Friday, May 22, 2015

An Open Letter To The White House

MR. PRESIDENT, THIS IS OUR "DREAM ACT"!

Cameron to unveil new plan to impose stricter immigration rules in Britain

By Stephen Castle

LONDON, May 21 ― Amid rising concern across Europe over immigration, Prime Minister David Cameron will unveil a plan today that seeks to cut the numbers of migrants coming to Britain and make it harder for foreigners to work here illegally.

A new immigration bill to be proposed by Cameron will include measures to speed deportations, place new obligations on banks to report customers who are illegal migrants and give the police powers to seize the wages of those without work papers.

“With this immigration bill, and our wider action, we will put an end to houses packed full of illegal workers; stop illegal migrants stalling deportation; give British people the skills to do the jobs Britain needs,” Cameron planned to say in a speech today, according to excerpts released in advance.

Cameron’s speech is one of his first since being re-elected this month. While arguing that “a strong country isn’t one that pulls up the drawbridge,” Cameron plans to promise to “control and reduce immigration,” by making Britain “a less attractive place to come and work illegally.”

“The truth is it has been too easy to work illegally and employ illegal workers here,” Cameron planned to say, according to the excerpts.

Across Europe, governments are struggling to deal with the flow of migrants from across the Mediterranean Sea, with thousands risking their lives to flee poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East.

Britain has made it clear it will not take part in any plan for European nations to accept refugees based on a quota system. But Britain is also concerned about a large increase in migration from within the 28-nation European Union, whose rules guarantee free movement of people.

Partly because of that EU policy, Cameron failed to honor a pledge, made in his first term in power, to cut net migration into Britain to less than 100,000 each year.

Immigration was one of the election issues highlighted by the populist UK Independence Party, which also campaigns for British withdrawal from the European Union. UKIP won around 3.8 million votes in the recent general election but, because of the British electoral system, secured only one parliamentary seat.

For his part, Cameron has promised to renegotiate British terms of membership of the European Union, and to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether to stay in the bloc.

Cameron was scheduled to meet Friday with other European Union leaders at summit talks in Riga, Latvia, giving him his first chance to take soundings about Britain’s demands with colleagues on the sidelines of the meeting.

One of his objectives, in his pre-referendum negotiations, is to win the right to curb certain welfare entitlements for new EU migrants for four years.

While those talks have yet to begin formally, Cameron’s planned new domestic immigration bill will feature in his new legislative program which will be outlined next week.

His package of proposals includes moves to allow local councils to crack down on unscrupulous landlords and evict illegal migrants more quickly, according to Cameron’s office.

Other measures are designed to speed deportation procedures and place obligations on banks to check accounts against a database with details of illegal immigrants. ― The New York Times (as reported on www.themalaymailonlone.com)

Ben Ferro (editor)


Thursday, May 21, 2015

Special Immigrant Juveniles: the next new immigration scam?

Or as Captain Louis Renault said in Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked, that
there is fraud in Immigration processing!”

Federal Scrutiny of a Youth Immigration Program Alarms Advocates

By Kirk Semple, The New York Times

Among the myriad laws and regulations that govern the nation’s immigration system is a special program, created 25 years ago, that allows immigrant youths who have been abused, neglected or abandoned to apply for a green card.

Tens of thousands of young people have obtained legal immigration status through the program.

But new federal scrutiny of the program, prompted by allegations of green card fraud in Queens, has alarmed immigrants’ advocates and legal service providers, who are concerned that an overreaction by politicians could jeopardize legitimate petitions.

The scrutiny was spurred by a report on WNBC in New York that raised the possibility of a fraudulent scheme among the Sikh population in Queens. The station reported that hundreds of youths from the Punjab region of India were arriving in Queens County Family Court and telling “similar stories” in an effort to secure the protection, known as special immigrant juvenile status.

Under the laws governing the program, a state juvenile court judge must determine, among other rulings, that the child cannot be reunited with one or both parents because of abuse, abandonment or neglect. The judge must also determine custody or guardianship of the child. In New York State, the family courts have that responsibility, and federal immigration officials rely on family court rulings to determine whether a child is eligible to apply for the special status, which is available in New York only to applicants under age 21.

The NBC report, shown early last month, quoted a Queens Family Court judge, John Hunt, saying the court’s judges “don’t have a way of investigating” applicants’ testimony. “It becomes pretty much taking what’s said at face value,” he said. (Messages left for Judge Hunt and for Judge Carol Stokinger, the supervising judge at Queens Family Court, were not answered.)

In response to the television report, Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, sent a letter to Jeh Johnson, the secretary of the Homeland Security Department, demanding an inquiry into the juvenile program and the “apparent conspiracy to commit fraud.”

Christopher S. Bentley, chief spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, an arm of Homeland Security, said the agency was “looking into the matter.”

The New York State court system has also been examining the issue. “If the law and the court system are being misused or abused, then clearly we need to address that,” said David Bookstaver, spokesman for the system. But he was quick to add that court administrators “don’t believe this is widespread” and defended the law as “critical in assisting minors in peril.”

Still, Dennis W. Quirk, the president of the New York State Court Officers Association, issued a memo on March 18 to all family court officers instructing them to tighten fingerprinting procedures. Under the law, an adult seeking guardianship of a child, as well as anyone else over the age of 18 living in the home, must be fingerprinted.

Before that memo was delivered, court officers generally accepted whatever identification the applicants presented, immigrants’ advocates said. The new guidelines permitted only certain kinds of government identification, nearly all issued by the United States government and often unavailable to undocumented immigrants, raising questions about whether the guidelines violated due process.

But Mr. Bookstaver said Tuesday that state court administrators were in the process of instructing the officers’ association to rescind the directive and return to the previous criteria, which he said were in compliance with state regulations.

“We don’t want to turn the juvenile in crisis away,” Mr. Bookstaver said.

Immigrants’ advocates and legal service providers have rushed to head off more fallout from the television report. They acknowledge that as with the operation of other laws, the juvenile program could be tainted with fraud. But they contend that numerous safeguards are in place to protect against it.

The Legal Aid Society, on behalf of 13 leading immigrants’ services and advocacy groups in New York, sent a letter to Judge A. Gail Prudenti, the state’s chief administrative judge, saying the agencies’ lawyers had seen no indication of “widespread scams” in the special immigrant juvenile program.

The letter argued that family court judges had the ability to weigh the evidence and determine the credibility of petitioners’ claims. In addition, they have numerous tools at their disposal to investigate proposed guardians, including ordering background checks and home visits.

“If a judge does not find a witness credible, she can deny the motion,” said the letter, which was signed by Seymour W. James Jr., attorney in chief at the Legal Aid Society. “The law works well as written, requiring the family court to make decisions well within its expertise.”

Jojo Annobil, head of the society’s Immigration Law Unit, said in an interview that the allegations of fraud “in a very, very small community in Queens” risked provoking an overblown reaction that could compromise the entire program.

“It’s led to Goodlatte asking Jeh Johnson to investigate it, and also tell him how they’re closing loopholes,” Mr. Annobil said. “The thing is, there are no loopholes to close.


To my readers:

At insideins.com we’re  hearing, from a number of sources in the field, that this provision of the Immigration law is being misused quite regularly in a number of places besides New York. It is alleged that applicants and their representatives are simply getting a court to declare a child who is here illegally in the US as having been abandoned or abused. Once the court order is granted, the child applies for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident as a Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ). Apparently the courts are routinely granting such orders without any investigation into the facts presented. Ironically, we hear that many of these “abandoned children” are actually living happily with the parents who allegedly abandoned them. No wonder their “advocates” are concerned about Federal scrutiny of these cases!

To my current and former colleagues at USCIS, if, based on your experiences, this allegation rings true, please drop me a line at comments@insideins.com. I’d love to hear about your experiences dealing with SIJ cases. Your confidentiality is guaranteed.

Ben Ferro

benferro@insideins.com

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Immigrants Applying To Enter US Legally Facing Longer Waits (THAN ILLEGALS ALREADY IN THE U.S.)

By William La Jeunesse*, Fox News

As illegal immigrants continue to seek legal status under President Obama's executive actions, the waiting list to enter the United States legally grows longer, as does the waiting time for those in the pipeline.

American born Jimmy Gugliotta, who currently lives in Santiago, Chile, with his Argentinian wife and their children, has been waiting more than a year and a half for visas to bring his family to the U.S. He doesn't understand why going through the process legally puts him behind people who sneak into the U.S. illegally.

"It's really sad to see that we've been put in the back seat," Gugliotta told Fox News via email. "What I found outrageous is people like me, a U.S. citizen, are actually being put at the back of the line, and that to me is a total outrage."

The waiting list for those trying to enter the U.S. legally now stands at 4.4 million, 100,000 more than last year. Some have been on the list for more than 15 years. Even though the spouses and children of U.S citizens are supposed to get priority, even their wait times have jumped from as little as two months to up 18 months as the administration deals with a surge of illegal immigrants given lawful status by president Obama.

"I've had people tell me, 'Why don't you just show up at the border and try to get across?'" said Gugliotta. "I say, 'No, we want to do this thing right.'"

While the State Department handles the granting of visas for those overseas, their application first has to be processed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency has been deluged by more than 2,000 applications a day for green cards and work permits after President Obama offered to shield some 4 million illegal immigrant children and adults from deportation using his executive authority.

"I think most Americans are upset that the legal immigration system that was set up by Congress has been completely dismemebered and distorted in this way to benefit people who came here originally illegally.

"What message does this send to people who are trying to do it the right way?" says Jessica Vaughn,  of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors stronger controls on illegal immigration.

Vaughn said is is not only disheartening, but unfair, when those waiting their turn and paying thousands of dollars in fees are leapfrogged by people crossing over from Mexico illegally.

Gugliotta says he's been told it could be several more months before he gets a visa for his family. In the meantime, the Administration announced a new program called the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program, which provides a taxpayer paid for plane ticket for the Central American children of illegal immigrants “lawfully present” in the U.S. That includes those here through executive amnesty or deferred action. Gugliotta considers the program inherently unfair, especially since the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens have historically gotten priority.

"I just find it ridiculous that we're actually bringing people to the United States - going and getting them to bring them in - while I'm very capable of working and paying huge amounts of taxes once I get back to the states,"  he said. "To me, it's kind of frustrating to understand that the U.S. is actually sending planes to look for people in Central America, to bring them to the U.S. and basically we've gone broke trying to abide by the system and do things right."

Last week, Fox News asked the USCIS to explain why it provided preferential status to illegal immigrant applications over those of U.S. Citizen relatives.

"We're working on it," a spokesman told Fox News.


*William La Jeunesse joined FOX News Channel (FNC) in March 1998 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based correspondent.

Ben Ferro (editor)




Monday, May 18, 2015

Is this the White House's backdoor plan to buy years of “amnesty” for hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens?

Immigration: 445,000 Awaiting A Court Date, Which Might Not Come For 4 Years

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, LA Times

Driven by last summer’s surge of illegal immigration from Central America, the already large backlog in federal immigration courts has reached an all-time high, with more than 445,000 pending cases, according to a new report.

As of April, the backlog hit 445,706 cases, a nearly 30% increase since Oct. 1, 2013, the start of the last fiscal year, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Immigration courts have been overwhelmed since the influx last fiscal year of more than 68,500 unaccompanied children and about as many family units crossing the southern border, most from Central America.

During that surge, unaccompanied children’s cases were given priority in the courts and expedited — referred to as “rocket dockets” — in Los Angeles and other cities.

Even so, they make up a small proportion of the backlog: 70,035 cases, about 16% of the total as of April. But the juvenile case backlog is still 68% larger than it was last June, when there was a backlog of 41,641 juvenile cases.

While most backlogged cases involved Mexican immigrants, their backlog has increased only about 4% since the start of last fiscal year, while the backlog has skyrocketed for Central Americans — up 63% for Guatemalans, 92% for Salvadorans and 143% for Hondurans.

The report, based on federal data, found that California, Texas, and New York led the nation with the largest immigration backlogs, followed by Florida and New Jersey.

The case backlog has been years in the making, and immigration courts are attempting to address the problem through staffing.

There are 233 judges in 58 courts nationwide, but 17 more are expected to start by month’s end, and 68 more are in the process of being hired, according to Louis Ruffino, a spokesman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the Justice Department, which handles immigration cases.

“Part of the solution to the backlog is a vigorous, ongoing hiring process to bring on more immigration judges,” Ruffino said.

As of this month, judges in Miami have also been hearing Texas immigration cases via videoconferencing, he said.

But some immigrant advocates said that’s not enough.

Denise Gilman, who directs an immigration clinic at the University of Texas law school in Austin, has a Honduran client who suffered a heart attack recently after waiting two years for his asylum case to be heard in San Antonio.

His case was bumped by others involving newly arrived and detained children and families, she said. Also, several judges in San Antonio retired, increasing the caseload for those who remained, Gilman said.

“There is no ability of the court to keep up,” she said. “We really are in a vicious cycle.”

Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the San Antonio-based legal advocacy group Raices, noted that when the federal government prioritized unaccompanied minors and detained families, “they were not addressing the cases that make up almost all of the backlog.”

“We see people coming into our office every day whose lives are being negatively impacted by this,” he said. He noted, for example, a Syrian family unable to work until their case is heard — which is not scheduled until 2019.

“Their whole family is in a state of paralysis or suspense because they can’t move forward in the backlog,” Ryan said. “The people being prioritized in the backlog are the most vulnerable children and mothers who are essentially getting railroaded. The prioritization is backwards.”

And some say the backlog is likely to get worse this year.

“We’re waiting for the tsunami to come” of judges retiring, said San-Francisco-based immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks, who’s been on the bench for 28 years and is president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges.

She said 100 immigration judges were expected to retire this year.

“If you look at how difficult the working conditions become when you are so overworked and not given the support that you need, it makes sense that what happens is people retire at their earliest opportunity,” Marks said. “That is really tragic for the country because these are skilled people.”

Many immigration judges, including Marks, now handle more than 3,000 cases. As a result, they have been forced to delay hearings for years, some until 2019.

“The pace of these cases continues to be relentless, particularly as the administration has chosen to prioritize recent arrivals,” she said. “It means that my pending caseload just gets pushed to the back, which is problematic in its own right because often there are compelling issues in those cases. People lose track of witnesses, a qualifying relative may pass away or become an adult, where it’s required the person be a child to confer a benefit.”

Though hiring more full-time judges is good, she said, “we believe there should be 100 immigration judges hired immediately and the size of the courts should be at least doubled, maybe tripled, based on a survey of how much time should be spent on each case.”

Ben Ferro (editor)

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Who needs amnesty? One out of 10 births in the United States is now to an illegal immigrant mother!

HOUSE PANEL URGES CONGRESS TO PASS BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP LEGISLATION

by  Chris Chmielenski

For the first time in 10 years, the issue of Birthright Citizenship was in the forefront on Capitol Hill this week when the House Immigration Subcommittee held a hearing on Wednesday. The hearing sought to determine if Birthright Citizenship is the right policy for America, but it focused less on the policy question, and more on whether or not it's a Constitutional mandate via the 14th Amendment. The panelists told the Subcommittee that only with a law passed by Congress could the courts offer an interpretation.

The first section of the 14th Amendment reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."


Rep. Steve King's (R-Iowa) Birthright Citizenship bill, H.R.140, would require at least one parent of a child born in the United States to be a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident for the child to be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and therefore receive automatic citizenship. You can read more about the "subject to the jurisdiction" debate here.

Panelist and President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen, argued that everyone in the United States is subject to U.S. laws and therefore "subject to the jurisdiction", but both Dr. John Eastman, Founding Director for the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and Lino Graglia, a University of Texas law professor, argued that the phrase would simply be redundant if it meant all persons in the United States, so it must serve a purpose.

Dr. Eastman made a distinction between those who are within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and those who owe allegiance to the U.S.

"Think of it this way: foreign tourists visiting the United States subject themselves to the laws of the United States while here," Eastman wrote in his prepared statement. "An Englishman must drive on the right side of the road rather than the left, for example, when visiting here. But they do not owe allegiance to the United States, they do not get to exercise any part of the political power of the United States, and they cannot be tried for treason if they take up arms against the United States."

Dr. Eastman also explained why the issue is such a hot topic in the modern immigration debate, calling Birthright Citizenship the third largest magnet for illegal immigration after jobs and welfare services. Center for Immigration Studies Legal Policy Analyst, Jon Feere, backed up that claim in his testimony.

"Every year, 350,000 to 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the United States. To put this another way, as many as one out of 10 births in the United States is now to an illegal immigrant mother," Feere wrote in his prepared statement. "[U]nder [Pres. Obama's] DAPA program (the Deferred action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program), it would provide benefits to illegal immigrants who gave birth here and allow them to 'stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.'"

As Roy notes in his blog on the topic, "H.R. 140 would put an end to babies being used as a kind of shield for lawbreakers and would return them to just being the children of foreign citizens who would be expected to take their full family back home with them, just like any other civilized family would be expected to do -- and just like is expected in most countries around the world where babies take the citizenship of their parents, not from the soil where their mothers happened to give birth."

The question of whether or not the policy of granting automatic citizenship is good or not wasn't discussed extensively, but Rep. King did note that if his legislation were passed and signed into law, he expected a legal challenge. In defense of their positions, most panelists referred to a Supreme Court decision or Senate transcripts from more than a century ago, so Feere argued that Congress should act and put the issue to the test.

"Some Administration decided to give them a Social Security number and a passport and no one really knows when," Feere said. "I think Congress hasn't addressed the problem, and as a result of not addressing it, we're relying on floor statements from 100 years ago. We're relying on a footnote from a Supreme Court case in 1982. I think some clarification from Congress would help a lot."

Dr. Eastman agreed that the ball is in Congress' court.

"Congress has the power over naturalization; it's a plenary power, and that means you get to set the policy of how large or small or how restrained or unrestrained our immigration into this country is going to be," he said.

CHRIS CHMIELENSKI is the Director of Content & Activism for NumbersUSA

Ben Ferro (editor)
benferro@insideins.com


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Injunction? What injunction?

DHS Broke Judge’s Order, Approved Amnesty Applications Despite Injunction

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Friday, May 8, 2015

President Obama’s lawyers admitted to a federal judge late Thursday that they had broken the court’s injunction halting the administration’s new deportation amnesty, issuing thousands of work permits even after Judge Andrew S. Hanen had ordered the program stopped.

The stunning admission, filed just before midnight in Texas, where the case is being heard, is the latest misstep for the administration’s lawyers, who are facing possible sanctions by Judge Hanen for their continued problems in arguing the case.

The Justice Department lawyers said Homeland Security, which is the defendant in the case, told them Wednesday that an immigration agency had approved about 2,000 applications for three-year work permits, which was part of Mr. Obama’s new amnesty, even after Judge Hanen issued his Feb. 16 injunction halting the entire program.

Top Obama officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, had repeatedly assured Congress they had fully halted the program and were complying with the order.

“The government sincerely regrets these circumstances and is taking immediate steps to remedy these erroneous three-year terms,” the administration lawyers said.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it was “remarkable” that the administration kept approving some applications.

 “The last time I checked, injunctions are not mere suggestions. They are not optional,” the Iowa Republican said. “This disregard for the court’s action is unacceptable and disturbing, especially after Secretary Johnson’s assurances that his agency would honor the injunction.”

He has written a letter to Mr. Johnson asking the department to turn over all of its communications about implementing the three-year policy.

The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday, but Homeland Security officials said Mr. Johnson has asked his department’s inspector general to investigate what went wrong.

The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday morning but Homeland Security officials said Mr. Johnson has asked his department’s inspector general to investigate what went wrong.

Homeland Security officials also said they’re going back to try to revoke the three-year permits and reissue them as two-year permits instead.

Judge Hanen had already been pondering whether to sanction the Justice Department lawyers after they admitted to misleading him — they said inadvertently — on more than 100,000 amnesty applications approved between the Nov. 20 date Mr. Obama announced the new program and the Feb. 16 date the judge issued his injunction.

Thursday’s filing, however, appears to be worse, since it breaks a direct injunction, and comes two months after the judge began to scrutinize the administration lawyers’ behavior after that first instance.

The lawyers also had to correct a previous number they’d given the court, when they’d said just 55 applications had been approved in the immediate aftermath of the injunction. The actual number, the lawyers admitted, was 72. They blamed “additional errors.”

The Justice Department said it learned Wednesday that Homeland Security had approved the applications. The lawyers waited until nearly midnight Thursday to inform Judge Hanen.

In their filing, they said they are still trying to gather information about what went wrong, and promised to update Judge Hanen by May 15.

Last week the administration turned over documents related to how it got the initial processing of the more than 100,000 applications wrong — but told the judge that neither he nor the state of Texas, the chief plaintiff that sued to stop the amnesty, should be allowed to look at the documents because they are privileged communications.

Mr. Obama announced the amnesty last year, expanding on a previous amnesty for Dreamers, or young adult illegal immigrants. That initial program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, granted Dreamers a two-year stay of deportation and work permits allowing them legally to take jobs in the U.S.

Under the expansion, illegal immigrant parents of American citizens and green card holders were allowed to apply for the same program, under a program known as Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, or DAPA. The two-year period was also expanded to three years for both Dreamers and the expanded pool of parents.

Those three-year permits were what landed the government in trouble. The Homeland Security Department began approving DACA applicants for three-year work permits almost immediately, though it didn’t approve any DAPA applications.

Judge Hanen said he was surprised that the three-year applications were being approved, since he thought the administration had told him none of the new program was in effect. Justice Department lawyers said they hadn’t mean to mislead him, and had included in their briefing papers documents showing that the three-year approvals were to take effect last November — but apologized nonetheless for leaving the wrong impression.

Ben Ferro (editor)

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Obama Amnesty Hurts American Workers

Immigration: Supply & Demand and Rampant Greed

By Michael W. Cutler
Senior Special Agent, INS (Ret.)
Senior Fellow, Californians for Population Stabilization

May 6, 2015

There is an expression that it makes no sense to bring sand to the beach. In other words, you don’t look to acquire more of a commodity when you have a surplus.

Today every politician running for office promises to help create jobs. Whether that politician is running for a minor county position or for the Presidency, the promise is the same: “If elected, I will help create jobs.”


In the wake of the Baltimore riots, Mr. Obama identified poverty as being a huge issue and a component of the problem. The thoroughly massaged unemployment rates spewed by the Department of Labor ignore the plight of tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed American workers in general and the even higher unemployment rates to be found in America’s minority communities.

Yet no administration has done more that the Obama administration to create unfair competition for struggling American workers and their families. The administration has done this by providing massive numbers of illegal aliens with lawful status and employment authorization.

Think of those huge numbers of unemployed Americans metaphorically as the sand on that beach. Thus far, every candidate for President has supported legalizing unknown millions of illegal aliens. Those who want to “sound tough” say that they won’t give those illegal aliens who have lived in the United States for a specified period of years a pathway to U.S. citizenship but “only” authorization to work in the country. This would give those tens of millions of aliens a right to work in the U.S. equal to those of unemployed and underemployed Americans.

“Dumping” is a term used by economists to describe a situation wherein a foreign company exports large quantities of a product to another country to be sold at a lower price than the comparable product manufactured in the country receiving that product. This is consistent with the economic concept of “supply & demand.” If the demand for a commodity remains constant, as the supply of that product increases, the value of that commodity will drop.

Today labor is being “dumped” on the U.S. from countries around the world with the aid and encouragement of our own government. This makes as much sense as bringing sand to the beach and raises an obvious question: Why would our own government do this?

Indeed, during the Great Depression, then President Franklin D. Roosevelt cut immigration into the U.S. drastically to make certain that all available jobs went to American workers.

Today, the mega-wealthy want to force down the cost of labor. So we now have a situation I have come to think of as “demand & supply.” Under demand & supply, the CEOs of major corporations, in concert with other immigration profiteers, demand an ever-increasing supply of labor to drive down wages.

These foes of working American families are succeeding in getting what they want. Wages are in decline for middle-class workers, and today there are record numbers of American families living below the poverty line.

Furthermore, even without legalizing millions of illegal aliens, the U.S. admits more foreign workers who are authorized to work here than the number of new jobs that are created. According to labor statistics released monthly by the Department of Labor, for the first three months of 2015 fewer than 200,000 jobs were created.

The DHS report, “Nonimmigrant Admissions to the United States: 2013,” contains important statistics about just how many authorized foreign workers are admitted into the U.S. annually. Table 1 (found on pages 3 and 4 of the document) indicates that in 2013 a total of 2,996,743 temporary (nonimmigrant) foreign workers and their family members were admitted into the U.S.
These statistics do not include the approximately 1 million lawful immigrants admitted into the U. S. each year who are immediately granted employment authorization. This report also does not address the hundreds of thousands of other aliens who are granted employment authorization under the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) Program and other similar programs, such as political asylum.

The claims that somehow bringing in even more workers will revitalize the economy are baseless and contradict reason and common sense. Furthermore, wage suppression drags down the economy. As consumers lose disposable income they are less able to purchase consumer products. There may be some ironic poetic justice that the greedy CEOs will ultimately destroy their own consumer base.

However, there is no satisfaction to be had in the downward spiral that is this race to the bottom. Such a scenario will lead not only to a decline in corporate profits, but to more jobs lost, as the downward spiral accelerates.

The title of my January 23, 2015, article for CAPS, “For America to Do Well, Americans Must Do Well” is the message our nation’s leaders need to understand.

Ben Ferro (editor)

benferro@insideins.com