Let the Border Patrol Certify when the Borders are Srcure

By now it is clear that you can't trust those damn Democrats.  In 1986 they promised secure border in return for amnesty for more than a million illegal aliens.  Border security never hap pended. They lied.  Eleven million illegals later make that crystal clear.  And yet now the Democrats prompted by La Raza are back at the table again trying to sell us another bill of goods. 

 

It's hard to see why anyone doesn't realize by now that there is only one way to secure the borders  and that is to stop rewarding illegal aliens with the opportunity to stay and work while they ultimately force the Congress into yet another amnesty.  

 

Likewise there is only one way to ascertain whether the border is secure.  We must have a secret poll of all border patrol and related front line officials administered and reported by an outside agency such as one of the large accounting firm or as Charles Krauthammer suggests below when he  s".... some independent body certifies that the border is essentially closed."

 

Is a bipartisan immigration deal at hand? It’s close. Last week, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce worked out a guest-worker compromise that allows in foreign workers on a sliding scale of 20,000 to 200,000, depending on the strength of the economy.
Nice deal. As are the other elements of the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight plan — the expansion of H-1B visas for skilled immigrants, serious tracking of visa overstayers and, most important, a universal E-Verify system that would make it very risky for any employer to hire an illegal immigrant.
But there’s a rub. It’s the perennial rub. Are Democrats serious about border enforcement? It’s supposed to be the trigger that would allow illegal immigrants to start on the path to citizenship.

 

Why is a trigger necessary? To prevent a repeat of the 1986 fiasco where amnesty was granted and border enforcement never came — giving us today’s 11 million living in the shadows. Yet just a week ago Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, referring to border enforcement, averred that “relying on one thing as a so-called trigger is not the way to go.” Regarding legalization, “there needs to be certainty.” But not for border security?

And she’s the person in charge of securing that border. Now listen to President Obama: “Given the size of the border, it’s never going to be 110 percent perfect. What we can do is to continue to improve it.”

The usual Obama straw man. Who’s asking for 110 percent enforcement? And the need is for something a lot more than just improvement. The objective is to reduce a river to a trickle. It’s doable. The two border sections with triple fencing outside San Diego reduced infiltration by 92 percent. (If the president tells you that fences don’t work, ask him why he has one around the White House.)

To be sure, the Gang of Eight enforcement trigger is not ideal. The 11 million get near-instant legalization — on the day, perhaps six to nine months after the bill is signed, when Homeland Security submits a plan (with the required funding) to achieve within a decade 90 percent apprehension and 100 percent real-time surveillance.
This plan triggers “probationary” legalization, which in reality is permanent, because once the 11 million register, it is inconceivable their status would be revoked.
Let’s be clear. A mere DHS enforcement plan is a very weak trigger. I would prefer legalization to occur later, once the plan is actually carried out and some independent body certifies that the border is essentially closed.

 

But that simply will not happen. Democrats control the Senate and the White House, and they will only agree to a weaker trigger. Which is? Legalization first — i.e., living here openly without fear of deportation but nothing more until the border is controlled. Until then, no one even starts on the path to citizenship — no green card, no naturalization.

So why is Obama undermining even that compromise, asserting that “this earned pathway to citizenship” must not be “put off further and further,” that it must be “certain” — not contingent on verifiable benchmarks of border closure?

Are he and Napolitano signaling to their hard-core open-border constituency that they will try to sabotage passage of any law that has a serious enforcement trigger, or that they will try to sabotage enforcement if a strict law is nonetheless enacted?

Why? Isn’t border control an elementary principle of sovereignty? What country deliberately forfeits the right to decide who gets to join its communal life?

Remember: We’re not talking about the 11 million already here who will be legalized as a matter of both practicality and compassion. We’re talking about the next 11 million. Without border enforcement, they will be here. If you don’t build it — the fence, the visa-tracker, E-Verify — they will come.

Why deliberately create the next immigration crisis? Is it because you coldly calculate that this wave and the next are destined to be partisans of your political party? Talk about placing party over country.

Or perhaps Obama intends this to be a poison pill: (1) Demonstrate unmistakable bad faith on enforcement. (2) Undermine the Gang of Eight’s already weak border-control “trigger.” (3) And thus force Republicans to defeat this “immigration reform” — as newly defined and newly defanged of enforcement.

Obama seems to want an issue, not a solution — a potent political issue for Democrats to demagogue in 2014 and 2016 and forever. If so, given the Democrats’ incessant and lachrymose expressions of compassion for those living in the shadows, this would be the ultimate in cynicism. per Robert .Krauthammer

Notorious GAng of Eight N Immigration Bill bodes ill for U.S. Population Growth -- Dee Perez-Scott Loves It!

33 million!!!!!

That's the number our analysts came up with after nearly two weeks deciphering the 844-page bill created by the "Senate Gang of Eight" to give amnesty to illegal aliens.

AMNESTY IS THE TROJAN HORSE .............................. FILLED WITH FAR WORSE DANGERS

Unbelievably, the 11 million illegal aliens to be given work permits are merely the visible Trojan Horse. As bad as that amnesty is, it is distracting the nation from the fact that inside the bill is something far worse than the amnesty -- WORK PERMITS FOR 22 MILLION FOREIGN CITIZENS in addition to the 11 million illegal aliens!

11 million + 22 million = 33 million.

And the 33 million is just the first 10 years. It looks like the bill possibly could dole out around 20 million lifetime work permits every decade after that. We're still working on those numbers.

33 million is the number that should start every conversation about the "comprehensive immigration reform" bill being rushed through the Senate Judiciary Committee by Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vermont).

And it's the number that has to stop this bill before it can do unalterable damage to our country. No matter what your Members of Congress may think about giving an amnesty to 11 million, they can't possibly justify immediately over the next decade adding 33 million more potential competitors for scarce U.S. jobs.

LIKE ADDING 20 LARGEST U.S. CITIES ............................ ALL OVER AGAIN

Our cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas already have 20 million Americans who want a full-time job but can't find one.

It is hard to imagine what adding another 33 million foreign citizens with work permits would look like.

But try this:

33 million is like adding an entire new city of New York, PLUS . . .

. . . adding duplicate cities of Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Antonio, PLUS . . .

. . . also adding duplicate cities of San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Jacksonville and Indianapolis, PLUS . . .

. . . finally adding duplicates of Austin, San Francisco, Columbus, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Detroit, El Paso, Memphis and Boston!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Congress passes this bill it would be like re-creating ALL of the Top 20 cities in the United States, filling them entirely with foreign citizens and giving them lifetime work permits to compete with America's struggling workers -- and in just 10 years time.

Immigration Bill Doesn’t Secure the Border

James Carafano

April 29, 2013 at 7:39 am

(35)

Must Washington fix our broken southern border? You bet.

Will the comprehensive immigration reform bill help? You bet it won’t.

The number one flaw of the bill is it starts by giving amnesty to the unlawfully present population in the United States. As soon as the bill passes, those in the country contrary to U.S. immigration law are granted status to stay.

Amnesty immediately creates an incentive for illegal border crossings and overstays. Thus, the bill’s strategy would drive up the cost of securing the border. To make matters worse, the draft law states that anyone who was present in the U.S. before 2012 qualifies—creating massive opportunity for fraud, since there is no proof required that applicants have been here for several years.

While supporters of the bill trumpet its “border security” features, in reality, the law delivers nothing new—other than the promise of spending a lot more money and running up our debt.

The bill trashes fiscal discipline, exploiting “a loophole in the Budget Control Act (BCA) that allows Congress to spend more than allowed under the spending caps adopted in 2011.”

In other words, Washington is willing to draft a bounced check to justify an amnesty bill.

To make matters worse, there is very little likelihood that that Americans will get much for the next border security buck spent.

The Secretary of Homeland Security has repeatedly stated that our borders “have never been more secure.” In the past five years, the White House has never asked for this additional border security funding. Yet, this bill lavishes billions of additional spending on the department with no clear requirements on how the money is spent. At least $2 billion could legitimately be labeled the Secretary’s slush fund.

Supporters of the bill trumpet requirements to “certify” border security, yet its standards are in some ways weaker than existing law. Present law requires gaining “operational control” of the whole border, while this bill sets standards only for “high-risk” sectors. Since smuggling trails shift to where the security is not, even if the standards were attained in one area, the traffic would just go somewhere else.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has been trying unsuccessfully to define credible metrics for border security since 2004. Even if it had effective “triggers,” that does not guarantee a secure border. Border crossing conditions constantly change. Even if the goal is achieved, there is no guarantee it will stay that way.

We can do more to secure our borders. But we don’t need an amnesty bill and bogus border triggers to make our borders safe and sovereign. Nor does Washington need to throw more buckets of money toward border security.

Our government could cooperate more effectively with Mexico and the border states. Congress could modernize our legal immigrant and non-immigrant programs, including effective temporary worker programs. The government could enforce our workplace and immigration laws.

In short, the promise of border security in this case is merely an excuse for a bloated bill that would promise anything to push amnesty, regardless of cost or practicality.

Dee Perez-Scott: A lesson about passiveness

“A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II,
owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many
German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our
attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said,
'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too
busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a
bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.
Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and
the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in
a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam
is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just
want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true,
it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us
feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics
rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It
is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is
the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups
throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in
an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or
honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is
the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape
victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to
kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent
majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in
peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of
about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's
huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to
kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a
warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across
South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic
murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel,
and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not
be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our
powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of
points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,
because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find
that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs,
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many
others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until
it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay
attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our
way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes
this email without sending it on, is contributing to
the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself
a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands,
world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's
too late.

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."--- John
Wayne

Dee Perez-Scott: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

October 28, 2011

Dear Governor Romney,

I have received your latest letter asking for support for your campaign. As I indicated in a previous communication, my family is finding it difficult to support your candidacy because of your stand on illegal immigration. Your credibility regarding the jobs crisis in America can only be judged on the basis of your willingness to vigorously enforce our immigration laws. There are up to 8 million jobs in this country that are currently held by illegal aliens. An additional untold number of jobs are not available to citizens because of excessive legal immigration. It is unconscionable for any candidate to ignore those facts while professing to be a job creator. It’s time to tie our legal immigration quota more precisely to our needs for skilled labor and well-educated scientists and engineers as well as to the U.S. total unemployment rate.

Although no one will argue that all of the jobs held by illegals could be easily filled with citizen labor, millions of them could be. Before any employer is allowed to hire or retain foreign labor, he needs to provide irrefutable proof that he has been unable to fill his jobs by offering a living wage and a hiring preference for unemployed citizens. We believe stern action against the illegals and those who hire them would free-up many jobs to unemployed or underemployed citizens. Can you think of any other way to create millions of jobs for Americans in a relatively short time?

If it was freed from the restraints that keep it from fully exploiting all domestic energy sources, the oil, gas and coal industries could create millions of new jobs. However, it will take longer for those jobs to materialize than those that could be freed up immediately through vigorous enforcement of immigration laws and a reduction in the total number of legal immigrants we allow each year. If illegals are identified, apprehended, and sent on their way home as quickly and as humanely as possible, the newspapers and employment offices would soon begin to advertise large numbers of jobs.

To do this we need to reform our immigration courts and appeal processes so that where there is prima facie evidence that a person has entered this country or is present illegally he or she can be removed quickly and efficiently. Of course, minor children, regardless of their citizenship, must always accompany their parents who are under a removal order. This does not compromise their right to exercise their birthright citizenship once they reach age 21.
How could this be done? First, we need to augment the immigration judges with a large number of immigration justices of the peace (IJOPs), appointed by the states but operating under a federal mandate. A rigid set of criteria should be provided to facilitate uniform decision-making by these IJOPs. These criteria should assure that a removal order is issued immediately for those who have been apprehended and are unable to produce evidence of their bona fides within a week.
Employers could be put on notice that they will be heavily fined or jailed if any illegals are found in their employ. The employers can protect themselves against those penalties by proving that they have used the E-verification system to check the immigration status of all employees, both potential new hires and current employees. Employers can give first priority to weeding out those among their employees have failed to provide bona fide evidence of their legal presence in the U.S. or who may have presented fraudulent documents. Employers know who they are.
E-verification must be mandated across the board for all employers and all employees and the E-verification records must be available for ICE or local authorities’ audit or inspection at all times. If any complaint of illegal hiring is received, the company involved should be subject to a full audit of employment records, payroll taxes, and E-verification usage. Well-vetted volunteers from among the ranks of the unemployed could be used to do some of the E-verification work and be offered first priority on any jobs that are freed up through that process.
Public notice should be given to all illegals that they must leave this country immediately within a short deadline like six weeks. Those who do not leave voluntarily should be sentenced in absentia to six months working on border infrastructure and transported to the border at their own or their employers’ expense as soon as they can be apprehended. These illegals should be fingerprinted, photographed, DNA’d and put into a national illegal alien data base. After they have served their sentences should be expelled with the admonition that if they return without the proper documentation, they will be classified as repeat offenders and felons subject to not less than two years of hard time.

These measures would be welcomed by the unemployed and by the taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for the cost of Medicaid, education, food stamps, and other social services currently provided to the families of illegal aliens. Teachers have had to be laid off because of the failure of states to manage their fiscal affairs properly. Obama proposes to borrow $35 billion to bail out New York, Illinois and California so that teachers can be hired to reduce class size. As a former governor, you could make common cause with the other 47 governors who would not share on a per capita basis in that bailout. The class-size problem would be quickly solved as soon as the children of illegal aliens are identified and removed from our schools. The homelands of the children of illegal aliens should be responsible for the cost of educating them, not the American taxpayers.

If employers get busy re-advertising their jobs so they can prove those limited number of cases where they must have foreign labor, there should be no problem in keeping America’s economy moving forward and meeting our labor needs. No one wants to deprive employers of the labor they need but neither do they want employers to hire illegals at the expense of unemployed citizens.
Some people will probably take the view that a few million illegal aliens will never threaten America’s culture, language, history and ideals. That is silly in view of what has already occurred in Mexifornia, Mexas, Mexazona, Mexinois and even Mexichusetts. Victor Davis Hansen, a professor of classics, has written about this in his book, “Mexifornia: A State of Becoming.”
One has to argue that if Latin culture is so great, why have so many fled their homelands to come to America illegally? The fact is much of Latin America is rife with disease, oligarchy, pestilence, joblessness, heinous crimes, gangs and drug lords. The more people there are from these countries in the U.S., the more the U.S. will begin to resemble the donor countries. Millions of illegals will simply recreate the very culture and conditions they fled their homelands to escape.

Our population is well over 300 million now. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what it will be like if we add another 300 million before the end of this century. Traffic on our roads and streets will be crushing. Everyone who wishes to go to a national park will have to apply 5-10 years in advance. There will be increasing pressure to develop public lands and encroachment on wild life habitat will increase.

Addressing the population issue helps to solve or mitigate the energy and pollution problems and also enables us to conserve other scarce resources like water. In the Southwest, water rights are being bought up by cities to serve their burgeoning populations. That deprives the farms, ranches, and orchards of the water they need to grow food for the additional people. We should all be watching with dismay the continuing plunder of the Great Plains’ Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in the United States and one of the largest on the planet. It once held as much water as Lake Huron. It is a treasure that took millennia to accumulate. Remarkably, it could cease to be a water resource within another generation. We are left with yet another illustration of an all too common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature’s limits.

There are some who believe our population must grow to enable America’s economy to grow but, in the end, population-driven economic growth is unsustainable. The pro-growth people are false prophets who must be ignored. Well before the final unsustainable stage is reached we will feel manifold adverse impacts on our quality of life and standard of living. The decline in the American standard of living has already been in the news in just this past week or two.
“Inherent in the idea of standard of living is the level of our present and future consumption. America’s “standard of living” is generally considered a measure of how easy it is for us to satisfy our material desires. There are many ways we might look at this--how many televisions or computers we have per household, how much health care we consume on a per capita basis and how many families in our nation live below the poverty level. But however our standard of living is measured, current monetary, fiscal and tax policies will diminish it if we stay on our current path.” We cannot continue to allow our neighbors to dump their poor, uneducated people into our back yard and expect our standard of living to survive that onslaught.

Are the problems illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration cause so difficult to see? Why isn’t our policy one that promotes and enables a stable population with a soft landing for our economy? Shouldn’t we be putting our best economists to work figuring out how this can be done with the least amount of pain?

Written in the late 1800s when immigration was nearing its peak and the U.S. population was only about 50 million, Emma Lazarus’s famous sonnet posted on the base of the Statue of Liberty was an expression of her empathy for those who had fled the anti-Semitic Pogroms in Eastern Europe. The sonnet is a poignant reminder of our immigrant past but the operative word in that phrase is the word “past.” Our population has now increased six-fold. No one can deny that conditions now are different than they were in the late 1800s and therefore our immigration policies should be different.

There are many things in our past: child labor, prohibition, lack of women’s suffrage, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. Few thinking Americans want to go back to that “past” yet too many continue to cling to the idea of “our immigrant past” without a second thought about its appropriateness as a model for the fully-settled and fully-developed America of today with more than 300 million people.

Our immigrant past of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries should not be our guide for the future. The times, our society and the availability of natural resources have changed dramatically. There are several movements in the U.S. such as Zero Population Growth (ZPG) and Negative Population Growth (NPG) that have tried to impact our tax and immigration policies in a direction that would be most likely to enable us to pass on to our descendents the kind of America we have enjoyed. Even though their cogent arguments have failed to gain traction so far, it is time that we paid more attention to them, especially if we value our standard of living and quality of life.

It is as though we have convinced ourselves that population-driven economic growth can be sustained indefinitely. We seem to have ignored the fact that the “limit” of finite natural resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. (The more there are of us, the less there is for each of us.) Why aren’t these issues a part of the public dialogue on immigration and the unarmed invasion of illegal aliens?

Of course our nation has prospered from the generous and hopeful spirit expressed in the Lazarus sonnet but does anyone really believe that what was a good thing in the 1800s must necessarily also be a good thing today? We are indeed a Nation of laws and, although we once were, we should no longer be a Nation of immigrants. We can reconcile these two traditions by giving more substantial weight to all of the changes that have occurred in our country since the past peak of immigration. Our traditions clearly need to be rebalanced to fit the vastly changed circumstances of our country. Again, why does no one speak about immigration reform in these terms rather than in terms of a “broken system” and the conditions that prevailed over a hundred years ago?

Although a ten year moratorium on immigration would be welcomed by many, few would suggest that we close immigration indefinitely. Instead we should limit the total immigration quota to 200-250 thousand per year focused on the skilled labor and PhD scientists, mathematicians and engineers we need to remain competitive in the global economy. That number should be inclusive of all chain immigration of spouses and minor children of citizens or permanent residents, but exclusive of foreign students, temporary migrant farm workers, tourists and other workers for whom there is a demonstrated need. We should expedite citizenship for foreign students who are interested and who have completed the PhD degree in engineering, physical or biological science, mathematics, and medicine.

Although highly-skilled applicants should enjoy immigration priority, we should level the playing field for all others so that they have an equal opportunity with that of the adult relatives of citizens or permanent residents. Adult relatives have traditionally made their own way and made their own choices. They need no special dispensation in the immigration rules. The new quota will reaffirm our rich tradition of welcoming immigrants who can benefit our country rather than those who would strain our budget and further stretch our finite natural resources. To do otherwise will certainly result in America’s decline. The time has come for an exclusionary immigration policy. All nations and all potential immigrants must be put on notice that we have only a limited need and capacity for new legal immigrants and it will be our policy to carefully meter future immigration.

There is a broad consensus around building a solution that stops the flow of illegal aliens across our borders and prevents employers from hiring them. The problem is our unwillingness to take the steps necessary to bring that consensus to fruition. We cannot stop the flow of illegal aliens by granting those already here a pathway to citizenship. We cannot stop employers from hiring them unless we implement E-Verification across the board immediately and severely penalize every employer who fails to use that system to avoid hiring illegals. The best way to accomplish both objectives is vigorous and continuous internal enforcement based on mandatory E-verification across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and potential new hires.

Some say the repatriation of a significant number of illegal aliens is not feasible. From a logistical point of view, they are dead wrong. Using a heavily damaged transportation system, eight million ethnic Germans were repatriated back to the heartland of Germany from the East in less than a year following the end of World War II. Many died because of a lack of food and warm clothing during the winter journey in 1945. They were given thirty minutes to appear at the railroad depot and allowed only one suitcase.

No one proposes such draconian measures for the illegals in this country. The advocates of the repatriation of large numbers of illegals favor a systematic, humane approach based on E-verification of work status and attrition through enforcement with due advance notice to the illegals that they are expected to leave voluntarily. Those who choose to ignore that notice will have to face the consequences. We must send the message that if you come here without the proper papers, we will catch you and send you home at your own expense or that of your employer, after you have served a six month sentence working on border infrastructure. Repeat offenders should face hard time for a minimum of two years.

Over the past several years we have invested a great deal of resources into strengthening our borders by increasing staffing and improving infrastructure. We have yet to revise the rules of engagement so that there is no catch-and- release at the border or internally. Recently, usurping the power of Congress, Obama has ordered the courts to review all of the cases where illegals are already under removal orders and release those who have no criminal records. Instead, all of those illegals should have been deported immediately. That is the quickest way to clear up any backlog in the immigration courts. If they can’t produce the proper documentation within a week that is prima facie evidence that they are here illegally and may have entered illegally. They should be summarily dealt with without further delays or appeals. Although visa-overstays may have entered legally, if their visas have expired, they are now present in the U.S. illegally and must leave immediately. We have gotten really sloppy about visa enforcement. Visa overstays must be put on notice that they will be treated in a similar fashion to those who have entered illegally.

After notice has been given and posted, illegals apprehended at the border or internally must be sentenced immediately to at least six months working on border infrastructure. It is estimated that an illegal alien who persists in his or her attempt to get across the border has an ultimate probability of success of about 95%. Illegal aliens believe that if they can escape the immediate environs of the border and the clutches of the border patrol, they will be home free. This constitutes a strong argument for vigorous internal enforcement as a part of any immigration reform.

The East Germans found to their dismay that even mine fields, machine gun towers, multi-layered fences and walls did not deter those who wished to escape to the West. Why? Because the escapees knew if they made it, they would never be repatriated? We need to take that lesson to heart.
The East German experience illustrates the need for the expeditious repatriation of a large enough number of illegal aliens to send the clear message that if you come here without proper authorization, we will catch you, sentence you to work on border infrastructure for at least six months. You will then be expelled to your homeland with the admonition that if you return you will do hard time as a felon and a repeat offender. This is the clear solution to border security. This approach has not been implemented to a sufficient degree to send a message to those who would violate our borders. Quick sentencing and repatriation are the sine qua non of border security. Our borders will never be secure without them.

Your position on illegals appears to be the same as Obama’s. He and you apparently want illegal aliens who are already here to step out of the shadows and onto a responsible path to citizenship by demonstrating sound character, a commitment to America, and a strong work ethic. By advocating that position you not only undermine our laws and the rule of law but ignore the most effective border security measure we have, quick apprehension and removal.

You can’t compete with Obama for the Hispanic vote. He has already given the racist organization La Raza everything it asked for including funding and de facto amnesty. We have to appeal to Hispanic citizens on the basis of their own enlightened best interests. They are or will be adversely impacted by the decline in our standard of living and quality of life just like everyone else. They are sustained by the same finite natural resources as everyone else. They don’t enjoy congested highways and streets anymore than anyone else does. One would hope that they also have some interest in clean air and water and the environment in general. Some of them must be among the unemployed who could get jobs if the illegals were expelled and the border secured. The number of jobs available in America is limited right now. Our Hispanic citizens deserve to have access to those that are now held by illegals willing to work for substandard wages while being paid under the table. Surely, an articulate candidate like yourself can get this message across and convince them that illegal aliens are not in their enlightened self-interest or the national interest. All civilized societies are based on the rule of law. Subverting the immigration laws simply leads to more lawlessness like that observed along our southern border.

As long as unemployment hovers between a total of 9% and 15%, those affect will fundamentally disagree with any amnesty for the illegals already present in our country. The common understanding of amnesty is any measure that would allow the illegals to remain here and work and profit from their illegal presence. In looking for what Obama has called that “illusive middle ground”, the beginning point always seems to be amnesty for those who are already here. That is not the middle ground -- not even close! We tried that in 1986 and it failed for lack of enforcement. Now we must try a different approach. We can determine those among the millions of illegals are essential to our economy and who are not. We can determine what labor needs can be met by utilizing our unemployed first. That is the middle ground and that is where we should begin.

We need to develop broad domestic coalitions to deal with this problem and how to proceed. That consensus will never be achieved as long as proposals include a blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens.

I hope you will give these ideas careful thought and become more forthright and decisive in your future remarks on the subject of immigration in general and illegal aliens in particular. Obama has already usurped the role of congress on immigration. I’m surprised that none of the GOP candidates have belabored this point ad infinitum. Surely one among you must have the courage to speak out on the issue of this usurpation and all of the lies Obama has told as he pursues his rules for revolution based on the Alinsky Model.

Yours for a secure future for America, a stable population, and a continued high standard of living and quality of life for our children,

Immigration Q&A for Dee Perez-Scott

Dee Perez-Scott: The Immigration Backlog

The number of cases awaiting resolution before the Immigration Courts reached a new all-time high of 267,752 by the end of December 2010, according to very timely government enforcement data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The case backlog has continued to grow — up 2.6 percent — since TRAC's last report three months ago, and more than a third higher (44%) than levels at the end of FY 2008.

Wait times increased since our last report. The average time these pending cases have been waiting in the Immigration Courts of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is now 467 days, compared with 456 days at the end of September last year.

Full details — by state, nationality, Immigration Court and hearing locations — can be viewed in TRAC's backlog application, now updated with data through December 30th, 2010.

See also TRAC's last backlog report and listing of earlier TRAC report reports in this series beginning in 2008 examining the volume of cases, wait times, as well as the number of immigration judges available.

Wait Times by State
Wait times continue to be longest in California with 639 days, up from 630 days three months ago. Massachusetts average wait times remained at 615 days over the same time period. Nebraska stayed in third place, with an average time of 511 days pending cases have been waiting in the Omaha Immigration Court — down from 519 days three months ago.

Wait Times by Nationality
Among nationalities, and limiting comparisons to the 50 countries with the most individuals in queue, Armenians with cases pending before the Immigration Courts currently had the longest wait times of 886 days — almost twice the national average of 467 days. Other nationalities within the top five in terms of the length their cases had been pending were Indonesia (823), Albania (672), Iran (611) and Pakistan (609).

Highest Growth Rates in Pending Cases
Among individual Immigration Courts, and considering only those with at least 1,000 pending cases, the court with the fastest buildup during FY 2011 was the Immigration Court in Oakdale, Louisiana, where pending cases jumped by 25 percent. The Harlingen, Texas court ranked second, with a growth spurt of 14 percent during this year. San Antonio, Texas (up 11 percent), El Paso, Texas (up 9 percent), and New Orleans (up 9 percent as well) made up the remaining top five locations experiencing the highest growth rates in case backlogs. Portland, OR just missed out being included in these ranks with a growth rate of 8 percent.

Courts With Declining Case Backlogs
Some courts, however, saw a decline in their number of pending cases during the first three months of FY 2011. Again considering only courts with at least 1,000 pending cases, the court with the sharpest decline was in Lumpkin, Georgia. That court saw its backlog reduced by 57 percent. This was followed by the Guaynabo, Puerto Rico court where the pending caseload dropped by 11 percent during this fiscal year. Dallas, Texas dropped by 7 percent, Kansas City by 6 percent, and Miami, Florida by 5 percent.

Obama on Immigration

The White House
Washington

March 24, 2011

Dear Ultima :

Thank you for writing me. I have heard from many Americans concerned about immigration, and I value your input as we work to address this pressing challenge.

We are all united under the principles etched onto our Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Our nation has always prospered from this generous and hopeful spirit. Yet, today, our immigration system is broken and a large portion of our economy depends on millions of workers living in the shadows. We are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants, and we must reconcile these traditions.

For too long politicians in Washington have exploited this issue to divide us rather than searching for practical solutions that unite us. We must put politics aside and offer a comprehensive solution that secures our borders, enforces our laws, and reaffirms our rich tradition of welcoming immigrants.

There is a broad consensus around building a solution that stops the flow of undocumented workers across our borders and prevents employers from hiring undocumented workers. However, we know that enforcement is only part of the solution. We must also require undocumented immigrants who are already here to step out of the shadows and onto a responsible path to citizenship by demonstrating sound character, a commitment to America, and a strong work ethic.

To learn more about my policies on immigration, please join me on line at: www.WhiteHouse.gov.agenda/immigration. For additional information, visit www.dhs.gov or call 1-800-375-5283. Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,
(signed)
Barack Obama

(The only things changed from the original letter are the seal, which was embossed on the stationary rather than printed in color, and the name and address of the addressee.)

March 28, 2011

President Barack Obama,

I am honored by your note of March 24, 2011 on the subject of immigration. Written in the late 1800s when immigration was nearing its peak and the U.S. population was only about 50 million, Emma Lazarus’s famous sonnet was an expression of her empathy for those who had fled the anti-Semitic Pogroms in Eastern Europe. The sonnet is a poignant reminder of our immigrant past but the operative word in that phrase is the word “past.”

Our population has now increased six-fold. No one should deny that conditions are different than they were in the late 1800s. There are many things in our past: child labor, prohibition, lack of women’s suffrage, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. Few thinking Americans want to go back to that “past” yet some of us continue to cling to the idea of “our immigrant past” without a second thought about its appropriateness as a model for the fully-settled and fully-developed America of today with more than 300 million people.


Our immigrant past of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries should not be our guide for the future. Times, society and the availability of natural resources have changed dramatically. There are several movements in the U.S. such as Zero Population Growth (ZPG) and Negative Population Growth (NPG) but they have failed to gain traction. It is as though we have convinced ourselves that population-driven economic growth can be sustained indefinitely. We seem to have ignored the fact that the “limit” of finite natural resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. (The more there are of us, the less there is for each of us.) We badly need a national objective of a stable population to be achieved as soon as possible. Why aren't these issues a part of the public dialogue on immigration?


Of course our nation has prospered from the generous and hopeful spirit expressed in the Lazarus sonnet but does anyone really believe that what was a good thing in the 1800s must necessarily also be a good thing today? We are indeed a Nation of laws and, although we once were, we should no longer be a Nation of immigrants. We can reconcile these two traditions by giving more substantial weight to all of the changes that have occurred in our country since the peak of immigration. Our traditions clearly need to be rebalanced to fit the vastly changed circumstances of our country. Again, why does no one speak about immigration reform in those terms rather than in terms of a broken system and the conditions that prevailed over a hundred years ago?


Although a ten year moratorium on immigration would be welcomed by many, few would suggest that we close immigration indefinitely. Instead we should limit the total immigration quota to 200-250 thousand per year including all chain immigration of spouses and minor children of citizens or permanent residents, but exclusive of foreign students, temporary migrant farm workers, tourists and others for whom there is a demonstrated need. We must focus that smaller quota on the skilled labor and scientists we need to remain competitive in the global marketplace. We should expedite citizenship for foreign students who are interested and who have completed the PhD degree in engineering, physical or biological science, mathematics, and medicine.


We need to level the playing field so that all skilled applicants have an equal opportunity instead of granting a special privilege to adult relatives of citizens or permanent residents. The new quota will reaffirm our rich tradition of welcoming immigrants who can benefit our country rather than those who would strain our budget and further stretch our finite natural resources. To do otherwise will certainly result in a decline in both our quality of life and standard of living.
Your letter states, “There is a broad consensus around building a solution that stops the flow of undocumented workers across our borders and prevents employers from hiring undocumented workers.” The problem is our unwillingness to take the steps necessary to bring that consensus to fruition. We cannot stop the flow of illegal aliens by granting those already here a pathway to citizenship. We cannot stop employers from hiring them unless we implement E-Verification across the board immediately. The best way to accomplish both objectives is vigorous and continuous internal enforcement based on mandatory E-verification across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and potential new hires.


Some say the repatriation of a significant number of illegal aliens is not feasible but, from a logistic point of view, they are dead wrong. Using a heavily damaged transportation system, eight million ethnic Germans were repatriated back to the heartland of Germany from the East in less than a year following the end of World War II. Many died because of a lack of food and warm clothing during the winter journey in 1945. They were given thirty minutes to appear at the railroad depot and allowed only one suitcase.


No one proposes such draconian measures for the illegals in this country. The advocates of the repatriation of large numbers of illegals favor a systematic, humane approach based on E-verification of work status and attrition through enforcement.


Over the past several years we have invested a great deal of resources into strengthening our borders by increasing staffing and improving infrastructure. We have yet to revise the rules of engagement so that there is no catch and release. Illegals apprehended at the border or internally must be sentenced immediately to at least six months working on border infrastructure. It is estimated that an illegal alien who persists in his or her attempt to get across the border has an ultimate probability of success of about 95%. Illegal aliens believe that if they can escape the immediate environs of the border and the clutches of the border patrol, they will be home free. This constitutes a strong argument for vigorous internal enforcement as a part of any immigration reform.


The East Germans found to their dismay that even mine fields, machine gun towers, multi-layered fences and walls did not deter those who wished to escape to the West. Why? Because they knew if they made it, they would never be repatriated? We need to take that lesson to heart.

The East German experience illustrates the need for the repatriation of a large enough number of illegal aliens to send the clear message that if you come here without proper authorization, we will apprehend you, sentence you to work on border infrastructure for at least six months, and then repatriate you to your homeland with the admonition that if you return you will do hard time as a repeat offender. This is the clear solution to border security. This approach has not been implemented to a sufficient degree to send a message to those who would violate our borders. This is the sine qua non of border security.


You wrote, “We must also require undocumented immigrants who are already here to step out of the shadows and onto a responsible path to citizenship by demonstrating sound character, a commitment to America, and a strong work ethic.” There is no consensus on this point. This is the area of fundamental disagreement. In looking for what you have called that “illusive middle ground” the beginning point always seems to be amnesty for those who are already here. That is not the middle ground --not even close. We tried that in 1986 and it failed for lack of enforcement. Now we must try a different approach. We can determine who, among the millions of illegals, are essential to our economy and who are not. That is the middle ground and that is where we should begin.


Recently, you have stressed the need for developing coalitions to deal with international problems like those posed by Libya. Applying the same logic to the matter of immigration we need to build a broad domestic consensus on how to proceed. That consensus will never be achieved as long as proposals include a blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens.


Thank you again for your willingness to share your thoughts with me.


Sincerely,
(Signed)
Ultima (pseudonym)

Dee Perez-Scott Opposes Immigration Reform

Dee Perez-Scott opposes meaningful immigration reform and prefers to support illegal aliens.

Immigration in its many forms has become the main driver of America's population growth. Newly arriving immigrants of all categories -- legal, quasi-legal and illegal -- now add at least 1.1 million to yearly U.S. population growth of 3.3 million. Net new arrivals and births to immigrants together total 2.1 million, nearly two thirds of all current population growth, and presaging more future growth from their second and later generation descendants. The total foreign-born population reached 35 million in 2005.

Plain Talk and Tough Strategies for Immigration Curbs

There are three interacting streams in today's mass immigration: illegal immigrants, legal immigrants and "quasi-legal" (or fictional "temporary") immigrants. All bring in people for extended or permanent stays, adding them to the nation's resource-consumptive population base. The new entrants compete for jobs, particularly with less skilled residents. All streams are now largely ungoverned by any effective numerical limits or rational comprehensive management.

America needs the omplete elimination of illegal and quasi-legal immigration and reduction of current legal immigration by 80 percent.

Illegal Immigration: Raising the Costs and Risks

Illegal immigrants are those 500,000 to 600,000 aliens each year who sneak across America's borders, or use fraud to pass through our ports of entry, or acquire a temporary visitor visa and remain permanently.

Assuming an aroused public can inspire our sluggish government with a will to enforce, there are many promising ideas already circulating among restrictionist legislators, enforcement professionals, and reform-minded citizen groups.

Sustained, regular enforcement of existing rules and penalties would significantly curb illegal immigration. Effective and sustained internal enforcement based on E-verification of work status is the sine qua non of border security in depth. Continuing improvements in infrastructure, staffing and the rules of engagment at the border are essential but ineffective in the absence of total internal enforcement. Illegal aliens must understand that they will be identified, detained, and deported involuntarily. Immigration decisions need to be made within 24 hours of the aliens' apprehension. With a rigid set of guidelines, these decisions can be rendered by justices of the peace except for the most difficult poltical asylum cases. If you are here and do not have proper authorization and documentation, appeals of removal orders will be limited to one week from the date of the immigration decision. To accomplish this goal we need:

Mandatory imposition of fines and/or jail terms -- for illegal entry, illegal presence, document and visa fraud, and knowingly hiring illegal aliens -- would hasten the end of illegal immigration.

More physical and technical barriers to entry, with sufficient manpower to maintain and police them.

Better rules of engagement so lethal force can be used on gun and drug smugglers and sick persons and pregnant women are not admitted under any circumstances.

A streamlined process of deportation, which is now mired in interminable appeals.

Regular E-verification of legal immigration status during transactions with government, banking, health care and real estate sectors to detect illegal aliens and ensure their removal.

Sizable increases in the number of investigators, border patrol agents, federal attorneys, judges, immigration justices of the peace and more detention space and personnel to make these steps work. Payment of operators of detention facilities on the basis of detainee throughput rather than detainee days. Immigration justices of the peace embedded in all detention facilities.

Systematic enlistment of local and state law enforcement agencies to cooperate with the Federal government in identifying and turning over illegal aliens to the DHS (Department of Homeland Security)as suggested in Arizona's SB1070 law.

All these tougher measures would conform to prevailing public opinion, as demonstrated in the rush of congressional bills now seeking them (See House Bill HR 4437 passed in December 2005) and in opinion polls. In a 2003 poll , two-thirds or more of the respondents supported mandatory prison terms and fines for illegal immigration, detention of illegal aliens by state and local government, and strict application of fines or criminal penalties on employers who knowingly or unknowingly hire them. A documented failure of the E-vefication system is the only excuse that should be considered.

Legal and Quasi-Legal Immigration: An 80 Percent Reduction

Most of the official immigration numbers count annual grants of legal residency -- a little less than one million in 2004 -- rather than the real-world inflow of people.

And there are several million more in the pipeline for green cards and the accompanying right to bring in families. Naturalization of the alien opens the door without limits to his spouse, children and parents, and, within limits, to his adult children and his siblings. "Chain migration" powers both illegal and legal immigration. Therefore chain immigation must be eliminated. Adult relatives of citizens and permanent residents must compete on a level playing field with other applicants. Spouses and minor children of citizens and permanent residents must be counted against the over all quota.


To stop the chain migration snowball and immigrant-fed population growth, legal immigration should be cut to not more than 200,000 per year, a level supportive of eventual reduction of U.S. population. An 80 percent cut will mean eventually ending all family reunification.

The new ceiling of 200,000 admissions should be used to satisfy core U.S. national interests.

a) Humanitarian -- Up to 30,000 for permanent humanitarian admission of the most endangered refugees and asylees. All other humanitarian admissions would be for short terms only.
b) Work -- 110,000 for PhDs in physical science, engineering, math, or mediciemn, other skilled professionals, technicians, artists and entrepreneurs and their immediate families. There would be no admissions of semi-skilled or unskilled workers.
c) Special Needs -- Up to 10,000 slots to cover an array of special immigrant allocations, such as religious ministers, rare specialty workers, military recruits, and foreign employees of the U.S. government.
d) Existing so-called "temporary" visas for workers and professionals -- These now account for 220,000 "quasi-legal" immigrants a year. They should be abolished and skilled labor needs met under the 200,000 limit.
e) Transitioning Away from Family Reunification -- Family reunification should be phased out. Petitions of U.S. citizens for nuclear families approved before enactment would be honored. For five years thereafter 50,000 slots a year would be allotted for qualified spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens under strict eligibility rules. Afterward, the 50,000 numbers would be prorated among the three permanent categories.

Other steps to keep the numbers low are:

An absolute ban on amnesties and Mariel-type mass "emergency" admissions.

An end to citizenship by birth for "anchor babies" born here to illegal and temporary visa aliens, now seen as required by the 14th Amendment. Anchor babies born to illegal alien parents accounted for 380,000 births in 2004, nearly 40 percent of all births to immigrants. Bills regularly introduced in Congress would end automatic citizenship with a clarifying statute. If legislation fails, the constitution should be amended.

Immigration must be restrained - Dee Perez-Scott ignores the facts.

Dee Perez-Scott does it again!

In response to the musings of a reporter about likely GOP proposals in the new Congress, Dee has gone off the deep end.

Her lack of loyalty to the U.S is clearly illustrated by her vociferous objection to the following list of potential 2011 Congressional initiatives which are designed to solve the illegal alien problem:

1. Changing the 14th Amendment, ending Birthright Citizenship
2. Mandatory e-Verify
3. Official English
4. End to Sanctuary Cities

She clearly has no interest in being a part of solution and prefers to remain a part of the problem. She has never overcome her Mexican heritage to become a true American in every sense of the word. The above measures are essential to the preservation of the America we know and love. Her loyalty lies elsewhere and obviously prefers a Mexico Norte to today's America. It is indeed sad that an American citizen can take such a perverted view of the obligations of citizenship. If there was a way to deport citizens with this lack of loyalty, Dee would be the first to go.

Dee asks how an illegal alien birth would be defined if a change in the interpretation of the 14th Amendment occurs. Most would agree that if one of the parents is a citizen that should permit the child to enjoy the citizenship of either parent. Some insist, not unreasonably, that the citizenship of the child should be that of the mother. This is simply a way of recognizing the close connection between mother and child not a way of discriminating against women. These issues are easily resolved once the basic premise of Jus Soli is denied. Whatever the legislative result, it would be applied equally to all borders and all nationalities.
Obviously, the babies of tourists, visa overstays, temporary farm migrant workers, and any others who are here only temporarily or as visitors should not be awarded birthright citizenship. That loophole is the fundamental flaw in the 14th Amendment.
Dee advanced the absurd notion that denying birthright citizenship to the babies of tourists would ruin tourism!
She also wonders about retroactive application. While the retroactive denial of citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, tourists and others is attractive and would be entirely justified, its inclusion in any bill is highly unlikely.
Pro-America remains committed to the Rule of Law but, nevertheless, favors immigration reform, just not the reform supported by La Raza and Dee and their ilk. The difference between the Pro-Americans and the Pro-illegals is that the former honors the rule of law as it is while the latter supports those who have violated or are violating the existing laws. Dee erroneously equates Pro-America’s desire for real reform to the actual violation of the law. But that is the stock-in-trade of the Pro-Illegals not the Pro-Americans. Let’s make it simple for Dee to understand the difference. Here is a simple analogy. If I didn’t like stop signs and was trying to get the law changed, I would continue to honor the stop signs until the change is becomes law. Dee would not. She would ignore the stop signs while she agitates for change. I honor the rule of law; she does not as illustrated by this analogy. This is an exact analogy with regard to illegal aliens.
Real reform would reduce legal immigration to not more than 200,000 each year focused on those most likely to help America remain competitive in the world economy and recover from the largest fiscal catastrophe in its history.
Chain immigrations and the sponsorship of foreign nationals should be ended in any reform bill. The objective should be tax and immigration policies that will stabilize our population rather than allowing it to increase without bounds.