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[FYI --
1. The Problem with Obama's Immigration Plan (Op-ed)
2. Romney and Huntsman on Illegal Aliens (Blog)
3. New Wrinkle in H-1B Fraud: Stealing from the Taxpayers, Not the Workers (Blog)
4. 9/11's Triumvirate of Terrorist Travel: al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Iran (Blog)
5. DoJ Zaps Discrimination vs. U.S. Citizens, but Very Rarely (Blog)
6. Golden Parachutes for Illegal Chipotle Workers? (Blog)
7. Amnesty for All Haitians in U.S., Save those Arriving in Last Four Months (Blog)
8. Security Gaps Still Present in Visa Waiver Program (Blog)
9. Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, II (Blog)
10. Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, I (Blog)
11. NYT Exposes Fraud in Yet Another Foreign Worker Program (Blog)
12. Border Exchange (Blog)
13. Post-Modern Journalistic Partisanship (Blog)
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
The Problem with Obama's Immigration Plan
By Steven A. Camarota
CNN, May 13, 2011
http://www.cis.org/node/2803
Excerpt: In his speech Tuesday, President Obama was right to call for reform of our broken immigration system. But the president's plan to create a 'pathway to citizenship' (translation: amnesty) for 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants and increase legal immigration is not only out of touch with economic reality, it repeats the mistakes of the past.
The president seems to believe there is a shortage of workers. Yet the April jobs report looked terrible, particularly for the young and less educated, who compete directly with illegal immigrants at the bottom of the labor market. For example, unemployment was nearly 15% for those age 25 and older without a high school diploma and 25% for teenagers (16 to 19).
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2.
Romney and Huntsman on Illegal Aliens
By Ronald W. Mortensen
CIS Blog, May 23, 2011
http://www.cis.org/mortensen/romney-huntsman
Excerpt: Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman have many things in common. They both have Utah roots, are members of the Mormon Church, have been governors, come from a business background, and are potential Republican presidential candidates. But when it comes to illegal immigration they are miles apart.
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3.
New Wrinkle in H-1B Fraud: Stealing from the Taxpayers, Not the Workers
By David North
CIS Blog, May 23, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/new-wrinkle-in-H1B-fraud
Excerpt: While the abuse of immigration systems is as old as national borders, there are creative new types of fraud (at least new to me) that pop up from time to time.
One of the typical frauds in foreign worker programs is that the worker is charged for fees that should be paid by the employer. Recently the school board in Prince George's County, Md., adjacent to Washington, D.C., was caught, as we recorded in a blog, doing exactly that to its overseas school teachers brought to this country under the H-1B program.
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4.
9/11's Triumvirate of Terrorist Travel: al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Iran
By Janice Kephart
CIS Blog, May 20, 2011
http://www.cis.org/kephart/triumvirate-of-terrorist-travel
Excerpt: The Commission had no choice. The statute that created it had already been amended to provide a short extension. Our doors were statutorily shutting, and as extensive as the Final Report was, we all knew that there were still places to dig. What is clear now is that perhaps the biggest hole of buried information was regarding the shadowy connection of Iran to 9/11. As the 'terrorist travel' affiant in the case filed yesterday in New York City federal court on behalf of 9/11 families suing primarily al Qaeda and Iran, I am now personally convinced that indeed, al Qaeda did not act alone on 9/11. Rather, a triumvirate of terror created 9/11: al Qaeda carried out the deed, while Hezbollah and Iran helped direct and support the largest terrorist event on U.S. soil.
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5.
DoJ Zaps Discrimination vs. U.S. Citizens, but Very Rarely
By David North
CIS Blog, May 20, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/OSC-discrimination-against-citizens
Excerpt: The Good News is that an H-1B employer has been penalized by an obscure Justice Department entity for discriminating against U.S. citizens.
The Bad News is that this small agency, in the last 13 years, has publicized actions of this kind only five times, while issuing press releases on taking action against employers who discriminated against foreign-born workers 25 times.
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6.
Golden Parachutes for Illegal Chipotle Workers?
By David Seminara
CIS Blog, May 20, 2011
http://www.cis.org/seminara/golden-parachutes-for-illegal-chipotle-workers
Excerpt: If you entered a country illegally, secured work with fraudulent identity documents, and were subsequently terminated once your employer detected the fraud, what would you do? I would slink out very quietly, thanking my lucky stars that the boss didn't immediately turn me over to the police for prosecution or immigration authorities for deportation. But I'm clearly out of step with the modern day sensibilities of illegal immigrants in America, or at least those employed by Chipotle in Washington.
A group of 40 illegal immigrant employees at a Washington, D.C. Chipotle location were recently terminated after the identity documents they submitted to the company were proven to be fraudulent. But rather than go quietly, hoping not to be prosecuted for identity fraud, and/or deported, the workers have staged two rallies to assert their 'rights,' one of which featured D.C Council member at large Michael Brown as a featured speaker.
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7.
Amnesty for All Haitians in U.S., Save those Arriving in Last Four Months
By David North
CIS Blog, May 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/haiti-tps-extended
Excerpt: Amnesty for all Haitians who arrived legally or illegally in the U.S. by January 12 of this year has been offered by the Department of Homeland Security.
Previously this form of amnesty, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), had been available to Haitians who were here on January 12, 2010, at the time of the earthquake in that country. Now the arrival date has been extended by one year. According to DHS about 48,000 had secured this status during the earlier amnesty, a number smaller than the government had expected.
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8.
Security Gaps Still Present in Visa Waiver Program
By Jessica Vaughan
CIS Blog, May 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/vaughan/GAO-gaps-in-visa-waiver-program
Excerpt: A new GAO report discloses a fairly lackluster implementation of security enhancements to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) by the Department of Homeland Security. The report reinforces the reputation that DHS has for putting travel facilitation above security considerations. Proponents of VWP expansion often tout the security enhancements as a justification for extending visa waiver privileges to more countries, but these GAO findings provide no support for this perennial proposal.
The GAO was asked to evaluate the implementation of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which was mandated by Congress after 9/11. As a result, VWP travelers must now submit an electronic application so that their biographical information can be screened electronically through various watchlists and databases prior to travel. Travelers who do not receive electronic approval must apply for a visa. Airlines are required to verify that travelers have been approved through ESTA before being allowed to board. Good idea. Before, VWP travelers usually were not screened until they reached the U.S. port of entry and, occasionally, someone would try to blow up a plane en route (such as Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber).
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9.
Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, II
By David North
CIS Blog, May 18, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/senate-hearing-immigration-courts-5-11
Excerpt: An alien caught up in the immigration courts does not have a right to government-funded counsel; as a result many aliens argue their own cases, sometime through an interpreter. These pro se situations exist not only in the Immigration Courts but in the two appellate levels as well, before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and, less frequently, before the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Julie Myers Wood, who had been an Assistant Secretary of DHS in the previous administration, and who was one of the three witnesses today, was one of several voices at the hearing pointing out the delays often caused in the system by the lack of counsel. Aliens, acting on their own (and without benefit of legal training), will often file inherently useless appeals of decisions when a lawyer could have told them that there were no 'grounds for relief.'
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10.
Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, I
By Jon Feere
CIS Blog, May 18, 2011
http://www.cis.org/feere/senate-hearing-immigration-courts-5-11
Excerpt: This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled, 'Improving Efficiency and Ensuring Justice in the Immigration Court System.' (See my colleague David North's report on the hearing here.) The focus of the hearing was the chronic backlogging in the immigration court system, and most of the discussion was about how the court system could be streamlined in order to meet growing demands. Very little discussion was given to the idea of reducing immigration, both legal and illegal, as a means to alleviate some of the problem. The only panelist to look at the issue from this perspective was former Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Julie Myers Wood.
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11.
NYT Exposes Fraud in Yet Another Foreign Worker Program
By David North
CIS Blog, May 17, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/nyt-exposes-P1B-fraud
Excerpt: It was nice – and out-of-character – of the New York Times to run an exposé of yet another foreign worker program (P-1B) on its front page this morning.
The headline was written to attract the eyes of music-lovers, not immigration policy specialists:
Orchestras on Tour: Names Strike False Note
The thrust of the Times story was that the players in many well-publicized visits of overseas orchestras had only the most tenuous contacts with the big name organizations listed on the programs
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12.
Border Exchange
By Mark Krikorian
CIS Blog, May 16, 2011
http://www.cis.org/krikorian/exchange-with-codevilla
Excerpt: Angelo Codevilla, a Boston University professor of international relations, and I have been engaged in a back-and-forth on the need for (or futility of) border enforcement:
His article which got the whole thing started ran in the Claremont Review of Books entitled 'Our Borders, Ourselves'.
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13.
Post-Modern Journalistic Partisanship
By James R. Edwards Jr.
CIS Blog, May 16, 2011
http://www.cis.org/edwards/post-modern-journalistic-partisanship
Excerpt: A Washington Post Sunday editorial is titled 'Twisting the truth on the Mexican border'. But it's the Post that twists the truth, not the Republican foils jabbed at in President Obama's El Paso speech.
The Post charged congressional Republicans with using 'scare tactics' and 'trying to distort the debate.' Pretty tough language. It might be justified were the charges true. But the president is the one guilty of falsehoods, distortions, and misleading. The Post editorial's calumny displays its partisan bias.
Sure, editorials express a newspaper's opinion. But when the editorial commits the very same sin it accuses political opponents of, someone should cry foul. This blog is confined to addressing the border control issue that's been raised.
