By Transporting Migrants, GOPGovernors are Exposing Democrats’ Hypocrisy

Next time, Joe Biden should be more precise when he calls for national unity. Because he and his fellow Democrats don’t like the kind of unity they’re getting from Republican governors. 

The decision by GOP leaders in Texas, Florida and Arizona to “share” their abundance of foreign migrants with northern cities and states that boast of their sanctuary status is apparently not a gift the Dems appreciate. In fact, the president and his party are so mad they’re setting fire to the welcome wagons. 

Shipping the migrants north is outrageous, a stunt, pure politics, they wail. The White House is making noises about assigning its chief partisan enforcer, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to stop it. 

That would be the height of irony because the same White House has for months secretly shipped tens of thousands of migrants around the country, often in the middle of the night with no notice to local officials. No Dems complained then, so where did their love go? 

Naturally, the media is eager to echo the left’s sudden pain, with Chuck Todd of NBC News showing why he deserves to replace Brian Stelter, late of CNN, as the most mocked man in television. Todd declared it “inhumane” to send 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard because it’s a “literal island that doesn’t have any infrastructure designed to help them at all.” 

Hillary Clinton can usually be counted on to say something ridiculous, and she didn’t disappoint. “Literally human trafficking” is what she called the Vineyard dispatch, the brainchild of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Like Todd, Clinton not only doesn’t get the irony, she misses the point. 

The Dems running New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and, yes, Martha’s Vineyard, are being hoisted on their own petard. 

They supported virtually unfettered immigration, but didn’t bargain on thousands of the world’s unwashed popping up in their neighborhoods. In aiming their fire at Republicans sending the migrants north, they’re only shooting the messengers. 

Their hypocrisy is a thing to behold and the GOP governors deserve an award for delivering a comeuppance for the ages. 

More broadly, Biden’s border fiasco is the latest proof that the left has plenty of fanciful ideas about creating paradise but none on how to govern in the real world. The defund-the-police movement led to a sickening surge in violent crime that continues as cops are demonized and criminals are coddled. 

Blunders piling up 

The war on fossil fuels led to the dramatic rise in oil prices and helped fuel the historic inflation eating family paychecks. Biden is so far detached from reality that he actually threw a party to celebrate yet another spending bill that will keep the inflation fires roaring. 

It is simply incredible how much damage he has inflicted on the nation in just 20 months. 

And now the blue havens are getting a taste of the disaster that is the open-border policy. Unprecedented waves of people are crossing over, including many who flew to Mexico from far-off countries, knowing they could simply walk into America. 

Immigration restrictions were a mainstay of both parties for generations, but the leftward shift of Dems led to less tolerance for barriers. Then, as with so many other issues, the presidency of Donald Trump saw them jettison common sense and go nuts as a form of protest. 

Radical activists began preaching the gospel of massive immigration as a key to social and racial justice. 

Biden, a sucker for anything anti-Trump, rejected his predecessor’s success in limiting illegal crossers and the abuse of the asylum system, which lets people stay in the US for years because of bureaucratic inertia. Making them wait in Mexico until their claims were adjudicated, as Trump did, persuaded many the dangerous trek north was not worth the risk. 

Biden foolishly dismantled those restrictions, stopped building the wall and essentially issued an invitation for the whole world to come to America. 

Click here to read the full article at the NYPost

California University’s “Sanctuary” Policy a Threat to Federal Funding

FILE - In this July 17, 2007 file photo, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Judiciary hearing on the prosecution of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, two former Border Patrol agents imprisoned for shooting a drug smuggler in the backside as he sprinted toward Mexico. Rohrabacher's suggestion Friday, June 10, 2011, during a trip to Baghdad, that Iraq repay the United States for the money it has spent in the country has stirred anger, with an Iraqi lawmaker ridiculing the idea as "stupid" and others saying Iraqis should be compensated for the hardships they've endured. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher last week warned UC President Janet Napolitano that the system’s sanctuary campus polices could jeopardize federal funding for research.

The Costa Mesa Republican denounced a recent announcement from UC that campus police would not be cooperating with federal officials in deportation efforts of undocumented immigrants.

“Your commitment to spending scarce resources to finance people illegally present in the United States is unacceptable and a flagrant misuse of taxpayer money,” Rohrabacher wrote. “This is an insult to Americans and legal immigrants who pay your salary.”

While sanctuary policies align with the state’s liberal lean, one of the main policy reasons supporters turn to is that by creating a space where deportation is off the table, undocumented immigrants are more likely to cooperate with police in other investigations.

“It is in the best interest of all members of the UC community to encourage cooperation with the investigation of criminal activity,” according to the UC statement. “To encourage such cooperation, all individuals, regardless of their immigration status, must feel secure that contacting or being addressed by UC police officers will not automatically lead to an immigration inquiry and/or a risk of removal.”

The UC system gets more than half of its research funding from the federal government, which Rohrabacher claimed is jeopardized by resistance to the upcoming administration.

“I assure you that, in the next session of Congress, those who receive and spend federal dollars in a manner that includes people illegally present in our country will find it difficult to obtain those funds,” Rohrabacher wrote.

The issue of sanctuary campuses is a small part of a bigger showdown between California and President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump campaigned heavily on a tough stance on immigration — which included mass deportation and the construction of a wall along the country’s southern border — California Democrats have since announced their intention to fight those efforts at every turn.

Though Rohrabacher initially supported a different candidate in the Republican primary, he eventually came around to Trump with a full-throated endorsement, even going so far as to call other Republicans “gutless” who backed away from Trump at times of turmoil. His name was even floated as a potential candidate for secretary of state, although he was not chosen.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

CA’s Democratic Members of Congress Plead for Obama to Pardon “Dreamers”

As reported by the Los Angeles Times:

Led by members of the California delegation, dozens of House Democrats are again pleading with President Obama to pardon hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to whom he granted temporary deportation deferrals.

Last month, several members of Congress asked Obama to use his pardon authority to forgive the past and future civil immigration offenses of the nearly 750,000 people granted deportation deferrals under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

The lawmakers say that even though the so-called Dreamers would be left in legal limbo without work permits or visas, they could more easily apply for legal status from within the U.S. without immigration offenses on their records.

A White House official immediately batted down the idea, saying a pardon wouldn’t give them legal status. …

Click here to read the full story

 

How Trump’s Win Might Spark CA Republican Revival

Donald Trump SNLMy title is, “How Trump’s Win Might Spark CA Republican Revival.” The key word is “might.” This statement is counterintuitive, given the hostility to him among many GOP ranks here. But bear with me.

There are two conditions: Taking immigration off the table and a Reaganesque economic boom.

First, immigration. But isn’t he nasty toward Mexicans and other immigrants? Hasn’t he offended Latinos so much they’ll never become Republicans?

The problem might – again, might – be that neither party has come up with a sensible policy on immigration, the failed attempts going back 30 years. A lot of people point out how President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which amnestied 3 million illegal aliens. Except the “Control” part of the Act never was implemented. So the amnesty part brought in millions more, increasing the number today to something like 11 million illegals.

A lot of these illegals – yes, I’m going to keep using the word – have become part of our community. An accountant friend of mine was talking with some of the Latinas at the construction company where he works. The ladies all voted for Hillary because they didn’t want their friends and neighbors deported. That’s understandable.

But what if Trump: 1) Builds the wall – for real. Which I think he will do. 2) Sharply restricts new immigration. 3) Makes a Trumpian “deal” on those here for a long time. Recent arrivals would have to leave. Those overstaying visas would have to leave. That would take care of half or so of the 11 million. But the other half would have some long-term path to citizenship, provided they pay back taxes and fill out all the paperwork.

If such a “deal” becomes real, the key will be effectively restricting new immigration. But if the “deal” happens, and really works, it will take the whole immigration issue off the table. Memories of Proposition 187, the illegals screening initiative thrown out by courts, will begin to fade, along with hatred of the California Republicans who pushed it. After all, a Republican president will have “solved” the immigration problem.

Second, Trump will have to boom the economy. He and the Republican Congress then would get credit for the prosperity lifting all boats, and all barcos. That will filter out here to California Latinos.

A 2012 Pew Research Center study found that Latinos still are moving up the upward mobility ladder that long has brought immigrants into the middle class: “Despite difficult economic times, in the long trajectory of their lives Latinos see improved standards of living when compared with their parents and expect their children’s standard of living to be even better. Two-thirds (67 percent) of Latinos (compared with 61 percent of the general public) say their standard of living is better than that of their parents when their parents were the age they are now.” It’s the old story of American prosperity.

Better yet, the Trump immigration cutoff would accelerate the assimilation. New immigrants suppress wages because the increased supply of anything brings about greater price competition. If new immigration is sharply reduced, then those already here would move faster up the upward mobility ladder.

As correctly was said of open immigration by legendary United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez, who has a state holiday in his honor, “As long as we have a poor country bordering California, it’s going to be very difficult to win strikes as strikes are won normally by other unions with the employer … . Now, there’s no way to defend against that kind of strikebreaking.” Except a wall.

That’s why the biggest defenders today of open borders are not immigrant groups, but big farms and other businesses that want to boost profits with cheap labor.

By contrast, when people gain upward mobility, they are less likely to seek the government benefits promoted by the Democratic Party and more likely to yearn for the tax cuts and business promotion championed by the Republican Party. That’s even more true now that the new president and party leader will be a famous billionaire.

So, if California Republicans want to get back in the game, they should stick to their pro-business, small-government principles.

Of course, I could be all washed up. Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe there will be no economic recovery no matter what Trump does. Maybe ethnic resentments are too high. Maybe.

But Trump might (might!) have put an oxygen mask on the wheezing body of the California Grand Old and Decrepit Party. They just need to breathe deeply.

Thirty-year California columnist John Seiler now writes freelance. His email:writejohnseiler@gmail.com

This piece was originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily

Jeb Bush: Testing the Waters

Jeb Bush

 

Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons

Obama poised to accelerate CA’s rolling amnesty

Many Americans across the country have expressed uncertainty or alarm about president Obama’s executive action on immigration, which he will announce today.

However, in California, where millions of illegal immigrants live, a semi-formal version of state-level amnesty has been gathering steam for years. Despite dogged opposition by Republican and Tea Party activists, Sacramento’s slow-motion legalization of the undocumented has paved the way for the White House’s planned moves to receive a much smoother reception than in other state capitols.

Still, the exact details of Obama’s intended actions remain murky, and even among libertarian-leaning immigration doves, his assertion of sweeping executive powers has hit against fierce criticism. Indeed, as the Washington Post noted, the president himself previously disavowed the constitutionality of what he may now have resolved to do — insisting he was “not a king” and could not “just suspend deportations through executive order.” Californians have not been immune to the sense of ambiguity surrounding Obama’s shifting immigration policy.

Apprehension and expectations

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, one illegal immigrant described his discomfort in emblematic terms. Ernesto Perez — a 44-year-old father of four who has spent 19 years residing illegally in the United States — told the paper, “Obama is the only hope we have right now. Because three of my kids live with me, I’m always afraid that I will be separated from them. They need me. We need each other.”

Perez’ long undocumented stay underscored just how lax California has been in prosecuting illegal immigration, and for how long. His personal uncertainty, however, confirmed what millions of legal and illegal residents have known about president Obama for years: his willingness to deport. Critics from the left, such as Bill Moyers, have slammed Obama for breaking records with over 2 million deportations during his time in office.

That’s why illegal immigrants in California have depended so much on the Golden State’s incremental approach to legalization. Through a battery of state laws and regulations, Sacramento has given undocumented residents several protective paths toward the kind of status that makes it harder to deport.

With taxpayer money, access has been opened to educational loans for college, legal representation in juvenile court proceedings, driver’s licenses and the practice of law without a Social Security number. The California Supreme Court ruled in January that Sergio Garcia, an illegal immigrant who duly passed the California Bar Examination, could not be prohibited by the state from practicing law; Gov. Jerry Brown authorized Garcia’s license soon thereafter.

A push from activists

California activists dedicated to full legalization have used the state’s legal landscape as a justification for pressing president Obama for sweeping changes. In a typical statement making the rounds, California Immigrant Policy Center director Reshma Shamasunder urged Obama “to move on executive action and end unjust deportations that have caused the separation of families, as quickly as possible. Given the stalling we’ve seen in Congress for so many years, we hope he is bold in his action and covers as many people as possible.”

As KQED reported, California’s rules helped swell the immigrant population to its current level, with about half of the children in state claiming an immigrant parent and one in four residents claiming foreign birth. Although legal immigrants have not pushed in a collective way for swift and full amnesty, Latino voters have consistently shown support for some kind of expanded “path toward citizenship,” as policymakers in both major political parties often put it.

For their part, Republicans have warned of consequences if Obama opts against enforcing the immigration laws on the books. Michael Steel, the spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-OH, adopted the colorful language characteristic of today’s media relations officials, “If ‘Emperor Obama’ ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his Constitutional authority, he will cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue — and many others.”

Rhetoric or reality? With the president’s announcement on amnesty coming tomorrow, the fireworks will begin in earnest. The new, Republican-dominated Senate is seated in January, added to continued GOP control of the House.

Obama is leaving office in two years due to term limits. So in the new year, jockeying to be his replacement will intensify in both the Republican and Democratic parties, with his amnesty possibly the top issue out of the starting gate.

This piece was originally published at CalWatchdog.com