Will Blog for Food

Does 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform' Contain an Option for Deportation?

by John Lawrence

Like most national debates these days, the debate on illegal immigration is superficial. For whatever reason the debate seems to be about profiling brown people vs protecting the border. Let's expand the debate to include the full panoply of issues. First, it's a no brainer that the US needs strong border, port and vital industry protection including the power grid, the chemical industry, the communications and internet networks. It's not just a matter of illegal workers coming over the border; that could be fixed with a legal bracero program; it's a matter of illegal drug shipments and other illegal materiel such as guns and weapons and cash. Some of these people and things are going north across the border; some are going south. It's important to put an end to all illegal cross border transgressions, not just illegal immigrants. This is where true national security lies - not in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the border is porous, terrorists can gain entry or they can come on student visas and then overstay their visa.

So it is a multi-faceted problem in which 'profiling brown people' is really a minor part. Criminal activity on the part of illegal border crossers is a major concern. The debate seems to be between those who want stronger border protection first and then dealing with the illegal immigrant population second and those who want "comprehensive immigration reform" which translates to amnesty for all illegal immigrants present in the US today first and whatever regarding the border second. I say the first problem is protecting the border so as to stanch the flow of new illegal immigrants because they continue to come across the border on a daily basis. What to do with the illegal immigrants already in the US is a secondary problem.

The major problem is that, while the military budget is approximately $1 trillion for FY 2011, the Homeland Security budget is a paltry $54.7 billion. Clearly, the resources for protecting the borders and vital installations is a fraction of the Pentagon budget. This indicates that US priorities are all wrong. While money and resources are lavished and to a large extent wasted on the military, real defense of the US is neglected. Why? Because vested interests in the military-industrial complex want to keep it that way. There is no doubt that, if a couple hundred billion was transferred from the Pentagon to Homeland Security, not one single illegal immigrant would be capable of infiltrating the border. While drug lords in Mexico have sophisticated submarines, the Coast Guard has no anti-submarine capability while the US Navy has all sorts of submarine and anti-submarine capabilities. This shows the trifling resources that are allocated to Homeland Security. My main point is that border, port and vital industry protection and strengthening are possible if the resources are allocated to them and that Homeland Security represents real defense needs while wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere represent secondary or tertiary defense needs at most. Our priorities are backwards. While resources allocated to the Pentagon allow for the invention of every military technological trinket money can possibly buy, real defense goes begging. Real border security demands a sophisticated satellite and drone surveillance system integrated with rapid response teams on the ground, an electronic fence if you will.

Comprehensive immigration reform should definitely include deportation as one option. That is not to say that every illegal immigrant should be deported, but unless some are as a deterrent, they will not be disincentivized from coming across the border illegally especially if zero illegal cross border infractions doesn't become a major goal. What needs to happen is that identified illegal immigrants residing in the US should be treated on a case by case basis. Obviously, the criminals among them should be summarily deported. Some of those with deep roots in their communities who have been in the US a long time and have families and businesses should probably be accommodated according to what advocates for comprehensive immigration reform mainly want - a pathway to citizenship. Some illegal immigrants who have raised families in the US may have more family members who are legal American citizens than those who aren't. Some sort of court of appeal needs to be set up.

Those for whom it's decided that they should be deported should also be accommodated to the extent that deportation need not be immediate. In some cases time may be necessary in order to wind down or sell businesses or time may be needed to accomodate those who are close to graduation so they can graduate. Deportation, another name for which is repatriation, need not be a completely negative experience. People and families can be relocated (in many cases just a few miles away) with Federal and Mexican national assistance so that their transition need be no more jarring than a move from one town to another within the US to take another job. Which illegal immigrants should be "legalized" in some sense would be left to a court of appeal. All those who are legalized need not be given a "path to citizenship." There are other forms of legal residency besides citizenship. And their legal residency could be time limited.

The whole debate about racial profiling is simply ridiculous. A cop making a traffic stop always asks for ID. He just doesn't ask for ID if he suspects that you're not an American citizen. The cop then runs a computer check from his vehicle to see if you have a prison record. He can and should routinely check social security numbers or any other database that would indicate legal or illegal citizenship status such as E-verify. E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. E-Verify is fast, free and easy to use – and it’s the best way employers can ensure a legal workforce according to the E-verify website. So cops have access to the internet from their patrol vehicles so why can't they tap into the E-verify database to determine if someone they stop for a traffic violation is legal or not? The burden of proof should be on the cop not on the person stopped to verify citizenship. This removes the onerous aspects of people having to present their papers or cops having to ask, "Papers, please."

Checking legal citizenship or green card status should be done just as a matter of course and not just for people with brown skins. There are definitely a number of white skinned people who are in the US illegally and some for nefarious purposes. A national ID card or secure social security card, while desirable, isn't really even necessary as long as some form of ID, and I guess it would be a DRIVER'S LICENSE for those detained in a traffic stop, is presented. The cop has access to multiple databases from his internet connected vehicle and can and should check every one out, not just brown people. Of course, a secure ID card would also be desirable as a first step. Almost everyone sooner or later is stopped by a cop while driving for a traffic violation having nothing to do with racial profiling. If every one is checked at that time for all previous violations criminal or otherwise including citizenship violations, I think this is entirely appropriate.

So the debate need not be all or nothing. Like all sticky wickets and thorny thickets this problem is not black and white. There is a lot of gray. The border needs to be protected big time. Residents of the US need to be legal, or legalized in some sense or deported. Crossing the border illegally needs to be disincentivized.

US to Deploy Drones to Shore Up Border with Mexico

Published on Thursday, June 24, 2010 by Agence France-Presse

by Jordi Zamora

WASHINGTON — The United States plans to deploy two drone aircraft along the Texas-Mexico border as part of a new effort to stem organized crime and illegal immigration, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

Predator drones will be used to patrol the border and in nearby areas in the Gulf of Mexico, once Congress approves the 500 million dollars President Barack Obama has requested, Napolitano said in a Washington speech. (AP)

The two Predator drones will be used to patrol the border and in nearby areas in the Gulf of Mexico, once Congress approves the 500 million dollars President Barack Obama has requested, Napolitano said in a Washington speech.

"These types of flights aren't necessary everywhere," she said in comments to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But this is the case in the Texas border."

The United States currently has four drones patrolling the border with Mexico in Arizona and one in the northern border with Canada in the state of North Dakota, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Napolitano said the new aircraft are part of a reinforcement of border patrol efforts including one thousand additional agents and 60 investigators.

"Over the past 18 months, this administration has devoted more resources -- including manpower, technology and infrastructure -- to the Southwest border than at any point in America's history," she said.

Texas Governor Rick Perry had requested delivery of the planes, which the US used extensively in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Obama administration is seeking to step up security as it presses for a comprehensive immigration reform measure that likely would allow many of the millions of illegal migrants in the United States to legalize their status.

Many Republican lawmakers say no immigration measure can be considered unless the federal government can ensure security along the southern US border to prevent a spillover of violence from Mexico.

Napolitano also announced a number of new cooperation agreements with law enforcement in non-border states to send personnel to southwest border.

DHS said it is working on a system that will fully link the information systems of all state, local and tribal law enforcement entities operating along the southwest border with those of the federal government.

"Border security is primarily a responsibility of federal government," she said. "We cannot have 50 different state legislations. It will not work."

The remark was aimed at a controversial Arizona law that allows police to question persons suspected of being illegal immigrants.

The agency said it was developing "Project Roadrunner," a license plate reader recognition system aimed at detecting drug trafficking and associated illegal activity along the border.

In a related comment in Congress, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said the security situation will influence the debate on immigration.

"There are those in the Senate who believe we should basically militarize our borders and until we do, until we meet some standard of militarization, we cannot tackle the issue of comprehensive immigration reform," he said.

© 2010 Agence France-Presse

Put Jobless Young People to Work Doing Jobs Illegals Are Now Doing

by John Lawrence

Robert Reich posted a blog yesterday about putting jobless young people to work cleaning up the mess in the Gulf and sending the bill to BP. Sure and there are a lot of other corporate messes that need to be cleaned up with the bills sent to the respective corporations. In addition to that there are tons of jobs being taken by people that aren't even citizens of the US. These jobs total about the same number as the unemployed in this country. So my solution is to force employers who employ illegals to hire jobless American citizens instead. Government would not have to pay the bill to employ these people, but it would have to facilitate their being employed. In Europe this is know as "workfare." In his book Europe's Promise, Steven Hill tells how workfare, not welfare, is the true nature of European societies. Governments do whatever it takes to get people into jobs paid for by the private sector.

In Sweden nationwide databases of jobs are provided by government at storefront employment agencies. Support systems assist people who are out of work to be sure, but the main goal is to place people in jobs, to get them back to work. Another way European societies create jobs is by public-private partnerships. There is much in the way of infrastructure that needs improving in the US, but the US is hampered in that government doesn't have the money, and private enterprise is not interested in improving infrastructure. This is where private-public partnerships could create not only improved infrastructure but also the jobs required to produce it. Steven Hill writes:

One of the most compelling stories of Europe's strategic use of public-private partnerships is the way it has utilized them for financing massive infrastructure projects, such as for trains and other forms of mass transit, ports, bridges, roads, and even broadband Internet availability. The rigid American way of thinking spurns government involvement in the private sector as well as private investment in public infrastructure, leaving it to the government to pay for and undertake most public infrastructure projects. This creates a major bottleneck when the government is running big deficits, resulting in the delay or outright canceling of crucial infrastructure investment. But European governments, not so hidebound by fundamentalist economic preaching, have played an active role in creating investment vehicles to attract hundreds of billions of dollars from private investors across the globe to finance local and national infrastructure development. They have created financing partnerships with foreign pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, insurance companies and other entities. "Participants in Europe's infrastructure market marvel at how European national and municipal governments, generally considered to be less market friendly and more suspicious of the private sector than American government, could be so far ahead of the United States in using creative partnerships with the private sector and innovative capital market tools to raise vast sums for infrastructure projects," says Heidi Crebo-Rediker, an investment banker.

In other words government can leverage infrastructure projects instead of paying for them directly and, in the process, create jobs. Instead of decaying infrastructure with no way of paying to improve it, government leverages the creation not only of needed improvements to infrastructure but at the same time creates jobs that private enterprise, left to its own devices, would not create. Creative financing is one of the tools that make this possible. In the US the only model used is to spend government money on projects using taxes (or borrowed money) to pay for them. But there are other ways for government to raise money using the capital markets. Leveraging is the key word. The amount in royalties that BP and other oil companies now pay for extracting American resources could also be raised to European levels of around 50%. Right now, although a significant amount of money is raised by the US from royalties on oil and other resources, the rate is relatively paltry compared to European rates.

And for government to facilitate placing unemployed young American workers in jobs now taken by illegals would be a way to solve part of the illegal immigration problem and the unemployment problem at the same time. But it would take government "work" to bring this about. Funds would have to be used to set up an agency to bring this about; it wouldn't just happen by passing some law or decree. The rewards, as far as government is concerned, would be that people would be taken off the unemployment roles and this would save government money. So by putting out some money to facilitate this happening, government would save money in the long run. Other countries such as Canada will not let anyone into the country if they would be taking one job away from a Canadian citizen. They would have to prove that the job they would be doing could not be done by a Canadian. Otherwise, they do not get in.

The US, however, is so lame and lax both in border protection and job protection that it lets non-American citizens take jobs that Americans could be doing. And don't tell me that illegals are doing jobs Americans don't want to do. Americans should be given the choice of doing those jobs or having their unemployment benefits dropped. At the same time those jobs should come with all the benefits and protections that are not given to the illegals who do them such as paying at least minimum wage. These jobs should be dignified to the extent that they are jobs worthy of doing by American citizens.

While in the US job provision is almost entirely left to the private sector, in Europe governments are actively involved in leveraging job provision and protecting job markets. This is not the same as hiring more government workers. Private enterprise supplies and pays for the jobs. Government with its "workfare" philosophy does whatever it can to leverage them. Private enterprise in the US is obsessed with replacing American workers with low cost labor whether it be by hiring illegals or offshoring the jobs to low cost labor countries. The Obama administration should not just wait around for the private sector to provide jobs. The private sector is actively engaged in the process of reducing the number of American jobs and right now government policy encourages them to do so. Outsourcing, offshoring, automating, computerizing - these are all ways US corporations are bound and determined to reduce the amount of money thay pay for their labor input and hence increase profits. Left to their own devices US corporations will not create jobs when they are in the process of destroying jobs. Where this leaves the American worker is unemployed.

FINALLY: Drones to Patrol Border!

Published on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 by the Austin American Statesman (Texas)

Predator Drones to Fly Over Texas-Mexico Border by Fall

by Tim Eaton

After years of political pressure from Texas politicians, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Monday that he expects the federal government to deliver unmanned aircraft to watch over the border with Mexico by this fall.

If approved, the unmanned aircraft in Texas would add to the federal government's existing border effort, which includes a handful of other unmanned aircraft, 20,000 Border Patrol agents, about 650 miles of border fence and 41 mobile surveillance systems, according to Customs and Border Protection. (Ross D. Franklin/2007 AP)

Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, said he has had discussions with top officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's office of air and marine operations, and they agreed to the timetable, subject to Federal Aviation Administration approval to allow the surveillance planes — often referred to in the political vernacular as "Predator drones" — to fly over Texas.

Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said the administration is "working as quickly as we can on this."

Cuellar said the FAA told him that regulators' main concern has been with Texas' heavy airplane traffic — both private and commercial.

If approved, the unmanned aircraft in Texas would add to the federal government's existing border effort, which includes a handful of other unmanned aircraft, 20,000 Border Patrol agents, about 650 miles of border fence and 41 mobile surveillance systems, according to Customs and Border Protection.

The plane, which is made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and officially called a Predator B, is able to spot illegal border activity and send images in real time to border officials.

At that point, Border Patrol agents could be dispatched, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Cuellar — along with Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry — has been trying to bring the unmanned aircraft to Texas for years.

Cornyn and Perry, both Republicans, have been among the most vocal critics of the regulators' pace.

"Washington needs to quit fiddling while the border region of America burns," said Perry, who has been calling for Predators since 2005.

Also last week, Cornyn said that the FAA's pace "borders on foot-dragging."

Cuellar has refrained from using harsh words directed at the FAA.

Instead, he invited FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt and Alan Bersin, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, to his office on May 20 to make sure an agreement can be reached.

"My interest in this is to get this done as quickly as possible," he said.

Cuellar, who leads the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, has asked the FAA to give priority to Texas' request.

Cuellar and Customs and Border Protection officials said a home for a Texas-based Predator already has been identified at Naval Air Station-Corpus Christi.

Kimberly Kasitz, a spokeswoman for General Atomics, said one unmanned aircraft costs $10 million to $12 million.

Discussions in Washington have centered on bringing one Predator to Texas to be deployed along the border with Mexico to fight drug trafficking, human smuggling and violent Mexican drug cartels.

The Texas plane is still under construction, Cuellar said. If it is not ready by the time the FAA approves its flight, then one would be borrowed from another location, Cuellar said. He would not say where because of security concerns.

Places with unmanned aircraft systems in the U.S. include Arizona, which has three; North Dakota, which has two; and Florida, with one.

Unmanned aircraft have grown quickly in popularity in the defense and surveillance sectors, said Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century."

Since 2003, the military has acquired about 7,000 unmanned aircraft that are flying surveillance and combat missions in overseas wars, Singer said, and it happened "in a bureaucratic blink of an eye."

And even today, each branch of the military remains eager to obtain more.

"Basically, the Air Force is buying them as fast as they can," Singer said.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection has said it intends to increase unmanned aircraft systems across the country this year, and it expects a complete network of the unmanned planes all along the border by 2015.

Officials boasted about the Predators' effectiveness in a fact sheet published in February 2009. They reported that Predator B planes have flown more than 1,500 hours and contributed to the seizure of more than 15,000 pounds of marijuana and the apprehension of more than 4,000 undocumented people.

But more can be accomplished with the unmanned aircraft, Cuellar said Monday.

Discussions already have taken place about turning the Predator's high-resolution cameras, which Cuellar said could read a label on a bottle of water from 19,000 feet, on to Mexico to track movements of drug cartels.

But there are still a lot of sovereignty issues, Cuellar added, so any advancement of the idea would be up to Mexican government officials.

Additional material from The Associated Press.

© 2010 Statesman

Congressman Gutierrez and Comprehensive Immigration Reform

by John Lawrence

Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez has been on the media recently talking about comprehensive immigration reform. While giving lip service to stronger border protrction, what comprehensive immigration reform seems to mean to Congressman Gutierrez is a comprehensive plan to keep illegal immigrants inside the borders of the US and working at the jobs they now have. Gutierrez will provide these illegal immigrants with a comprehensive plan to keep them here and well employed. He will make them jump through hoops as long as they are not sent back to Mexico. He will make them pay a fine, learn English, make sure they have no criminal background and on and on. Just please don't send them back to Mexico.

What's so bad about being sent back to Mexico? It's not the end of the world. Deportation, which sounds sort of harsh, is just another name for repatriation which sounds a whole lot nicer. In an era of large scale and long term unemployment, illegal immigrants seem to be well employed albeit at low end jobs. Nevertheless, those jobs are jobs American citizens could be doing with the result that government expenditures on unemployment checks would diminish. Nevertheless, while Gutierrez doesn't want any illegal immigrants deported or repatriated, I would favor a case by case approach that would allow some to stay here based on certain criteria while requiring others to go. The fact that illegal immigrants have children born in the US who are American citizens shouldn't in and of itself give the parents the right to stay. If they don't want their family to be broken up, they can take the children with them. They would have the right to come back to the US when they are of legal age. Or they could make arrangements for their children to stay in the US with a legal guardian. What's wrong with that?

Congressman Gutierrez and others promote the myth that the jobs taken by illegal immigrants are jobs Americans don't want to do. Really? If I was long term unemployed, I think I'd take about any job offered to me including fruit picking, meat cutting, construction work or dish washing. I especially would take it if told that, if I didn't, my unemployment benefits would be cut off. Gutierrez wants to perpetuate the myth that only illegal immigrants are capable of doing these menial jobs. But so many college educated people do menial jobs.

Take me, for example. With a BS degree and two Masters Degrees, I am self-employed as a window cleaner and loving it. I didn't need any credentials or licensing or training whatsoever for this job. It's physical work and I learned from experience as I went along. This is not to say that window cleaning requires no talent whatsoever. But mostly what it requires is on the job training. You might say I'm a self taught window cleaner. Many others with college degrees have worked as taxi drivers or waiters and waitresses or cooks or maids or house cleaners. There's absolutely nothing demeaning about these jobs unbless one is demeaned by one's employer. That's why I recommend self-employment to the greatest extent possible. Many former stockbrokers, having seem the error of their ways, are now self-employed as gardeners and landscapers, jobs which a lot of illegals are also employed in.

The idea that menial work in and of itself is degrading is pure hogwash. At a recent windowcleaning convention I noticed the name of one of the companies there was "Unemployed Actors Windowcleaners." Many of the jobs that illegals do are socially necessary work. I feel that I'm contributing more to society as a window cleaner than I was when I worked in the military-industrial complex as an engineer and computer programmer. There I felt I was a parasite helping to make the US a bigger and stronger national security state and consuming resources that could have been better employed making the world a more peaceful and developed place. Mostly the military-industrial complex wastes resources sucking them out of the economy, resources that could be used to repair and improve infrastructure, build schools, hospitals, libraries, public transportation and parks both here and abroad.

The idea that menial work is somehow beneath Americans is absurd. Just as unemployed people should be forced to take menial jobs or lose their unemployment benefits, employers should be forced to hire American citizens or be fined or face jail. The unemployment rate among black youth is 50%, for black men about 20%, for those with no qualifications about 50%, for legal Latino men about 15%. Certain Americans tend to deplore those American citizens who are high school dropouts or who otherwise have no qualifications. How many qualifications do illegal immigrants have who come here to work in the hotel or restaurant or agricultural industries? It's not as if their Mexican college degrees got them ahead. It's time to stop pooh poohing every American citizen who doesn't have a college degree and saying, "Well, if you only went back to school you wouldn't find yourself in such an unemployed situation." For that matter many young Americans with college degrees are also unemployed.

The emphasis insofar as comprehensive immigration reform is concerned should not be, as Congressman Gutierrez wants it to be, on keeping illegals here and keeping them in their jobs. The emphasis should be first and foremost on protecting the border and stopping illegal immigration in the first place. Resources need to be shifted from the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeployed along the border. R&D budgets need to be shifted towards real defense or Homeland Security. Drones should be patrolling the border, not bombing innocent civilians in Pakistan. The 1000 or so military bases abroad need to be brought home and planted along the border. The Pentagon should be devoted to border protection instead of the military-industrial complex as now constituted. Secondly, the illegals that are already here should be dealt with and this should happen in a humane manner even if many of them need to be repatriated to the countries where they do hold legal citizenship.

Death Toll: Natural disasters 29 (and Counting), Man Made Disasters 36, Terrorists 0

by John Lawrence

With the proliferation of natural disasters like the recent Nashville, Tennesee, floods and man made disasters like the oil rig explosion and the West Virginia mine explosion taking a far greater toll on American lives than terrorism, maybe it's a good idea to reevaluate our priorities. Natural disasters are far more likely to account for more casualties going forward than terrorism is, and we should be prepared for them instead of considering each one some kind of rare event or Act of God that no one could have anticipated or predicted. Massive snowstorms and rainstorms which produce massive flooding are becoming normal events due, no doubt, to global warming. Global warming results in more moisture in the atmosphere. In fact water vapor in the global atmosphere has increased about 5% over the 20th century and 4% since 1970. Monster snow storms like Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse which hit Philadelphia and Baltimore this winter are caused by excess moisture in the air due to global warming. Although global temperatures have increased they are still cold enough to produce snow and ice storms. 

There are also an increased number and size of tornadoes like the one that hit Yazoo City, Mississippi, on April 24 that left 10 people dead. Disaster preparedness needs to be put on a par with anti-terrorism measures because natural disasters are causing far more deaths and destruction of property. And after each disaster, the Federal government has to step in and provide relief. That means that the taxpayers are on the hook for increasing amounts of money which is only borrowed and added to the national debt because not enough is budgeted for these increasingly more common events. President Obama announced after the oil rig disaster that British Petroleum would pay the full amount for the cleanup which is expected to reach $10 billion, but subsequently it has been pointed out that, because of a loophole in the law, actually BP is only on the hook for $75 million and guess who bears the rest of the cost? The US government aka the taxpayers. No wonder national deficits are increasing. While record amounts go to the military industrial complex each year, far too little is budgeted for the events that actually take the worst toll on American lives - natural and man made disasters. While record precipitation is bad for areas prone to flooding, it actually has produced something beneficial for California - large snow packs in the Sierra Mountains from which emanates California's water supply.

As far as man made disasters are concerned, most of them are caused by deregulation. Stricter regulatory standards might have prevented both the mine disaster in the Upper Big Branch mine and the oil rig disaster. Both companies fought off stricter safety standards which would have cost them more money to implement. Massey Energy had a panoply of violations which it managed to evade paying any penalties for or correcting do to loopholes in the law which allowed them to continue violating as long as they challenged them in court. British Petroleum lobbied against systems which might have provided a more fail safe shut off of the gushing oil. Now they will undoubtedly get out of paying for it due to another loophole in the law no doubt placed there by oil company lobbyists.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for both terrorism and natural disasters, has to have its budget beefed up while at the same time decreasing the military budget. There needs to be a realignment between the US' actual needs for protection and its imagined needs. As natural disasters take an increasing toll, the monetary cost (hundreds of millions in property damage from the Nashville floods alone) needs to take prority over military spending. The cost of cleaning up natural disasters cannot just simply continue to be added to the defict and the national debt. BP will probably tie up their portion of the responsibility for the oil rig disaster in court with the result being that taxpayers will foot most of the bill. Exxon Mobil tied up the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound and over 20 years later has not paid the full amount for the aftermath which was court ordered. Exxon Mobil has dragged its feet in paying the costs of damages to local fishermen while making record profits for itself. The original amount of punitive damages to be paid to the fishermen was $5 billion. That amount was reduced to 4 billion, raised back up to $4.5 billion, then cut to $2.5 billion, then further reduced to $507 million. A Supreme Court ruling is expected soon on whether Exxon should pay interest on this payment after 20 years of waiting. BP will likely use the courts to leave taxpayers holding the bag for the spillage in the Gulf especially since we have belatedly found out that the law limiting their liability is on their side.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil made record profits in 2007 ($40.61 billion) and 2008 ($45.2 billion) as it continued to shortchange Alaskan fishermen. It also paid no US taxes in 2008.

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS: Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”

So US corporations (and no doubt BP will follow suit) continue to make record profits while dumping any losses on US taxpayers just as Wall Street bankers did. While other countries such as Norway tax the profits on oil drilling 50% thereby generating profit for the national treasury, the US foolishly just gives away the oil leases so that all profits go to the corporations while the majority of the losses are paid by US taxpayers. No wonder the US has an immense national debt! And global warming produced natural disasters (unbudgeted for) will only continue to get worse adding even more. While the Times Square bomber didn't manage to kill a single person and was caught immediately thanks to excellent police work by the FBI and others not to mention citizen vigilance, which helped to prevent an event which could have produced a number of casualties, the casualties and property damage due to excessive precipitation and high winds continues to mount. Do we have our priorities straight when we continue to allocate billions to the military-industrial complex and paltry amounts to Homeland Security? Homeland Security in addition to being responsible for terrorism and natual disasters is also reponsible for protecting our borders against illegal immigration. Although illegal immigration continues to take its toll on American society, relatively paltry amounts are allocated to it while fantasy wars of aggression continue to be fought abroad. And the cost of supporting over 1000 military bases on foreign soil continues to mount.

The Homeland Security budget for 2010 is $55 billion while the miltary budget is about $1 trillion - orders of magnitude greater. US budget priorities are totally out of whack. While good intelligence and police work has done much to protect US citizens from terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have only increased their liklihood due to killing of civilians and stoking the fires of resentment towards the US who are considered to be foreign invaders. Protection against terrorist attacks which have killed very few US citizens and caused very little property damage compared to natural disasters primarilyshould consist of defensive not an offensive measures. The Times Square bomber was caught in part due to a fingerprint database. His finger prints matched those left on the Nissan Pathfinder. A national ID card including links to a fingerprint database would do more to prevent terrorism than the combined efforts of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force because terrorists are just as likely to be American citizens as foreign citizens. And it would identify people in the country illegally at the same time. A national database of student visa holders would have prevented the 9/11 attacks since a lot of them had overstayed their student visas. It can be shown categorically that defensive measures can and will prevent future attacks at a fraction  of the cost of military adventurism which is only increasing their liklihood.

But the real wild card here - and something which can bankrupt the US unless it's figured into the annual budget - is preparedness for natural disasters. Increased moisture in the atmosphere caused by global warming will continue to produce massive rainstorms, snowstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes, increased casualties and billions of dollars of property damage, much of which will be borne privately by American citizens who will become destitute in the process. As if the recession in and of itself weren't enough to devastate the middle class! The US hasn't even recovered from Hurricane Katrina 5 years ago! The US can expect to be devastated by ongoing natural disasters. In order to prevent a fiscal disaster as well we have to budget and plan for them.

How to Halve Unemployment Rate: Replace Illegal Workers by US Citizens

by John Lawrence

In 2005, illegal migrants accounted for about 5% of the civilian labor force, or 7.2 million workers out of a labor force of 148 million. Today the official unemployment rate is around 10% although the unofficial unemployment rate is much higher. The unemployment rate for black youth is around 50%, and for high school drop-outs, homeless and ex-felons approaches 100%. As of January 2010, 6.3 million people were among the long term unemployed, those out of work for 6 months or longer. What to do? With 15 million Americans out of work, half that number could be put back to work replacing illegal immigrants.

Approximately 19% of illegal workers were employed in construction jobs, 15% in production, installation and repair, and 4% in farming. The Pew report also shows that illegal immigrants comprise 24% of all workers in farming, 17% in cleaning, 14% in construction and 12% in food preparation. Within those categories, unauthorized migrants tend to be concentrated in specific jobs: They represent 36% of all insulation workers, 29% of all roofers and drywall installers, and 27% of all butchers and other food-processing workers.

They tend to be concentrated in the hotel, restaurant, agricultural, construction and child care industries. They make our beds, pick our fruit, cut and pack factory produced meat, mow our lawns and tend our children. There's no reason that unemployed Americans couldn't be doing these jobs. In fact employers hiring illegals could be given a choice - replace illegals with US citizens or go to jail. Let them figure out how to do it. If Mexicans can migrate from Jalisco or Chihuahua, Americans can migrate from Chicago to the San Joaquin Valley. And the very segment of the population that has the highest unemployment rate - those with low job skills - are the ones most appropriate to replace illegal immigrant labor which is also mainly taking low skilled jobs.

About 24 percent of immigrants use some form of public assistance compared to 15 percent of native U.S. households. So they are a drag on the public sector in addition to taking jobs that US citizens could be doing. And not all of them have come here to work. In 2006 28% of prisoners in federal prisons were illegal aliens, according to the United States Justice Department. The notion that illegals are simply doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do is a myth. Illegals are concentrated in a few states like California, Arizona and Texas. In other states legal US citizens are doing the same jobs. And it's also a myth that, if US citizens did the same jobs, prices would go up. Studies have shown that there would be an insignificant increase in prices.

One of the stupidest contradictions is that, in an era of high unemployment, businesses can't seem to get enough illegal immigrant labor. What's up with that? US citizens begging for jobs. Jobs go begging for illegal immigrant labor? Immigration reform should put a stop to it and facilitate the hiring of US citizens who are low skilled and having a hard time finding employment. Increasingly they are becoming homeless. A program called the "Transition from Illegal to Legal Labor" Act could be part of a comprehensive approach to immigration reform. And legal Hispanic US citizens make up a large segment of the unemployed. You'd think that they would be the first to get in line behind immigration reform that would give them jobs and send illegal Hispanics packing.

While Obama and most liberals seem to place high value on formal education and college degrees, most of the jobs that illegals perform require neither, and most of the American citizens in desperate need of employment have neither. They need to be provided for and put back to work. The recidivist rate for ex-felons would go down if they could only find jobs when they get out which most of them can't so a life of crime seems to be the only alternative. For many inner city black and Latino youth that seems to be the case also. Gangs and drug dealing offer a greater chance at the American dream than honest labor. These segments of the population need to be given a chance to do an honest day's work for at least minimum wage. Right now businesses that hire illegals are paying them less than minimum wage and, of course, they have no workplace protections or rights whatsoever.

So immigration reform could kill two birds with one stone - lowering high unemployment and getting rid of illegals in low skilled jobs. They would not have the incentive to come to the US illegally if they couldn't get jobs. And if there were still jobs available after replacing illegal labor with legal labor, Mexicans could be brought in legally under a bracero program. This would also save their lives, many of which have been lost navigating the deserts and swimming the American canal. The egregious contradiction between high employment for non-US citizens and high unemployment for US citizens is a ridiculous situation that makes the US a laughing stock in the eyes of the world. Empire decline is caused by a failure to adjust appropriately to changing conditions.

 

If Arizona Got It Wrong, the US Can Learn From This and Get It Right!

by John Lawrence

There is much blather these days about Arizona's new immigration law. According to some accounts it is practically turning Arizona into a police state where any Latino can be stopped, questioned and demanded to "show his papers." Add to this the many hazards of driving while black and being strip searched while Muslim and you have a veritable stew of unwelcome intrusions into the private lives of, well, just about everybody. All of a sudden there is a grave concern over civil rights.

But the concern for civil rights has to be balanced with a concern for public safety. Illegal immigration is inevitably tied in with the drug wars on the border and gang violence in the inner cities, not to mention the unfairness to legal immigrants and the violation of US laws. Terrorism is inevitably tied to the Muslim religion since they have been the primary source of it including the 9/11 fly-in at the World Trade Center. Does this make every Latino a drug runner and every Muslim a terrorist? Of course not. Any more than it makes every black male a pimp. Remember one of the biggest terrorist acts on US soil was the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal building by Timothy McVeigh, a white European descended American citizen. However, I would venture to say that the preponderance of illegal immigrants are Hispanic, the preponderance of terrorists are Muslims and the preponderance of convicted criminals are black. I hope this doen't make me a racist. It's just facing facts.

So as long as the police abide by acceptable procedures, I have no problem with their IDing people in the normal course of their duties. Of course, proper ID should be issued to everyone. That's the state's and the country's responsibility. And there should be guidelines for the police about the conditions under which they can stop anyone. Why shouldn't they be the same as the conditions under which they can stop someone suspected of criminal behaviour? I don't hear anyone complaining that the apprehension of criminals is turning Arizona or the US into a police state. With proper guidelines citizens need not fear that they are losing their civil rights or that Arizona or the US is becoming a police state.

We can no longer afford the luxury of having people in the US walking around without proper ID. That went out the window with the advent of terrorism. If there had been proper checking on the expiration of student visas and those who had overstayed them, 9/11 would never have happened. Also some citizen vigilence regarding flight lessons by non-citizens who weren't interested in learning how to land planes wouldn't have represented government intrusion into people's civil rights in my opinion. Under certain conditions everyone should be willing and able to show ID. Every time the police stop someone now, they demand ID and run it through their computer to do a criminal background check. Why would it be any more onerous to the person who has been stopped presumably under routine and reasonable guidelines to have his background checked for citizenship at the same time? "Show me your papers" can be replaced by "Show me your ID" as long as the state or country provides one and doesn't make people haul their birth certificate around. And checking everyone's ID for citizenship eliminates profiling. You don't want a national ID card? Then haul your birth certificate if you feel that's preferable. And remember Timothy McVeigh was apprehended at a routine traffic stop.

It's high time for the US to have a counterfeit-proof national ID card. You have to balance the problems caused by criminals, terrorists and yes, illegals, with everyone's civil rights, and this balance has to be manifested in an intelligent way, but the increased threats from these quarters demand it. It can be done in such a way as to minimize inconveniences and intrusions to law abiding, legal citizens, non-citizens in the country legally, and non-terrorists, but in an age where crime, terrorism and illegal entry into the US are threats to the welfare of average citizens, precautionary measures need to be taken. 

Homeland Security in all its aspects should be stepped up, and military adventurism abroad should be stepped down. As the "Defense" budget is reduced (actually it's the military industrial fantasy defense budget), the budget for Homeland Security should be increased. Border and port protection should predominate over military adventurism abroad. Defensive procedures should take the place of offensive wars on foreign soil. Intelligence operations should be the main line of defense against domestic and foreign enemies. Intelligence operations have detected and foiled numerous attempts at terrorism on American soil and abroad.

Terorists, unfortunately, are just as likely to emanate from American as foreign soil. They are just as likely to be American citizens as non-citizens. For all these reasons, a national ID card is entirely appropriate. But as the government goes about its business of protecting average, law abiding Americans, it is just as important that it not be overbearing in the process. Efforts at protecting the American people should not infringe on the civil rights of the American people or cause them undue inconvenience. We are already inconvenienced to an extent by the airport check-in procedure and security checks at public events. Most Americans accept this as necessary and reasonable for their protection. They also should accept other reasonable procedures to weed out criminals, terrorists and illegal immigrants. Legal immigration should proceed and be expedited under reasonable guidelines and procedures while at the same time stopping illegal immigration in its tracks.

Some Emininently Sensible Suggestions About Immigration

Pitting Worker Against Worker

Posted on Apr 30, 2010 by Alternet

AP / Bob Bird

By Moshe Adler

Editor’s note: In this May Day special feature, economist Moshe Adler argues that the answer to our immigration, labor and broader economic problems is more immigration and more welfare for all.

All that is wrong with our immigration and labor policies—for the two cannot be separated—is on full display in New York City, where it plays out every day in the city’s small grocery stores. Virtually all of the workers in these stores are undocumented Latin American immigrants. Yet in the adjacent supermarkets, the same jobs are held by American-born workers of all colors. The usual excuse that these are jobs that “Americans won’t do” obviously doesn’t apply. What is the explanation then?

In 2002, then-New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer discovered the answer: The small grocery stores pay their workers about half the minimum wage. And what did he do about it? Not much. In exchange for a promise from the grocery store owners not to do it again, he forgave them for their past wage theft. What Spitzer did not do was hire workers to enforce the minimum wage law. (This would have required tax money, and he had his eye on the governorship.) Instead, Spitzer devised a plan by which the merchants would pay for the enforcement themselves. Nothing came of it. Eight years later, the workers in these small grocery stores are still overwhelmingly undocumented immigrants and there is little doubt that their employers continue to steal their wages.

Do illegal immigrants depress the wages of other workers? Of course they do. Supermarket owners will refuse to pay much higher wages than the wages that their competitors pay. Yet the law is not enforced, either against the illegal immigrants, although they swell the ranks of those who seek employment, or against the employers, even though they hire these immigrants at illegally low wages. What is a worker to do?

The academic literature about whether immigration depresses wages is contradictory; some studies find that it does, while others find it does not. But all of these studies suffer from the same methodological problem, which is that interpreting them requires broad assumptions that may not actually hold. These assumptions are significant enough that each camp can continue to dismiss the other. When I present these studies to those of my students who are union construction workers, they laugh them off. They have no use for complex mathematical models when they can drag anybody to construction sites that employ illegal immigrants at low wages—and they know firsthand that this puts direct downward pressure on their own wages. This is what employers tell them. “You are too expensive,” they hear all too often.

Once we admit there is a problem, must we back draconian, Arizona-like measures against illegal immigrants? On the contrary. If illegal immigrants did not need to fear discovery, the small grocers would not be able to pay them illegally low wages. But legalizing immigrants would not end the problem that immigration creates for underpaid workers, because immigration changes the makeup of the work force to the disadvantage of workers with low levels of education in particular.

Immigration does not have any effect on the share of workers with college degrees, regardless of the level of degree. The percentage of workers with a bachelor degree, for instance, is 22 percent among U.S.-born workers, but it is also the same 22 percent in the entire work force, which includes immigrants (both legal and illegal). The percentage of workers without a high school diploma, however, is 6 percent among U.S.-born workers, and 9 percent in the entire work force. This is an increase of 50 percent in the share of workers with low levels of education, an increase that certainly has an effect on wages.

Of course, more workers means greater demand for goods and services and, therefore, more jobs, but here is where balance matters. If the growth in the labor force is weighed against one group, that group will suffer. When the additional workers are paid low wages, the negative effect is larger, because the economic stimulus that poor workers generate is small. In 1950, a worker without a high school degree earned 60 percent of the pay of a worker with a college degree. By 2000, the wage of the worker without a high school degree decreased to just 8 percent. There is no doubt that globalization and the loss of manufacturing jobs had a lot to do with this deterioration, but there is also no doubt that immigration—which is the flip side of globalization—was also a contributing factor.

How can we deal with the imbalance that immigration creates? One way would be to open our immigration doors even wider in order to increase the share of immigrants with high levels of education, and to permit immigrants who are professionals to practice their professions. Many of us have had a taxi driver who was a doctor or an engineer in the old country. With more immigration of the highly educated, the relative position of workers with low levels of education will improve. 

Another way would be to enforce the existing labor laws in order to prevent employers from playing immigrants against citizens, and to add government programs that address the problems that immigration creates for underpaid workers, regardless of whether they are immigrants or not. American workers who walk every day into coal mines put the lie to employers’ claim that there are jobs “Americans won’t do.” But workers must be able to support themselves and their families. The minimum wage law should be enforced—and the minimum wage raised—in order to turn all the jobs that currently only destitute immigrants are willing to do into jobs that can support families.

But the problems that immigration creates can and should also be addressed directly. An example of how to do this is provided by Israel, because there the problem of immigration is even larger than it is in the United States. In the U.S., 39 percent of the population growth in the years 1990-2004 was due to immigration. In Israel during the same period, 86 percent of the population growth was due to immigration.

Of course, the concern in the U.S. is not about all immigrants, just about illegal immigrants. In Israel, on the other hand, virtually all of the immigrants are legal, as long as they are Jews. While this policy is objectionable in all kinds of ways, it’s nevertheless a useful case study in terms of immigration, since the immigrants to Israel are often poor. (Most of them, 80 percent in the years 1990-2004, came from the former Soviet Union.) So how does Israel deal with this influx of destitute immigrants? By letting them have enough time and enough income to find where they are most needed, they don’t add an imbalance to the work force as a whole.

Jews who immigrate to Israel receive welfare for 18 months, which in Israel is not called welfare but “assured income.” Immigrants also get subsidized mortgages if they wish to buy apartments, or rental subsidies for five years if they wish to rent. As for the makeup of the work force, immigrants get free vocational training and university students get stipends. Finally, free health insurance is available to immigrants for six months. The end result is that immigrants are absorbed with little or no opposition from workers: The work force grows, but so does the demand for labor. Some immigrants become construction workers, for instance, but the demand for housing and therefore for construction workers grows as the new immigrants are housed. 

Needless to say, giving these benefits to immigrants only would never be acceptable to workers who are themselves poor. But what if all poor workers got education, training, subsidized housing, and health care? These policies would be costly, but simply ignoring the problem and unleashing the immigrants on the low-wage job market without assuming any responsibility for the consequences is cruel not only to immigrants but also to low-wage, hardworking citizens. The problem of immigration cannot be separated from the problem of labor, and it’s time we dealt with both.

Moshe Adler teaches economics at Columbia University and at the Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies at Empire State College. He is the author of the book “Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal,” recently published by The New Press.

Immigration Reform: Replace Employed Illegals With Unemployed American Citizens

by John Lawrence

Senator Menendez of NJ got on TV yesterday to ask who would pick all the fruit if it weren't for illegals crossing the border. Jeez, Mr. Menendez, haven't you heard that the unemployment rate among black youth is 50%?! He went on about the hotel industry - who would make the beds, who would provide maid service, the construction industry - who would hang drywall, the food and restaurant industry - who would cook our food etc. Now there's a huge disconnect between the people who say that illegal labor is necessary and required in this country and those American citizens who are out there begging for jobs. You don't think that a government program to connect up unemployed American citizens with jobs that illegals are now doing would alleviate both situations? High unemployment and illegals coming across the border to work?

But American employers don't want to replace illegals with legals because illegals have no rights in the workplace. They don't have to pay them minimum wage or give them any other rights or safety standards. OSHA is non-existant for illegals. So there is structural citizen unemployment and structural illegal employment. Businesses that hire illegals would have to be given disincentives for hiring them and incentives for hiring unemployed American citizens because they won't change their hiring habits without incentives/disincentives. They prefer illegal labor and eschew American labor. Illegals are more compliant and not as likely to complain about ill treatment. They would have to pay American citizens at least minimum wage. Politicians float the awful specter that citizens would have to pay $10. a pound for tomatoes! So where is the government program to hook up American citizens with the jobs that illegals are now doing? MISSING IN ACTION.

It seems like such an obvious thing to do but the free enterprise system won't do it of its own accords. They like things just the way they are. If they can't export the job to cheap labor pools abroad, they prefer to let the cheap labor come here - illegally - because of the many advantages to their bottom lines. Jobs could be provided for legal citizens by ramping up government efforts to crack down on employers who employ illegals. After some of them go to jail and have their businesses shut down, the word will get around that hiring illegals is not such a good idea.

But instead of ideas like these and what I blogged on yesterday - a national ID card for everyone that would link to a database that would determine citizenship - the whole illegal immigration debate has already turned into a political football. Democrats don't want to do anything to offend the growing Hispanic legal minority because they consider them potential Democratic voters, and Republicans don't want to crack down on illegal immigration because the businesses that are their constituents want to employ them. Hispanics want to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration and portray the situation as one of racism and discrimination towards all Hispanic immigrants, legal or otherwise. Viewed from a rational perspective, illegal immigrants need to be cracked down on while preserving the civil rights of legal Hispanic American citizens and legal permanent residents. I support legal immigration but not illegal immigration. I would even support a bracero program to provide continuity until illegal labor can be replaced with legal labor.

The first plank in any immigration reform bill should be strengthening border protection. This means a huge increase in the Homeland security budget while at the same time decreasing concomitantly the bloated fantasy military-industrial complex budget. R&D dollars should be flowing to better border and port protection. The budget of the Coast Guard and Border Patrol needs to be increased. Troops should be stationed at bases along the border instead of at 1000 bases overseas. Drones should be patrolling the border instead of bombing civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is much that could be done to curtail the flow of illegal persons and materials across the border in both directions. The illegal drug situation could be brought under control, for example.

At the same time immigration reform should assure legal Hispanic American citizens that their civil rights will be protected. Random and arbitrary searches and apprehensions should not take place. All contact with the police should be for probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Traffic stops should entail not only criminal background checks but citizenship checks for all those stopped, not just for Hispanics. After all aren't we trying to protect against terrorists who are in this country illegally and are probably not Hispanic? That's why a simplified national database is important especially in an era of terrorism. Non-citizens who are legal permanent residents or on student visas or green card holders should be hooked into this national data base so that any checks by police can be expedited and don't result in taking people to jail until they can prove that they are legal citizens or come up with their birth certificates. "Your papers, please" should be replaced with "Your ID, please" and unreasonable searches and seizures should not be tolerated. On the other hand, cracking down on illegal employers and hence illegals caught at the workplace is entirely appropriate. Cracking down on illegals engaged in criminal activities is entirely appropriate. A line has to be drawn between protecting civil rights and apprehending illegal non-citizens.

But turning every situation into a political football makes for better media coverage. Instead of rational solutions, we have a lot of exciting TV guaranteed to drive up ratings. Instead of a calm hand at the wheel we are faced with hyper-bloviating politicians and pundits whose minds are on vacation while their mouths are working overtime as Mose Allison would say.

Immigration Reform: Profile Everybody

by John Lawrence

You know the silliest part of this whole debate over illegal immigration and immigration reform is the bit about profiling. How demeaning, some say, to be stopped by the police and be told, "Show me your papers!" Well, every time I've been stopped by police the first statement out of their mouth is, "Show me your ID!" Now this gets to the crux of the problem. The US in its hodge podge way doesn't have a high tech national ID card linked to a database that would provide not only criminal information about the person but also citizenship information. What I'm recommending is that the citizenship info would just be a standard part of every ID check, period. Then no hassle, no profiling, no complaining from those who would just be too embarassed if they were singled out for a citizenship check. It would all be too simple. Instead we get veritable outrage at the thought that someone would have to prove their citizenship when stopped by police. It should just be de rigeur or standard operating procedure for everyone.

And yes there should be guidelines for the police to prevent abuses on their part. People shouldn't be stopped on the street just for walking their dog. There should be probable cause or reasonable suspicion. I don't anticipate that they would be stopping Hispanics randomly and demanding ID. But surely traffic stops, the main situation in which the public encounters the police should provide routine citizenship checks in a national data base.

And then there are the policemen who say "Not my job." They've got enough to do without having to check for citizenship. Ridiculous. They are the first line of defense out there on the street. They should check for any form of illegal activity and being in the country illegally is a form of illegal activity. What are taxpayers supposed to do - pay twice or three or four times - once for police, once for citizenship checkers, once for the military, once for the National Guard. Couldn't these functions be simplified and reduced into a rational and orderly structure? I say the police are and should be the first line of defense. Then they can turn potential problems over to more specialized people if need be.

Much has been made about the truck driver who was hauled off to jail in shackles by police after he produced a valid driver's license but failed to produce his birth certificate. Of course, this was a travesty. One should not have to carry his birth certificate around with him. But that's where a credit card size national ID card that fits in one's wallet could provide a simple answer to a simple request - "Show me your ID" instead of "Show me your papers." And it would apply to everyone - not just to Hispanics. Hence - NO PROFILING - OK? There is a new wallet size high tech passport card that would do the trick. Everyone should simply be required to have one if another dedicated national ID card is not forthcoming. It has a built-in RFID chip that provides non-duplicatable positive ID linked evidently to a national data base. If this data base is sufficient, then case closed. A similar card needs to be provided for non-citizens who are, however, in this country legally with student visas, for example. But that's part of the national infrastructure that the US has no money for. Instead it will spin its wheels and get outraged over the outrageousness of asking brown skinned people to "Show me your papers!" It makes for better TV and better ratings. If it bleeds it leads, and if they are outraged, they will get on TV. Ask the Tea Partiers.

India has recently done a census and taken a fingerprint from everyone. They will then come up with a national ID card and a national database. That should pretty much solve the problem of who is a citizen and who's not at least for India. Why can't the US do the same?

Now for people who are not US citizens but are in the country legally, a national ID card could be provided for them too. The database would simply indicate that they were not citizens but were in the US legally under whatever situation would apply. Therefore, it would be entirely possible to have positive ID for everyone in the US that would be linked to not only their criminal record (if any) but also to their citizenship status. Obviously, those here illegally would not be able to produce legal ID. The resources are available to make these cards non-counterfeitable, and it would seem in an age of terrorism that it would be a good thing to have this tool available for law enforcement. The police should be in a position to apprehend criminals of any stripe, and I would categorize anyone participating in illegal activity as a criminal. Certainly illegal immigrants are participating in an illegal activity - just being in the US without permission.

This is only one aspect of the immigration problem, of course. Certainly employers employing illegals should be cracked down on as they are being. Witness the San Diego restaurant that's being taken to task. The other element of the situation, and the primary element to be sure, is stronger border protection. The resources devoted to the military should be redirected to protecting the border. Don't tell me that if only a fraction of the military R&D budget were devoted to coming up with ways to have stronger and more robust border protection that it couldn't be done. Instead of more billion dollar planes and battle groups the Homeland Security budget should be augmented. This would be true defense instead of the fantasy defense of spending billons of dollars chasing down rag tag groups half way around the world and getting in league with corrupt dictators.

No one should have to carry their birth certificate or immigration papers around with them. Instead legal ID, preferably a wallet size US passport card or other form of national ID card that would be linked to a data base that would show citizenship status should be provided and required to show for everyone.

Feds Crack Down on Employers Hiring Illegals

Posted: Apr 22, 2010 7:42 AM PDT Updated: Apr 22, 2010 11:05 AM PDT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A businessman has been charged with paying illegal immigrants to work at his popular San Diego bistro and catering business after federal officials warned him that the workers' names didn't match their Social Security numbers.

The federal grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges The French Gourmet Inc. received so-called 'no-match' letters from the Social Security Administration in March 2005 and April 2006 but kept employees on board after they submitted new numbers.

The caterer allegedly began paying one employee in cash after he was flagged in a no-match letter and instructed him to get a new Social Security number. His paychecks resumed after he came up with another name and number.

A manager allegedly told another employee "to get a new identity" after he was named in a no-match letter.

Mismatched Social Security numbers has been a hot-button topic since 2007, when the Bush administration proposed that employers be required to fire immigrant workers whose names don't match. The policy failed to survive legal challenges from business and immigrant advocacy groups.

French Gourmet owner Michel Malecot, 58, and manager Richard Kauffmann, 57, pleaded not guilty at their initial court appearances to conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and false attestation.

Eugene Iredale, an attorney for the caterer and Malecot, said the Social Security no-match letters are "extremely confusing" because they do not go beyond pointing out the discrepancy — a common complaint among business leaders.

"You'd think it would say don't hire this person, fire this person," he said. "All they're saying is, 'We don't have this person on file but we're not telling you what to do. You take whatever action you think is right.'"

Jeremy Warren, an attorney for Kauffmann, agreed.

"You're between a rock and a hard place," he said.

It is rare for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build cases against employers on no-match letters.

Josie Gonzalez, a Pasadena immigration attorney who is not involved in the case, said the government has used the letters as evidence in other cases. But the employer's response to the letters is much more critical, including whether employees were paid in cash or without a Social Security number after getting the letters, she said.

"Some employers take a more laissez-faire approach and leave it up to the employee to clear up the discrepancy," Gonzalez said. "Other employers are more proactive and demand that the employee clear it up in a given time frame or get fired."

Dan Kowalski, editor of Bender's Immigration Bulletin, said employers ignore no-match letters at their peril. Most workers will admit being in the country illegally when confronted by their supervisors, he said. Often, they simply quit.

"When an employee gets called into HR, they know the jig is up," he said.

The French Gourmet is an institution in San Diego's oceanfront Pacific Beach neighborhood, known for the hundreds of wedding cakes it makes each year. Malecot, a naturalized U.S. citizen, founded the business in 1979.

Malecot donates time, money or food to 150 charity events a year, Iredale said.

ICE arrested 18 employees at the restaurant in May 2008. At the time, it said they were suspected illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

Arizona's New Immigration Law

by John Lawrence

The furor about Arizona's new immigration law is much ado about nothing. Why are people so outraged that, when you're stopped by the police, you have to show ID? And that that ID should show whether or not you're a legal citizen? People are so upset that Arizona has "criminalized" illegal immigration. Well, being in a country illegally should be a crime, one of the most serious.

I just don't understand it. I'm for legal immigration. I don't have anything against Hispanics, but I don't think we should fool around with letting people off the hook for being here illegally. It's not fair to legal American citizens, and it's not fair to legal immigrants, Hispanic or otherwise.

And they are trying to polarize this as a left/right issue. It's ridiculous. It's not a left/right issue, but an issue of simple fairness and the right of a sovereign nation to control its borders. I'm for helping the homeless. I'm for getting out of Afghanistan. I voted for Obama, and I was for single payer national health care. But I'm not for coddling illegal immigrants. Arizona finally got tough because the Federal government has been Missing In Action on this issue. And they have a right to act in my opinion because it affects them more than it does any other state.

And then they talk about racial profiling. Here are the facts. Most, if not all, of the illegal immigrants are Hispanic. So it only makes sense that Hispanics would be stopped more often and asked for ID. Asking for ID is racial profiling? Give me a break. You show the cop your ID and then, if you're legal, you're on your way. Every person stopped on the freeway is asked for ID. The only question here is should your ID show that you're a legal citizen or not.

I renewed my passport recently. Now in addition to the Passport book, you can get a card, the size of a credit card, that you can carry in your wallet. If I were an Hispanic in Arizona, I sure would get one of these passport cards to prove I was a legal American citizen and show it to every cop who asked me. Is this asking too much - that everybody carry proof of American citizenship? I don't think so. But to hear some people talk, the world is coming to an end.

I give Arizona credit for cracking down on illegals. After all they have an estimated 460,000 illegals in the state. The Federal government is not doing it. And since most illegals are in fact Hispanics who came over the Mexican border, I don't think asking Hispanics for ID more often than asking other ethnic groups for theirs is racial profiling. But in fact asking everyone stopped by a cop for ID is Standard Operating Procedure if it makes anyone feel any better. From now on this SOP should determine proof of citizenship. That's all.

In India recently they did a thorough census and now they will issue a national ID card. They believe that this will expedite social services and reduce military threats. OMG, sounds like a plan! There it will be very simple to determine citizenship. You simply ask to see the ID card. Here in the US they can't even seem to do the simplest things to solve a problem. The solution is very simple. Issue a national ID card or require everyone to show the passport card on demand by police so that every traffic stop requires proof of citizenship. Presently, every traffic stop is a chance for cops to run the person's ID through a data base to see if they're wanted for any outstanding crimes or warrants. This simply adds an additional thing they are checked for which is most basic - proof of citizenship. I don't understand why that's such a huge thing. It seems very simple and basic to me. But then that is probably why it eludes the US Congress.

ID cards planned for India's 1.1 billion Hi-tech entrepreneur will lead operation to create huge database By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi Saturday, 27 June 2009 India is to embark on an ambitious plan to provide each of its 1.1 billion-plus citizens with a national identity card and has picked an industrialist who helped to spearhead the country's IT revolution to lead the project.   Nandan Nilekani, the entrepreneur who helped the best-selling author Thomas Friedman to coin the phrase and book title "The world is flat", was asked by the government to help to create what would be the largest citizens' database in a democracy. Only China has a larger scheme. The government believes that the scheme, to be finalised over three years, will help in the delivery of vital social services to the poorest in society who often lack – or are at least told they lack – sufficient identification papers. The government has long complained that most of the money set aside for the neediest is diverted as a result of corruption, and it believes the cards could help to tackle identity theft and fraud. At a time of increased concern over the threat of militant violence, the government also hopes that the creation of the scheme will boost national security and help police and law and order officials. The creation of the ID or Unique Identification Number (UID) was a major plank of the manifesto of the ruling Congress Party during the recent election.

And then they talk about the supposed fact that there is a big need for immigrants to supply labor. There's tons of jobs here going begging just because immigrants can't get to them so they have to cross the border illegally just to help us out. Give me a break. With 20% unemployment and six applicants for every available job there's jobs going begging? This is a total disconnect. If the private sector can't connect legal unemployed American citizens with these jobs, then government should do it. How comes there are tons of jobs for illegals but none for American citizens? Does becoming an American citizen disqualify you or overqualify you for a job? This is ridiculous.

And it's not as if there's not a huge problem with a piecemeal invasion coming across the Mexican border. The drug problem has turned into a war on the border. Criminal gangs are exploiting the American nambi pambiness over requiring proof of citizenship. Illegal documents flourish. The new passport cards contain a RFID chip and other devices to make sure they're secure. Having a national ID card which could be the same as the passport card which is the same size as a driver's license by the way, would be a simple and safe method for determining if a person was here illegally. It seems logical, basic and simple. Let's get on with it.

Immigration Reform

by John Lawrence

The Obama administration and Congress will probably try its hand at immigration reform some time soon. As typical, instead of adopting a clear and well thought out policy, we will probably have some vitiated, watered down Rube Goldberg approach to the matter. Here are some ideas which might just go a long way to solve the problem. First, of paramount importance is to stop future illegal immigration. The most powerful nation on earth, it seems, has been powerless to stop the illegal entry of goods and human beings. This doesn't bode well for stopping terrorists with whatever materiel they deem necessary from crossing the border and wreaking havoc and destruction on the American people to say nothing of the millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, the millions of dollars in cash going south into Mexico and the cross border gun trade which is allowing drug cartels to build up a veritable military which puts the ragtag Taliban to shame. The greatest military in the world is fighting a primitive group in Afghanistan that has to rely on homemade bombs. Not so for the drug cartels in Mexico which have the most sophisticated weaponry including submarines and helicopters. The US thinks nothing of entering a country half way around the world with a full scale military invasion, dropping bombs on civilians along the way. Yet it does nothing to fight a major foe in another country right on its border.

The Boeing company recently was given a paltry sum of money to come up with a virtual fence which turned out to be a joke. This is not to denigrate the idea of a virtual fence which is a good one. However, the execution by Boeing was abysmal. This idea should be pursued with satellite and drone technology. If we can read a license plate in Iraq, we surely can detect warm bodies crossing the border. Helicopters should be used to parachute in intercept teams once incursions have been detected. The Border Patrol and Coast Guard are terribly underfunded. They should be given resources equivalent to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Those resources should be diverted from the current Defense budget which should be correspondingly reduced. Or better redefine the roles of the military so that border protection becomes the main mission. Secondly US military bases should be built along the border instead of on prime real estate. Camp Pendleton which is located about 50 miles from the border should be relocated right on the border thus freeing up thousands of square miles of prime California real estate for future development which would give a boost to the economy. Locating military bases on relatively undesirable real estate could free up thousands of acres of prime real estate on which they are now  located.

A major portion of the military budget including research and development should be redirected to border and port protection as well as strengthening internal infrastructure to withstand a terrorist attack not to mention the far more likely events of natural disasters. The Department of Homeland Security should be beefed up and the traditional military industrial complex which has become more or less of a massive boondoggle should be beefed down. The resources both in terms of manpower, procurement, and research and development should go into actual defense and not phony defense and fighting wars of aggression against ragtag groups that are illiterate and don't even have driver's licenses. This reorientation of priorities would not only strengthen US defenses, but would also solve the drug problem and put the drug cartels in Mexico, which are a much greater threat to US security, out of business. The idea that criminal operations can cross the US borders (both ways) with impunity is totally repugnant, and we just shouldn't be lulled into accepting it as business as usual. The goal is to improve legal immigration and legal border crossings and to elimiate illegal ones. In fact legal border crossing for humans and materials should be expedited to improve the flow of commerce and to expedite the flow of legal seasonal labor if needed. The pedestrian crossing from San Diego to Tijuana is a total disgrace and needs to be redesigned and rebuilt.

As far as illegal drugs are concerned, legalizing marijuana (but not the other drugs) makes a lot of sense. First, it takes a whole branch of illegal drug smuggling off the table. Second it provides a tax base for marijuana currently grown and sold illegally in the US. It would not only create jobs but provide a revenue source for state and federal government. Then resources can be concentrated on hard drug smuggling and apprension.

But the real question is what to do with illegal aliens that are already in the US, many of whom have integrated themselves into the work force and have established families here. First the law that says that anyone born on American soil is automatically a US citizen should be repealed. Anyone born on US soil to parents that have entered the country illegally should not automatically become a US citizen. The fact that they do complicates the whole problem of deportation. First, illegals already here should be divided into different categories. All prisoners in the US penal system should be deported as well as all single people. For those who have children born in the US who are legal US citizens, there has to be a different approach. To dive into this nasty thicket I would say that some arbitrary dividing line has to be put in place. My recommendation is that all those who have been here less than five years should be deported with the choice being given to leave their children who are US citizens here with relatives or to take them with them. All those who have been longer term residents of the US and who are well established here in terms of jobs, property ownership and business ownership should be given a path to becoming legal citizens. This is a somewhat arbitrary and simplified solution, and probably many situations need to be decided on a case by case basis.

As for the necesity of importing seasonal labor from Mexico because of the jobs that Americans supposedly don't want to do, isn't it laughable in a recession in which many people are out of work that there are any jobs Americans don't want to do? The government should facilitate the hiring of American unemployed and unemployable citizens for these jobs. WPA style programs could set up a work force to pick fruit or whatever the braceros usually do. Programs for unemployable ex-felons and homeless people as well as the chronically unemployed, inner city black youth for example, could be set up to deliver labor to industries that have previously employed illegals. Jobs are needed and workers should be employed right here at home. It's ridiculous to have a huge army of unemployed citizens on the government dole while at the same time American industry is employing huge numbers of illegals. It should be a government policy to transition these industries away from employing illegals and towards employing American citizens who are chronically unemployed. Employers who employ illegals should be sanctioned and fined if not imprisoned while incentives should be given to employ marginally employable US citizens.

So my solution to the illegal immigration problem is five fold:

1) Divert military resources from wars of aggression and military bases abroad (currently upwards of 1000) to extensive programs of border and port protection here at home. This includes research and development and basing military assets along the border. Intelligence operations like the CIA should concentrate on border protection as well as hunting down bad guys overseas. In addition to preventing terrorists from crossing the border, illegal drugs and other illegal imports should be stopped completely and whole illegal industries shut down. This will help not only the US, but it will help Mexico too in that the drug cartels will be eliminated. At the same time legal border crossing and immigration should be expedited.

2) Eliminate illegal jobs in the US by establishing a jobs program that employs chronically unemployed American citizens such as ex-felons, the homeless and inner city black youth and that facilitates the hiring of these people to replace the need for illegal labor. Give incentives to business to hire the marginally employable while fining them for hiring illegals. The government needs to be the facilitator because, left to their own devices, US industry that employs illegals will simply take the easy way out and continue to employ illegals.

3) Change the law regarding anyone born on American soil automatically becoming a US citizen. Babies born to illegals should not automatically become US citizens. This law should be retroactive for some period of time so that families whose parents are here illegally can be deported.

4) Make a judgment call as to who needs to be deported and who will be given a path to US citizenship based on how long a family has been here and how well established they are.

5) Legalize marijuana.