OFIR Blog

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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.

A million here, a million there - and the billions mount up fast for school costs

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 11/09/2017

Tags:

legal immigration

illegal immigration

cost

education

population

FAIR writer Kenric Ward dissects the figures from a new report on expenditures resulting from large numbers of immigrant children in the public schools. Overly-generous immigration policies of recent administrations are costing state taxpayers in the U.S. nearly $60 BILLION this year alone in education expenses for immigrant children.

“Five states — Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — each saw their English Learner populations more than double between 2000 and 2014.”

See excerpts from the FAIR blog below.

Immigration Policies Weigh Heavily on U.S. Schools

by Kenric Ward, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Nov. 7, 2017

America’s immigration policies are amplifying the perennial pleas for more public school funding.

Each year, an estimated 5 million refugees and immigrants – legal and illegal – are enrolled at K-12 campuses with a variety of special needs. More than 175,000 unaccompanied children settled in the U.S. since 2014, with some 18,000 arriving in just 10 counties last year.

A new report by the Migration Policy Institute runs down these pupils’ high-cost needs. Going far beyond the basics of learning English, the list includes mental-health care, legal representation, “socioemotional services,” even “housing rights.”

This naturally necessitates a growing phalanx of providers inside and outside the classroom. Surveying widely varying literacy rates among the new arrivals, “Beyond Teaching English” advises districts to check the “linguistic and cultural competence of staff.”

How big is the challenge? FAIR estimates that public schools will spend $43,396,433,856 serving children of illegal aliens this year – a massive unfunded mandate. Folding in the costs of legal immigrant pupils, FAIR said the tab totaled $59.8 billion.

A recent sampling of 27 high schools found 9,000 refugee/immigrant students speaking 170-plus languages. “Foreign languages are a cause for celebration,” an MPI researcher said, echoing the mantra of Washington’s immigration enthusiasts.

Amid the celebration, however, the MPI study never addresses the actual costs of the party. Not a single dollar sign appears in the 36-page report …

The failure to address the fiscal impact of immigration is shared by federal politicians and policymakers who craft immigration policy with little or no regard to the downstream financial consequences. Under U.S. Department of Education edicts for minimum language proficiency, high school graduation cycles are creeping up to five or even six years among immigrants, according to the MPI report. …

The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement issues modest School Impact Grants to 39 state and charitable agencies.

It’s mere chump change compared to the $59.8 billion spent educating immigrant children. a cost shouldered almost exclusively by state and local taxpayers. …

Doubling down on the unsustainable situation, Sugarman’s Migration Policy Institute and like-minded groups are busy building a cottage industry to lobby for evermore immigration-induced entitlements, at whatever cost. Expect tax bills to rise accordingly.

Prince William Breaks a Taboo: Speaks Out Against Overpopulation

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Fri, 11/03/2017

Tags:

ImmigrationReform.com

Posted by Catalina Lehmann

On November 2, England’s Prince William spoke in London and warned about the dire consequences of overpopulation worldwide, especially as it relates to wildlife protection and species preservation. The event was sponsored by the Tusk Trust. The Tusk Trust protects African wildlife.

“We are going to have to work much harder, and think much deeper, if we are to ensure that human beings and the other species of animal with which we share this planet can continue to co-exist,” he said. Prince William is courageously venturing into the oft-ignored issue of overpopulation.

We should take our cues from Prince William’s leadership.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the current U.S. population totals over 326 million. Shockingly, unless immigration is reduced, the nation’s population will climb to nearly 400 million by 2050. That’s a 22 percent increase in just 33 years! America does not have enough available resources to sustain a population this size without further damaging the environment from growing development related pressures. Though rarely discussed, the reality is that we must curb future immigration in order to save our country’s remaining wildlife for future generations.

Which is one reason why the RAISE Act, now pending in the Senate, makes such good sense.

Phasing down levels of legal immigration will help stabilize the U.S. population in time. The RAISE Act would reduce legal immigration by 50 percent. Immigration would become manageable because the RAISE Act ends chain migration and restores our nation’s ability to determine its demographic destiny. Prince William understands the need for population stabilization – why can’t our own congressional leadership?

http ://immigrationreform.com/2017/11/03/prince-william-breaks-taboo-speaks-overpopulation/

There was no promise to DACA recipients

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Fri, 10/13/2017

Tags:

DACA

deferred action

Dream act

Democrats and allies rail against “breaking a promise” to DACA recipients who, they say, were led to believe they’d be shielded from deportation indefinitely, allowed to work and benefit from all public services. Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle argues at length how “unfair” it is to “pull the rug out from under them.”

But Pres. Obama said repeatedly that he had no Constitutional authority to provide an amnesty, and he made plain that DACA was a temporary program – subject to change or termination by future Administrations.

Dreamers are portrayed in the media sympathetically, with glowing reports about the valedictorians and other achievers. We’re not supposed to notice the criminals among them. However, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that just this year, 622 have had their deferred action status pulled due to criminal activity, a 30% surge over previous years.

Any illegal alien is eligible for DACA if when illegally entering the U.S., he/she was under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, so the eligibility group consists mainly of adults, not children.

How can the date of entry be proven without expensive investigation? So, applications were accepted without proper verification or interviews. There likely is widespread fraud.

Most people don’t realize the consequences of mass amnesties. Each immigrant can petition to bring in extended family members, and each one of those can then petition to bring in his or her family members in an endless chain. While Oregon and other states are struggling to keep up with population growth’s effects, we should not be adding millions more people through overly generous immigration policies.

PolitiFact erred in claiming that amnesty for DACA recipients would not result in a huge wave of extended family immigrants, because that estimate was based on the number of persons currently enrolled in DACA. However, the proposal is to amnesty all who are DACA-eligible, a much larger number, estimated to be 1.76 million. Statistics show that each new immigrant in recent years has sponsored an average of 3.45 additional immigrants. In the most recent five-year cohort of immigrants studied (1996-2000), each new Mexican immigrant sponsored 6.38 additional legal immigrants.

The parents of DACA “children” brought them here illegally; the entire family illegally here should be deported together, thus not “tearing families apart.”

Public discussion of this amnesty has already triggered an increase in illegal border crossings.

Illegal immigration enables employers to get cheap, exploitable labor, reducing job opportunities for citizens and depressing their wages, leading to greater need for financial assistance to poor families, homelessness and desperation among citizens. Nearly one-in-four Americans of working-age does not have a job, according to government data.

The worst thing to do in the present situation is to pass yet another amnesty for illegal aliens. Rolling amnesties over recent decades have undermined respect for immigration law and all law generally. Americans’ historic respect for law is what enabled the U.S. to achieve the prosperity, cohesion, and stability that set us apart from many other countries.

The DACA “youths,” now many in their 30’s, should return to the countries where they are citizens and help those countries develop acceptable living conditions.

The free pass for criminal aliens bill

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Tue, 10/03/2017

Tags:

There was such a whirl of activity in the final days of the late, unlamented session of Oregon’s Legislature that further wounds to citizenship and the rule of law slipped through with very little notice.

Looking into the history of HB 2355, “Relating to public safety; and declaring an emergency,” we find that the innocent-sounding summary says: “Directs Oregon Criminal Justice Commission to develop method for recording data concerning officer-initiated pedestrian and traffic stops.”

The bill was said to be aimed at “racial profiling” – the claimed unfair treatment by police of racial minorities. It was introduced on January 9, 2017. But because of amendments that conveniently came much later, HB 2355 might as well now be called the free pass for criminal aliens bill.

At a July 4 session of the House Ways and Means Committee which was considering HB 2355, a majority of Committee members voted to reduce the penalty for a Class A misdemeanor from the standard 365 days to 364 days. What a difference a day makes! Now aliens who may or may not be here legally can escape the federal rule that makes deportable those aliens convicted of Class A misdemeanors.

HR 2355 was pre-session filed at the request of Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. There was little publicity, and most voters were probably unaware of the contents of the bill, especially the addition of the part benefitting criminal aliens. The bill sailed through House hearings with almost no public opposition.

The House vote was 36 Ayes and 23 Nays. All Democrats voted Aye except Rep. Boone who was excused. All Republicans voted Nay except Reps. John Huffman and A. Richard Vial.

News of the bill’s passage on July 5 by the House appeared in some Oregon newspapers, referring to it as an anti racial profiling bill.

The bill went to the Senate the very next day, July 6, where it passed quickly without any hearing, and the Legislature adjourned on July 7.

The Senate vote was 20 Ayes and 9 Nays. Sen. Knopp (R) was excused. All Democrats voted Aye except Sen. Betsy Johnson, who voted Nay. Republicans were split, 8 Nays to 4 Ayes. Republicans voting Nay were: Sens. Baertshiger, Boquist, Ferrioli, Girod, Kruse, Linthicum, Olsen, Thatcher. The Aye-voting Republicans were: Sens. DeBoer, Hansell, Thomsen, Winters.

An account of final passage was published on July 11 by the Portland Tribune, written by Paris Achen of the Capitol Bureau. Like her account of House passage, it ended with this paragraph:

“Another provision reduces maximum penalty for a Class A misdemeanor from 365 days of imprisonment to 364 days. That change was meant to prevent federal deportation of legal immigrants who are convicted of a Class A misdemeanor and may be a refugee, enrolled in school in the United States, or are the spouses or family members of a U.S. citizen, said Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland. A sentence of 365 days triggers mandatory federal deportation.”

However, HB 2355 as amended and passed will benefit all criminal aliens legally and illegally here, not just a favored few. This bit of legislative history illustrates how Oregon’s legislative leadership and allies deceptively manipulate human sympathy to expand benefits, incentivize illegal immigration, degrade the value of citizenship, and endanger public safety.

End DACA now

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Wed, 09/27/2017

Tags:

illegal immigration

DACA

national legislation

Alan Gallagher, of Canby, writes in the Capital Press of September 21 that “Systematic breaking of American law should not be rewarded. Illegal aliens and DACA recipients have broken American law by illegal entry or overstay, and violated American law every day — every day — by using false/forged/stolen documents to obtain work and benefits, by lying and using false documents on I-9 forms, by tax fraud, driving without licenses and insurance, and so on. These are not minor crimes, and are deeply corrupting to America’s Rule of Law.”

His article is titled “Congress has already passed an immigration law” and subtitled “DACA recipients, and their parents, have no respect for rule of law, and believe that they may pick and choose which laws to obey.” Gallagher presents a strong case for immediately ending DACA as well as DAPA.

He concludes: “ … We would not be sending DACA recipients or illegal aliens to Hell, but to a great country, which needs and wants them (in spite of the potential loss of billions of dollars in remittances, $120 billion in total, $23 billion to Mexico).

“Mexico exports its problems to the U.S., and receives $23 billion in remittances annually, while U.S. employers gain cheap employees. The economic advantages to some are clear, but it is morally wrong.”

Read the full article here.

Gallagher’s letter resulted in editorial comments clarifying the newspaper’s position. See their editorial here.

Pres. Trump, What kind of deal is this?

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 09/07/2017

Tags:

DACA

Congress

In Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he said if elected he’d end the DACA program on day one, and having gained office largely on that and other promises to stop illegal immigration he’s now reversing course and advocating amnesty for Dreamers! This is a bitter disappointment to voters.

His tweet of September 5: “Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!” shows all too well what his true position is.

Listen to a veteran of immigration law enforcement, Dan Cadman, who knows the consequences of leniency and weakness in immigration controls. He has good advice on what should be done now:

“ …As I've said before, anything that grants amnesty to people who were smuggled as minors into the United States acts to ensure a future filled with waves of new smuggled minors because it acts as a beacon. The mere talk of an amnesty is often enough to set feet into motion south of our border. I see a perpetuation of this situation as immoral, and the greater sin. Alien minors and family units coming north from the Central American ‘triangle’ countries must traverse jungles, mountains, and deserts; will confront searing heat and bone-chilling cold, usually with inappropriate clothing and supplies; they will face hypothermia and dehydration; and they will be exposed along the way to venomous insects and reptiles, as well as predatory animals and humans, the latter being the worst of all.

…

“With one short tweet, the president has undercut the political pressures Democrats and Dreamer advocates themselves face in making a deal to get what they want. For a man who touts himself as master of the art of the deal, it's inexplicable.

“My advice in response would be simple and twofold:

1. Congress should call his bluff and do nothing. It would be hard for a president who campaigned for the job by calling the program an unconstitutional abuse of executive power to reverse course once again in six months time if nothing is done. The cost to him as his base abandons him in droves would be far too dear.

2. Texas and the other states need to take heed of this tweet, and pursue the lawsuit; it's clear that the president can't be trusted to be true to his word.”

Ritter answers Rep. Barnhart’s smear attack on OFIR and IP 22

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Sat, 09/02/2017

Tags:

OFIR member Jerry Ritter has written a great exposé of the vicious attack on our organization and our efforts to advance Initiative Petition #22. We clearly have the deep-state opposition to immigration controls worried.

Friends, let’s keep on collecting signatures! As with Measure 88 - the driver card bill, we know we can do this. Request some 10 line signature sheets, ask your friends and neighbors to sign the petition, when mail them in! It's as simple as that!

We need your help! To Request signature sheets call 503.435.0141 or go to the campaign website and click on the link to request signature sheets.

Mail filled sheets to:

Stop Oregon Sanctuaries

PO Box 7354

Salem, OR 97303

Importing high-tech students and workers

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Mon, 08/28/2017

Tags:

jobs

visas

visa overstay

A former Senior Special Agent with 30 years of INS service warns that “The notion of flooding America with increasing numbers of foreign high-tech students and foreign high-tech workers is a ‘Lose/Lose’ for America and Americans.”

Michael Cutler, writing on the Californians for Population Stabilization website, points out the problems in admitting large numbers of high-tech students who may or may not plan to use their knowledge for peaceful endeavors. He notes that:

“ …today more than 500,000 foreign students are enrolled in universities in the United States to study the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curricula.

“While not all of these students are studying disciplines that have a direct nexus to nuclear technology, many disciplines do intersect with aerospace and nuclear technology.

“Foreign students are permitted to engage in Optional Practical Training to put their education to use and learn how to apply what they have learned in the classrooms and university laboratories in the ‘real world.’ Sometimes these students work for companies that engage in military-related work. …”

China sends the second largest number (152,002) of foreign students to the U.S. after India which leads with 173,258, according to current statistics.

Cutler says that China provides technical assistance to North Korea, a country continuously hostile to the U.S.

As well as endangering national security, the over-use of student and employee visa programs hurts U.S. citizen workers, which unfortunately is not a concern of some business interests. Cutler quotes this testimony to Congress in 2009 by Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank:

“…Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. …”

Should immigration policy serve to increase profits for businesses or to protect the safety and well-being of citizens?

Besides the safety factor, foreign students have a high rate of overstaying their visas.

Click here to read Cutler’s entire article, America Undermines Its National Security By Educating Its Adversaries.

"Get a warrant"? NO!

Posted by E Van Staaveren on Thu, 08/17/2017

Tags:

enforcement

ICE

sanctuary cities

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

Tags:

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

Tags:

enforcement

Homeland Security

illegal aliens

“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.”

-----------------

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

Tags:

environment

population

immigration

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.

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