Fox News reports that the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) has decided he refuses to do his job! In the article, Fox says that he "reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities." If this is true, this is in violation of federal law and the mission statement on the Department of Homeland Security's I.C.E. website.
The I.C.E. website says its mission is "to protect the security of the American people and homeland by vigilantly enforcing the nation's immigration and customs laws." "...VIGILANTLY ENFORCING..." Now, since when did that become synonymous with "BLATANTLY IGNORING?"
Dig a bit deeper and you'll find that I.C.E. has its own Office of Detention and Removal (DRO). On their site, you'll find:
"DRO is the primary enforcement arm within ICE for the identification, apprehension and removal of illegal aliens from the United States. The resources and expertise of DRO are utilized to identify and apprehend illegal aliens, fugitive aliens, and criminal aliens, to manage them while in custody and to enforce orders of removal from the United States. DRO is committed to enforcing our nation's immigration laws in a fair, effective, and professional manner."
These people are not doing their jobs!
I am not talking about agents, detectives, and officers, but the bureaucrats that tie the hands of the men and women in the field. Bureaucrats that blur the line between law enforcement and politics. Bureaucrats that let that line get blurred by not standing for what is right and defending the Constitution. "YES MEN" that do whatever they can to please those above them and don't have the spine to stand for those below them.
These are the same people that are tying the hands of our troops overseas that must wait until some idiot shoots at him or blows up his buddy's truck before he can engage him.
These are the very people that must be held responsible for the crippling effects their policies are having on this great nation. It is not just politicians that we can vote out, numbered among them are also political appointees who serve no one except their king who appointed them. They must be held accountable.
Good news, it is the weekend and there is a limit to how much damage these people can do when not at work!
They look like they'll assimilate and follow our laws!
Enforce our Laws/Make new Ones: After considering all of these factors, the state of Arizona has declared that they won’t take it anymore. They have chosen to enforce the federal law that the Federal Government won’t. A Rasmussen Poll shows that 60% of Americans agree with Arizona, but politicians in sanctuary cities like, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego are calling for a boycott. Liberal cities far from the border in Austin, TX and Chicago, IL are admonishing AZ for taking a stand. Socialists (Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security) at the highest levels of the U.S. government are condemning the government of Arizona for its efforts to curb a national problem without even having read the short bill. Lastly, the president of Mexico has condemned the Arizona law and warned his citizens against travel to AZ…really? There have been more people killed on the MX/US border in the last few years than in Somalia, Yemen or even Afghanistan, and you are warning people not to visit AZ because they might get their I.D. checked? So, this boycott idea… I’d like to dig a bit deeper. What if by some small miracle, the U.S. government decided to enforce its own immigration law? Would these people call for a boycott of the United States of America? I say we boycott Mexico. Why should we continue to pour billions of hard earned American dollars into a government that is in bed with the drug cartels? There will be no change on the other side of the border until they feel the squeeze that will inevitably come from not having American tourism dollars.
No More Anchor Babies: Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction there of, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ---Important parts are in bold for the context of this discussion. The original intent of the 14th Amendment was to protect the rights of freed slaves and their children. The 14th Amendment overruled Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that slaves and their descendants were not citizens of the United States and were not entitled to Constitutional rights. This law has been perverted to give instant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Amending the constitution to close this loophole will dramatically reduce the force of the magnetic field that seemingly pulls people across the border.
Abolish the minimum wage: Minimum wage legislation is another entitlement program. If a worker is not capable of a certain dollar amount of work per hour, why should he be paid for that? Abolishing the minimum wage will let the free market determine a worker’s compensation. How does this affect immigration? Well, let’s take a look. If an expanding small business man has an opening for a low skilled job in a warehouse, he is currently required to pay a minimum amount for the work being done.Let’s say he is willing to work “outside the law” on this one, he can pay an illegal worker less than minimum wage “off the books” and he avoids paying minimum wage. As before, this money is not being taxed and some of it is getting sent back to the country of origin, and we have another employed illegal success story increasing the magnetic force that attracts illegals to this country. On the other hand, let’s say the employer is a law abiding citizen, but cannot afford to pay another employee minimum wage. So he has several options: 1) He could give one of his skilled employees a few dollars more per hour to take on the extra work that would have been performed by the low skilled guy, 2) He could get rid of a higher paid employee, and higher two lower paid ones to increase his man power 3) He could decide not to expand because the extra labor costs outweigh the increased income from productivity. This is a simple illustration of how minimum wage laws hamper small business and hurt the low skilled workers they are supposed to be helping. Without the “price fixing” of labor by the government, the workforce is free to negotiate payment terms with employers. Paying illegals “off the books” at a rate below what Americans are willing to work for is a form of slavery. The punishment for hiring illegals should be stiff. I recommend punishing fines and a “Scarlet Letter” of some kind that lets the community know that you’d rather encourage illegal immigration of low skilled workers than give back to the community through honest business practices and operating within FEDERAL LAW. Additionally, when state and federal law makers raise the minimum wage, where do you think that money comes from? When the cashier’s pay goes up, so do the prices in the store. Now, the cashier has to pay more money for his own groceries. With the abolishment of the minimum wage, prices for goods and services can more closely follow the economic forces of supply and demand instead of government regulations. For some myth busting thoughts on Minimum Wage, I include the excerpt below from a blog entry on Nick Coon’s blog ... don’t know the guy, but like his thoughts on this topic:
Minimum wage is one of those things that seems like a good idea to many people initially, but then backfires. Many people don't even understand the consequences of this.
Here are a few minimum wage myths that need debunking:
1) Without minimum wage, people won't be paid what they're worth / will be underpaid. What someone is worth depends on what wage they secure in the free market, just like the value of real estate is based on what someone will pay for it. If the most someone can find for a job is $2/hr, then that's what they're worth.
2) Minimum wage makes it so that someone can at least hope to make enough money to survive, whereas otherwise they couldn't. Businesses don't just magically have more money available for payroll just because a minimum wage is instituted. What happens instead, as minimum wage increases, businesses have to pay people more than what they're worth. This results in the business having to layoff some workers to free up enough cash to pay those still on staff. The end result is that there are now more unemployed workers because the business can't afford them. It must either make do with the staff it can afford or go out of business, putting all of its employees out of work.
Minimum wage is meant to make it so that those at the lower end of the income scale make a better living, when in fact it results in a higher unemployment rate among that same income class.
3) Without minimum wage, the days of sweatshops would return. Perhaps, though no one is forced to work in such an environment. An employer should be free to offer a job at a $0.50/hr wage, just as a worker is free to turn it down.
4) Minimum wage helps increase the quality of life for those in lower income brackets. Not at all. If a business is forced to pay its workers more, the money has to come from somewhere. In most cases, this is in the form of increased prices for goods and services. Someone making more money because of minimum wage only ends up spending more to buy the items they need to survive, ending right back where they started.
If I were an employer that wanted to offer someone $1/hr to perform a particular job, and someone wanted to accept that offer, why should anyone stand in the way of that mutually-consenting agreement?
Fair Tax: Abolish the IRS and do away with the Federal Income tax. Institute the Fair Tax! I have already written on this topic and would encourage all to read about this and make sure your elected officials know how you feel about it. The increased revenue realized from the Fair Tax is exactly what our country needs to climb out of this debt hole. When money is tight in your life, you have several options, figure out how to spend less, earn more, or both. The Fair Tax will give us more money. This increase in revenue in conjunction with massive spending and program cuts is the prescription for a wealthier America.
Final thoughts on the undocumented: If you try to enter a movie, sporting event, or concert without a ticket, they won’t let you. If you get caught sneaking in, you don’t get offered a voucher for the concession stand and a comfortable seat. If someone tries to board a U.S. Navy vessel (sovereign U.S. territory) without proper authorization, deadly force is authorized to prevent them. How is the actual land within the borders of the United States of America any different? The truth of the matter is the Left sees a larger population of low skilled, uneducated immigrants (legal and otherwise) as a future voting base. The dream one day to provide amnesty to this base will instantly give the left millions upon millions of votes. Others see this as helping another human in need. This is where my biggest struggle with this issue lies. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, he also said to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”-Mark 12:17. In Mark, Jesus is telling us to pay the taxes the government needs to operate and follow the laws of the land. Our nation has laws, laws that must be followed to maintain good order and discipline within our borders. Some of these laws need to be changed, abolished, or replaced, but ignoring laws cannot be an accepted practice in our established judicial, legislative, or executive processes. Additionally, in Matthew 15:4-6, Jesus admonished the Pharisees for giving to the Church before ensuring that their own families were taken care of. I liken this to our need to make sure that Americans are fed and cared for before those in our country illegally. If that means limiting the legal flow, so be it. Nobody said keeping America headed in the right direction would be easy.
CONS:Financial Drain: Financially, illegal immigrants are a huge strain on the American economy. Here is a quick rundown of some of the sources of the strain: enforcement costs, social programs, education costs, medical care, incarceration costs, prosecution costs, damage done to federal property upon illegal entry, not paying taxes on cash income, sending money home to their countries of origin never to return again (In 2003, then-President of Mexico, Vicente Fox told SignOnSanDiego.com that remittances "are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment" and that "the money transfers grew after Mexican consulates started giving identity cards to their citizens in the United States." He stated that money sent from Mexican workers in the United States to their families back home reached a record $12 billion.), drugs smuggled in means cash going out, and the time and money lost debating how to solve this complicated issue. Crime: Crime committed by illegals in the U.S. is not only a financial burden to the taxpayer, but also kills and harms the victims of violent crime and drunk driving. Saying that all illegals are involved in violent crime is as ignorant as saying that all Muslims are involved in acts of terrorism, but the fact remains that by virtue of being within the borders of the U.S. illegally, they have committed a crime. Bottom line, you reduce the number of criminals in a population, you will see a reduction in crime. There are two ways to reduce the number of criminals 1) Wave a magic wand and make them legal, and now only a percentage are criminals 2) Get them all out of the country, and now there all gone…no magic wand required. Sure, we'll still have our American criminals to deal with, but we have a system in place for that. Why should America have to house its own criminals and those of other nations? Unemployment: Employment opportunities gobbled up by our illegal friends is the next point of contention. Some, as previously discussed, argue “They are doing jobs Americans won’t do.” Really? What about American teens that work summers, or used to? The Center for Immigration Studies has done several pieces on the effects of immigration (legal and otherwise) on low skilled and low paying employment in America. Simply put, if you pay a guy "off the books," you can pay him less; therefore, it behooves the small business man to break the law and hire illegals cheaper than he can pay a few local kids to do the same work. By the way, he has now broken federal law and should be punished, but “What about these poor people and their families?” you ask. Bank robbers have families, too, and so do murderers and tax cheats, and they have all broken federal law and should be punished accordingly. So to simplify how employment is affected, they take jobs away from Americans and don’t pay taxes on their earnings. Now we have more unemployed Americans that are going to depend on social programs and unemployment, and the “undocumented worker” (that bit of political correctness even felt sleazy) is not officially employed, so he can double dip and take advantage of our generous social programs that are draining the American economy dry. So, if we deport one illegal worker and his family, we take two families off of social programs and unemployment and get the tax money from the guy who now has a job…is it starting to add up? Security: Security of our borders is the first line of defense of the security of our nation and our way of life. Now you can say, “They just want to come here and make a life for themselves and pursue the American dream.” Fair enough. There is a legal way to do that and I encourage them to pursue it. Don’t get me wrong, that legal way needs to be changed, but before we can pass sensible immigration reform, we must secure our borders so Other Than Mexicans(OTMs) can’t slip across our southern border and blow up our buildings. Mexican drug runners own the trails along the border. They smuggle drugs and people. Some of those people, OTMs, aren’t looking for the American dream; they are looking to destroy our country. Drug runners have loyalty to one thing, and that is making money; they don’t care where it comes from. Terrorists from the Far East are known to have ties with the cartels for this purpose. A 2007 report from the Department of Homeland Security, A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Borderreports that in 2005 at least 850 people from countries of "special interest" were apprehended crossing the southern border. How many more successfully crossed is unknown. We must secure our perimeter. It is the oldest military tactic in the books. Whether we go with a wall, drones, or military patrols with the authorized use of deadly force…just secure the damn thing.
In an effort to educate myself and make sense of all the commotion going on in the political arena regarding illegal immigration, I did some internet searching. I set out to compile statistics regarding illegal immigration and its effect on the American economy. In my digging, I found that not much is documented with respect to undocumented folks. I found statistics that varied wildly regarding the numbers of illegals in the U.S. and their countries of origin. I include the graphic as a point of reference. Keep in mind all of this is based on estimates because after all, they aren’t lining up to be counted. The statistics pictured are from the website: immigrationcounters.com. I am quoting these statistics under the assumption that they are accurate at least to the correct order of magnitude.
It doesn’t take much deep thought to conclude that the problems of illegal immigration and border control has many negative consequences that largely outweigh the few benefits to our country. This is by no means the end all and be all illegal immigration solution, but it will outline a few items that must change in order to achieve a more stable economy and employment environment, a reduction in crime in border states, and a more secure border. With the vast amount of information available today, a simple internet search can turn into hours of data mining for something worth reading. I have chosen to break down my findings, opinions, and conclusions into a three part entry that I’ll present this week. I hope you enjoy it, learn something, and will forward to as many people as possible.
PROS:In an effort to be fair, I will first review a few ways America benefits from illegal immigration. Many argue that because many low-skilled agricultural jobs are filled by illegals in the absence of willing Americans we pay less for fruits and vegetables. So, we are saying that because these people aren’t legal, we don’t have to pay them minimum wage?We’ll get back to this later. What about the argument that this country was built by immigrants? True. All that building was done by people who either came here before there were laws regarding immigration or by people who came here legally. Sure, there have been illegal immigrants from all corners of the Earth that have come to America and done great things and contributed to society, but that doesn’t change that fact that they are here in violation of federal law. So, what I am hearing is we can eat better for less, have nice brick work done for less, and mighty Americans are not forced to lower themselves to do jobs that they are better than. You’ve almost got me convinced that things are fine the way they are.
CONS:Financial Drain, Crime, Unemployment, and Security. More to come.
