OFIR Blog
Welcome to the new OFIR blog!
OFIR invites you to pop in regularly and find out what's new, what's pressing and needing action and what other concerned citizens are doing in the fight to stop illegal immigration.
"Get a warrant"? NO!
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 08/17/2017
Why should ICE officers have to go to a court and request a warrant to take custody of an illegal alien who’s being released from a local jail?
There should be seamless cooperation and communication between the two branches of law enforcement, local and federal, on immigration matters, as there usually is in federal laws on other subjects.
Unfortunately, there are powerful political groups in the U.S. resisting enforcement of immigration law generally, who think in globalist terms, discounting the importance of nationhood and citizenship. The entire Democratic Party, as well as an influential faction of the Republican Party, seem to have this view. Honest polls show that U.S. citizens disagree.
In a look back at how immigration law enforcement has been eroded, Dan Cadman, retired INS / ICE official with thirty years of government experience, asks:
“…Is it unreasonable to ask police and correctional officials to hold alien criminals they have in their custody long enough for immigration agents to respond and arrest them, given that there are hundreds of thousands of federal, state, and local law enforcement and correctional officers serving in thousands of organizations, but only about 1,300 immigration agents for the entire country?”
The attempt to force ICE agents to go to a court and obtain a warrant before detaining an illegal alien upon the alien’s release from jail is a deliberate attempt to impede ICE’s work and help illegal aliens remain comfortably in the U.S.
As Oregon’s top US Attorney, Billy J. Williams, pointed out, how is ICE even to know the alien is in jail if that information is not communicated to ICE?
“This requirement [for a court warrant] is inherently unreasonable as illegal aliens are frequently held for only a matter of hours. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to obtain a federal criminal arrest warrant without basic identifying information.
“Simply put, Oregon's sanctuary status declaration directly contravenes federal immigration law and threatens public safety.”
All local law enforcement and jails should regularly communicate with ICE when local enforcement encounters an illegal alien, and be dependable in alerting ICE punctually about release dates from jails. Oregon is a part of the U.S.; it derives multiple advantages from being part of this nation, and there is no excuse for not cooperating in national law enforcement.
Cooperation with ICE does not turn local police into ICE agents. The time taken simply to communicate information to ICE would be minimal, and the results huge in greater safety for the public and better control of illegal immigration. Illegal alien advocates’ claim that local police cooperation with ICE has a chilling effect on crime reporting is spurious.
The toleration of illegal immigration is extremely harmful to citizens; it undermines respect for law generally, allows unlimited global competition for jobs, overloads our social service and educational facilities, triggers rapid population growth that endangers the health of the natural environment, and causes many other significant problems.
Help ICE do its job!
What sanctuaries would cost Oregonians under new DOJ rule
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 07/27/2017
A new day is dawning for sanctuary jurisdictions that have taken advantage of grant money from the federal government but declined to cooperate as they should with federal immigration law enforcement.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a new rule July 25 for jurisdictions applying for Byrne grants to assist state and local law enforcement. Byrne grants, formally called Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Programs (“Byrne JAG”), are the largest source of federal criminal justice funds for state, local, and tribal authorities.
There are quite a few jurisdictions in Oregon that used money from these grants in 2016, so now they need to take another look at their uncooperative policies with federal authorities in regard to immigration.
Taxpayers could be hit with bigger bills than ever if the affected jurisdictions fail to meet Department of Justice requirements for the grants and do not receive any. And citizens in these locations can expect increases in numbers of illegal aliens in their communities, if a jurisdiction chooses to “go it alone” and continues its sanctuary policies.
Thanks to the Center for Immigration Studies for their detailed examination of which jurisdictions could lose how much money each year by losing the Byrne grants.
In Oregon, jurisdictions that received significant amounts from the Byrne program in 2016 and now must show proper cooperation with DOJ or lose the grants, are:
City of Portland $465,810
Lane County $84,217
City of Salem $69,968
County of Washington $39,976
Deschutes. County of $33,730
Clackamas County Juvenile Department $25,771
City of Grants Pass $17,547
City of Beaverton $17,239
City of Redmond $11,874
"Expedited" option could cut backlogs of deportable aliens
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Wed, 07/19/2017
“Expedited removal” is a term in ICE lingo which means the removal of a recently arrived illegal alien without the need to present the illegal alien to an immigration judge for a removal hearing first. There are hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens now in the U.S. whose cases have been tied up in immigration court appeals for years while the alien continues to live here, perhaps taking a job that would otherwise go to a citizen.
As described by Dan Cadman, a retired INS-ICE official with many years of experience in immigration law enforcement, “expedited removal” has been possible since 1997 but has never been fully implemented, even though the DHS has the legal authority to do so.
Cadman explains that expedited removal “ … is applicable, should the DHS secretary choose to extend it by rule, to any alien, anywhere in the United States, who has not been admitted or paroled, and who cannot prove to the satisfaction of the immigration authorities that he or she has been continuously present in the United States for at least two years.”
Cadman concludes:
“There is no excuse for not expanding its reach to the fullest potential permitted by law, certainly not when:
• There are somewhere around 11 or 12 million aliens residing and working illegally in the United States;
• There are finite resource limits to the number of officers and agents, all of whom could be used more effectively and efficiently with full implementation of expedite removal; and
• The immigration courts are so backlogged that the nationwide docket is the highest it's ever been: in excess of 610,000 pending cases as of May 2017, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
“A decision by Secretary Kelly to expand expedited removal proceedings is clearly the right thing to do; in fact, it's long overdue.”
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The complete blog, entitled The time has come to expand the reach of expedited removal to its full statutory potential, is posted on the Center for Immigration Studies’ website here.
Interesting guest of Tucker Carlson
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Tue, 07/11/2017
Recently Tucker Carlson dove into a subject pretty much verboten in present-day political discussion – How Many Is Too Many? That’s the title of his guest’s book, by Philip Cafaro, a professor of philosophy at Colorado State University.
Cafaro’s book, subtitled The progressive argument for reducing immigration into the United States, was published in 2015, but thanks to Tucker and some emerging enlightenment elsewhere, it’s now beginning to be discussed more publicly.
The chapter headings in Cafaro’s book indicate the framework of his argument: Good people, hard choices, and an inescapable question.- Immigration by the numbers.-The wages of mass immigration.-Winners and losers.-Growth, or what is an economy for?- Population matters.-Environmentalists’ retreat from demography.-Defusing America’s population bomb—or cooking the earth.
Discussion of these subjects is very welcome, because most newspapers and other media today as well as many education groups and even some trade unions perpetuate the idea that all immigration is wonderful, without limits, endlessly enriching life in the U.S. And they try to enforce that thinking by shaming questioners as unspeakable bigots.
Cafaro asks: “Why are immigration debates frequently so angry? People on one side often seem to assume it is just because people on the other are stupid, or immoral. I disagree. Immigration is contentious because vital interests are at stake and no one set of policies can fully accommodate all of them.”
He details in his book “how current immigration levels—the highest in American history—undermine attempts to achieve progressive economic, environmental, and social goals.”
Anyone who’s ever looked at the Census Bureau’s Population Clock should understand that thesis. As of July 10, 2017 the clock ticks like this: One birth every 8 seconds; one death every 12 seconds; one international migrant (net) every 33 seconds, net gain of one person every 12 seconds. Our population is now over 325 million, and only quite recently it was 300 million; the rate of growth is enormous, and at present there’s no end in sight.
The 300 million mark was reached on Oct. 17, 2006, not quite 11 years ago. Will there be another 25 ½ million people in 11 years? If you’re feeling the increasing pressure of population density now, what will the quality of life be in the U.S. then?
Cafaro proposes sensible steps to restore controls over immigration and our future. The first step he suggests is a temporary moratorium on all non-emergency immigration. Amen to that!
The Carlson-Cafaro interview can be seen in the second segment of this YouTube video. Cafaro has written an article summarizing the content of his book which is posted online here.
Note: NumbersUSA, formed in 1996, brings together “moderates, conservatives & liberals working for immigration numbers that serve America's finest goals.” It now has over 8 million supporters. For those who care about a livable environment, here’s a good organization to join.
Victims of visa abuse
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Wed, 06/28/2017
We hear a lot of tear-jerking stories about illegal aliens “living in the shadows.” But there’s a huge group of U.S. citizens “living in the shadows” too.
They’re afraid to tell their stories of abuse and mistreatment by greedy employers who traffic in visa corruption by firing citizens and bringing in cheap, semi-slave labor to replace the citizens.
Thanks for Breitbart.com for its several exposés of this cancer in the U.S. economy. In the current report, listen to some of the stories of greed, politics, and exploitation.
by John Binder, 27 June 2017, Washington, D.C
[Excerpts]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – While Americans who have lost their jobs to outsourcing are willing to speak up, they remain fearfully hushed about the issue, making sure their names and former employers are not released.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. That number has ballooned to potentially hundreds of thousands each year, as universities and non-profits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, Americans are often replaced and forced to train their foreign replacements.
As Breitbart Texas spoke to a number of workers in front of the White House, a reoccurring factor was that Americans would only speak anonymously.
“I have to remain anonymous,” one told Breitbart Texas. “It’s in my severance package.”
He had to move from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. just to find a job after he had been outsourced by Infosys, India’s top consulting firm.
“This is also a national security threat because foreigners are dominating an entire American industry, the worker said.
“If the Indian worker can’t do their job, it’s your fault for training them wrong.” …
Dawn, making a point to only give her first name, was laid-off and replaced by a foreign worker who she was forced to train.
Though other laid-off workers are excited to speak about their experience with outsourcing, even if anonymously, Dawn was more turned off by the fact that Congress has still not passed a single measure to protect Americans from what she went through.
“We watched about 1,400 people train their foreign replacements in New York City and not a word of this was on the news,” Dawn said. “This is treason to the American people. They should have put an end to this a long time ago.”
She said Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, know exactly what is occurring to the American middle and working classes, but they choose to not lift a finger on the issue. …
Read the entire article here.
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Click here to see NumbersUSA’s report of June 5, 2017, “USCIS: Disney and Other Companies Under Investigation for H-1B Abuse.”
The misuse of children in the battle for open borders
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Fri, 06/02/2017
Again and again, advocates for illegal aliens use children as a shield against immigration law enforcement and deportation. We see this in Oregon frequently, most recently in a news release issued by Oregon House Democrats extolling the virtues of their bill (HB 3464) to “protect privacy” of illegal aliens. This is a ruse to end deportations, and the press release pulls out all the stops to bring tears to the public eye, bemoaning how children “are afraid to go to school in the morning, because they aren’t sure if their parents will be home at the end of the day …”
In the blog below by Ira Mehlman of FAIR, he discusses another version of the same ruse, and very nicely dissects the propaganda involved, pointing out that large numbers of other children, legally here, are seriously disadvantaged by acceptance of illegal immigration.
by Ira Mehlman, Federation for American Immigration Reform, June 1, 2017
It’s hard to dispute the fact that the penalty for being in the United States illegally is deportation. It’s right there in the law. Even a congresswoman, or three, should have no trouble reading it (or assigning a staff member to read it for her).
Yet, three members of the House of Representatives and their combined staffs seemingly managed to miss that section of federal law as they pooled their collective brain power to pen an op-ed published in The Hill titled, “Harsh U.S. immigration policies are causing mental, social harm to American children.” Perhaps Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) missed that part of the law because they were immersed in their study of psychology, leading them to declare definitively that “our nation’s increasingly harsh immigration policies have harmed the mental and social well-being of millions of American children.” In other words, when parents knowingly violate the law and the legally prescribed penalty is imposed, it is a form of child abuse.
In the 767 words they used to describe our nation’s immigration laws, peppered with adjectives like “harsh,” “heart-breaking,” “unjust,” and “xenophobic” (somehow they missed “draconian”), the congresswomen attribute no responsibility to the people who broke the law. And, while the congresswomen-cum-psychologists, diagnosed an increase in tantrums, bed-wetting and academic under-achievement as symptoms of trauma-inducing immigration enforcement, they managed to avoid any mention of how the collective acts of millions of illegal aliens have affected other children.
In fact, the harmful effects of unchecked immigration on American children (and adults) are precisely why we have immigration laws in the first place. When a parent loses a job, or is shoved down the socio-economic ladder by illegal aliens flooding the labor market, those “unjust” circumstances can be “heart-breaking” and “harsh” on innocent family members. When the children of lower-income Americans find themselves trapped in classrooms where a large percentage of their schoolmates are not English proficient, and significant amounts of educational resources must be devoted to the needs of non-English-speaking kids, it results to academic under-achievement for vulnerable American kids.
Let’s be clear: People who support the very moderate levels of immigration enforcement being carried out by the Trump administration (after eight years of complete non-enforcement by the Obama administration) do not lack for compassion for the children of illegal aliens. When enforcement is carried against parents who violate laws – all laws – innocent family members are harmed. Innocent children suffer when parents are sentenced to prison. Children are harmed when the IRS seizes assets (and sometimes incarcerates) tax cheats. Likewise, children pay a price when ICE enforces just and necessary immigration laws.
The American people do not need Representatives Roybal-Allard, Napolitano, and Jayapal to tell us we should feel badly for the kids. We sincerely do. We need our government officials to tell lawbreakers that children are not human shields who will protect them from the consequences of their illegal acts and remind them that people who violate immigration laws, just like people who violate other laws, are responsible for the consequences of their decisions.
Students are top visa overstayers
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Fri, 05/26/2017
A new report examining abuses in the visa programs shows that of all the various types of visas, the F, M, and J visas include the largest proportion of persons overstaying the time limits for their presence in the U.S.
The “F” visa is for academic students, “M” is for vocational students, and the “J” visa is for educational and cultural exchange programs.
Here are excerpts from the blog by David North, a longtime specialist in immigration matters.
By David North, Center for Immigration Studies, May 25, 2017
Foreign students are more than twice as likely to overstay their visas as nonimmigrants coming to the United States generally.
That's an obvious but unremarked take-away from the "Fiscal Year 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report" just issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Using a statistical ratio based on the report, one out of 36 entrants with F, J, or M visas do not go home when their visas expire.
The overall ratio, for all nonimmigrant entries studied by DHS, is one out of 80 overstaying. The least troublesome of the subpopulations examined were those (from prosperous countries) on the Visa Waiver Program — only one out of 166 of them overstayed.
…
Nonimmigrants entering through the land ports of entry from Mexico and Canada are not covered by the study. The (relatively small) groups of Canadians and Mexicans mentioned above arrived following the receipt of a visa. Most people coming from those two countries do not have a visa. …
So how can we improve on the 1/36 ratio for foreign students? Well, different student populations have different characteristics, some of which are picked up in this study, and some are not. What this study shows is that some countries are much more likely to contribute overstays than others, with the world champion being Eritrea where the ratio is about one overstay for every 1.3 entrants. Put another way, 75 percent of those admitted as students from Eritrea are overstays.
Other nations with high ratios — all more than 10 times the global average — are Burkina Faso (1/2.2), Chad (1/2.7), the Democratic Republic of Congo (1/2.7), Djibouti (1/3.0), Libya (1/3.1), Benin (1/3.2), Gambia (1/3.4), and Cameroon (1/3.5). …
Then there is a group of 23 nations, one from Europe, several from Asia, but most from Africa, that have overstay ratios from five to 10 times the global average. Among those in this category are Bhutan, Haiti, Iraq, and Moldova. The ratios, in this list, range from 1 out of 3.7 down to 1 out of 35.9.
…
…It is clear that some educational vultures have set up a small number of "colleges" that are really visa mills, designed to provide little if any education, but many opportunities to work legally in the United States before and after graduation. Sadly, neither the executive branch nor the Congress has taken the obvious step of deciding that if an educational institution cannot be accredited by a reviewing body currently recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, it should not be allowed to cause the admission of foreign students.
Given the lack of a direct requirement banning such entities from business, the government, through the ultra-sleepy Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) part of ICE, which is part of DHS, is charged with closing the very worst of the visa mills. Once in a while it does so, but only after many overstays have been created and large profits have been reaped by the operators. …
Proposed Actions. Given this background, we suggest that the Department of State … create different review standards for students from different groups of foreign students, by nation of origin, paying more attention to those from nations with high overstay rates …
More specifically, for the worst of the overstay-producers, those that have 10 or more times the overstay rates of the average, we suggest that the State Department simply terminate the granting of all visas to students from those countries until further notice. …
For … those producing five to 10 times the overstay rates, we suggest suspending student visas until the overstay rates fall below a ratio of five times the global average. …
For …overstay ratios at least twice the global average, more careful vetting should take place; in addition, perhaps a bond could be demanded (a cash bond, not some kind of financial document) of say $10,000 from the family. …
Further, in all nations of origin, consular officials should be told to pay special attention to students who have been accepted by U.S. educational institutions that lack accreditation from an agency currently recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. …
Meanwhile, Congress should mandate the accreditation policy suggested above, and while waiting for that to happen, the Department of Homeland Security should focus its SEVP resources — it has a staff of 700, most of whom never visit a college — on the most egregious of the higher education entities at the bottom of the scale.
Ring the caution bell
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Fri, 05/19/2017
While it’s great to read the reports of decreases in illegal immigration and more arrests of illegal aliens now here, there are also disturbing signs that Pres. Trump is yielding too much to those who exploit the immigration system for profit and to the politicians in Congress and elsewhere who serve those interests.
Dan Cadman, of the Center for Immigration Studies, is a retired INS / ICE official with thirty years of government experience. He served as a senior supervisor and manager at headquarters, as well as at field offices both domestically and abroad. He is well-informed on details of immigration law enforcement and writes in understandable language on current immigration issues. In his blog below posted on the CIS website, he points out some pitfalls in the path toward what voters hoped to achieve through Pres. Trump’s election.
By Dan Cadman, Center for Immigration Studies, May 18, 2017
Even as border crossings have plummeted and interior arrests have soared since inauguration of the president — due, no doubt, both to his tough campaign talk and his unshackling of federal immigration agents through executive orders — there are warning signs that we may be sliding back toward the Washington business-as-usual mentality of unacknowledged virtually open borders where legal immigration is concerned.
First there was the cave-in on budget negotiations in which provisions maintaining controversial accounting methods for the notorious H-2B program for unskilled workers got slipped into the short-term appropriations bill, along with a reprieve of the corrupt and useless EB-5 "investor" visa program.
Then there was the deeply disturbing incident involving the sister of Jared Kushner (son-in-law and advisor to the president) pimping his name and connection to the White House in presentations to EB-5 investors in China.
And then we find that Mr. Trump is alleged to have promised Big Agriculture that they have nothing to fear from his administration where immigration enforcement and unfettered access to high-volume temporary worker programs are concerned.
Now there are the rumors that Trump may be favorably disposed toward the ENLIST Act, a bill that would give illegal aliens the right to enlist in return for green cards — a poor idea that has been floated before without success, and that has been panned as unnecessary by distinguished retired military service members. No wonder, given that present enlistment programs are working just fine at keeping the armed forces supplied with excellent candidates, and indeed turn away many American citizen applicants for inability to meet the high physical, mental, emotional, and educational standards the military is able to maintain. Why compromise those standards to open the doors to aliens whose very presence in the country is illegal, who may or may not speak competent English, and who cannot easily or inexpensively be adequately vetted (as we have seen again and again and again)?
As our Executive Director, Mark Krikorian, recently discussed, none of these things is necessarily a betrayal, per se, by Mr. Trump of his vocal base of immigration restrictionists, given his campaign remarks about big, beautiful doors inside the big, beautiful (unfunded) wall. But it's going to feel like one.
How could they see it otherwise if the market is flooded with hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign laborers on the bottom and middle, and with fat-cat foreign "entrepreneurs" at the top, despite all of the president's campaign rhetoric and promises to open up new jobs for un- and under-employed Americans?
The short-term problem seems to be that he thought everything could be done by executive orders and, having discovered that isn't true and that he needs the help of recalcitrant congressional Republicans — including those of the "more is better" immigration school like Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) — the president appears to be inclined to give these foxes the run of the henhouse where guestworker and other "legal" immigration programs are concerned, perhaps in the belief that they will then support him in his other endeavors.
The long-term problem, though, is that whether he wishes to acknowledge it or not, Donald Trump's base did indeed "hire" the president not just to eliminate illegal immigration, but to rein in an out-of-control legal immigration system that brings in 1.5 million aliens annually, thus depressing wages at the lower end of the economic ladder, and making jobs difficult to find in the middle of the ladder, particularly for new college graduates seeking employment in certain industries (such as information technology) that have relied heavily on in-sourcing of long-term guestworkers who underbid them to get those jobs.
And then there are those millionaires and billionaires buying green cards in corrupt programs that in truth employ nobody in any meaningful, direct, or permanent way. They merely serve as a plentiful source of funds to real estate and business developers. Many of these investment projects have proved to be fraudulent, and many others didn't get built or finished. The program is riddled like the proverbial Swiss cheese with lawsuits, prosecutions, and civil enforcement actions.
You just can't square the circle between continuing unfettered access to massive guestworker and investment programs by greedy employers and shady project-selling middlemen on one hand and, on the other, giving the people who constitute Mr. Trump's base a fair shot at good jobs with decent pay.
Lose your base, Mr. President, and you will be a one-term president. There is no art of the deal in which you can maintain their trust and confidence while giving way to congressional Democrats and Republicans who are catering to those employers and middlemen, who don't believe in your agenda anyway, and who will in the end drop you like a hot potato at the first sign of trouble. The warning signs are already there, are they not?
ORP Chair calls out Portland and it's handling of the May Day "Parade for Rioters"
Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Sat, 05/06/2017
It's not Trump or Republicans; Portland has a riot problem - May 6, 2017
by Bill Currier
On Monday, protesters all over the world marched on behalf of world socialism, communism, and a bunch of other causes popular with the political left. In Portland, they rioted. To be fair, many protesters did not riot, but the ones who did showed that they rule the streets of Portland. The rioters were clad in black with scarves covering their faces, burning things, breaking windows, damaging property, and terrorizing afternoon commuters just trying to get home.
In other words, it was a Parade for Rioters.
Meanwhile, two days earlier on Saturday, April 29th, the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade and Carnival was canceled, courtesy of the threats issued by the same despicable thugs...
The stated goal of these groups is to label anyone that they object to as being "fascist" and to "shut them down." They boast about "how much power" they have, that "the police cannot stop" them, they openly threaten to "endanger future parades," and add that their threats are "non-negotiable." They are indeed "anti-free speech" groups and live up to the very definition of "fascist" themselves.
Local authorities must do more than catch and release these rioters...
It is time for public officials to "shut down" these groups and put them out of business in Oregon and elsewhere...
If our state and local leaders can't bring themselves to do this, and particularly if their political sympathies or fears are preventing them from doing so, then Portland and Oregon have a much bigger problem to solve.
Which is it gonna be: Family-friendly parades or Parades for Rioters?
Bill Currier is the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party.
Read the full article and comments online: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/05/its_not_trump_or_rep...
DACA and Deportations - what really happened
Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Tue, 04/25/2017
It would seem that if one were in a foreign country illegally and then were fortunate enough to be given a special "DACA" status and allowed to remain in the country, they would follow every law and obey every rule to maintain their protected status.
It seems, however, that Juan Manual Montes decided the rules didn't apply to him. He was caught sneaking back into the country after leaving to visit his girlfriend in Mexico. Find out more.
Some thoughts for Earth Day, 2017
Posted by E Van Staaveren on Fri, 04/21/2017
Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, is supposed to inspire appreciation for our natural environment and action to preserve it in a healthful condition, recognizing that all life depends on air, water and soil.
Too many environmental organizations have lost their way and morphed into political groups that will not face the topmost threat to the environment – overpopulation, caused in the U.S. by excessive immigration. See Ann Coulter’s analysis of what happened to the Sierra Club here.
Also, Joe Guzzardi, a long-time writer on immigration and the environment, presents this concise summary of the problem, with his recommendations for remedy. The article below was published in the Greeneville Sun, Greeneville TN.
Limiting Population Growth Key to a Healthy Future, by Joe Guzzardi
Apr 20, 2017
As a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow, each Earth Day and on many other days during the year I address the key words that my organization strives for — population stabilization.
Environmentalists have written volumes about the importance of achieving sustainable population. On Earth Day, politicians pay token attention to how overpopulation contributes to the environment’s fragile condition. Yet the only change since the first 1970 Earth Day is that more people have been added. Today, global population is 7.5 billion, more than three times what many consider a sustainable total, and U.S. population is 325 million, more than twice what some scientists agree is the optimum number of humans.
In the U.S., population growth is less an individual family choice than the direct result of conscious congressional decisions to expand immigration that date back to 1965. During the Senate hearing about the effect the 1965 Immigration Act might have on population, New York Senator Robert Kennedy, responding to North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin’s questions, acknowledged that the legislation would eventually double U.S. population, and that mass immigration to America couldn’t and wouldn’t solve global overpopulation. Senators Ervin and Kennedy were right in their analysis, but wrong in their votes to pass the legislation. Both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly voted for the 1965 Immigration Act.
The Pew Research Center, in its retrospective on the 1965 Immigration Act, found that since its passage and through 2015, new immigrants, their children and grandchildren added 72 million people to the U.S., which accounted for 55 percent of the nation’s population growth.
The modern immigration wave vastly exceeds previous migration flows: between 1840 and 1889, 14.3 million immigrants came to the U.S., and between 1890 and 1919, an additional 18.2 million arrived.
Assuming continued decline in native fertility rates and a modest decline in net immigration, the Census Bureau calculates that in 2051 the U.S. population will hit 400 million.
But the Census Bureau is a government entity, politically motivated to calculate conservatively. Other independent studies, namely Pew and Decision Demographics, estimate that by mid-decade U.S. population will increase to more than 435 million. The same researchers concluded that if immigration were cut in half, population would grow only 70 million; if eliminated, only 31 million.
More than half a century has passed since the 1965 Immigration Act was enacted. Millions more live in our overcrowded nation. The question that Congress must answer is how many immigrants should be admitted annually to guarantee the best quality of life for future generations. Arguments to reduce immigration should not be confused as anti-immigrant, but rather pro-environment. Congress has numerous options that could establish sensible immigration that would help immigrants and native-born alike.
They include:
- A sharp reduction in employment-based visas for all but the truly exceptional. Visa holders’ U.S.-born children are automatically granted citizenship which helps permanently anchor their parents in the U.S. Students, tourists and family visitors must return home when their temporary visas expire. Congress passed an entry-exit plan 30 years ago that hasn’t yet been implemented.
- Pass mandatory E-Verify, which would ensure that only citizens and legal immigrants are employed. E-Verify eliminates the jobs magnet that lures illegal immigrants.
- End the visa lottery, and promote refugee resettlement near their home nations.
- Pass Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s RAISE Act that would cut legal immigration from more than 1 million annually to 500,000. Less immigration creates tighter labor markets and puts upward pressure on long-stagnant wages.
The U.S. has no population policy, and therefore no understanding of the limits to growth.
Congress must act to reject the political correctness, which has made the mere mention of population stabilization taboo, and act quickly to create an improved quality of life for all.
Let's Start Debunking Immigration Myths
Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Fri, 04/21/2017
There are common sense, fact-based ways to fix immigration in U.S.
Taxpayers are subsidizing big business and a desire for cheap labor at a massive cost to society.
HOLDEN — Our media is inundated with political narrative, misinformation and myths on immigration. A few examples:
• Reducing immigration is “anti-immigrant” and “right-wing.”
• Only Trumpites oppose sanctuary cities.
Last October, the Obama Justice Department announced that cities would receive federal law enforcement grants only if they fully complied with federal immigration reporting laws. The current administration is continuing this policy. In addition, 80 percent of Americans oppose sanctuary policies, and even in hyper-blue California, a majority felt that cities should not be allowed to refuse to cooperate with federal authorities.
• Immigrants pay taxes.
The National Academy of Sciences was clear: Immigrants are currently a huge fiscal drain. In 2013, the fiscal deficit – taxes paid minus services used – was $279 billion. But why? They work hard. Their wages are low because most are unskilled. Bottom line: Taxpayers are subsidizing cheap labor for the employers.
• If illegal immigrants left, our produce would rot in the fields.
Alabama’s agricultural output rose in the three years after passage of its “draconian” immigration law. In addition, the H2A visa program, which allows farmers to employ foreign guest workers, has no caps. There’s no excuse for any illegal workers picking our produce.
• We need immigrants to “do the jobs Americans won’t do.”
Nobel economist Paul Krugman: “The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays – and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.” When garlic famers couldn’t find enough workers, they recently increased wages by $2 an hour, and were flooded with applicants. Surprise! Americans picking produce!
• If we pay more, food prices will skyrocket.
Philip Martin, of the Commission on Agricultural Workers, reports that raising farmworkers’ wages by 40 percent would increase a family’s annual food budget by only $16. By hiring legal workers and paying a livable wage, we save taxpayers the cost of poverty programs, and government gets more taxes.
• We need high-skilled foreign science, technology, engineering and math workers.
The Wall Street Journal: “America’s dazzling tech boom has a downside: Not enough jobs.” And The New York Times: Corporations, claiming dire shortages, are displacing Americans with foreign workers. “STEM shortages”?
• We’re caught between “mass deportations” and “mass amnesty.”
We have other choices. Passing mandatory E-verify for all new hires would immediately end the jobs magnet. Over five years, we could phase in E-verify for all workers. A five-year transition period would allow employers now dependent on an illegal workforce to rethink their business plan, and it would allow illegal immigrants time to make other arrangements.
• Families could be divided!
It’s not our responsibility to provide amnesty and citizenship to people who’ve committed Social Security card fraud and identity theft and lied on federal documents in order to “make a better life.” If native-born Americans commit these crimes, they face jail time.
• What about “Dreamers,” brought here as children? They’re innocent.
Legalization without citizenship for a limited number of highly deserving Dreamers makes sense. But their plight shouldn’t become a Trojan horse for another mass amnesty.
• We need more young people!
Since immigrants sponsor their elderly parents, too, immigration has no discernible effect on generational demographics, according to the pro-restriction Center for Immigration Studies.
• President Barack Obama deported millions. Illegal immigration is simply unstoppable.
The Los Angeles Times: The Obama administration changed the definition of “deportation.” Citing that fact, Obama himself called his deportation statistics “a little deceptive.” Using the old definition, deportations declined by 40 percent under Obama.
How can we stop illegal immigration? It’s obvious: Go after the employers. Decisive enforcement. No more “catch and release.” Immigration policy will affect nearly every aspect of our society for generations. Let’s try applying a fact-based discussion to this complex problem.
Jonette Christian of Holden is a member of Mainers for Sensible Immigration Policy. She can be contacted at jonettechristian@ rocketmail.com.
