Letters page
Democratic amnesty-pushers, and their Republican collaborators, keep telling us how popular “comprehensive immigration reform” is. But the actions of those same politicians suggest they don’t believe their own press releases.
For instance, 181 House Democrats signed on to an amicus brief defending the administration’s right to unilaterally amnesty millions of illegal aliens. So far, so good. But what about the others? “The 12 Democrats who left their names off are mostly centrists and members who will face tough reelection races next year.” But if amnesty’s so popular, why wouldn’t these vulnerable Democrats campaign on their support for it?
Then there’s Oregon. You’ll recall that in November the voters there overwhelmingly voted down a measure passed by the legislature to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. (Lest you think they’re right-wingers, in the same election they legalized pot and reelected their crooked Democratic governor, who has since resigned.) The reason the citizenry was able to kill the license bill is that the open-borders crowd forgot to include an “emergency clause” in the bill, which would have allowed it to go into effect immediately.
As you can imagine, the anti-borders crowd isn’t going to make that mistake again. So in their latest effort at helping illegal aliens — a bill that would give taxpayer-funded scholarships to illegal-alien students at state universities — they’ve inserted that crucial emergency clause. The only “emergency” is that voters might be given an opportunity to stop this latest giveaway of their money to intruders.
A new Rasmussen poll suggests that amnesty-pushers’ fear of letting voters express their thoughts on immigration at the ballot box is well-founded. Yes, you can ask questions in any number of ways and, yes, Americans are ambivalent about the issue. But when you ask the same question over time you get a sense of trends, and these don’t look good for the anti-borders crowd. Sixty-two percent of likely voters said the government is ”not aggressive enough in deporting those who are in this country illegally,” up from 56 percent in November and 52 percent one year ago. When asked, “Should illegal immigrants who have American-born children be exempt from deportation?” 51 percent said no, up from 42 percent in November. Also, 54 percent oppose automatic citizenship for children born to illegals, and 83 percent said people should prove legal status before receiving welfare.
Mencken wrote that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” If only.
We have immigration laws in this country for two basic reasons: to preserve jobs and to protect national security. President Obama’s unlawful executive actions to grant amnesty to at least 5 million illegal immigrants violate both of those principles. Any objective review must find that his policies have placed the concerns of those who have broken our laws ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
Obama’s systematic dismantling of our immigration laws began in 2011 with the so-called Morton Memos, which instructed immigration officials to ignore broad categories of people for deportation purposes. That policy was expanded the following year by his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA abuses the practice of prosecutorial discretion by halting the deportation of illegal immigrants and by proactively granting them work permits, if they arrived in the United States when they were younger than 16 and have been present for five years, among other criteria. These actions culminated in November 2014, when he acted unilaterally to grant amnesty and work permits to millions more who were already illegally present in this country.
Employment is difficult enough to find for millions of Americans who woke up this morning without a paycheck. On top of that hardship, Obama has now introduced millions of new applicants who will compete for jobs that are already scarce. It is difficult to imagine how such a policy is beneficial to American workers.
Worse, the president has laid out the welcome mat for anyone around the world who seeks illegal access to the interior of the United States. More than a decade ago, the 9/11 Commission warned us terrorists want two things more than anything: to gain entry into this country, and to be able to stay here. Obama’s policies make it unmanageable to screen all those who apply for amnesty, and therefore impossible to know who we are dealing with. This is an open invitation for terrorists to infiltrate our borders.
In recent contentious debate, Congress voted to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security. I support defending this nation, but Obama’s position that the funding of his executive amnesty was more important than protecting national security was something I could not agree with. I cannot understand the argument that providing work permits and federal benefits to those who have broken our laws is more important than funding the defense of our country.
This is a president who said at least 22 times he did not have the constitutional authority to do what he eventually did – ignore the immigration laws enacted by Congress. This is a clear issue involving the separation of powers of the three branches of the federal government.
Thankfully, a federal judge in Texas has granted an injunction, which will allow a lawsuit brought by 26 states to proceed.
And so the question remains for the administration: Whose rights are more important? Lawful citizens and residents of the United States, or those who would willfully break our immigration laws?
Rep. Lou Barletta is a Republican from Pennsylvania.
Here is a way for the Federal Government to save a lot of money - shut down the Border Patrol.
We may as well, because they are capturing and then releasing criminal aliens into our communities.
In 2013, the border patrol released 36,007 criminal aliens. Then in 2014, according to a report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 30,558 criminal illegal immigrants were released by federal officials in the fiscal year.
These aliens were convicted of many different kinds of serious and even violent crimes. They include homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault and kidnapping. There were also more than 16,000 DUI (drink or drug) driving convictions.
Most of the homicide convicts released were court-ordered, according to ICE.
Convictions of those released in fiscal 2013
193 homicide
426 sexual assault
303 kidnapping
1,075 aggravated assault
1,160 stolen vehicle
9,187 dangerous drug
303 flight escape
16,070 driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
While we are shutting down the Border Patrol, we should probably change the name of the Department of Homeland Security to the Department of Homeland Insecurity. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is managed by DHS. Information for this report thanks to The Washington Times.
Included in the fiscal 2013 figures, in February 2013, more than 2,000 criminal illegals were released due to the planned sequestration cuts. Remarkably, more than 600 of them were known criminals. The head of ICE, Sarah Saldana, who started there in August, 2014, said "it still concerns me."
Well, guess what, it concerns us too.
Saldana promised that overcrowding would no longer be the primary reason for releasing criminal illegals, and all pending cases will be approved by a top supervisor.
What difference will that make?
Speaking to The Washington Times, Saldaña said, "I am determined to continue to take every possible measure to ensure the public's safety and the removal of dangerous criminals." The illegals are required to have "supervised release" monitoring by federal authorities, but Saldaña said those efforts would be toughened to try to prevent them from committing new crimes.
Part of the problem is that some countries refuse to take back their criminal citizens. Republicans want to rewrite the law, forcing serious criminal illegals to be held longer. Additionally, they want the administration to deny visiting visas to the leaders of countries that refuse to take their own citizens back. The Obama administration refuses to do that.
Releasing these criminal aliens into our communities is dangerous. Law-enforcement officials say it endangers all Americans.
This ridiculous state of affairs tells criminal aliens there are no consequences for their illegal activities. If they are caught, they can be released within days.
Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, who has long battled the White House on immigration reform, told Newsmax, "The administration's immigration lawlessness knows no bounds."
I am all for eliminating needless paperwork but I am having trouble with this new law that was just passed by the Senate. "Automatically enrolling residents with driver's license records into the state's voter rolls."
How do they plan to distinguish between citizen and non-citizen? Their are thousand of resident aliens out there with drivers licenses, but they are non-citizens and can't vote. Right?
Oregonians, something is fishy here. When phrases like, "I care that they vote, and you should, too" and "removing technical barriers for voters," another phrase for eliminating the U.S. citizenship as a requirement to vote. You know what this means, right?
In the discussions about immigration, I see no mention of Section 1 of Amendment XIV to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. Consequently, we have the situation of legal children of illegal parents.
This amendment was passed three years after the one to free the slaves and had a different intent.
A new amendment should provide that to be a natural-born citizen, a child should have at least one parent who is a citizen of the U.S.
Why is this not being included in any immigration reform?
In the 2015 Oregon Legislature, Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, has introduced Senate Bill 104.
If approved, the bill will require that all state agencies use the federal E-Verify program to ensure their newly hired employees are U.S. citizens or legal residents. SB104 has been referred to the Senate Workforce Committee, which should report it to the chamber’s floor immediately.
E-Verify, run jointly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration, is free to employers and easy to use. It enables an employer to go online, enter the name and Social Security number provided by a new hire and determine — in the vast majority of cases, almost instantly — whether that hire is eligible to work in the United States. In Oregon, 17 county governments and more than 3,200 businesses use E-Verify.
Why should Oregon’s elected leaders enact SB104 and mandate E-Verify’s use by state agencies?
First: SB104 would help ensure our state government complies with the federal law prohibiting employment of illegal immigrants. This would be no mere symbolism; respect for law begins with government itself. At a time when many state and local governments — and even the president of the United States — actively undermine federal immigration statutes, passing SB104 would help place Oregon firmly on the side of law, order and accountability.
Second: The bill’s adoption would tell Oregonians, “Your state government will strive to ensure your hard-earned tax dollars pay the salaries of U.S. citizens or legal residents, and not the salaries of people here illegally.” This would be a profound and welcome message to the Oregon taxpayers still drained by the recent recession.
And last: By going the extra mile, says Sen. Thatcher, to use “tools which offer a better chance of hiring people who are in our country legally,” the state of Oregon would “lead by example.”
Such leadership could have a far-reaching impact. Today, some 130,000 Oregonians are unemployed. Close to an equal number want full-time work but can find only part-time work, or have become so discouraged they’ve stopped looking for work altogether.
Yet, according to studies by the Pew Hispanic Center and Federation for American Immigration Reform, between 97,000 and 120,000 illegal immigrants recently have held jobs in our state. If SB104’s adoption were to induce a good number of private businesses to begin using E-Verify themselves, it could prove critical, in the future, to putting many unemployed and underemployed citizens into jobs currently held by illegal immigrants. As well, it may help to discourage further illegal immigration to Oregon and to prompt illegal immigrants already here to leave.
SB104 would manifest respect for law. It would help ensure responsible stewardship of Oregonians’ tax monies. And it would provide an example, if emulated by private businesses, that could re-employ many jobless citizens. Oregonians should tell members of the Senate Workforce Committee – and their own state legislators – to support SB104.
Cynthia Kendoll of Salem is president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. She can be reached at ofir@oregonir.org.
Both Oregon senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, are eager to force Americans to pay the costs of the president’s illegal amnesty. This despite the fact federal judge Andrew Hanen just agreed that Obama’s amnesty fiat is illegal.
Congress can most easily block the amnesty by refusing to pay for the bureaucratic processing of millions of new applicants. But both Wyden and Merkley have repeatedly voted against bringing up HR 240, the amnesty defunding bill that recently passed the House. Both of them want the initial five million new applicants to be able to legally compete against entry-level citizens while Obama adds another 30 million work permits in increments.
At that point, we won’t have a recognizable country anymore. Americans will have lost our voice in favor of a chaotic avalanche of low-skilled Third World poor. How will that improve the lives of the Americans Wyden and Merkley pretend to represent?
Regarding Dennis Lees’ Jan. 2 column, “Try to view immigration through others’ eyes”: before we become too misty-eyed over the plight of our southern neighbors, let’s consider some facts.
The man who occupies our Oval Office illegally and pushes for mass amnesty for illegal immigrants doesn’t care about their futures or their interactions with legal citizens.
His motivation is strictly politically impelled to favor Democrats seeking election in 2016. That’s political chicanery.
About 5 million illegal immigrants have been favored so far, but a wise Arizona sheriff predicts the number will easily more than double when the floodgates are opened.
Apparently there are no plans to vet the illegals for communicable diseases, criminal pasts, language capability, occupational desirability or other requirements.
That’s a slap in the face to my immigrant father’s and my wife’s families. Yes, our citizenship requirements have traditionally been extremely strict; many haven’t been able to qualify.
Our stringent immigration laws are simply a reflection of our forefathers’ wishes. Those who criticize them as being too stringent need only examine Mexico’s laws to appreciate our own.
Since the illegal immigrants have already knowingly violated a cardinal U.S. law, can we expect them to respect our other laws? That question’s too often overlooked in immigration discussions.
Portland has attracted national attention for its efforts to limit urban sprawl. It is noteworthy to find a mindset that bigger is not necessarily better. However, that effort has been less than successful...
Is that the cost to be paid for being attractive? Some natural population increase comes from more births than deaths....
...other source of population growth is identified by the Census Bureau as Net International Migration (NIM). That is the surplus of immigrants plus U.S citizens moving home from abroad minus U.S. residents moving out of the country – mostly immigration. During the 1990s, NIM accounted for 14 percent of Portland's population increase and about 23 percent the following decade.
Actually, the population impact of immigration is larger than those numbers indicate. That is because the immigrant population has a much larger share in their child-bearing years and they often come from cultures that embrace large families.....jumps to about one-fourth of the increase in the 1990s and to about two-fifths in the next decade.
... Immigration policy is discretionary, and it can be decreased or increased by policymakers. A major increase was set in motion by legislation in 1965 and further increased in 1990. As a result the country has the largest flow of legal immigrants ever with more than one million admitted every year ... leaving aside the issue of those who should be prevented from coming illegally. Clearly this immigrant flow could be reduced...
Unfortunately, there is a concerted effort to increase the immigration flow still further...
Underrepresented in this dynamic is the average American who does not relish more competition for jobs and housing or more claims on already overstretched educational and social welfare resources.
Portlanders' only say in the issue of whether national policymakers increase or decrease the growing population pressure due to immigration is through expressing their view to their elected representatives.
Jack Martin, who was born and raised in Portland, is a retired diplomat who joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1995.
