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[FYI --
1. Steven Camarota Discusses Amnesty on the O'Reilly Factor (Video)
2. Steven Camarota Discusses Amnesty Public Radio (Radio Interview)
3. Mark Krikorian Discusses Alabama Enforcement Law on CNN (Video)
4. Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers? (Backgrounder)
5. DHS Admits: 'Non-legislative amnesty' would be 'controversial, not to mention expensive.' (Blog)
6. An Unhappy Hershey Experience (Blog)
7. White House Embraces Administrative Amnesty After Failing to get Congress on Board (Blog)
8. Obama Amnesty Gives A Pass to ID Theft, and Other Crimes (Blog)
9. Ms. Munoz, the White House, and Straw Men Arguments (Blog)
10. Yes, He Did! Yes, He Did! (Blog)
11. The Challenge of Dutch National Identity (Blog)
12. Surprise! Quasi-Amnesty Extended for Some Liberians (Blog)
13. Testimony Suggests DHS Is Handling Immigration Badly in the Marianas (Blog)
14. Failed Campaign Slogan #108: 'Affirmative Action for Immigrants!' (Blog)
15. Christian Duty and Illegal Immigrants (Blog)
16. Half-Measures Don't Work (Blog)
17. It's That Old Patchwork Quilt Again (Blog)
18. Basic, Upgraded, or Premium? (Blog)
19. Alabama Lawsuit Highlights Growth of Open-Border Groups (Blog)
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
Steven Camarota on the O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
FOX News, August 19, 2011
http://cis.org/TVInterviews/Camarota-Administrative-Amnesty-FOX
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2.
Steven Camarota Interviewed on Air Talk
Southern California Public Radio, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/RadioInterviews/Steven-Camarota-Administrative-Amnesty
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3.
Mark Krikorian Interviewed on Alabama Law
CNN, August 16, 2011
http://www.cis.org/TVInterviews/KrikorianAlabamaCNN081611
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4.
Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers?
By David North
CIS Backgrounder, August 2011
http://www.cis.org/no-shortage-of-skilled-workers
Excerpt: The forces of big industry and big immigration beseech us to change our immigration laws to permit the admission of more skilled immigrants; we must seek the help of the world’s “best and brightest,” they say. What is never mentioned is that “the best and the brightest” are already here. Further, close to 200,000 additional skilled migrants routinely enter the nation each and every year without any new laws. Year after year.
Yes, it is gratifying that really able people from all over the world want to come to the United States to work, study, start new companies, and in some cases, get rich. But that is happening all the time, anyway, and there is no need to change our laws to encourage these trends.
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5.
DHS Admits: 'Non-legislative amnesty' would be 'controversial, not to mention expensive.'
By Jon Feere
CIS Blog, August 22, 2011
http://www.cis.org/feere/administrative-amnesty-controversial
Excerpt: The White House and the Department of Homeland Security remain tight-lipped about any details on the Obama administration’s attempt at an administrative amnesty, more than three days after the news story first broke. The president is conveniently on vacation leaving only one lone staffer, former La Raza operative Cecilia Munoz, to post a three-paragraph blog on the radical administrative changes. Policy analysts and journalists are scraping together bits of information in an attempt to make sense of the scope of this administrative amnesty. For example, there is nothing from the administration confirming the extent of the work authorization planned for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country, nor any discussion of how the administration can justify giving jobs to illegal aliens when millions of Americans are desperately looking for work.
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6.
An Unhappy Hershey Experience
By Jessica Vaughan
CIS Blog, August 21, 2011
http://www.cis.org/Vaughan/HersheyVisas
Excerpt: The recent guestworker protests at the Hershey chocolate plant in Palmyra, Penn. provide welcome exposure of the State Department’s cultural exchange visa charade. Billed as a form of public diplomacy to help foreigners better understand America, in fact most of these are cheap guestworker programs, wrapped up in the pretense of a cultural exchange. In 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available, more than 118,000 young workers from overseas participated in the summer work/travel exchange program in question, plus another 87,000 who worked here in other exchange categories.
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7.
White House Embraces Administrative Amnesty After Failing to get Congress on Board
By Janice Kephart
CIS Blog, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/Kephart/Cecilia-Munoz-Embraces-Amnesty
Excerpt: Yesterday at 2 pm, Cecelia Munoz, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and formerly of the National Council of La Raza, where she openly embraced amnesty for illegal aliens, announced a ground-breaking turn of events: for the first time ever, the White House is usurping Congressional constitutional authority to determine immigration law and policy. Not only is the White House granting amnesty, with rumors of value-added work authorizations for illegals (that we have no idea who they are or whether they pose a criminal or terrorist threat), but they are also making sure that immigration law only applies to those illegal aliens not convicted of serious crimes. The White House is claiming that this is all fine and dandy, because, for goodness’ sake, the President is “aggressively searching for partners in Congress who are willing to work with him.”
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8.
Obama Amnesty Gives A Pass to ID Theft, and Other Crimes
By Jon Feere
CIS Blog, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/Feere/Obama-Amnesty-ID-Theft
Excerpt: Despite the nonsensical statements coming out of DHS today, all illegal aliens do “pose a threat” to society in one way or another. Just because an illegal alien isn’t violent, it does not follow that their presence is not a threat to the rule of law, taxpayers, and society generally. Most illegal aliens violate a number of federal and state laws, and these violations create real victims. Despite the opinion of the Obama administration and amnesty advocates -- namely, that the United States can give a pass to aliens for their legal transgressions without the nation suffering any repercussions -- our laws serve a variety of purposes and are ultimately meant to protect those in the United States lawfully.
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9.
Ms. Munoz, the White House, and Straw Men Arguments
By David North
CIS Blog, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/North/Straw-Man-Argument
Excerpt: Today’s New York Times article on the case-by-case amnesty program of this administration displayed -- without comment -- a remarkable bit of “straw man” argumentation from White House official Cecilia Munoz, someone I met decades ago at the Council of La Raza.
Ms. Munoz was quoted, in defense of the selective removal program, saying that the new system would “suspend deportation in low priority cases that, for example, involve ‘military veterans and the spouses of active-duty military personnel’.”
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10.
Yes, He Did! Yes, He Did!
By Mark Krikorian
CIS Blog, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/Krikorian/ObamaAdministrativeAmnesty
Excerpt: When the president spoke to La Raza recently and said he couldn’t just go around Congress and enact an amnesty, the assembly started chanting, “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!“
Well, he did.
In an announcement I would have expected them to try to bury on a Friday afternoon instead of Thursday, the administration said it would review the cases of 300,000 illegal aliens already in removal proceedings — and not just let some of them go, but give them work authorization as well.
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11.
The Challenge of Dutch National Identity
By Dominique Peridans
CIS Blog, August 19, 2011
http://www.cis.org/Peridans/Dutch-National-Identity
Excerpt: “Amid Rise of Multiculturalism, Dutch Confront Their Questions of Identity,” an article published in the New York Times on August 14, 2011, places the question of immigration squarely before the reader. The title of the article is somewhat misleading, however. Before reading about the real issue at hand, one might be led to think that what is being suggested is that the Dutch sadly have little sense of who they are, and the presence of persons from other cultures in their society has obliged them to come to this unfortunate realization.
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12.
Surprise! Quasi-Amnesty Extended for Some Liberians
By David North
CIS Blog, August 18, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/Liberian-DED-extended
Excerpt: As regular as clockwork, the 'temporary' legal status of a small group of Liberian illegal aliens has been extended for another 18 months.
While most such 'temporary' statuses are in the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) category, the one for the Liberians has a different set of initials, DED, standing for Deferred Enforced Departure. It means the same thing: a short-term, but always repeated, status as a momentarily legal alien during which time the beneficiaries can work, but cannot use the status to change to green card status.
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13.
Testimony Suggests DHS Is Handling Immigration Badly in the Marianas
By David North
CIS Blog, August 17, 2011
http://www.cis.org/north/DHS-mishandling-immigration-in-CNMI
Excerpt: Recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) testimony is deeply depressing regarding the transfer of immigration management in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) from the local authorities to the Mainland government.
Having noticed the unending scandals produced by the CNMI's control of its own immigration policies, Congress in 2008 decided that the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which covers the rest of the United States, should apply to the CNMI as well. (The CNMI is a U.S. possession under an arrangement similar to that of Puerto Rico.) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has the main responsibility for the transfer.
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14.
Failed Campaign Slogan #108: 'Affirmative Action for Immigrants!'
By David Seminara
CIS Blog, August 17, 2011
http://www.cis.org/seminara/affirmative-action-for-immigrants
Excerpt: Have you ever heard a politician admit that they support affirmative action for immigrants, legal or illegal? Even the most zealous open borders advocates like U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez would rather not talk about this thorny issue. But every once in a while we are reminded of the fact that immigrants can and do benefit from affirmative action programs in areas such as employment, college admissions, and government contracting.
A front page story in Tuesday's Washington Post which tells the immigrant success story of Anita Talwar, an Indian immigrant who became very wealthy after founding a company which 'shrewdly took advantage of programs for minority-owned small businesses and rode a boom in federal contracting,' is just such a reminder that in some arenas, immigrants actually have an advantage over most Americans.
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15.
Christian Duty and Illegal Immigrants
By Dominique Peridans
CIS Blog, August 17, 2011
http://www.cis.org/peridans/christian-duty-alabama
Excerpt: The immigration law recently enacted in Alabama (HB 56) has expectedly stirred and awakened responses from religious leaders in the state. An interesting article this week in the New York Times speaks of the passionate reactions articulated by some of them. The article primarily highlights those who stand in opposition to the law: Mitchell Williams, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Cullman, Ala., being a leader most prominently featured. What the article unfortunately only mentions in passing is the many ministers who stand in agreement with the law. They seem to be relegated to the shadows, as though their perspective bears less weight, and is less representative of the Christian experience. Retired Methodist minister Mac Buttram expressed astonishment at some of the comments he has heard – including that of his own bishop – implying that those supportive of the law are mean-spirited and un-Christian.
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16.
Half-Measures Don't Work
By Mark Krikorian
CIS Blog, August 16, 2011
http://www.cis.org/krikorian/half-measures-dont-work
Excerpt: Of course, enforcement of the law is supposed to be bad for law-breakers. But the article does get at an important shortcoming of the Obama strategy of using audits in lieu of raids and arrests of illegal immigrants; as Rep. Lamar Smith tells the reporter, 'This means the illegal immigrant can walk down the street to the next employer and take a job that could go to an unemployed, legal worker.'
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17.
It's That Old Patchwork Quilt Again
By W.D. Reasoner
CIS Blog, August 16, 2011
http://www.cis.org/reasoner/secure-communities-patchwork-quilt
Excerpt: Earlier this month, Director John Morton of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) publicly announced that the federal government had terminated memoranda of agreement (MOAs) with several state signatories regarding ICE's Secure Communities program.
According to news reports, this is because the MOAs 'may have given a false impression that participation was optional.'
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18.
Basic, Upgraded, or Premium?
By Mark Krikorian
CIS Blog, August 15, 2011
http://www.cis.org/krikorian/three-reform-packages
I have an article in National Review laying out three packages of immigration reforms that presidential candidates might consider, starting from the bare-bones reforms that shouldn't even be especially controversial, to a robust and ambitious package that would take us a good way towards sensible immigration policy. Feel free to send your reactions to me at msk@cis.org.
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19.
Alabama Lawsuit Highlights Growth of Open-Border Groups
By Jon Feere
CIS Blog, August 15, 2011
http://www.cis.org/feere/Alabama-lawsuit-open-border-groups
Excerpt: The open-border crowd is very well-funded and constantly growing, as noted in my blog post about a recent anti-Secure Communities effort pushed by over 200 pro-amnesty groups. A new lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against the State of Alabama over its 'Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act' (HB 56) has been joined by a number of supportive amicus briefs – some from foreign countries, some from activist groups – and those that have signed on are listed below. While it's only the tip of the iceberg, the list is yet another good example of what the states are up against when making an effort to discourage illegal immigration.
Groups making the case for common-sense immigration policies, like the Center for Immigration Studies, are very small in number. Despite the Center's prominent role in the policy debate, we are a true non-profit and not swimming in cash like the NILC, the ACLU, or the Southern Poverty Law Center, each of which is helping sue Alabama. (If you're interested, donations to CIS are tax-deductible.)
