Donald A. Collins | 5 January 2016
Progressives for Immigration Reform
As we approach the first Presidential primaries one key question about Trump is whether he can win any of them and then go on to be nominated or has he as many in the mass media claim just been an entertainment.
Most pundits say he has peaked, perhaps because he seems so often piqued.
What catapulted Trump into the lead of course was his stance on advocating real immigration reform which cuts across many voters’ ideological feelings.
Remember, it is quite likely that neither party wants him to run. The Republican oligarchy would love Bush who would keep their H-1B’s flowing and the Democrats, with their utterly shabby record on immigration enforcement would have to face his truth telling. Particularly now that terrorism seems to have traction here.
Again all the pundits say Trump would lose handily because the silent majority who are credited with being his voters show up in his poll numbers but won’t show up at the polls.
Even the Wall Street Journal, however, which is certainly in the Republican oligarchy camp, can’t make the case that enacting real immigration reform is not a serious issue with a sizeable number of voters from both parties.
In fact the 12/14 column “The Roots of Republican Fears on Immigration and Trade” by Gerald F. Seib, an excellent analyst for both Barrons and the Journal, Seib cites the background in what is an informative piece, which notes, “On top of economic insecurity about jobs being taken from Americans, terror attacks have added a new layer of personal insecurity.”
Ok, but why is Seib curiously short on calling out the demographic facts that have given Mr. Trump his bump in the polls?
Isn’t the wanton addition of over 100 million aliens through the greed and political strategizing of both parties since 1965 worth noting?
Is it because his employer is part of the Republican oligarchy that wants to pretend that growth can continue in a finite world and that constant statements about creating more jobs will create jobs despite the rush in all industries to automate every job a human could perform?
My son, an engineer with multi patents and a manufacturing expertise that saved his company millions got riffed, but finally found another job at 60% less money after an intensive 1½ year search. He lost over $250,000 in wages in the meantime and says “Getting a new job was the hardest job I ever had.”
A woman friend of my wife’s with a CPA degree and years of successful work as a program administrator is among the over 50 women described in the 1/2/16 NY Times front page article “Over 50, Female and Jobless Even as Others Return to Work” by Patricia Cohen. Of those over 50 women nearly 50% are unable to find work. My wife’s friend has been out of work for several years and is about to lose her home.
Americans are not stupid. Again, our media is constantly forced to report breaking news, even if skewed to fit the editorial biases of their owners.
For example, the 1/2/16 page one story of the NY Times, whose headline is truly shocking: “U.S. Doesn’t Know How Many Foreign Visitors Overstay Visas.” This of course comes about as the result of bi-partisan efforts which I have previously dubbed “The Externalities Parties” who seek to keep the borders open for cheap labor and ethnic and religious piling on.
This allows these greedy open border oligarchs to pass onto us taxpayers the true cost of this alien import fiasco which results in more crime, schooling costs, welfare, and now terrorism. The Federation for American Immigration Reform’s state by state analysis of what those enormous costs are should make any thinking citizen quiver. Decades into mass immigration and we still can’t say how many aliens of all categories are here. For example, that oft quoted figure of 11 million aliens here in the U.S. illegally is way out of date and likely way underestimated.
Stories are rampant in the mass media about how lucky we were to get so many super star people from this flood of migrants. I compare the open border phenomenon of the decades since 1965 to the hydraulic mining of gold which gets a few nuggets but is terribly destructive of the environment.
As the Times piece tells us, “The issue has taken on added urgency as part of a broader examination of immigration policy following the mass shootings in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded. Tashfeen Malik, one of the attackers, was granted entry to the United States under a K-1 visa, also known as a fiancé visa. Her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was an American-born citizen. Both died in a shootout with the police. While Ms. Malik did not overstay her visa, the attack added to fears that a terrorist could exploit gaps in the system.
Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed a law requiring the federal government to develop a system to track people who overstayed their visas. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an entry and exit tracking system was seen as a vital national security and counterterrorism tool, and the 9/11 Commission recommended that the Department of Homeland Security complete a system “as soon as possible.” Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had overstayed their visas.
Since then, the federal government has spent millions of dollars on the effort, yet officials “can only roughly estimate the number of people in the United States illegally after overstaying visas.”
Now you cannot convince me with the electronic surveillance our government has which can tell how much toilet paper or dry cereal I buy that the government could not know if it wished the answer to that question. Bet NSA knows. The blame game goes on: “Officials blame a lack of technology to conduct more advanced collection of data like iris scans, resistance from the airline and tourism industries because of cost, and question about the usefulness of tracking people exiting the country as a counterterrorism measure.” Lack of technology? Oh, please!
Some experts also note that a sizable number of those who overstayed their visas are highly skilled workers who come under the H-1B program or are foreign students.
One widely cited statistic, from a 1997 report by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, puts the number of people who overstay their visas at 40 percent – which now would mean about 4.4 million of the estimated 11 million undocumented residents in the United States. Numerous lawmakers, including the Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have used that figure when trying to describe the scope of the problem. But even that number has never been conclusively substantiated.” Mad yet? You should be, particularly if you are out of work, or even slightly worried about terrorism here at home. Slightly more urgency now, eh.
Many Americans from both parties likely perceive that Trump is telling them the truth about their do nothing government on the real immigration reform issue which is now so long out of control. Would that former member of the Gang of Eight (now 7) Senator Rubio do anything about real immigration reform if he were elected? How about Fiorina, Bush, or Hillary Clinton if elected? I rest my case.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
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