigrants have their green
cards.
Agents haven't found any one country
whose natives tend to take part in
marriage fraud more than others. But
Spero said immigrants from countries
that typically receive few visas
through legal means, such as work
ties, legitimate family ties or
asylum claims, have accounted for
several recent cases.
The busts in Utah and California
involved immigrants from Vietnam and
China, while the northern Virginia
scam ring reportedly catered to
immigrants from West Africa.
'Enforcement-based eye'
The cities where ICE started its
task forces represented the biggest
potential threats from all sorts of
fraud. Even in cities where ICE has
yet to set up a task force, the
anti-fraud efforts can force
legitimate couples to take pains to
document their marriage to qualify
for green cards.
"(The USCIS) tends to look at
everybody with a very
enforcement-based eye," said Judy
Flanagan, an immigration lawyer in
Phoenix who said she sometimes has
to turn away potential clients who
admitted they didn't really have
legitimate marriages.
"In the vast majority of cases -
just because of the paperwork, the
families have children together,
they've filed taxes - it's pretty
clear that it's a legitimate
marriage.
"Sometimes, it's just a sense of
there is no paperwork on the two of
them together. They don't seem to
know each other very well."
Back to top
|
The Real Immigration
Crisis
Virginia Deane
Abernethy, Ph.D.
Newmax.com
Saturday, Oct.
28, 2006
The Census Bureau's much-heralded announcement in October
that the United States has reached the population milestone of
300 million is another scene in a great charade. The Census
Bureau (CB), it appears, is massaging statistics, possibly in
the service of policy rather than accuracy.
The CB also claims there are roughly 9 million illegal aliens
in the United States, and that the U.S. population will reach
600 million by the year 2100. But can we believe these
statistics? Many estimates, along with some conservative
mathematical calculations, suggest that the U.S. population is
already nearing 330 million, and that we could have a billion
people in America by the year 2076.
Illegal Calculations
In February 2002, a Border Patrol supervisor of 27 years
service testified before Congress that the number of illegal
aliens was several times the Census Bureau (CB) estimate. He
stated, "According to various Mexican media and official Mexican
government sources, the country of Mexico has 18 million of its
citizens residing illegally in the United States at this very
minute."
That is not to mention other illegals: Filipinos, Indians,
Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Eastern Europeans, Irish,
Brazilians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Haitians.
Using financial and employment data, analysts for Bear
Stearns Asset Management also put forth a number much higher
than anything considered by the CB. They concluded in early 2004
that, "The number of illegal immigrants in the United States may
be as high as 20 million people, more than double the official 9
million people estimated by the Census Bureau."
Time magazine asserted, also in 2004, that more than 4,000
illegal aliens walk across just the Mexico/Arizona border each
day. Nationwide, an estimated 3 million enter annually, and as
many as "15 million" are thought to remain in the United States.
Department of Education reports are also suggestive.
Comparing projected and actual enrollments for the latest years
the data were compiled yields this: The projected K-12 increase
in public school enrollments from 2002 to 2003 was 11,000
pupils. But "actual 2003 enrollments came in 339,000 above
2002's level — more than 30 times the projected rise." Where did
these children come from, if not illegal immigration?
Patrick Buchanan's 2006 book, "State of Emergency: Third
World Invasion and Conquest of America," states that the Border
Patrol apprehends 150,000 illegal aliens breaking into the
United States each month, amounting to 1.8 million apprehensions
annually.
Some illegal border crossers may be apprehended more than
once, although most — 70 percent — make it in a first or second
attempt, and 92 percent make it eventually according to the
Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of
California at San Diego. In recent testimony before the House
Judiciary Committee, Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center,
stated that 92 percent to 97 percent succeed on two tries or
less.
The Border Patrol, now formally called the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) estimates that, for each illegal alien
apprehended, three to five succeed in entering. Taking the
middle figure of four, then four multiplied by 1.8 million
annual apprehensions equals 7.2 million aliens who enter
illegally each year.
Moreover, many foreigners enter supposedly for a visit but
never leave. In 1992, approximately 150,000 more foreign
passengers arrived in U.S. airports than left. USA Today reports
that "at least 3.8 million" illegal aliens arrived legally but
remained after visas expired. This could be, in part, workers
who stayed — contrary to the terms of their visa — after
termination of their job.
Conservatively, assume that just 5 million — rather than 7.2
million plus visa over-stayers — actually enter the United
States each year. Of these 5 million, assume that 40 percent
remain indefinitely. This calculation suggests that 2 million
illegal aliens melt permanently into the U.S. population
annually. If 60 percent stay, then approximately 3 million new
illegal aliens remain in the United States annually. Compare
that to the Census Bureau's puny estimate of 500,000 illegal
aliens staying annually.
Once here, illegal aliens seemingly wish to stay: According
to the U.S., Mexico will take in a record $24 billion in
remittances this year. Transients do not earn that kind of spare
change, particularly in the low skill jobs available to most
Mexican and Central American workers.
Real Population Numbers
In reality, the U.S. population passed 300 million in year
2000. The current U.S population is approximately 327 million.
According to statistics for which the latest year was
reported, 2004, there were approximately 1.7 million more total
births than deaths. This indicates a faster rate of population
growth and a shorter doubling time than the CB rate reported for
the 1990s (1.2 percent annual growth, projecting 58 years to
double).
Summing annual growth figures (1.7 million natural increase,
1 million legal immigrants, and 2 million or 3 million illegal
aliens who stay), one sees that, each year, the population grows
by 4.7 million to 5.7 million. The annual growth rate is between
1.4 percent and 1.7 percent. If 1.4 percent, the population
doubling time is 50 years.
The rate of growth has itself been growing. If acceleration
of the growth rate continues, we are on trend to pass the 1
billion mark in approximately 70 years.
What's Wrong With Rapid U.S. Population Growth?
Some ecologists, labor economists, and conservationists say
that rapid population growth, regardless of its source, is a
danger. This concern departs from the United Nations and The
Wall Street Journal view, which decries European and Japanese
economic and social health because these countries' populations
are on the verge of stabilizing.
So what, if anything, is wrong with an exploding U.S.
population?
First, native-born Americans spontaneously chose small family
size starting in approximately 1970. The majority would probably
be better off economically and ecologically today if, congruent
with the recommendations of the 1972 Rockefeller Report, the
U.S. population had begun to stabilize 30 years ago.
Second, current population growth is being forced on
native-born Americans by immigration. Approximately 90 percent
of growth results from the annual immigration flow and the
descendants of post-1970 immigrants.
Third, current immigration comes overwhelmingly from Third
World countries that have cultures vastly different from ours.
These immigrants may not wish to assimilate and, indeed, may
have difficulty adjusting.
The territorial integrity of the United States may develop
into a further contentious issue that divides citizens from
Mexican immigrants. A June 2002 Zogby poll reveals that a
"substantial majority of Mexican citizens believe that
Southwestern America properly belongs to Mexico."
Fourth, rapid increases in the labor force have resulted in a
30-year trend toward lower real, inflation-adjusted income for
the 80 percent of Americans who depend on wages and salaries.
Immigration drives most of labor force growth and thus accounts
for virtually all of the recent income depression.
Economist George Borjas observes that immigration depresses
wages and displaces Americans from jobs, costing native-born
American workers $195 billion annually. In 2000, the wages of
native-born American workers were reduced by an average 3.2
percent.
Not Just ‘Jobs Americans Don't Want'
The impact is not even. Citing a current Northeastern
University study, The New York Times states that "illegal
immigrants contributed to a sharp decline in employment of
teenage and young adult Americans." The effect on young and
less-educated workers is not new news. Most recently, however,
Borjas reported that the wage impact is "most intense at the two
ends of the native-born education range."
In addition to depressing wages, immigrant workers displace
Americans. Steven Camarota analyzes CB data, finding that
"between March 2000 and March 2004, the number of adults working
actually increased, but all of the net change went to immigrant
workers."
Andrew Sum and his colleagues at Northeastern University
concur. Since 2000, immigrants have taken more than 100 percent
of net new jobs, that is, both capturing new jobs and displacing
Americans from existing jobs.
Another fiscal problem: Many Third World immigrants are very
low skilled. Consequently, they do not pay taxes commensurate
with the costs they impose on communities and States.
High Public Costs
Professor Donald Huddle estimates that between 1996 and 2006,
immigrants cost taxpayers an average of $93 billion annually,
net of any taxes immigrants pay. In view of the unexpectedly
high flow of immigrants, Huddle's numbers would, today, be
adjusted higher.
The National Research Council's well-received report, The New
Americans, estimates that each legal or illegal immigrant
without a high school education imposes a net (that is, after
subtracting all taxes the immigrant pays) lifetime cost on
taxpayers of $89,000 in direct services. With a high-school
education, the average fiscal impact per immigrant is still
negative, $31,000. The figures are significant insofar as the
average Mexican and Central American has less than an
eighth-grade education.
Economist Lester Thurow's 1990s analysis of the cost of
population growth — without reference to whether the growth is
organic or from immigration — concludes that maintaining the
quality of infrastructure requires a nation to commit 12.5
percent of its GDP for each 1 percent of population growth.
A community study on infrastructure costs associated with
population growth is congruent. Eben Fodor calculated in the
1990s that each new three-person residential unit burdened
taxpayers with an average of more than $15,000 in new
requirements for capital improvements, not counting annual
operating costs.
Diminished Resources
Less immediately evident but powerfully important in the long
run, population growth harms the nation through depleting its
natural wealth — as documented by Carrying Capacity Network, a
non-profit grass-roots organization that advocates an
immigration moratorium. One acre of land is lost to highways and
urbanization for each person added to the U.S. population; each
person uses 2,800 gallons of oil equivalents and 530,000 gallons
of water per year.
Such ecological losses and challenges are separate from the
loss of community public spiritedness that follows rapid growth
and multiplying languages and cultures. Immigration advocates
are challenged to show one fast-growing, multicultural society
that is cohesive, democratic, and smoothly functioning.
The tally of losses from mass immigration suggests that a
large price is paid for so-called cheap labor and for advancing
the financial and political elite's agenda of erasing borders
and integrating Canada, Mexico, and the United States into the
Partnership for Prosperity and Security, aka the North American
Union. Middle-class Americans, possibly to be joined by
Canadians, would pay the greater part of the bill.
A healthy respect for probable errors in Census Bureau data
advances the case for putting enforcement with the purpose of
stopping illegal immigration and dramatically reducing legal
immigration at the top of the legislative and executive branch
agenda.
A catch-our-breath moratorium on all immigration should be a
further goal of domestic policy. Immigration legislation should
be debated on the basis of accurate demography, as well as
economic and social data, that recognize both the costs and the
benefits of additional immigration.
Unrealistic Estimates
The Census Bureau's misinformation appears consistent with
intent to soothe a public that is becoming alarmed at the scale
of immigration and the rapidity of population growth.
"Underestimates" also go far to discredit those who call for
a moratorium on both legal and illegal immigration, and for
ending automatic citizenship awarded to children born in the
United States to illegal alien parents. Accurate reporting of
numbers would make ending birth-right citizenship politically
compelling and would strengthen the argument for a
catch-our-breath moratorium on legal immigration.
One may fairly conclude that the Census Bureau is a willing
participant to misinforming the public on the state of the
nation. Perhaps this is a strategy designed to redirect and lull
voters into complacency so that they forgive their
representatives and senators who legislate in favor of illegal
aliens and massive legal immigration, rather than in the
interest of citizens of the United States.
Virginia Deane Abernethy is professor emeritus of
psychiatry (anthropology) at Vanderbilt University School of
Medicine. She has published widely in both scholarly journals
and popular media and is the author of "Population Politics and
Population Pressure and Cultural Adjustment." Until 1999, she
was editor of the ecological journal, "Population and
Environment." She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and an
MBA from Vanderbilt University.
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IMMIGRATION
REFORM LAW INSTITUTE
1666
Connecticut Ave. N.W. Suite 402
Washington,
DC 20009
Planning
for State Immigration Enforcement Legislation
I. Permissible
Scope of State and Local Legislative Authority over Immigration:
State and local governments have more
extensive authority than is generally recognized to enforce
federal immigration law and to enact statutes and ordinances
that sanction immigration-related activities which are also
unlawful under federal immigration law.
The two key constitutional limits to
state and local legislative authority are:
(1) State legislation cannot
contradict or contravene the terms under which a non-citizen has
been admitted to the United States by the federal government,
and
(2) State government agencies and
courts cannot directly admit, remove or deport a noncitizen to
or from the United States, a power which is exclusively the
function of the federal government.
Any deviation from these principles,
either direct or indirect, can be interpreted by the judiciary
as either a “regulation of immigration,” a violation of the
Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, or a violation of the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.
II. Practical
Considerations:
The primary incentive for illegal
immigration is economic – access to employment and, to a lesser
extent public benefits and services. The primary goal for
successful state or local immigration control legislation is to
remove or reduce the economic incentives for unlawful presence,
by use of (1) the states’ inherent police powers to protect the
health, safety and welfare of its citizens and legal residents,
and (2) specific powers delegated by Congress to the states and
local governments.
Insure that each draft bill includes a
definitional and a construction provision requiring that the
terms, requirements, and obligations of the bill be construed so
as to be consistent with federal immigration law.
III.
Recommended Measures:
Following are
general IRLI recommendations on various legislative measures
that -in combination- will have a powerful and practical
deterrent effect on the entry and continued presence of legal
aliens at the local, regional, or state levels. This list is
meant to be illustrative, and not comprehensive.
A. Unauthorized Employment:
Note: Current federal law (8 USC
1324a(h)(2)) expressly preempts any non-federal law.
“imposing civil
or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar
laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for
employment, unauthorized aliens.”
In practice, this means that draft
legislation should usually avoid (a) direct fines or (b)
criminal convictions against employers for recruiting or
hiring illegal aliens as a principal enforcement mechanism.
1. Prohibition of performance of
unauthorized employment by aliens.
Make the
performance in the jurisdiction for more 80 hours in any
12-month period of work of any type for compensation, whether in
cash, benefits or other valuable consideration, by any person
who is an unauthorized alien as defined in federal law (8 USC
1324a(h)(3), a felony punishable by at least one year
imprisonment and a fine equivalent to the value of any
compensation received by the alien. Note that this criminal
sanction is applied to the alien, not the employer, and thus is
not preempted.
2. Unfair discharge of a United States
worker.
Make the discharge
of any United States worker (as defined in federal law) by an
employer, if the employer on the date of discharge retained as
an employee any unauthorized worker, an unlawful discharge.
Aggrieved discharged US workers may initiate a civil action in
state court for recovery and damages. Provide employers who have
used the electronic verification system (e.g. Basic Pilot) to
verify the worker’s employment eligibility (even if later found
to be in error) immunity/safe harbor from suit.
3. Disallowance of business expenses
deductions from state taxes.
Disallow the
deduction from state income, corporate, or other business taxes
of the expense of compensation provided to an unauthorized
worker within the fiscal year in question. Disallowance of a tax
deduction is not a civil fine.
4. Restriction of payment of invoices
for government contracts.
Require government
contracts to contain a clause allowing the government to
disallow payment of any portion of an invoice submitted to a
government agency for contracted services of any nature, where
the services were performed by unauthorized workers. Provide
employers who have used the electronic verification system (e.g.
Basic Pilot) to verify the worker’s employment eligibility (even
if later found to be in error) immunity/safe harbor from
enforcement of this contract clause.
5. Private cause of action to revoke
corporate charter.
Permit a private
cause of action by any aggrieved corporate entity or legal
resident of the state to compel the state agency regulating
corporations to revoke the corporate charter of any for-profit
or non-profit corporation registered in the state which violates
the alien smuggling provisions of 8 USC 1324 or employs an
unauthorized worker in violation of 8 USC 1324a. Statutes
creating private causes of action are not preempted civil
sanctions.
6. Workers Compensation Reform.
Require employers
to pay workers compensation claims approved for claims filed by
employees regardless of unauthorized worker status. Require
payment of claims only to a bank in the alien’s country of
nationality, or another foreign country where the alien has been
lawfully admitted. Note: This requires the disable illegal alien
to depart the US before receiving compensation payments. Waive
the immunity from suit for employers in such cases, allowing the
Workers Compensation Commission to recover the amount of claims
actually paid, if the employer is found to have failed to comply
with federal employment authorization verification (I-9)
procedures. This ensures that the employer, not the injured
alien or the taxpayer, is responsible for the financial injuries
incurred caused by failure to comply with federal law.
7. License suspension.
Upon confirmation
of the validity a written complaint, filed by any state or local
government agency or by an aggrieved legal resident of the
jurisdiction, of the employment of an unauthorized alien by any
entity holding a business, professional, or occupational license
issued by the jurisdiction, require the issuance by the state
department of labor of a cease and desist order to the
license-holder, suspending the license(s) at issue until lawful
presence of all employees or independent contractors of the
license holder is confirmed. Require the extended suspension of
the license in case of continued non-compliance pursuant to
regulations. Note: Fines would be preempted by federal law, but
not a temporary closure of the business due to failure to
maintain a business license.
B. Citizen Identification and
Citizenship Status Protection
1. Lawful presence test.
Require the state
motor vehicle department, after consultation with the US
Department of Homeland Security, to issue a list of documents
which may be presented to a state or local government agency to
establish legal presence in the United States. Require public
notice and hearings on development of the list. Require other
government
agencies to adopt the approved list. Allow
US citizens (only) without documents (e.g. homeless or disaster
victims) to sign an affidavit of US citizenship under perjury,
which may be accepted by the agency for immediate use, but must
be verified within a reasonable time (30-60days) by the agency.
Provide criminal and civil penalties for false statements or use
of forged or misappropriated documents to meet the lawful
presence test.
2. Limitation on use of insecure foreign
identification documents.
Prohibit use of
documents issued by foreign governments to establish identity
for any official purpose, or for any private transaction whose
value is greater than $100, unless the alien also presents a US
government-issued document from the approved list establishing
lawful presence in the United States.
3. Lawful presence test for drivers
licenses.
Add the lawful
presence test to the requirements for eligibility for a driver’s
license or state or local government identification cards.
4. Criminalize false claims of US
citizenship or legal permanent residence.
Make a false claim
of US citizenship or legal permanent resident alien status to
obtain any official public service or valuable consideration of
$100 or greater from a business a felony (parallel to the
federal statute).
5. Define domicile or legal residence in
the state.
By statute, restrict the right to establish
legal domicile in the state to U.S. citizens and nationals,
legal permanent resident aliens, and other aliens admitted or
paroled into the U.S. for an indefinite or limited period whose
terms of admission under federal immigration law permit
establishment of residence in the United States. Allow for
exceptions for limited purposes (e.g. marriage or standing to
maintain a civil suit) where expressly authorized by statute.
C. Local Law Enforcement of Immigration
Law
1. Criminalize willful violation of
alien registration laws.
Enact the federal
misdemeanors of willful failure to complete alien registration
or to carry an alien registration document or notarized copy on
the person as parallel state misdemeanors. Note: All legally
present aliens, whether in permanent or temporary status,
possess this document. Enforcement of registration laws, as
opposed to federal “illegal presence” laws, is entirely
document-based, and thus less vulnerable to impermissible
profiling and related civil rights abuses.
2. Clarify peace officer arrest
authority for immigration crimes.
Amend and clarify
the state statute regulating peace officer arrest power to
include misdemeanor violations of US Code Title 8 (INA).
3. Allow temporary detention of illegal
aliens charged with misdemeanors or infractions.
Allow state and
local law enforcement agencies to temporarily detain aliens
charged with a misdemeanor or traffic violation, or similar
infractions, for whom probable cause to believe the alien is
inadmissible under federal immigration law (8 USC 1182) been
confirmed with US DHS, until US ICE personnel are available to
take transfer of the alien into federal custody. Also permit
state and local police agencies to transport detained aliens
across state lines to facilitate transfer into federal custody.
4. Federal-local cooperation agreement.
Require an
appropriate state official or agency (e.g. state police) to
negotiate and execute a cooperative agreement with US DHS, as
authorized by 8 USC 1357(g), to train and designate state or
local law enforcement officers as immigration enforcement
officers, to perform specified immigration enforcement
functions, which could include all of the functions in #1-3
above. Note: State must pay for the cost of training, which can
be limited version of federal officer training, but officers
obtain federal qualified immunity while performing enforcement
functions per the agreement.
5. Private right of action to challenge
local government restriction on immigration law compliance.
Grant any
aggrieved legal resident of a local jurisdiction a private right
of action to file a civil suit for injunctive relief and legal
costs to restrain the municipality from implementing or
enforcing any restriction on the authority of any official or
personnel to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement
authorities as provided by 8 USC 1373 and 1644 (anti-“sanctuary”
measure).
6. State alien smuggling conspiracy
statute.
Make alien
smuggling (as defined by 8 USC 1324(a)(1), including conspiracy)
within the state for financial gain a state statutory felony,
with penalties equivalent to the federal statute. Note: Builds
on successful Arizona model of charging illegal alien border
crossers (nearly all currently use the services of a smuggler)
as well as their smugglers under state law.
7. Collect and report data on illegal
alien arrests.
Require local and
state law enforcement agencies to verify the lawful presence of
any person arrested by the agency on a criminal charge. Agencies
must report the presence of a verified illegal alien to the
federal immigration enforcement agency, and to a state police
database that state and local agencies can query. Note: will
help identify and facilitate the removal of illegal alien
recidivists.
8. Add alien-smuggling crimes to state
racketeering statutes.
In states with
companion racketeering statutes to the federal RICO laws, add
the alien smuggling felonies described in 8 USC 1324 as
predicate crimes under the state statute, allowing private
lawsuits against alien smugglers and large-scale employers.
D. Public Benefits.
1. SAVE System.
Require all state
and local government agencies to use the SAVE online system to
verify eligibility for all State and Local Public Benefits, as
defined in 8 USC 1621. Note: All States are currently required
to use the SAVE system to verify federal public benefits
administered by the states.
2. Access to Higher Education.
Bar enrollment or
eligibility for financial aid at any public or private institute
of higher education chartered or licensed by the state to an
illegal alien.
E. Control of Financial Transactions
Involving Illegal Aliens.
1. Withholding on certain remittance
payments.
Require the
withholding of income tax at 10 per cent for any electronic
funds wire transfer to an overseas party or the purchase of any
negotiable bank draft or international money order for any
person who does not provide a valid social security number.
2. Campaign Contributions.
Make it unlawful
for any person who is not a citizen of the United States to
contribute funding, goods or services to any candidate for
elected office, political party or political action committee.
3. Civil and criminal penalties for
accommodating illegal aliens in rental or hotel facilities.
Make it unlawful
to rent, lease, or sublease residential property or hotel rooms
to any person for use as accommodation for an illegal alien.
Allow landlords to request documentation of lawful presence
before renting or leasing accommodation to any person. Grant a
private right of action to an aggrieved legal resident of the
state to file a civil suit for injunctive relief and legal costs
to restrain landlords from renting or leasing property to an
illegal alien. Make it a felony to engage in a pattern or
practice of providing rental accommodation to 24 or more illegal
aliens for more than two weeks within any 12-month period.
4. Restrict use of ITINs by illegal
aliens.
Make it unlawful
for any person or entity to accept from any person an individual
taxpayer identification number (ITIN) for identification or any
other purpose not authorized by the US Internal Revenue Service,
without concurrent presentment of a document establishing lawful
presence in the United States.
IV. IRLI Technical Support:
IRLI staff attorneys and legislative
specialists are available to assist legislators, attorneys,
government officials and civic or advocacy organizations in
developing the concepts outlined in this memorandum into
legislative language appropriate to the jurisdiction in
question. These services are provided without cost to qualified
parties, as resources permit. For further information, please
see our website,
http://www.irli.org/,
or contact us at
info@irli.org,
202-232-5590, or via facsimile at 202-464-3590.
©2006
IRLI
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Reagan Would
Not Repeat Amnesty Mistake
by Edwin
Meese III
Posted Dec 13, 2006
Human Events Online
This is the fifth in an
occasional series of exclusive articles in which leading
conservatives who served in the Reagan Administration explain
how they believe the principles of Reagan conservatism ought to
be applied today and in the coming years. This week, Edwin Meese,
who was Reagan’s first presidential counselor and then attorney
general, addresses immigration.
What would Ronald Reagan do? I can’t tell
you how many times I have been asked that question, on virtually
every issue imaginable.
As much as we all want clarity and certainty, I usually refrain
from specific answers. That’s because it is very difficult to
directly translate particular political decisions to another
context, in another time. The better way to answer the
question—and the way President Reagan himself would approach
such questions—is to understand Reagan’s principles and how they
should apply in today’s politics, and review past decisions and
consider what lessons they have for us.
Immigration is one area where Reagan’s principles can guide us,
and the lessons are instructive.
I was attorney general two decades ago during the debate over
what became the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
President Reagan, acting on the recommendation of a bipartisan
task force, supported a comprehensive approach to the problem of
illegal immigration, including adjusting the status of what was
then a relatively small population. Since the Immigration and
Naturalization Service was then in the Department of Justice, I
had the responsibility for directing the implementation of that
plan.
President Reagan set out to correct the loss of control at our
borders. Border security and enforcement of immigration laws
would be greatly strengthened—in particular, through sanctions
against employers who hired illegal immigrants. If jobs were the
attraction for illegal immigrants, then cutting off that option
was crucial.
He also agreed with the legislation in adjusting the status of
immigrants—even if they had entered illegally—who were
law-abiding long-term residents, many of whom had children in
the United States. Illegal immigrants who could establish that
they had resided in America continuously for five years would be
granted temporary resident status, which could be upgraded to
permanent residency after 18 months and, after another five
years, to citizenship. It wasn’t automatic. They had to pay
application fees, learn to speak English, understand American
civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective
service. Those with convictions for a felony or three
misdemeanors were ineligible.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because these are pretty much the
same provisions included in the Comprehensive Reform Act of
2006, which its supporters claim is not amnesty. In the end,
slight differences in process do not change the overriding fact
that the 1986 law and the recent Senate legislation both include
an amnesty. The difference is that President Reagan called it
for what it was.
Lesson of 1986
The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty did
not solve the problem. There was extensive document fraud, and
the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded
projections. And there was a failure of political will to
enforce new laws against employers. After a brief slowdown,
illegal immigration returned to high levels and continued
unabated, forming the nucleus of today’s large population of
illegal aliens.
So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate and
being offered much the same deal.
What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not
repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own
administration. He knew that secure borders are vital, and would
now insist on meeting that priority first. He would seek to
strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration laws. He
would employ new tools—like biometric technology for
identification, and cameras, sensors and satellites to monitor
the border—that make enforcement and verification less onerous
and more effective.
One idea President Reagan had at the time that we might also try
improving on is to create a pilot program that would allow
genuinely temporary workers to come to the United States—a
reasonable program consistent with security and open to the
needs and dynamics of our market economy.
And what about those already here? Today it seems to me that the
fair policy, one that will not encourage further illegal
immigration, is to give those here illegally the opportunity to
correct their status by returning to their country of origin and
getting in line with everyone else. This, along with serious
enforcement and control of the illegal inflow at the border—a
combination of incentives and disincentives—will significantly
reduce over time our population of illegal immigrants.
Lastly, we should remember Reagan’s commitment to the idea that
America must remain open and welcoming to those yearning for
freedom. As a nation based on ideas, Ronald Reagan believed that
that there was something unique about America and that anyone,
from anywhere, could become an American. That means that while
we seek to meet the challenge of illegal immigration, we must
keep open the door of opportunity by preserving and enhancing
our heritage of legal immigration—assuring that those who choose
to come here permanently become Americans. In the end, it was
his principled policy—and it should be ours—to “humanely regain
control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of
the most sacred possessions of our people: American
citizenship.”
Back to top
|
Illegal Aliens Kill More
Americans Than Iraq War
By The Editors
As noted in
Illegal Alien Crime Wave
in Full Swing,
in April 2005, the GAO
released a
report on a study of
55,322 illegal aliens
incarcerated in federal,
state, and local
facilities during 2003.
It found the following:
Of the 55,322 illegal
aliens studied,
researchers found that
they were arrested a
total of 459,614 times,
averaging about 8
arrests per illegal
alien.
· They
were arrested for a
total of about 700,000
criminal offenses,
averaging about 13
offenses per illegal
alien.
·
49% had
previously been
convicted of a felony,
20% of a drug offense;
18% a violent offense,
and 11%, other felony
offenses.
·
81% of the arrests
occurred after 1990
·
56% of those
charged with a reentry
offense had previously
been convicted on at
least 5 prior
occasions.
·
Defendants
charged with unlawful
reentry had the most
extensive criminal
histories.
90% had been previously
arrested. Of those with
a prior arrest, 50% had
been arrested for
violent or drug-related
felonies.
All of these crimes
would have never
happened, i.e. they were
preventable, has we had
a serious program of
deportation of the
illegal aliens already
here and proper border
security to prevent both
entry and re-entry.
In reviewing those
numbers, note that the
study sampled only about
21% of the incarcerated
illegal aliens. To get
the full extent of the
collateral damage, we
need to apply the
average number of
offenses across all
267,000 currently
incarcerated illegal
alien criminals. Doing
so results in
1,288,619 crimes!
Don’t let the mainstream
media and illegal alien
advocates tell you that
illegal immigration is a
“victimless crime” and
that they are here only
to do the work Americans
don’t want to do. Since
each crime has a victim,
1,288,619 sounds like a
lot of victimization to
us. Also keep in mind
that the 1,288,619
crimes are only the ones
committed by the hard
core illegal alien
criminals who were
finally caught and
incarcerated. The ones
not caught and the new
criminals crossing daily
are committing more
crime each and every
day.
One of the problems in
identifying the
involvement of illegal
aliens in crime is that
NO ONE TRACKS IT as a
particular demographic
statistic. While the
INS keeps track of all
sorts of demographic
data for the illegal
aliens who were actually
arrested and deported
and puts it in the
Yearbook of Immigration
Statistics, the
judicial system does not
track it. As noted in
Cop Murder Spotlights
Crisis of Killer Aliens
- No Government Agency
Tracks Crimes by
Illegals, Not Even
Attacks on Police,
nobody really knows how
many illegal alien
criminals there are or
how many crimes they are
actually committing.
Many simply fall through
the cracks.
If we assume illegal
aliens commit crimes at
the same rate as
citizens in the general
population, an
assumption that may
grossly underestimate
their involvement, we
can estimate the number
of crimes being
committed by illegal
aliens. To do this, we
note the number of
illegal aliens in the
population and apply the
percentage
representation in the
population to the total
number of crimes
committed.
The current population
of illegal aliens ranges
from a generally
accepted low of 12
million to a few
estimates in the 25-30
million range. For the
purposes of this
discussion, we will use
a relatively lower
estimate of 15 million
in a population of 300
million which is a 5%
representation. It is
worth noting that many
official government
figures are a bit lower
number. If in fact
accurate, a lower number
of illegal aliens in the
general population would
actually increase their
disproportionate
involvement, something
that is probably
occurring anyway, as we
shall see latter.
According to FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR),
Crime in the United
States (CIUS) 2005, we
now take the
Estimated Number of
Arrests
and apply a straight 5%
illegal alien
participation. These
numbers are grossly
understated as you will
see later in this
article, but we include
them as an academic
exercise to show what
the bottom-most numbers
could be:
This calculates:
|
CRIMES (actual
arrests) |
Number In USA |
by illegal
aliens |
|
Total |
14,094,186 |
704,709 |
|
Murder &
non-negligent
manslaughter |
14,062 |
703 |
|
Forcible rape |
25,528 |
1,276 |
|
Offenses against
family &
children |
129,128 |
6,456 |
The last column is the
estimated criminal
collateral damage
inflicted by illegal
aliens for 2005 as a
straight proportional
percentage basis of the
population. Similar
collateral damage would
have been inflicted in
2006 and you can expect
about as much in 2007.
Using a simple
cost-benefit analysis,
is this much crime
acceptable to save ten
cents on a head of
lettuce?
You probably wouldn’t
think so if you were one
of the 704,709 victims,
and as one of the murder
victims, you wouldn’t be
able to think at all.
Again, keep in mind,
this is the collateral
damage being PER YEAR
with a 5% participation
rate. If the
number of illegal aliens
is greater than 15
million the number of
crimes goes up. If the
participation rate is
greater, the number of
crimes goes up.
In determining who is
actually committing the
crimes and whether the
5% straight
participation is valid,
as
noted in
The Tarpit blog,
Hispanics/Latinos, by
far the largest
component of illegal
aliens, become “White,
Caucasian, or Other”
perpetrators in
Arizona. The same
thing in
Colorado,
Florida,
New Jersey,
New Mexico, and
probably other states as
well. Even the FBI
doesn’t seem to want to
know, as neither the
nationality of the
perpetrator nor a
Hispanic/Latino category
is even present in
either their
Uniform Crime Reports
or
Victims and Offenders
Supplement.
When we inquired of
Justice Department why
they didn’t want to know
if Hispanics or foreign
nationals were
committing any crime,
their response was:
“The Uniform Crime
Reporting Program was
mandated by Congress to
collect and publish the
crimes that are reported
to police agencies for
statistical purposes,
not investigative
purposes.
The elements of race and
ethnicity built into the
UCR Program adhere to
the guidelines
established by
DIRECTIVE NO 15, RACE
AND ETHNIC STANDARDS FOR
FEDERAL STATISTICS AND
ADMINISTRATIVE
REPORTING. Those
guidelines are set by
the Office of Management
and Budget, and as a
federal agency in the
capacity of overseer of
the UCR Program, the FBI
is required to abide by
those guidelines. For
UCR purposes there are
four racial categories:
White; Black; American
Indian or Alaskan
Native; and Asian or
Pacific Islander. The
term Hispanic is an
indicator of ethnicity,
and the UCR Program does
not currently collect
information on
ethnicity.”
We also asked the
Justice Department what
categories the foreign
national terrorists and
the
2,752
Americans killed by
foreign nationals on
9-11-2001 fell into but
did not get a response.
While the Justice
Department tracks nearly
every conceivable aspect
of crime, evidently,
Congress wants to know
only what crimes “White,
Black, American Indian,
and Asian” Americans are
committing. It is
interesting that
ethnicity is totally
unimportant for
determining who is
committing crimes, but
is very important for
establishing minority
status and preferences.
It does not strain
credulity to imagine
that crimes are being
committed by illegal
aliens, aka foreign
nationals, but
unfortunately for
Americans, these
statistics are not
tracked.
While we are on the
subject of the FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR),
Jim Kouri notes in
Crime Statistics and the
Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka
Dot Bikini:
“Yet the public is
generally unaware that
the UCR system is
essentially a voluntary
system; there is no
federal legislation that
requires States or local
jurisdictions to report
their crime data to the
FBI.
The voluntary nature of
the UCR, of course,
affects the accuracy and
completeness of the
data. Although the FBI
devotes a great deal of
attention to the quality
of the data it publishes
in CIUS, it cannot
mandate agencies to
provide data on time (or
at all).”
Thus, if anything, the
FBI underreports crime.
In any case, it would
appear that other than
what the INS reports
when foreign nationals
are deported, NO ONE IS
TRACKING CRIMES
COMMITTED ON US SOIL BY
FOREIGN NATIONALS. Given
the serious of the
crimes and the large
participation by mostly
Hispanic and illegal
alien, a.k.a. foreign
national, criminals it
seems almost as if the
various government
agencies don’t want us
to know. Also, we could
not find any
investigative reporting
by the mainstream media
on the issue. If even a
small number of those
704,709 crimes were
committed against
members of the media or
politicians maybe we
would have heard
something…but the
silence is deafening.
As noted in the
previously-mentioned
September 2006 article,
Cop Murder Spotlights
Crisis of Killer Aliens,
in WND:
“While
no government agencies
specifically track
crimes by illegal
aliens, there have been
some efforts to quantify
the loss.
Last December, Mac
Johnson set out to
investigate the number
of homicides perpetrated
by illegal aliens.
Since the federal
government would not
provide any useful
information, he
contacted all 50
statehouses. Three
months later, he had
fewer than a dozen
responses. Only one
state, Vermont, provided
any useful information.
He then set out to
estimate statistically
the number of murders by
illegal aliens based on
available crime data and
conservative estimates
of the actual number of
illegal aliens in the
country – which, of
course, no one really
knows.
He found that between
1,806 and 2,510 people
in the U.S. are murdered
annually by illegal
aliens. If he's right,
that would represent
between 11 percent and
15 percent of all
murders in the U.S.”
Using the mean of Mr.
Johnson’s range, there
are 2,158
murders committed
annually by illegal
aliens – crimes
that never would have
happened if they weren’t
here. This is part of
the collateral damage of
tolerating illegal
immigration.
Note that at 2,158
murders, that is 15.3%
of all the murders
reported by the FBI,
which would be about
three times the
representation
of illegal aliens in the
general population.
Whether illegal aliens
are committing three
times as many of the
other crimes as well is
unknown because NO ONE
IS TRACKING IT.
Regardless, keep that
“three times” in mind
because it will come up
again.
At this point it is
worth noting
Representative King
states, in
Biting the Hand That
Feeds You, that
illegal aliens are
responsible for 4,380
murders. I believe
Congressman King based
his numbers on two GAO
reports (d05337r
and
d05646r). He
apparently then took the
number of incarcerated
illegal aliens and the
total number of
incarcerated prisoners
and applied the
resulting percentage to
the FBI’s reported
number of crimes. Based
on this estimate,
illegal aliens would be
responsible for about
31% of the murders, a
rate that is about 6.2
times their
representation in the
population. While there
are indications that
this number may be more
accurate, no one really
knows because NO ONE IS
TRACKING IT.
Returning to the FBI’s
crime list and a
straight 5% prorated
share committed by
illegal aliens, some
704,709 crimes in 2005
were committed and each
of these crimes has both
a personal and economic
impact. You can easily
imagine the personal
devastation on
individuals and on
families since all these
crimes would not have
happened if there were
no illegal aliens in the
country. Moreover, the
unfortunate fact is that
we as a nation and
people have tolerated,
and in many cases aided
and abetted, illegal
immigration.
The economic burden
these crimes impose on
their victims and on
society have significant
costs attached to them.
As noted earlier, there
has been a tremendous
increase in the law
enforcement budgets and
each criminal arrested
needs to be incarcerated
at about $25,000 per
year. How much more law
enforcement is spending
as a direct consequence
of illegal aliens is
unknown but reviewing
the expenditure graphs,
note that the rate of
the expenditures
increases after around
1989 which corresponds
with the large increase
in the illegal alien
population.
In any case, with
267,000 illegal aliens
incarcerated as of 2003,
just the incarceration
costs at $25,000 per
inmate per year is $6.7
BILLION per year.
We’ll take a wild guess
that you didn’t realize
we were spending that
much. Do you have any
better ideas on what we
could be spending $6.7
billion a year on rather
than providing three
meals a day and color TV
to a bunch of illegal
alien prisoners? While
you think about that,
here is another one to
ponder: how much money
would we have saved
since 1980 if there were
still only 9,000
incarcerated illegal
aliens rather than
267,000?
As extensive as these
direct costs are, there
are also indirect costs
imposed on the victims,
including loss of
income and property,
uncompensated
hospital bills,
and treatment for
resulting emotional and
psychological trauma, to
say nothing of permanent
physical disabilities.
As noted in the abstract
of the report
Victim Costs of Violent
Crime and Resulting
Injuries,
by
Miller, Cohen, and
Rossman:
“This DataWatch
estimates the costs and
monetary value of lost
quality of life due to
death and nonfatal
physical and
psychological injury
resulting from violent
crime. In 1987 physical
injury to people age
twelve and older
resulting from rape,
robbery, assault,
murder, and arson caused
about $10 billion in
potential health-related
costs, including some
unmet mental health care
needs. It led to $23
billion in lost
productivity and almost
$145 billion in reduced
quality of life (in 1989
dollars). If associated
deaths and cases
resulting in
psychological injury
only are included, costs
average $47,000 for
rape, $19,000 for
robbery, $15,000 for
assault, and $25,000 for
arson. Considering only
survivors with physical
injury, rape cost
$60,000, robberies
$25,000, assaults
$22,000, and arson
$50,000. Costs are
almost $2.4 million per
murder. Lifetime costs
for all intentional
injuries totaled $178
billion during
1987-1990.”
Note that those costs
are in 1989 dollars.
Using the
CPI index to adjust
for 2006 dollars,
multiply those numbers
by 1.62 which means
that, today, each rape
costs society an average
of $76,140 and each
murder costs some $3.9
million. Thus just the
2,158 murders committed
by illegal aliens
burdened our society
with $8.4 BILLION in
costs.
The report tabulates the
various costs for each
crime as follows:
And all this…to save ten
cents on a head of
lettuce?
C’mon America…this is
YOUR problem and only
YOU can clean it
up. Your elected
officials will not do
this unless you tell
them to. Go
here
to register your
complaint. Your thoughts
matter.
OR:
Go
to
http://www.securedbordersusa.com/ and
sign the petition which
must be notarized. And
then to send it to all
your family, friends,
neighbors, and
co-workers who are fed
up with illegal
immigration and ask them
to sign it, too.
Brought to you by the
research staff and
editors of
FamilySecurityMatters.org
© 2003-2007
FamilySecurityMatters.org All
Rights Reserved |
|
|
|
|
Back to top
Illegal Aliens Nabbed In New Jersey Terrorist Plot
By Tom Fitton
May 15, 2007
Here's a story for all of those illegal immigration
apologists out there who claim all illegal aliens are innocents
who only come to the United States to seek opportunity and a
better life. Last Tuesday, six New Jersey men were arrested and
charged in an alleged terror plot
(web site) against soldiers at Fort Dix, located in
Burlington County, New Jersey. Three of the men are illegal
aliens from Yugoslavia.
According to WNBC: "Investigators said the men planned to use
automatic rifles to enter Fort Dix and kill as many soldiers as
they could at the New Jersey military base..."
The three illegals, all brothers, are Islamic fundamentalists
(web site) who are being charged with possessing firearms.
Ironically, one of the other terrorists was given safe haven at
Fort Dix eight years ago, when the Clinton administration took
in Albanian refugees from Kosovo.
So, how did these terrorists get caught? According to press
reports, the suspects attempted to have a "disturbing" video
converted to DVD at a store in Cherry Hill, NJ. (The video
apparently "depicted 10 young men who appeared to be in their
early-20s shooting assault weapons at a firing range in a
militia-like style while calling for jihad and shouting in
Arabic, 'Allah Akbar,' or 'God is Great.'") The suspicious store
owner alerted authorities, triggering an investigation. An FBI
informant was then able to infiltrate the group and record
conversations with the suspects.
"My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers," said
one of the suspects on tape. "You hit 4, 5 or 6 humvees and
light the whole place up."
Leaving aside, for the moment, the horror of six men plotting
to kill our men and women in uniform on U.S. soil, why is this
story relevant to the debate over illegal immigration? Because
non-Mexican illegals (dubbed "Other Than Mexican" or "OTMs") are
flooding across the border in record numbers. In 2001, about
5,000 non-Mexican illegals were caught crossing the border. By
2004, that number had swelled to 34,000.
Illegal alien activists will do anything they can to avoid
the link between illegal immigration and crime and terrorism. As
this near-tragedy proves, the link is undeniable.
--------
Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch, Inc., a
conservative, non-partisan educational foundation that promotes
transparency, accountability and integrity in government,
politics and the law.
Back to top
Z Visa = Z End of the Line
Posted By
Bobby Eberle On May 18, 2007 at 6:02 am
Around much “celebration,” the U.S. Senate announced on Thursday
that a “deal” had been reached on “comprehensive” immigration
reform. As I heard the details of the bill, I could feel the
collective groans of the conservative movement, just as if we
were all punched in the stomach. Why did we work so hard to
build Republican majorities? Why did we spend so many hours at
phone banks or going door to door? The past six years have seen
an erosion of everything we’ve worked for, and now our “leaders”
give us immigration “reform.”
Following announcement of the deal, President Bush said,
“Immigration is a tough issue for a lot of Americans. The
agreement reached today is one that will help enforce our
borders, but equally importantly, it will treat people with
respect. This is a bill where people who live here in our
country will be treated without amnesty, but without animosity.”
Treat people with respect? You mean the millions and millions of
Americans who don’t break the law and who are paying for illegal
activity through their tax dollars? Oh, I see…
Human Events has presented a
great breakdown of the deal. In it, border security will
be addressed through the hiring of 18,000 new Border Patrol
Agents, construction of vehicle barriers and fencing, as well as
the implementation of technology through radar and video cameras
along the southern border.
The practice of “catch and release” will supposedly come to an
end, and new detention facilities will be established.
The next section of the deal covers “interior enforcement” of
immigration laws. Provisions include:
– The stiffening of laws and penalties relate
to:
* the detention of criminal aliens
* the definition of aggravated felony
* gang violence
* passport, visa, and immigration fraud, including marriage
fraud
* the streamlining of background checks for immigration status
– Other provisions include language regarding:
* Increased penalties for illegally entry and reentry
* encouraging aliens to depart voluntarily
* prohibiting aliens to possess firearms
* alternatives to detention
* state and local law enforcement reimbursement and training
Workplace enforcement is also addressed “increasing penalties,
revising and making mandatory a system of electronic employment
verification, and promoting information sharing.”
Then, of course, a temporary worker program is established
through “Y visas.” This has been part of President Bush’s plan
from the beginning.
As
noted in Human Events, “This title creates a new future
temporary worker program for workers who are coming to the U.S.
to perform temporary job that the U.S. employer is unable to
fill.” It provides for visas for the worker as well as the
worker’s spouse and minor children.
Another section of the deal “restructures and rebalances the
current system by which green cards are distributed.” The
section of the bill attempts to reduce “chain migration” and to
eliminate the visa backlog.
Finally, for all those people in the country illegally, the
government has a gift for you in the form of a “Z visa.” Human
Events highlights the section as follows:
Creates a new four-year, renewable “Z”
nonimmigrant visa to address the undocumented population within
the U.S. The visa is split up into three groups:
* a principal or employed alien (Z-1),
* the spouse or elderly parent of that alien (Z-2),
* and the minor children of that alien (Z-3).
So, there we have it. The deal gives us a “temporary” worker
program in which the “temporary” worker can bring his family
along to lay down roots, use services, etc. How “temporary” do
you think that is actually going to be? In addition, those who
came into this country illegally are given a pass. Mass amnesty
was granted in 1986, and it failed. Now, we are turning our
backs on the respect for the law. This is shameful.
Congress Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
blasted the deal:
“Senator McCain and his allies seem to think
that they can dupe the American public into accepting a blanket
amnesty if they just call it ‘comprehensive’ or ‘earned
legalization’ or ‘regularization.’ Unfortunately for them,
however, the American people know amnesty when they see it,”
said Tancredo. “The President is so desperate for a legacy and a
domestic policy win that he is willing to sell out the American
people and our national security.”
As
noted in Tancredo’s press release: The plan would grant an
immediate amnesty for nearly all 12-20 million illegal aliens
who will get legal status for residence and jobs (with assurance
of green cards no later than 13 years); Tripling of the rate of
chain migration of extended family from around 250,000 a year to
around 750,000 a year for about a decade; and New flows of
400,000 temporary foreign workers each year, bringing their
families and having anchor babies who will be given U.S.
citizenship.”
In
a
statement released Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
said that he “simply cannot, and will not, support any
legislation that repeats the mistakes of the 1986 amnesty.”
“So we have to make a basic determination: Will
this bill restore respect for our laws? Or will it have the
opposite effect, and encourage still more disregard for our
immigration and border security laws, placing us within a few
years in the same untenable position we’re now in?”
Former Sen. Fred Thompson released the following statement:
“With this bill, the American people are going
to think they are being sold the same bill of goods as before on
border security. We should scrap this bill and the whole debate
until we can convince the American people that we have secured
the borders or at least have made great headway.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also
blasted the immigration agreement:
I strongly oppose today’s bill going through
the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that
allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely,
as the new ‘Z-Visa’ does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair
to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate
to the U.S.
Conservatives have worked so hard over the years to help change
the direction of the country. Through efforts at the grassroots
level, we helped usher in a new era — one in which Republicans
held the White House and both bodies of Congress. What did we
get for it? Runaway spending? Corruption? And now this?
The bill should be broken up into pieces with each piece given a
fair hearing. Let’s do border security. Let’s do visa reform.
Let’s do employer enforcement. But to throw everything in one
bill and say take it or leave it is wrong. It is a recipe for a
bad bill and bad policy. This bill should be opposed and
defeated, and I hope the U.S. House will step to the plate and
do what is right.
There is a lot more riding on the outcome of this bill than
simply immigration reform. Contact your senator today and tell
him/her to vote against this bill!
++ Click here to contact your U.S. Senators and tell them to
secure our borders and enforce our laws.
Please ask your friends and co-workers to support real reform as
well. Urge them to contact their senators. Just point them to
this page and have them click on the links. You can also use our
E-mail a Friend feature.
Back to top
by Jed Babbin (More
by this author)
Posted:
05/17/2007
Here’s the section-by-section breakdown of the just-announced
Senate deal on illegal immigration given to us by a Senate
source. We haven’t had the time to analyze it yet, but we’ll be
back with the fast, concise and hard details on what appears to
be an horrifically bad deal.
Border Security and Immigration Reform
Act of 2007
Title I
Title I requires the Secretary of
Homeland Security to certify that the triggers are met before
the Title IV (Guest Worker) and Title VI (Z visa ) programs can
begin, with the exception of probationary status for Z workers
and the programs for agricultural workers.
• Triggers include:
o 18,000 (CBP) Border Patrol hired
o Construction of 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of
fencing
o 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern
border
o Deployment of 4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and supporting
systems
o The ending of catch-and-release
o Resources to detain up to 27,500 aliens per day on an annual
basis
o The use of secure and effective identification tools to
prevent unauthorized work.
o The receiving and processing and adjudicating of applications
for Z status.
• Title I also includes authorities and resources to augment
border security including:
o physical infrastructure along the border
o additional field and investigative agents
o comprehensive plans and studies of the border region
o revisions to law enforcement techniques and enhanced
authorities.
Title II
Title II provides for interior enforcement of immigration
laws.
• The stiffening of laws and penalties relate to:
o the detention of criminal aliens
o the definition of aggravated felony
o gang violence
o passport, visa, and immigration fraud, including marriage
fraud
o the streamlining of background checks for immigration status
• Other provisions include language regarding:
o Increased penalties for illegally entry and reentry
o encouraging aliens to depart voluntarily
o prohibiting aliens to possess firearms
o alternatives to detention
o state and local law enforcement reimbursement and training
Title III
Title III addresses workplace enforcement by increasing
penalties, revising and making mandatory a system of electronic
employment verification, and promoting information sharing.
• This Title designs a worksite enforcement system that relies
on electronic employment verification and a reduced list of
documents that may be presented to employers to prove identity
and work eligibility.
o Also increases penalties significantly over current law for
unlawful hiring, employment, and recordkeeping violations.
• Verification of employees: As of the date of enactment,
employers in national security-related industries, industries
involving critical infrastructure, and federal contractors to
electronically verify employees, including new hires and/or
current employees may be required to verify individuals, with
additional employers or industries added after 6 months.
o All employers would be required to electronically verify new
hires within 18 months of enactment, or on the date on which the
Secretary certifies that the system is operational.
o Once the system is implemented, all employers would be
required to verify all current employees within by 3 years after
enactment.
• Structure of the EEVS: After the date of hire but no later
than the first day of employment, the employer must transmit to
the EEVS via the Internet the data that the employer has taken
from the worker’s identity and work eligibility documents.
• Inconclusive determinations: Where the EEVS cannot
conclusively determine the status of a worker’s eligibility, a
further action notice is issued and the individual must contact
the appropriate federal or state agency to initiate resolution
of status and the individual continues to work while the agency
resolves his or her status.
• Final nonconfirmation: If the employer has received a final
non-confirmation regarding an individual, the employer must
terminate the employment of the individual, unless the
individual files an administrative appeal of a final
non-confirmation notice within 15 days.
• Data and Information Sharing: The Commissioner of Social
Security must provide the following information to the Secretary
of DHS regarding data contained within the Social Security
database as in relates to employment verification.
• Fraud and tamper resistant social security cards: Not later
than 180 days after date of enactment, the Commissioner is
required to begin work to administer and issue fraud-resistant,
tamper-resistant Social Security cards.
Title IV
Title IV establishes a new temporary Y worker program to
address future labor needs of temporary foreign workers and
discourage future illegal employment of undocumented
individuals. The title also includes measures to protect the
rights of U.S. and foreign workers and prevent the U.S. employer
from abusing the program.
• Structure of new visa programs: This title creates a new
future temporary worker program for workers who are coming to
the U.S. to perform temporary job that the U.S. employer is
unable to fill. It provides for:
o non-seasonal Y temporary worker (Y-1 visa)
o seasonal temporary worker
Y-2A for agricultural workers, sheepherder, goat herders, and
dairy workers
Y-2B for non-agricultural workers; and
o their spouses and minor
children (Y-3 visa).
• Matching Willing Workers with Willing Employers: All Y workers
must be matched to a “willing employers” through an electronic
database in order to qualify for a Y worker visa.
• Families of Y visa holders: can only accompany Y workers if
the worker can:
o show proof of valid medical insurance and
o demonstrate that the wages of the principal Y nonimmigrant(s)
are 150% above poverty level for the household size.
o Spouses and children who do not qualify for Y-3 visa may be
admitted under other nonimmigrant status.
• Period of admission: A Y-1 worker can be admitted for a two
year period that can be renewed twice if that worker spends a
period of one year outside the United States between each
admission.
o A Y-1 accompanied by dependents are afforded a single two year
visa, non-renewable.
o Workers with Y-2A and Y-2B visa qualify for 10 month visas; no
extensions may be granted.
• Permanent Bar: Y worker who fails to timely depart is
permanently barred from any future immigration benefit.
• Wage: The employer must attest that the Y worker will be paid
not less than the greater of the actual wage paid by the
employer to all other similarly situated workers or the
“prevailing competitive wage.”
• Numerical Limitation: The Y-1 visa program has an initial cap
of 400,000 with yearly adjustments based on market fluctuations.
o There are no numerical limitations for Y-2A while the Y-2B
visas are initially capped at 100,000 with yearly adjustment
based on market fluctuations.
o The market-based fluctuation is adjusted every 6 months during
the fiscal year.
o The Y-3 visa for spouses and minor children limit may not
exceed 20% of annual limit for Y-1 visas.
o A newly created Standing Commission will make recommendations
to Congress regarding the Y visa numerical cap for each fiscal
year following the initial year of the program
Title V
Title V restructures and rebalances the current system by
which green cards are distributed.
• Rebalancing of Immigrant Visa Allocation: Resets the number of
family-based, family backlog, merit-based immigrants, and
eventual Z immigration green cards.
o The family categories are less than under current law since
several of the extended family categories are reduced, while the
merit-based is increased over the current employment-based
levels after the processing of the family-based backlog.
o An annual total of 440,000 visas are allotted to process the
backlog of family-based categories eliminated.
o It is estimated that the family backlog cases can all be
processed in 8 years.
o An annual total of 10,000 visas are set aside for exceptional
Y workers.
• Merit Based Points System: The current employment based green
card system will be replaced by a merit based points system.
• Reducing Chain Migration and Permitting Petitions by
Nationals: Elimination and reconfiguring of the following
family-based preference categories:
o First: Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Citizens
o Second: Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Permanent Residents
other than spouses and minor children of permanent residents
o Third: Married Sons and Daughters of Citizens
o Fourth: Brothers and Sisters of Adult Citizens
o Sets cap of 40,000 per fiscal year on category for parents of
U.S. citizens.
o Sets cap of 87,000 per fiscal year on the second preference
category for spouses and children of permanent residents.
• Elimination of Backlog: If the family-based visa petition in
the eliminated category is filed before May 1, 2005, the
petition can be processed under the prior law within 8 year.
Title VI
This title provides a new visa for most individuals
currently living within the U.S. illegally.
• Creates a new four-year, renewable “Z” nonimmigrant visa to
address the undocumented population within the U.S. The visa is
split up into three groups:
o a principal or employed alien (Z-1),
o the spouse or elderly parent of that alien (Z-2),
o and the minor children of that alien (Z-3).
• Cut off Date: In order to be eligible for this visa, one must
have been illegally present within the U.S. before January 1,
2007.
• Fees and Penalties: To apply, an alien seeking Z-1 status must
be currently employed and pay fees and penalties totaling $5,000
(less for derivative Z’s) to be eligible for a green card under
the merit-based system.
• Probationary, the Permanent Z Status: Once an applicant
submits a completed application, fingerprints, and is cleared by
one-day background checks he will receive probationary benefits
which can eventually be converted to a Z nonimmigrant status
after all background checks are clear and the triggers set forth
in Title I are achieved.
• LPR Status: A Z-1 nonimmigrant may adjust status to lawful
permanent residence after the family backlog under Title V is
eliminated if the Z applicant:
o Satisfies the merit requirements in the points schedule set
forth in Title V.
o files the application for adjustment in the Z-1’s country of
origin and
o pays a penalty of $4,000.
• DREAM ACT: Individuals under the age of 30 that were brought
to the United States out of their own control as a minor are
eligible to receive their green card after 3 years rather than
8.
Title VII
Title VII includes a number of miscellaneous provisions
involving assimilation, including increased funding for the
office of citizenship and integration ($100M)
Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human
Events. He previously served as a deputy undersecretary of
defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is
the author (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown:
Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006)
and "Inside
the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think"
(Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at
jbabbin@eaglepub.com.
Back to top
MS-13 gang seeks
to unite nationwide
The Washington Times
July 25, 2007
By Sara A. Carter - The international street gang MS-13 is
unifying its violent members across the U.S., including the D.C.
area, attempting to strengthen its criminal operation by
creating a single organization.
"Traditionally, the gang consisted of loosely affiliated groups
known as cliques; however, law enforcement officials have
reported increased coordination of criminal activity among Mara
Salvatrucha cliques in the Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles,
Washington, D.C., and New York metropolitan areas," states a
confidential letter sent out earlier this month from the U.S.
Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Illinois.
"MS-13 is attempting to become a unified criminal enterprise
operating under one leadership."
The Washington Times has obtained a copy of the letter and an
Army intelligence presentation on the growth of MS-13, or Mara
Salvatrucha.
Federal law-enforcement agents say the gang is adopting tactics
used by major Mexican and Colombian drug-trafficking groups and
has become a gun-for-hire for many major Central and South
American drug-trafficking cartels.
"Indications that previously independent cliques are forming
alliances with other MS-13 cliques, as well as with other gangs
to facilitate criminal activity, further heighten the threat,"
the letter continued. "It would be dangerous to look at MS-13 as
just another street gang."
Agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) say that
the gangs' tactics are terroristic but question whether the
small groups can unify under one leader.
"These gang members are some of the most brutal people we have
ever encountered," said a DEA intelligence officer on the
condition of anonymity. "Whether they are unifying, well that's
more difficult to tell. In some cases yes and in other cases no.
"But a unified criminal enterprise between all groups — it could
happen. We'll have to wait and see. What we know is that they're
getting stronger."
According to the DEA, the gangs' major source of income is
narcotics and arms trafficking. Human trafficking and extortion
also are becoming lucrative enterprises for them, the DEA agent
said.
MS-13, which began as a Los Angeles street gang, is responsible
for thousands of killings and mutilations in the United States,
Mexico and Central America. MS-13 rival gang Mara 18, based in
El Salvador, is just as violent and recruited more members
internationally, said detective Patrick Word of Gaithersburg,
president of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators
Network.
"While showing some regional alignment between cliques," Mr.
Word said. "MS-13 is still showing no signs that it is unifying
nationally or transnationally ... There is just no one leader or
even a group of leaders."
But others on the federal level disagree. The letter and
presentation suggest that MS-13 has an estimated 96,000 members
internationally.
"Mara Salvatrucha members typically are Salvadoran nationals or
first-generation Salvadoran-Americans; however, many cliques in
the United States now accept members from Belize, Ecuador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico," the letter stated.
There are an estimated 20,000 members associated with 125
cliques in the U.S. alone. As of 2003, DEA and FBI officials
have located groups in 30 states, plus the District.
Although the group began as a small street gang in Los Angeles,
it spread quickly to El Salvador as many illegal alien members
were deported from the U.S. for criminal activity. Many of those
deported began to recruit new members throughout Central
America.
The viciousness of the gang killings is displayed in a U.S. Army
intelligence presentation which included graphic photos. One
photograph shows the Roman numerals for 18 carved into, and then
slashed over, the severed head of a Salvadoran woman suspected
of Mara 18 ties. A second photo shows a dismembered baby lying
in brush.
"They can function as networks, with extensive transnational
linkages," the Army presentation stated. "Their internal
functions include recruiting, logistics, attacks, intelligence
[collecting and propaganda], and activities including murders,
drugs, extortion and others."
The Salvadoran Policia National Civil recognize MS-13 as
"organized crime" and they leave death in their wake with
hundreds, if not thousands, of killings from El Salvador to the
U.S. annually.
On Monday, Oscar Ramos Velasquez of Baltimore, an MS-13 gang
member, was sentenced to 37 years in prison, followed by five
years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit murder in
aid of racketeering, conspiracy to participate in a racketeering
enterprise, and conspiracy to commit assaults with a deadly
weapon.
"This sentence should serve as a warning to young people who are
tempted to join gangs like MS-13, that you may pay for that
decision for the rest of your life," said U.S. Attorney Rod J.
Rosenstein. "Federal, state and local authorities will continue
to work together to combat violent gangs in Maryland."
Velasquez is one of 14 MS-13 members who have been convicted in
this Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act
conspiracy case.
MS-13 is also the largest gang in Northern Virginia and groups
associated with the gang are growing in Montgomery County, Md.,
as well, said Virginia state Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II,
Fairfax County Republican.
"At my level of government, what frustrates me the most is that
so many people stand in the way of tough policies against
illegal immigration," Mr. Cuccinelli said. "They either ignore
it or don't understand the connection to public safety, security
and the community's well-being."
Back to top
Memo From
Mexico,
By
Allan Wall
Is "reconquista" for real?
Are there really
ethnic separatist movements in the
United States today?
Some people scoff at the whole idea,
confident that all immigrants will
assimilate, and don’t want to turn the U.S.
into the country from whence they came.
Others write off
any talk about reconquista as a
right-wing anti-immigrant fantasy.
More people are waking up, however, to
see that there is more afoot than simply the
isolated rantings of some radical professors
(which
is certainly part of it.)
Some rather concrete incidents are
helping to wake people up. Such as the
raising of the Mexican flag at the
Montebello High School. Or the signs
borne by marchers in
pro-illegal alien demonstrations, signs
that
read "If you think I’m illegal
because I’m a Mexican learn the
true history because I’m in my
homeland", "This
is stolen land", "Stolen Continent"
and "We are indigenous! The only owners
of this continent."
The sheer arrogance and hubris of
anti-American irredentists is alerting more
and more Americans to the fact that, yes,
there are people within our borders who
don’t want to be part of the U.S., who think
they have a better claim on the land than we
do, and who aren’t too secretive about it.
But, what did we expect? You import
millions of people from Mexico, the
only country with an irredentist claim on
the U.S.A . Then you encourage them not
to assimilate. And, when they break your
immigration law, you give them an
amnesty. Our
leaders invited this, and promoted it.
There really are irredentist/revanchist
sentiments in among Mexicans in the U.S.A.,
and this is bound to grow and get worse. It
will make Canada’s Quebec problem look
trivial by comparison.
Nevertheless, there is not, as some
people imagine, one reconquista
movement. All these revanchists/irredentists
are not marching lockstep on the
same sheet of music. On the contrary,
the various Chicano/Mexican/Hispanic/Latino/reconquista/
Aztlan activists are indeed in agreement
that that their people (variously defined)
are an oppressed nationality that needs
liberation. But there are different currents
with distinct ideologies. All would break up
the U.S. or transform it, but they represent
contradictory, even competing, visions of
the future.
In fact, Mexico should realize that
stirring up things in the U.S. could be
counterproductive. Several of these
irredentist currents are just as much threat
to
Mexican sovereignty as they are to ours!
Let’s consider some of the basic
separationist movements.
- "Reconquista"
specifically calls for formal return of
Mexico’s lost territories (what we call
the U.S. Southwest) to Mexico.
The classic argument for reconquista
was spelled out 25 years ago. In 1982,
Mexican columnist Carlos Loret de Mola
visited Los Angeles, California. He was
intrigued by the burgeoning Mexican
community there (which was much smaller than
today’s). Loret de Mola saw beyond the
situation, and overcoming the traditional
Mexican embarrassment over emigration, saw
it as an opportunity for reconquest.
In his Excelsior column entitled
The Great Invasion: Mexico Recovers Its Own,
Loret de Mola exulted that
"A peaceful
mass of people, hardworking, carries out
slowly and patiently an unstoppable
invasion…You cannot give me a similar
example of such a large migratory wave by an
ant-like multitude, stubborn, unarmed, and
carried on in the face of the most powerful
and best-armed nation on earth. They have
marked social and family characteristics,
agility for adapting to the environment and
for conquering a great region, once
primitive and virgin, that belonged to our
fatherland, and we lost it. But it seems to
be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of
Mexico without the firing of a single shot,
nor requiring the least
diplomatic action, by means of a steady,
spontaneous, and uninterrupted
occupation….The territory lost in the 19th
century by a Mexico torn by internal strife
and under centralist dictatorships led by
paranoid chiefs, like
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, seems to be
restoring itself through a
humble people who go on settling various
zones that once were ours on the
old maps….Land, under any concept of
possession, ends up in the hands of those
who deserve it.
What Loret de Mola spells out here is a
re-conquest of the U.S. Southwest by
demography. Other Mexican writers have
expressed similar sentiments, more recently
Elena Poniatowska, who while visiting
Venezuela in 2001,
was quoted by a newspaper there
"The
Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska affirmed
today that Mexico is presently recovering
the territories lost in the past to the
United States, thanks to emigration. ‘The
people of the poor, the lice-ridden and the
cucarachas are advancing in the
United States, a country that wants to speak
Spanish because 33.4 million Hispanics
impose their culture’ affirmed Poniatowska
…""
El Imparcial" (July 3rd, 2001),
In Mexico, it’s
writers and journalists who promote
reconquista. Mexican politicians rarely
mention it.
What the Mexican government does,
however, is encourage and foster illegal
immigration in various ways, and encourage
Mexicans in the U.S., even dual citizens and
Mexican-Americans, to identify with Mexico,
not the U.S. Mexican government activity is
not limited to the Southwest. Mexican
consulates
will meddle just as readily outside the
Southwest as in it.
A formal annexation of the Southwest by
Mexico is not implausible, but another
option would be a form of
condominium, in which the U.S. and
Mexico share sovereignty. The U.S. would be
responsible for maintaining the territory,
Mexico would control the immigration policy,
most of the people would be
loyal to Mexico, and the U.S. would foot
the bill.
- The "Aztlan" irredentist
movement was cooked up north of the
border by Chicano activists in the
ferment of the 1960s. Many people
suppose that reconquista and
Aztlan movement are synonyms, but they
are not
Aztlan was the homeland of the Aztec
people, but there’s no consensus over where
Aztlan was. In Mexico, they do not refer to
the U.S. Southwest as Aztlan. Prominent
Mexican archaeologist
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma believes Aztlan
was in Central Mexico (far from the
Southwest) and the state of Nayarit (Pacific
Coast) includes Aztlan on its state
coat of arms believing that Aztlan was
in Nayarit. My Mexican wife never heard of
the Aztlan / Southwest identification until
I told her about it.
Chicano activists say that Aztlan was in
the U.S. Southwest. They may be right about
that part. Linguistically you could make a
case for it. There are various Indian tribes
in the region, including the Comanche,
Shoshone and Hopi, who speak languages of
the greater Uto-Aztecan language family.
Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, was
also a branch of that family. (For the
perspective of
Comanche David Yeagley on the matter,
read
here).
Even so, that’s a flimsy reason to lay
claim to the region. In the first place, all
Mexicans are not descended from the Aztecs.
In the second place, just because a person’s
ancestors lived or passed through a region,
doesn’t give his descendents title over it.
The principal (though not only)
organization teaching the Aztlan doctrine is
MEChA, acronym for Movimiento
Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlan.
This organization exists and has received
tax dollars on university campuses and high
schools in the Southwest—and even
outside the region.
MEChA has gained notoriety in recent
years, as its first generation has come of
age politically. California politicos
Antonio Villaraigosa and
Cruz Bustamante were MEChistas during
their college days, and have publicly
refused to repudiate their connection.
Defenders of MEChA claim that it is not
irredentist; it’s just a pro-Chicano
organization. Yet, its philosophical
statement presents it as an organization
"founded on the principles of
self-determination for the liberation of our
people…" See the infamous
Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
In
the spirit of a new people that is conscious
not only of its proud historical heritage
but also of the brutal "gringo" invasion of
our territories, we, the Chicano
inhabitants and civilizers of the northern
land of Aztlán from whence came our
forefathers, reclaiming the land of their
birth and consecrating the determination of
our people of the sun, declare that
the call of our blood is our power, our
responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
We
are free and sovereign to determine those
tasks which are justly called for by our
house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and
by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those who
plant the seeds, water the fields, and
gather the crops and not to the foreign
Europeans. We do not recognize capricious
frontiers on the bronze continent
Before the world, before all of North
America, before all our brothers in the
bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a
union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.
This has
never been repudiated. Why not?
- Another break-up American proposal
that has surfaced in recent years is
that of the Republica del Norte,
which is distinct from both
Reconquista and Aztlan.
This scheme is the brainchild of
University of New Mexico Chicano Studies
Professor Charles Truxillo, who calls it
an inevitability.
Professor Truxillo doesn’t want Mexico to
reconquer the Southwest. He does want the
Southwest to secede from the U.S. He also
predicts that the northern states of Mexico
will secede from Mexico. Then the ex-U.S.
southwest and the ex-northern Mexico will
together form the Republica del Norte
(republic of the North), with its capital at
Los Angeles.
Truxillo
foresees these changes happening peacefully,
through demographic and political reasons.
In 2000, he predicted it would come about by
2080. "I may not live to see the Hispanic
homeland, but by the end of the century my
students' kids will live in it, sovereign
and free." To further the development of
the new republic, Truxillo is developing a
"cadre of intellectuals" to work out
the details in the plan.[
Southwest shall secede from U.S., prof
predicts,
by Frank Zoretich,
Albuquerque Tribune, January 31,
2000]
Truxillo also predicts that eastern
Mexico will also secede to form the
"Mayan Republic". So in Truxillo’s
scenario, not only will Mexico not gain
territory, but it will actually wind up
considerably smaller than it is now.
Here’s
a map of Professor Truxillo’s prediction
.You might file it away to refer to in 2080!
Truxillo foresees more breaking up
throughout the continent:
Quebec breaking off
from Canada and the U.S. breaking up
into various pieces. Truxillo envisions
Mexico breaking up into three pieces: the
northern part, that will join the Republica
del Norte, the eastern part, which will
secede and be called Mayaland, and
central Mexico, which will remain part
of Mexico.
Another interesting point. Remember the
outcry about
Samuel Huntington? Well, Truxillo agrees
with Huntington, and, like others, views the
conflict between Mexico and the U.S. being
continuation of the conflict between
Elizabethan England and Spain of the
Spanish Armada days.
The Mexica movement doesn’t fit into any
of the previous categories I have mentioned.
They’re not into the Aztlan stuff, they
don’t support the Republica del Norte. And
they don’t want Mexico to reconquer the U.S.
Southwest, because they don’t like Mexico
either.
The Mexica claim to speak for all the
indigenous people of North America—from
Alaska to
Panama—whom they refer to as the
"Nican Tlaca" and the continent
as Anahuac.
The movement’s leader is Olin
Tezcatlipoca (born
Leo Guerra, but he wanted a more
indigenous-sounding name). This movement
rejects the labels "Hixpanic" and
Latino as being European based.
This movement does not recognize any
borders on the North American continent, and
they reject the legitimacy of any of the 10
governments on the continent, including the
U.S. and Mexico. They consider all of them
to be European transplants and thus
illegitimate.
"We
totally reject all illegal European colonial
squatter occupation borders on our
continent" say the Mexica, and "No
European borders on our continent".
Another
quote: "We are not illegals anywhere
on our continent. Europeans are illegals
everywhere on our continent."
"Europeans can call themselves ‘Canadian’ or
‘American’ but they are still trespassing on
our continent."
The reject the legitimacy of the Mexican
government as being white-ruled, calling
Mexico’s leaders
"Mexico City Criollos [White people]"
The Mexica movement
exhorts readers of its website to
"remember
that Mexico, ‘Central America’ and ‘South
America’ are still controlled by whites
(European descent people). And don’t tell us
to go back where we came from, this whole
continent is where we came from, Europeans
came from Europe, so if you want to
disrespect us, you should go back where you
came from and take your white supremacy
there."
And, unlike some other protestors, you
don’t see Mexica demonstrators brandishing
posters of Che Guevara—they reject
Guevara as being
too European.
The Mexica solution is to work to develop
indigenous consciousness. By indigenous they
mean descendents of the people who were here
on the continent before Europeans arrived,
including mestizos. Since the
movement doesn’t recognize any North
American borders, it teaches that any person
defined as indigenous has the right to
go anywhere he wants in North America.
White people, meanwhile, must go back to
Europe.
One more thing about the Mexica
folks—they want to leave the
U.S. Constitution intact while they go
about their plan. Another example of how
seditionists use our own constitution
against us!
- And here’s yet another possibility,
which is maybe the most likely of all.
What if, instead of the U.S. breaking
up, it just became another
Spanish-speaking country?
That’s what Univision’s
Jorge Ramos predicts will
take place in about 2100. Other
activists who don’t subscribe to a specific
doctrine (reconquista, Aztlan,
Republica del Norte or Mexica movement) seem
to be thinking along these lines also.
In other words, instead of working to
secede from the U.S., why couldn’t
unassimilated Hispanics just immigrate
and multiply until they could just take
over the whole country?
Under that scenario, the borders of the
U.S.A. wouldn’t change. The U.S. would just
be transformed into
a Latin American country.
Yes, these movements and the sentiments
they reflect are real. But of course the
future may not turn out exactly how these
movements envisage it.
What about the historic
white, English-speaking majority of the
United States of America? Does that majority
have
any say in the matter? I mean, if all
these Mexican, Hispanic and Indigenous
activists can boldly plan our nation’s
future, what about the
historic majority of the country? Or has
it already been bypassed by history? Will it
speak?
Given current political, social and
demographic trends, the future of the
nation, and its nature, will be up for grabs
in the next few years.
American citizen
Allan Wall (email
him) resides in
Mexico, with a legal permit issued him by
the Mexican government. Allan recently
returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with
the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM
articles are archived
here; his
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived
here his
"Dispatches from Iraq" are archived
here his website
is
here. |
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