The passage of the DREAM Act in the House on Wednesday makes me think how quickly we forget to be thankful after Thanksgiving. Instead of being thankful for the education and other opportunities they have already received, potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act amnesty are asking for more. More education, more jobs, more benefits, and everything else that comes with amnesty and American citizenship.
On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2004 Arizona law requiring proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register and vote in U.S. elections. This is another case of the lax enforcement of our immigration laws leading to abuse and confusion.
Immigration has taken center stage in the California governor’s race with fuzzy facts regarding Meg Whitman and an illegal alien former maid, Nicandra Santillan a.k.a. Nicandra Diaz (Nicky), depending on which of her falsified documents you look at.
Cairo, Egypt is a city of approximately 18 million people within the metropolitan area. That’s more than twice the population of New York City. Cairo is also a city of extreme pollution. It is said that living in Cairo is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, as the average resident ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day. I can easily see how any city in the United States growing too fast is destined to suffer similar environmental concerns.
I have spent two of the last three years living safely and happily in countries that currently have Temporary Protected Status: Nicaragua and El Salvador. And I have visited a third: Honduras. While these countries have their respective problems, continued TPS is by no means necessary.
The California clothing manufacturer, American Apparel, is firing about 1,800 employees whose identity documents contain irregularities. In other words, they are illegal aliens. The wording in the articles, columns, and editorials written about this would have you believe that the people being fired have done nothing wrong. But they have.
In dissecting the Postville raids, many news stories, and even the Governor of Iowa, Chet Culver, have likened the working conditions in the Agriprocessors plant to those depicted in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Having recently reread The Jungle, I find it unfortunate that none of the news stories I have read touched on an obvious and important message of the revolutionary tome: that an influx of too many immigrants is the biggest contributor to such unspeakable working conditions. There were too many people for too few jobs.
We hear so much these days about the separation of families due to immigration raids, but no one seems to mention the family separation as a result of both legal and illegal immigration to the United States and other parts of the world. Statistics on how many children are left behind around the world – especially in Latin America – are difficult to find, but what numbers I could find, are disturbing.
Last May, ICE agents descended on the quiet town of Postville, Iowa, swooping up 390 people at the Agriprocessors, Inc. slaughterhouse in the largest immigration raid in U.S. history. Months later, we find ourselves in the middle of a blame game in which the big picture has been obscured. The employers blame the illegal aliens for deceit and falsifying documents. The illegal aliens blame “necessity,” possibly interpreted as blaming their home governments for neglecting their countrymen. Agriprocessors, Inc. is receiving blame for egregious working conditions and abuse. Open border advocates blame the government for not enacting “comprehensive” reform. And now, three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus blame the ICE for hard-handed tactics and the Justice Department for ignoring due process.
Having worked in Oregon politics for a number of years, I was quite surprised to see a new study that suggested the state doesn't have enough workers -- until I saw who paid for the study. The Coalition for a Working Oregon, an organization whose members include Oregon's Farm Bureau and Restaurant Association, as well as Immigration Works USA and Essential Workers Immigration Coalition, commissioned a study on what would happen to Oregon’s economy should the new “no-match” rule be implemented.