Fix immigration policy? Only the part that works

Someone named Craig has written a terrific rant  on a website called Project USA. It’s titled “Washington fixing broken immig system by killing E-Verify, only unbroken part.” Here’s some of it:

Let’s see. Which broken part of immigration policy should we fix first?

Should we fix the broken refugee part, which has spawned a refugee resettlement industry in this country that’s paid by the head?

Or should we fix the broken labor and employment visa part, the SD2, H-1B, R51, T51, E14, H-1C, SM4, E11, H-2A, E22, SM1, E23, SM2, H-2B, L, O-2, E15, O-1, EW5, E32, P-1, P-3, E35, Q-1, T53, E31, SR3, T52, SJ2, E21, SR2, EW4, SR1, C53, SM3, SJ1, E34, SD3, E13, SD1, C51, P-2, H-3, EW3, E12, SM5, and C52 visas part, which generally benefits a rich few at the expense of an insufficiently corrupt many?

Or should we fix the broken ethnic preferences part, which has members of ethnic caucuses in Congress coordinating legislative activity with foreign governments and running citizenship mills out of their district offices?

He goes on to bring in chain immigration, anchor babies, welfare abuse, sham marriages, sanctuary cities, and more. And he tells us:

After some influence-peddling in an amount appropriate to the size of the task, Washington came up with a course of action.

The Washington establishment’s fix for our broken immigration policies, the one significant action on immigration in Congress this year, turns out to be an effort to kill the one part of immigration policy that isn’t broken—the E-Verify program.

The E-Verify program is more than just not broken, in fact. The program is actually in the process of fixing a big chunk of our broken immigration system. But it’s the E-Verify program that’s on the congressional chopping block this year instead of one of the dozens of other broken, harmful, costly, and dysfunctional components of immigration policy Congress might have chosen.

He sure got the refugee part right. And a lot more.

HIV-positive immigrants will soon be on the way to a city near you

Some of you are asking what happened with the bill to open the door to HIV-positive immigrants.  Since I was away at the end of the week, I didn’t get all the details on final passage in the Senate of the $50 billion bill to provide funds to countries fighting HIV/AIDS and other diseases.  The bill passed the Senate with the section intact to lift the ban on HIV-positive immigrants to the US.   There are a few more legislative hoops, but last I heard it was on a fast track and expected to be signed by the President.

You can learn more (and get the gory details) about what happened by going to Blue Ridge Forum here.

If you are new to this topic, my previous posts are here and here.

Automatic US Citizenship to Chinese babies born on Saipan

I am really getting off track from refugees, but these Bush supported immigration sneak attacks seem to be coming from every direction these days.  Word is that the Bush Administration will not oppose lifting the ban on HIV positive immigrants we reported on yesterday here.

Now, comes news, thanks to John Derbyshire writing at NRO The Corner, that Chinese women are paying big bucks to give birth on Saipan because their babies will automatically become US citizens.  Read all about it here.

Senator Sessions to move to strike HIV provision

Update July 18th:  Senate did vote to lift the ban on immigrants with HIV, see report here at Blue Ridge Forum.

Update July 14th:  Read the latest information on this issue at America’s Survival, Inc. here.   Today is the best day to call Senators with your opinon.

Urgent notice:  The word is that Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will move to strike a provision in S. 2731 when it reaches the floor as early as tomorrow, Monday, July 14th.   As I reported yesterday, this provision would allow immigrants with HIV/AIDS to enter the US and receive government (read taxpayer) supported medical treatment. 

Critics believe it will serve as a huge magnet to further illegal immigration, and fuel more demands for legal immigration.  Also, foreigners getting into the US and seeking asylum could also presumably then ask for medical care.   I suppose it’s also possible for any HIV positive foreigner entering the US on a tourist visa  to ask for treatment for AIDS.    Refugees can already enter the US with HIV/AIDS.

Senator Sessions was the leader in last summer’s defeat of the McCain/Kennedy Amnesty bill.  It will take 60 votes in the Senate to remove the HIV (come to America one and all for free medical care) provision.

Congress to authorize $50 billion for disease programs, allow immigrants with HIV to enter US

Update July 18th:   Passed by the Senate by a wide margin, see report here at Blue Ridge Forum (including link to  how they voted).

Urgent, July 14th:  Read the latest on this issue at America’s Survival, Inc. here.  Today is the best day to express your opinion to your Senators.

Your tax dollars:

Interesting that this information should come on the heels of our Africa post yesterday.  Hat tip:  Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.    In answer to a commenter yesterday, we do send enormous aid to countries around the world to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, but $50 billion over 5 years is way beyond anything I even imagined.

S.2731 goes to the Senate floor on Monday and is expected to be signed into law by September because it is supported by the Bush Administration  (well, maybe its a tad bit more than the Bush proposal of $30 billion, but what’s $20 billion here or there).

Here is the kicker (if $50 billion of our tax dollars wasn’t already) from the Congressional Budget Office:

….enacting S. 2731 would increase direct spending [no kidding].  The bill would allow immigrants with HIV/AIDS to enter the United States. CBO estimates that providing certain benefits to those immigrants and their children would increase direct spending by less than $500,000 in 2010 and by $83 million over the 2010-2018 period.

Refugees are already coming here with HIV (and TB for that matter) despite the ban on foreigners with the disease from traveling or immigrating to the US.  This bill would allow all immigrants to enter the US with HIV and be treated at taxpayer expense.  I don’t think it takes a genius to see how this opens the door wide to more immigrants (including illegal immigrants) who will rush the gates and become dependent on our already overburdened health care system.

Read the entire CBO report here.

Catholic Charities off the hook in abortion case

We told you previously about how a Catholic Charities employee in Virginia helped an immigrant girl get an abortion.  Technically the underage girl was in the legal charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because the whereabouts of her parents is unknown. 

Local Catholic Charities offices that help with refugee resettlement and who take care of minors like this Guatemalan girl are under the umbrella of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the 10 major volags contracted by the federal government to do this type of work.

The story is being widely covered but here is an update this morning from a Catholic publication:

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 9, 2008 The Attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia says he will investigate, but has no intentions of prosecuting, Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR) for their involvement in procuring an illegal abortion for a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl in their care.

Only the CCR staffer who forged the consent form for the girl’s abortion will be the subject of Commonwealth Attorney Michael N. Herring’s investigation. The staffer would face a Class 3 misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine for signing a consent form without authority to do so under Virginia law.

“That’s the only possible criminal angle,” Herring told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I’m not investigating Catholic Charities. I’m looking into the execution of the consent form.”

Here is our original story from last month.

Map shows why immigrants and refugees are on the move

Here is a link to a map at The Economist that a friend of Judy’s sent today.   It’s a map showing what percentage of citizens’ income is used for food/fuel/drink in most countries of the world, although its purpose is not to show immigration patterns, it is nonetheless instructive.  Of course it’s intuitive that immigrants are flowing to North America, Europe and Australia because of the strong economies in those democratic and capitalist countries.   I hope you find it as interesting as I did—to see economies depicted on a color-coded world map.

Here they come! Immigration lawyers

Yesterday’s Washington Post had a lengthy article about how the Immigration law field is booming and law schools are cranking out hordes of young idealistic lawyers, often former immigrants themselves, ready to help not only refugees and asylees but illegal immigrants as well.

A subject that three decades ago was a secondary, technical field delegated to adjunct professors is booming at law schools nationwide. Elective immigration law courses taught by tenured specialists are filling lecture halls, immigration clinics are expanding and student groups devoted to the subject are mushrooming.

The momentum is partly driven by a high-profile, rancorous immigration debate. But it is also the result of an era of mass immigration that has fueled demand from foreigners and businesses seeking help navigating U.S. immigration statutes and has created a generation of law students intimately familiar with the issue, often because they are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.

Suit filed in Walkersville Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosque case

This news is not totally unexpected, the property owners and their lawyer had hinted that a lawsuit might be brought against the rural town of Walkersville, MD when it had earlier ruled against a special exemption request that would have allowed a large Muslim complex to be built in the town.   For background see my post of June 10th and then follow links back for the full story.

From the AP today: 

WALKERSVILLE, Md. - Officials of a rural Maryland town illegally discriminated against a Muslim group by barring them from building a mosque and holding annual conventions on land zoned for farming, the property’s owner claimed in a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The complaint was filed not by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA but by developer David Moxley and his father Robert, who had planned to sell the group 224 acres in Walkersville for about $6 million.

The Silver Spring-based religious group canceled the land purchase earlier this year after the town’s three-member Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to reject their request for a special exception to land-use restrictions.

Officials of the town of 5,600 based their denial largely on open space preservation concerns and fears that the thousands of people attending the group’s annual, three-day Jalsa Salana national convention would overwhelm the community’s roads and emergency services. 

Think about this next section of the article and the implications of the law that is being used in this suit.  This means, I guess, that no town or jurisdiction could say no to a large or otherwise incompatible religious facility when considering its zoning decisions.  

The complaint alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees free exercise of religion, and the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection to all.

It alleges violations of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, enacted in 2000 to bar land-use regulations that would discriminate against a religious organization.

I spent years working in the property rights movement in this country and it was no secret that the federal government was seeking (spurred on by environmentalists) to control land use at a federal level and take it away from local governments.    But, here you have the tables turned on the environmentalists because local citizens who are concerned about the quality of their environment could have a large and potentially environmentally destructive facility shoved down their throats in the name of religious freedom.

Can you imagine what fun this case could be on a Supreme Court level.  Would liberal environmental groups side with local government (opposing the feds)  against immigrant groups wishing to build large religious facilities on open space?

By the way, I am not a lawyer, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, so the above speculation is just that!

For more go to Citizens for Walkersville here.

Earth shattering news from the WaPo: African immigrants support Obama

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans,  many having entered the US as refugees which puts them on the fast track to citizenship, are organizing for Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama.  Wow!  Can you believe it!  Here is what the Washington Post had to say:

From coast to coast, Somali, Ethiopian, Nigerian and Kenyan Americans are knocking on the doors of their fellow African immigrants, registering new citizens to vote, raising money and preaching Obama’s mantra of hope and change. They hope that his prominence will change their status as one of the nation’s least-recognized immigrant groups, and that he will one day provide aid to help ease the turmoil and poverty in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

One Somali said Obama is like a son, one of them.

“Obama is one generation away from Africa,” said Eyow, who immigrated to the United States nearly 30 years ago. “I have nothing against my brothers and sisters, black people who were born here, but his father is like me. His father was an immigrant….”

Although Eyow says he has nothing against his black brothers who were born here, we have been chronicaling the tensions that are building in the black community partially resulting from the growing realization on the part of native-born black Americans that immigrants are taking their jobs (among other brewing conflicts).

The Post goes on to report that the Migration Policy Institute (in the right hand column you can check for the number of foreign born voters in your state) says the numbers of African immigrants aren’t high enough to swing the election, but organizers have figured out how to have influence in key states like Virginia.

Endale said that in the District, Ethiopians for Obama will not try to influence the national race between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Instead, the group will target Ethiopian households in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

“There’s a possibility of getting 10,000 Ethiopians in Virginia,” Endale said. “That could be a game-changer.”

Is anyone checking to make sure they are all citizens and eligible to vote?