Ted Cruz has worked to strengthen border security and help ensure that America remains a nation of laws. Among other efforts, he has worked on efforts to increase penalties for felons who enter the country illegally.
Authored a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of 10 states in Lopez v. Gonzales, urging the strictest enforcement of laws punishing those with prior felony convictions who entered the country illegally.
A bi-partisan group of Senators, known as the Gang of 8, have put together a framework for the immigration reform that supposedly America is waiting for.
Provisions of the agreement have been widely leaked and, from what I see, these Senators should return to the drawing board.
If we are going to tackle immigration reform, there should be agreement at the outset on what objectives should be achieved. In my view, there should be three. It should enhance the freedom, fairness, and security of the nation. If not, why bother?
The Gang of 8 proposal makes no gains on any of these fronts, and on at least one – fairness–makes a bad situation even worse.
It seems to be the way of Washington these days to take issues that are huge and complex, devise comprehensive mega-reforms--too massive for any single person to read or grasp, and pass new law that exchanges one set of problems for different even bigger ones.
We just finished going through this with reforms of our financial services system and our health care system. Now we’re about to do the same with immigration.
It’s not smart to think that in one new law we can secure our border, deal with 11 million illegals now in the country, devise a new way of allowing skilled labor to enter the country, and devise a way for employing unskilled foreign labor.
But Washington is trying to do it all and it seems that another legislative disaster is waiting to happen.
A purported achievement of the Gang of 8 is an agreement between big business and unions regarding the hiring of unskilled foreign labor.
As our nation buckles under the load of excessive government, the proposal here is to give Washington even more power and build yet another new government bureaucracy.
The plan calls for a new Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research. And why yet another new bureaucracy at a time of trillion dollar deficits and cancelled White House tours for students?
Quotas, which can be adjusted over time and market conditions, will be set for how many visas will be permitted for unskilled foreign labor. We’ll need a new army of bureaucrats sitting in Washington to study and report on conditions of different labor markets.
The quota starts at 20,000 and can reach, over time, a ceiling of 200,000. At its peak, illegal immigration was around 500,000 per year. So in boom times, even at full quota, we could still have illegals sneaking over the border.
Government bureaucrats not only will determine how many can be hired, but also what they can be paid.
In this case, “prevailing wage.” “Prevailing wage” is a defining provision of the Davis Bacon Act, passed in 1931 to keep unskilled black labor from competing with union workers – at the time uniformly white – on federally funded projects.
“Prevailing wages” are generally union wages and assure that taxpayers pay top dollar for government construction projects. Now, in the name of immigration reform, the “prevailing wage” standard is brought, for the first time, to the private sector.
Which gets to the fairness issue. Employment set asides designated for unskilled foreign workers, with wage levels set by government, is nothing but a stick in the eye to competing low wage workers in the American market.
It so happens that today these would be black workers. At 13.8%, black unemployment now is almost double the national average. But according to analysis done by Remaking Debate (remakingdebate.org), unemployment among young black men with no high school diploma is 51.6 percent. Unemployment among all black men and women with no high school degree is 30 percent.
The Gang of 8 immigration reform proposal is a non-starter. We must reject any reform that doesn’t make our nation freer, fairer, and more secure.
NOTE: This Article was written August 2010. I believe that history will show that the passage of SB 1070 by Arizona, and the federal government’s lawsuit to stop its implementation will be regarded the first battle of the 21st century American Revolution. Although not a single shot was fired- yet, the battle lines have clearly been drawn. Never before in the modern history of our country have all of the elements been in place for a war between our government and the citizenry of the United States. We stand at a proverbial and historic flashpoint as Obama plans to use the foot soldiers created by “comprehensive immigration reform,” whether achieved by law or mandate, to implement his socialist agenda for America.
Transforming the United States into a socialist nation
While the process of transforming the America known by our parents and grandparents to a socialist colony has been in progress for a half-century at the hands of Marxists, Socialists and Progressives, the Obama administration has put the Balkanization of America and the polarization of its citizens along racial, political and ideological lines on the fast track. And at least for now, he’s got the backing of Congress to advance his agenda of radical change. That was never so evident than on May 20th when the dictator of a corrupt, third world country was given a sickening, treasonous standing ovation in the halls of Congress for attacking the proposed legislation of an American sovereign state to uphold the laws of our country.
Regardless of whatever legislative support he might currently enjoy, evidence has shown that he is actively considering a back door strategy that would circumvent the need for congressional approval. More importantly, it would also circumvent the need for approval from the citizens of the U.S. Once in place, the amnesty of millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. would create a formidable electoral force to keep the Progressives in power under the pretext of free elections. The talk of altruistic motives of immigration and the joys and benefits of multiculturalism is nothing more than a smokescreen for power and control on the path to transforming the United States into a socialist nation.
Hart-Celler Act, Chain Migration
To understand how we got to this point in our national history, the groundwork for the transformation of our country was laid in 1965 with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act, which was signed into law by then President Lyndon Johnson. As Mark Levin details in his best-selling book Liberty and Tyranny, that single piece of legislation, as part of the Great Society, laid “the foundation for radically altering the character of American society and the relationship of the governed to their government.” During the debate of the bill on the floor of the Senate, Levin noted that Senator Kennedy insisted that the ethnic mix of the U.S. would not be changed, nor would America be inundated with immigrants from any one country or area.” In his assessment of the debate, Mark Levin wrote “it is hard to believe that they were not intentionally deceiving the public.” Indeed.
That bill caused a significant change in immigration that essentially created the current situation in the U.S. It introduced “chain migration,” which radically altered the “historical basis for making immigration decisions.” As written by Mr. Levin, “The emphasis would no longer be on the preservation of American society and the consent of the governed; now aliens themselves would decide who comes to the United States through family reunification (emphasis mine). The act also eliminated national quotas for immigration, opening the floodgates for immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America.
Consider that as a result of the 1965 immigration reform and deliberate lack of immigration enforcement, nearly 1 in 3 immigrants living in the U.S. today is here illegally. Additionally, legal immigration increased from 2.5 million in the 1950’s to over 10 million in the 1990’s. In 2007, the immigrant population in the U.S. reached a record 37.9 million and today accounts for 1 in 8 of all U.S. residents. In contrast, immigrants accounted for 1 in 21 of all U.S. residents in 1970.
9 percent of the population of Mexico resides in the United States
According to a 2004 report by the Pew Hispanic Center and detailed in Liberty and Tyranny, roughly 9 percent of the population of Mexico resides in the United States. Fifty seven percent of all illegal immigrants are Mexican, and another 24 percent are from other Latin American countries. In less than 40 years, it is estimated that Hispanic school-aged children will comprise the majority of public school students in the U.S.
While many proponents of immigration argue that the immigrants are here to assimilate and contribute to the United States, a 2008 study by the Manhattan Institute determined that the current level of assimilation is at a record low. Perhaps this is most evident by the fact that more than 55 million individuals living in the U.S. speak a language other than English, including over 34 million who speak Spanish. It is evident that assimilation is not a priority. The establishment of ethnic conclaves within the U.S. is an example of the lack of desire to assimilate into the fabric of American society.
In addition to the social and cultural effects of immigration as a whole, illegal immigrants are being aided by our own government in transferring money out of the United States. In 2006, illegal aliens sent an estimated $45 billion from the U.S. to their countries of origin. Last year, thanks to the assistance of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury, Mexicans alone living and working in the U.S. transferred between $21.9 and $25 billion to the Mexican economy. Under the program called Directo a Mexico, U.S. commercial banks enable illegal aliens to transfer money through the Federal Reserve’s own automated clearinghouse, which is linked to the Mexican central bank Banco de Mexico. The illegal alien is also given an ATM card that can be used in Mexican banks in the event of their deportation.
The outflow of U.S. dollars to Mexico
The outflow of U.S. dollars to Mexico is second only to Mexico’s oil industry in the amount of revenue produced. It should be no wonder, then, that the Mexican government has no interest in working with U.S. authorities to secure our border or to enforce our immigration laws. In fact, it is the ultimate goal of the global elite to erase our borders and implement a “North American Union” as a step to achieving global governance.
Illegal immigration is a big business, and not just for Mexico. It is estimated that $18-25 billion is spent by state governments on welfare programs to illegal aliens each year, and about $2.2 billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs for illegal aliens. And additional $2.5 billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. The drain on the American economy by individuals living illegally in the United States is a significant threat that will lead to our demise.
There should be no doubt that illegal aliens also pose a security risk to our country. First and foremost, they are living and working in this country illegally—contrary to the laws of the United States. And contrary to the Progressive party line, the proponents of multiculturalism, and civil rights and advocacy organizations that subjugate the rights of Americans to their own agendas, crimes committed by illegal aliens are statistically higher than legal immigrants or U.S. citizens. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a study it conducted of 55,322 incarcerated illegal aliens. The study population averaged 8 arrests each. Ninety seven percent were arrested more than once, and 26% had over 11 arrests each. Each illegal alien averaged 13 separate offenses and 24% of those offenses were for drug crimes. About 12% were for murder, robbery, assault and sexually related crimes, and 21% of offenses were immigration offenses. Other offenses included property related offenses, traffic violations, fraud and obstruction of justice.
Illegal aliens arrested for less serious crimes and released pending a hearing at a future date often fail to appear. According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 557,762 fugitive alien cases were listed as “unsolved” at the end of 2008. Furthermore, illegal immigrants with extensive criminal records and multiple deportations are often permitted to remain in the U.S. by activist judges who are sympathetic to their plight.
The rampant problem of illegal immigration can easily be solved not by creating new legislation or enacting a complex system of immigration reform. As we observed in the weeks leading up to the implementation of SB 1070 in Arizona as law, the mere threat of realistic enforcement was sufficient to cause an exodus of illegal aliens from that state. As illustrated by the incoherent ruling of a political hack legislating from the bench, Arizona’s attempt to secure their state was undermined in a crafty and carefully executed political ploy. It is no coincidence that the appeal process will extend beyond the November midterm elections. It is the political hubris of a socialist dictator imposing his agenda against the will of the majority of this country’s citizenry.
National Council of La Raza, John McCain, Hillary Clinton
The failure to effectively address the issue of illegal immigration is not limited to any one political party; many Republicans as well as a vast majority of Democrats are complicit in failing to secure America’s safety and sovereignty. Consider that the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic advocacy group in the United States, honored Senator John McCain in 1999. During her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton appointed a senior member of La Raza to her staff, and Obama appointed a La Raza leader as the director of the Office of Internal Affairs. Undoubtedly, this virulent pro-amnesty group enjoys a significant influence over public policy in American government. Funding of this group finds numerous foundations and individuals who espouse and promote a global ideology and “one world governance” over national sovereignty as key contributors.
Despite the above statistics, those who demand immigration enforcement and the rule of law are often labeled as racists and xenophobes. American cities and states like Arizona are reeling from the adverse financial and social effects of illegal immigration and unfettered legal immigration. They lack help from the federal government, which is more intent on creating an electoral majority to ensure the continuation of their power to facilitate the socialist makeover and takeover of the United States. Obama and his justice department are siding with criminals against the citizens of America. Arizona is attempting to restore order to a system of chaos created by the federal government. Instead of welcoming the help and choosing to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the Obama administration is imposing a socialist dictatorship and has drawn a line in the Arizona sand. The question is now whether that line becomes “Ground Zero” for this century’s American Revolution—a fight against the Balkanization of our country, and the eradication of our borders, our sovereignty and ultimately, our nation.
As noted by one Arizona Sheriff, “our own government has become our enemy.” The question is how, if and when law-abiding, patriotic American citizens will choose to engage that enemy. For the sake of our country, acceptance and acquiescence is not an option.
Andrew Wilkow (born August 18, 1972) is a conservative political talk radio host on the Sirius XM Patriot channel on SIRIUS channel 125 and XM channel 125. Until July 2006, Wilkow had been on WGY in Schenectady, New York, (weekday mornings) and WABC in New York City (Sunday mornings). He calls himself the "next generation of great talk radio", a nickname given to him by Mark Levin. Wilkow is also a contributor to the website Conservative Punk.
Texas will no longer rely on the Federal Government to protect its citizens.
The 34-foot-long boats, each powered by three, 300-horsepower outboard engines, will have bulletproof plating and six machine guns apiece, not unlike the river patrol boats the U.S. Navy used during the Vietnam War.
The vessels will be able to operate in as little as 2 feet of water, according to the report, and will work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to combat drug smuggling coming across the Rio Grande.
Makes one wonder if Barack Obama and Eric Holder are trying to figure out how to make this illegal?
Ted Cruz has worked to strengthen border security and help ensure that America remains a nation of laws. Among other efforts, he has worked on efforts to increase penalties for felons who enter the country illegally.
A bi-partisan group of Senators, known as the Gang of 8, have put together a framework for the immigration reform that supposedly America is waiting for.
NOTE: This Article was written August 2010.
Andrew Wilkow (born August 18, 1972) is a conservative political talk radio host on the Sirius XM Patriot channel on SIRIUS channel 125 and XM channel 125. Until July 2006, Wilkow had been on WGY in Schenectady, New York, (weekday mornings) and WABC in New York City (Sunday mornings). He calls himself the "next generation of great talk radio", a nickname given to him by Mark Levin. Wilkow is also a contributor to the website Conservative Punk.
Texas will no longer rely on the Federal Government to protect its citizens.
