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I chose to be Independent now

Two interesting points today, about illegal immigration.

First it appears that a small group of Congressmen are working on this draft bill:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just off the Senate floor, a dozen Democratic and Republican senators huddle twice a day to decide whether proposed changes to a bipartisan immigration compromise are acceptable tweaks or fatal blows to their fragile agreement.

Survival of the deal that would allow 12 million unlawful immigrants to stay in the U.S. legally - regarded as the best chance to overhaul immigration this year - depends in large part on how effective this "Gang of 12" is in insulating the plan from major changes.

The team grows or shrinks according to what the issues are. At its core are the unlikely partners who cut the deal, led by liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and conservative Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Assistance comes from GOP centrist Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mel Martinez of Florida and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Our infamous RINOs are working hand in hand with Democrats to try to secure this draft into a passable piece of legislation. The title of this article is called "Group of 12..." Question: How many member of Congress should be involved with this?
Answer: ALL of them.

Then we read how the GOP RINOs are worried about losing their base, and we can't wonder why:

The bipartisan immigration bill being pushed by the White House and Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, is fracturing rather than "saving" the Republican Party nationally, according to angry party leaders and new poll findings.

Arizona Republican Party officials have received "hundreds and hundreds of calls, e-mails and letters from Republicans angry about the bill," state party Chairman Randy Pullen told The Washington Times.

"They were saying, 'I am going to register independent and not give you any more money' -- and that's the base of our party saying that," Mr. Pullen said.

I don't live in a border state, and I'm damn upset about this. As well, I am no longer registering as a Republican. I chose to be Independent now...where I place my votes to those who put America and her citizens first, above and beyond illegal immigrants. The GOP stands to lose MUCH with this. Let's hope they are very clear with their understanding of it.

Closing The Gaping Open Loopholes

Senator Norm Coleman has introduced legislation that would effectively "dis" incorporate "Sanctuary Cities" we have all over the country.

May 23rd, 2007 - Washington, D.C. - In an effort to strengthen national security, Senator Norm Coleman yesterday introduced an amendment to the Immigration bill to make sure local law enforcement officials are able to communicate with federal law enforcement agencies regarding suspected immigration violations. Currently, a number of cities throughout the nation are using a loophole to get around Sec. 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 by instituting ordinances forbidding local law enforcement to even ask the question as to whether a person is in the U.S. lawfully, thereby evading their legal responsibility to report their suspicions to the federal government.

“In a post 9-11 world, it is simply unacceptable for communities to ignore federal laws requiring them to share this type of information with federal authorities. This is not a matter of making state and local governments enforce federal immigration laws, it is simply a matter of closing this loophole that certain cities have created,” said Coleman. “This defies common sense, as the rule of law must apply to both legal and illegal residents. Moreover, we know how crucial it is to connect the dots in order to avert another terrorist attack in this country. The consequences of prohibiting information sharing are too great. To close this loophole, I have introduced an amendment that will ensure the lines of communication are open between local and federal law enforcement officials.”

I believe this makes much sense. Although I am against the federal government intervening in many areas, when it comes to federal laws and rules AND national security, AND political correctness gone mad as the leaders of these cities obviously are- this is a common sense legislation.

However, the federal government MUST do it's job and enforce the laws already in place. They MUST connect the dots and not allow cites to hide potential terrorists and their supporters. Senator Coleman deserves a big KUDOS for this.


On another related note, Senator John Cornyn has introduced another piece of common sense legislation: To bar the immigration of known terrorists, sex offenders, gang members and alien smugglers.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the immigration bill to close a gaping loophole in the bill that will ensure the following individuals are either permanently barred from the United States or prohibited from getting any immigration benefit: members of terrorist-related organizations, known gang members, sex offenders, alien smugglers who use firearms and felony drunk drivers.

“The question I put to my colleagues is this: Should Congress permanently bar from the U.S. and from receiving any immigration benefit: suspected terrorists, gang members, sex offenders, felony drunk drivers, and other individuals who are a danger to society?,” Sen. Cornyn said. “I hope that every Senator would answer this question with a positive response.

Sen. Cornyn’s amendment also closes the loophole in the pending bill that allows legalization of those illegal immigrants who have violated court ordered deportations, or absconders.

One has to wonder how many of these absconders we have lurking among us...in particular how many who have committed crimes against Americans. We cannot automatically grant these thugs citizenship, and we cannot offer them amnesty or whatever title is popular at any given moment.

X Posted @ ARS

Fisking the Draft Immigration Bill

Hugh Hewitt has an excellent fisking of the recent immigration bill draft. It's important to understand exactly what this legislation is all about.

As Hugh says:

There are so many problems with this bill that it should not be introduced in the Senate absent a period of open hearings on it and the solicitation of expert opinion from various analysts across the ideological spectrum.

Hugh shares with his readers how to have a say in this process. Go check it out.

CIS Report on H-1B Visa Abuses

A disturbing report from the Center For Immigration Studies.

This report details how American businesses abuse the H-1B Visas designed for foreign/guest workers to come to the US for employment of higher skilled jobs, when businesses cannot find Americans to do the work...this report shows us that businesses are using legal and illegal immigrants to do "classified" work with very low pay; how businesses are lying to the Dept. of Labor on the level of skill and wages for these workers.

Grab a cup of coffee before you read this report. It's long but well worth the time.

Some key findings:

Very few H-1B workers are "highly-skilled." Employers who used the Department of Labor’s skill-based prevailing wage system classified most workers (56 percent) as being at the lowest skill level (Level I) as did most State Employment Security Agency (SESA) wage determinations (57 percent). This suggests that most H-1B computer workers are low-skilled workers who make no special contribution to the American economy, or that employers are deliberately understating workers’ skills in order to justify paying them lower salaries.

According to the applications filed in 2005, it appears that employers may be significantly understating what U.S. computer workers are earning in order to justify paying low wages to H-1B guestworkers in those occupations. In FY 2005, H-1B employer prevailing wage claims averaged $16,000 below the median wage for U.S. computer workers in the same location and occupation.

90 percent of H-1B employer prevailing wage claims for programming occupations were below the median U.S. wage for the same occupation and location, with 62 percent of the wage claims in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.

While higher than the prevailing wage claims, the actual wages reported for H-1B workers were significantly less than those of their American counterparts. Wages for H-1B workers averaged $12,000 below the median wage for U.S. workers in the same occupation and location.

The reported wages for 84 percent of H-1B workers were below the median U.S. wage; 51 percent were in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.

Many employers make prevailing wage claims using wage sources that are not valid under the law. The Department of Labor routinely approves prevailing wage claims based on these invalid sources.

If that's not enough to get your blood boiling, further reading is required:

Observations
The preparation of this report involved many weeks of examining LCA data. While outside the scope of this report, a number of questionable patterns were found. Some of those patterns involving computer occupations are listed here in the hope that other researchers might investigate them.

Many employer addresses listed on LCAs are not bona fide business addresses. These include residences and mail drops.

The number of LCAs filed for certain states suggests that the number of H-1B workers exceeds the number of jobs. For example, the number of LCAs filed for New Jersey suggests that the number of H-1B programmers that are supposed to be working in the state greatly exceeds the number of programming jobs created in the state.

Some groups of LCAs contain identical data except for the employer contact information. One such group had five employers, three of which listed a residence as the business address.

Wages for computer programming managers were also significantly below the median for U.S. workers in those occupations.

WE have a problem here: It's called overly GREEDY American businesses. In a nutshell this report proves that some businesses will go to great lengths to deceive the government on what employment practices are commonly being abused. Using H-1B Visas to bring in low skilled immigrants robs our honest businesses of valuable help; this practice also robs the American people of an honest debate on the issue of illegal immigration.

One has to question how much of this report has been read by members of Congress, those who are in the process of seeing to it that even more jobs will be given away to immigrants...who apparently have more rights than we the American people have. Yet, the illegals are also being screwed over. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on here. The business lobby is fueling these reform package deals for their own greedy benefit. No one wins here, folks. No one.

X Posted @ ARS

Immigration "deal" Dead already?

Is the immigration deal already dead? Sounds that way.

WASHINGTON — A breakthrough in immigration reform faces a tough road ahead with division emerging among congressional leaders over how to handle millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States.

The agreement announced Thursday by some lawmakers and the White House that would grant legal status to those illegal immigrants and increase border and interior enforcement initiatives enters its first round of debate on Monday in the Senate.

"I don't know if the immigration legislation is going to bear fruit and we're going to be able to pass it," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who said he had "serious concerns" about the bill.

The bill also faces challenges in the House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said there are divisions among Democrats and she won't bring it to the House floor unless President Bush can guarantee he has 70 Republican supporters.

I doubt President Bush will find his 70 supporters for this. There has been much backlash today on this, and people are hearing about it.

Have they heard your voice yet? Contact your elected representatives and let them know how you feel. Be a part of the civic process.

What We Got with Immigration Deal Today

The AP has provided a round up of provisions in today's illegal immigration legislation deal. I wouldn't be shocked to hear much more in the following days, though. The AP is known to slant the news just a little.

CURRENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

_They could come forward immediately and receive probationary legal status.

_Bill creates a new four-year, renewable "Z" nonimmigrant visa for those present within the U.S. before Jan. 1, 2007.

_Nonimmigrants may adjust status to lawful permanent residence once they pay $5,000 in fees and fines and their head of household returns to their home country.

_People under age 30 who were brought to the U.S. as minors could receive their green cards after three years, rather than eight.

_Nonimmigrant farmworkers who can demonstrate they have worked 150 hours or three years in agriculture can apply for green cards.

_No green cards for nonimmigrants can be processed until "triggers" for border security and workplace enforcement have been met, estimated to take 18 months. Processing of green cards for nonimmigrants will begin after clearing the visa backlog, which takes eight years.

At least the AP calls the ILLEGAL here. That's a start.

BORDER SECURITY

_Hire 18,000 new border patrol agents.

_Erect 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

_Erect 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border.

_Deploy four unmanned aerial vehicles and supporting systems.

_End the program in which illegal immigrants are released upon apprehension.

_Provide for detaining up to 27,500 aliens per day on an annual basis.

_Use secure and effective identification tools to prevent unauthorized work.

Only 200 miles? Last year the House and Senate passed a bill that required over 700 miles. Why the change?

WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT

_Require employers to electronically verify new employees to prove identity and work eligibility.

_Increase penalties for unlawful hiring, employment and record keeping violations.

Does it not bother anyone that the one piece to the mass puzzle we call illegal immigration rests squarely on the shoulders of business, and yet they have the least responsibility here? It bothers me a lot.

GUEST WORKERS (requires border security measures to be in place first)

_Create a new temporary guest worker program with two-year "Y visas," initially capped at 400,000 per year with annual adjustments based on market fluctuations

_Workers could renew the Y visa up to three times, but would be required to return home for a year in between each time. Those bringing dependents could obtain only one, nonrenewable two-year visa.

_Families could accompany guest workers only if they could show proof of medical insurance and demonstrate that their wages were 150 percent above the poverty level.

Requires border security first? This is never going to get solved. As I asked in my previous post about this: Who is going to oversee this entire program (joke)?


And finally:

FUTURE IMMIGRANTS

_Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and permanent residents would be eligible for green cards based purely on their family connections, but other relatives such as adult children and siblings would not.

_380,000 visas a year would be awarded based on a point system, with about 50 percent based on employment criteria, 25 percent based on education, 15 percent on English proficiency and 10 percent on family connections.

_Apply new limits to U.S. citizens seeking to bring foreign-born parents into the country.

Visas for parents of U.S. citizens would be capped annually at 40,000 and those for spouses and children at 87,000.

I'm not up to doing the math right now, but someone else will. How many people will be able to enter America, formerly known as illegals, soon to legal here? Point system? I think we have a problem already.

This is a shame. Americans have been stomped on yet again by our own elected leaders. Jobs are at stake and this legislation only makes the vast numbers of American citizens about to become unemployed, totally legal. I can't believe Congress is serious with this.

UPDATE: Rick Moran is on top of this. To put it all mildly:

For in truth, this “comprehensive reform” is hardly comprehensive and reforms nothing. Instead, it validates lawbreaking, rewards separateness, spits in the face of those who have followed the rules and come here legally, and endangers the cohesiveness and unity of the country. It also opens wide the borders and invites another two or three generations of immigration scofflaws to enjoy our hospitality, awaiting their turn on the amnesty-go-round willingly supplied by politicians who refuse to do the right thing in favor of being able to preen, primp, and posture in front of the voters, touting their credentials as compassionate lawmakers concerned about the “plight” of illegal aliens.

And Rick has links to blogs with numbers we should all be aware of.

Educated and Skilled Illegal Immigrants?

The Senate is wheeling and dealing provisions in an attempt to "overhaul" immigration legislation. The Democrats and Republicans are coming together for once, and talking points have been put out. It all comes down to one thing: AMNESTY for illegals. And worse.

Under the tentative deal, undocumented workers who crossed into the country before Jan. 1 would be offered a temporary-residency permit while they await a new "Z Visa" that would allow them to live and work lawfully here. The head of an illegal-immigrant household would have eight years to return to his or her home country to apply for permanent legal residence for members of the household, but each Z Visa itself would be renewable indefinitely, as long as the holder passes a criminal background check, remains fully employed and pays a $5,000 fine, plus a paperwork-processing fee.

In the following days if not hours, we will hear about the undisclosed portions of this deal. Illegal immigrants have no intention of returning home, for any reason. We are stupid and naive if we think otherwise. Indefinite visa? Sweet- a permit to remain legally illegal.

A separate, temporary-worker program would be established for 400,000 migrants a year. Each temporary work visa would be good for two years and could be renewed up to three times, as long as the worker leaves the country for a year between renewals.

And who is going to monitor all this? DO we have the resources and manpower to hold oversight to all these immigrants coming and going? Can we expect a group of law breaking people to come forward and suddenly obey our laws? Will the Mexican government support these measures? Of course not.

To satisfy Republicans, those provisions would come in force only after the federal government implements tough new border controls and a crackdown on employers that hire illegal immigrants. Republicans are demanding 18,000 new Border Patrol agents, 370 miles of additional border fencing and an effective, electronic employee-verification system for the workplace.

There has been much talk about this fence and the lack of progress being made on it. From what I can see, it's gone nowhere. Border control agents? Now there's a job no one wants, after all the US government is doing it's best to protect the rights of illegal aliens vs. agents. Why don't we just hire immigrants to guard the borders?

Automatic family unifications would remain but would be limited to spouses and children under 21. The adult children and siblings of U.S. residents would probably need other credentials, such as skills and education, to qualify for an immigrant visa. A number of unskilled parents would be allowed in, but that flow would be capped.

Knowing our Democrat leaders, the other "credentials" will be provided for, paid for by the American tax payer. Any skill will qualify for special privilege. Suddenly we'll see things such as toilet scrubbing become a learned "skill" acquired through some fashion of formal education.

To Republicans, the new system would make the nation more economically competitive while opening access to a wider array of migrants. "I think you'll find the point system to be pretty well balanced," said Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.).

We must not upset the business factor here. After all they stand to lose the most when it comes to economic benefits of illegal immigrants. Problem is, these new rules will create a class of immigrant workers. Some with higher education and skills, and therefore demand for higher wages and better benefits. The uneducated lower class immigrants will be crying foul. Who is anyone trying to fool here? The "educated" immigrants will be offered all those other jobs American middle class folk now hold.

Do our leaders see this coming? Do they care? I'm not sure. But I am sure of this: THIS legislation will effect more Americans negatively, by far, than it will effect any one illegal immigrant. We're selling the very soul of America here. The value of hard work means nothing when Americans aren't allowed to do it- when Americans lose jobs and their livelihood. Our government has tried to sneak in new laws and legislation -designed to accommodate the business community, and surely a means to replace American workers and save money. We need to call our elected leaders and demand an end to this. We don't need illegal immigrants. There are no jobs an American won't do, and this talking point needs to stop.