Immigration to America is Not What It Used To Be

Maria Ortiz, at left, a Mexican immigrant has been living in the United States for 23 years. "I am single. I work so hard to stay. I never needed support from the government," Ortiz said. She is not a citizen and works as a janitor, she said during an immigration protest outside Rep. Ed Royce's office in Brea. ///ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: – MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER – Shot 111713 – immig.fast.11.19 Advocates for immigration reform will camp our near the office of Rep. Ed Royce for five days, where they will stage a fast. They are asking OC's Republican leaders in Congress to publicly support an overhaul to the nation's immigration laws, including the so-called pathway to citizenship that would create a process for some 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally the right to become citizens.

Speaking at a naturalization ceremony in Texas on March 18, former president George W Bush said that immigration to America “is a blessing and a strength.” He also said that “borders need to be respected,” and praised the work of border patrol agents, but that’s not what the media seized upon.

The Washington Post inserted “blessing and strength” into the lede of their report, entitled “George W. Bush: ‘May we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength’,” also working into the first sentence the following dig at Trump, “a message that sharply contrasts with President Trump’s rhetoric on the issue.”

CNN Politics covered the speech, making sure to note that “the rhetoric and policy positions from Bush came in contrast to much of the modern Republican Party and President Donald Trump.” The BBC said “Mr Bush’s comments were seen as an implicit rebuke to President Donald Trump’s administration.”

And on and on. CBS News: “Bush urges politicians to ‘dial down rhetoric’ on immigration.” Boston Globe: “described immigration as ‘a blessing and a strength,’ a message that sharply contrasts with President Trump’s rhetoric on the issue.” People Magazine: “it was a soft rebuke of the prevailing anti-immigrant position of some members of the Republican Party, including President Donald Trump.”

Get it? George W Bush has won his grim battle with history. Various photos showed him inviting dozens of new citizens up to the podium, including Muslims in headscarves, Hispanics, and Africans. Apparently including anyone of European descent would have been bad optics. And never mind that if Bush the Second hadn’t bombed, invaded and occupied Iraq, the Middle East might be relatively stable today. Iraq, for all its problems, would nonetheless provide a strategic counterweight to Iran. We would have saved trillions of dollars and spared millions of lives, and additional millions of refugees would have stayed home.

The problem with all this media-spun anti-Trump wisdom from Bush is simple: President Trump is right, and the spin is wrong. It is true that America was enriched in the past by waves of new immigrants. It is true that in the past, these waves of new immigrants benefit the economy. And it is true that even now, if immigration were brought under control, reduced somewhat, and reformed so that only highly skilled immigrants with a commitment to learning English were vetted and admitted, it would again be beneficial to our economy and enrich our culture. But that’s not what’s happening.

According to CarryingCapacity.org, the United States “now accepts over one million legal immigrants each year, which is more than all of the other industrialized nations in the world, combined.” Additionally, according to ImmigrationCounters.com, there are nearly 28 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S.

Attempting to quantify the costs and benefits of immigration into the U.S. is not easy. A study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the cost to America taxpayers to provide illegal immigrants government funded education, health care, justice and law enforcement, public assistance, and general government services is estimated at $135 billion per year. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “63% of non-citizen households access welfare programs compared to 35% of native households.”

Statistics abound – and for every study suggesting that America’s immigration is creating a burden on the economy, there is another that concludes the opposite, that immigrants continue to provide a net economic benefit to the economy. So rather than provide yet another regurgitation of battling statistics, it is important to note some crucial qualitative differences between immigration trends in America today, compared with past centuries in America.

Why Immigration to America Today is Different

(1)  Immigrants today are not coming from nations of equal or greater economic achievement. In the past, immigrants from Europe, for the most part, were emigrating from nations that were as advanced as the United States was, if not more so. Today the overwhelming majority of immigrants are coming from developing nations.

(2) Immigrants in the past came primarily from European nations which had cultural values – educational, religious, and political – that were, if not nearly identical to American cultural values, were on a shared trajectory towards achieving those values. Immigrants today come from nations that, relatively speaking, have far less cultural similarities to America than past waves of immigrants.

(3) Immigrants today, for the most part, are coming from nations that are rapidly increasing in population and, in aggregate, dwarf the United States in population. Related to this is the fact that in the past, the people already in America were themselves rapidly increasing in population, but this is no longer the case, except among populations of recently arrived immigrants.

(4) Immigrants today arrive via ten hour hops on an airliner. In the past, waves of immigrants spent ten months traversing land and sea in a journey of staggering expense and significant dangers. While this isn’t universally true, particularly for the overland migrants that cross America’s southern border, in general it is – coming to America today does not require the commitment it required in the past.

(5) Similarly, in the past, immigrants pretty much renounced the nations of their origin, they made a one-way trip, and they adopted the language and values of America. Today, retaining cultural unity with one’s country of origin is a few clicks on the internet, a cheap telephone call, an affordable airfare. Technology has greatly eroded the forces that used to impel immigrants to become Americans.

(6) Immigrants in the past arrived in an America that had a voracious need for unskilled workers. Today the American economy is relentlessly automating jobs that used to require unskilled labor, and the American population already has a surplus of unskilled workers.

(7) Immigrants today are arriving in a welfare state, where they are assured of food, shelter and medical care that are, in general, orders of magnitude better than anything available to them in their native countries. This creates a completely different incentive to today’s immigrants. In past centuries, immigrants came to America to find freedom and to work. Today they are offered a smorgasbord of taxpayer-funded social services.

(8) Immigrant students today – especially in the coastal urban centers where most of them settle – enter a public education system that teaches them with a reverse-racist, anti-capitalist bias. They are taught in our public schools not to assimilate, but to celebrate diversity; not to earn opportunities through hard work, but through fighting discrimination. They are taught, often in their native language, that they have arrived in a nation dominated by racist and sexist white males, who exploit the world to amass evil profits.

These final three points are the most problematic. If immigration reform advocates made those a priority and addressed them decisively with new policies, the other concerns might be manageable. But we must address the problems caused by immigrants with low job-skills, who encounter the welfare state, and are subjected to anti-Western cultural messaging.

To suggest Americans ought to resist competing with highly skilled immigrants, for example, is not only xenophobic, but it smacks of an entitlement mentality. Allowing immigrants into the United States who are qualified to join our ranks of scientists, engineers, researchers and doctors will only help our economy and overall standard of living. Allowing unskilled immigrants into this country, however, when we already have tens of millions of unskilled workers who are either in our prisons or unemployed and collecting welfare – who themselves could perform this work – is much more likely to constitute a drain on our economy.

Similarly, it is a recipe for disaster to allow immigrants into an America where the curricula in K-12 schools and universities – beholden to powerful left-wing teachers and faculty unions – indoctrinates immigrants to resent the alleged evils of capitalism and the incorrigible racist, sexist core of our American culture. This is particularly true when accompanying this siren song of corruption is easy access to social services of all kinds, including welfare. If new immigrants are taught the cards are stacked against them, and at the same time they are offered a free ride that provides a standard of living many times greater than what they knew in the countries they came from, why work?

Clearly an increasing population, all else held equal, does cause overall economic expansion. It isn’t clear at all, however, that this is the optimal way to create economic expansion. First of all, global human population is destined to level off by 2050 anyway, so rather than expanding the population through immigration, economic policy needs to search for the answer as to how to continue to experience economic growth despite a stable, aging population. In Japan, they have already made this policy decision – with zero net immigration and the oldest population on earth, Japan leads the world in the development of androids that will, presumably, become caregivers to the elderly. Economic growth oriented towards improving the quality of life for the elderly is one example of a sustainable growth sector – economic growth dependent on an immigrant-fueled population expansion is not sustainable.

There is another factor, of course, that makes immigration today far more problematic than it was in past generations. Now more than ever, mass immigration of unskilled economic migrants and political refugees has become a strategy to move America sharply to the Left by dramatically transforming the electorate. What the establishment uniparty is doing in America today is a deliberate devaluation of American votes, and a deliberate thwarting of the general will of the Americans who have lived and worked in America for generations. Trump’s bellicosity may scare the soccer moms, but they along with everyone else who loves America ought to reflect on his actions instead of his tone. He is the only major politician in modern times who has tried to do anything to stop this. George W Bush, God bless him, should stop letting the media use his words as weapons in their war against Trump.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

Why Gov. Newsom Wants to Pay for the Health Care of Illegal Immigrants

Gavin NewsomCalifornia’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, wants it understood that he’s not declaring war on Big Pharma, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yes, he wants to give Medi-Cal more power to negotiate drug prices and, yes, he wants to make those prices significantly lower.

But Newsom was surprisingly candid when we spoke Wednesday about his healthcare agenda.

He told me he gained a whole new appreciation for the value that drug companies can bring to people’s lives while seeing his father grapple with dementia for months. William Newsom, a retired state appellate court justice, died last week at age 84.

“I don’t see Pharma as the enemy,” Newsom said. “I’m not saying anyone’s evil.”

He paused, shifting gears back into politician mode. …

Click here to read the full article from the L.A. Times

Newsom Vows ‘Sanctuary To All Who Seek It’

Sanctuary StateCalifornia’s new governor is promising the most populous state will be a “sanctuary to all who seek it” in a direct affront to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged the Trump administration repeatedly as he was sworn in to office Monday, particularly on immigration.

The former San Francisco mayor became the state’s 40th governor, succeeding the term-limited Jerry Brown.

 

“People’s lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe — they all hang in the balance,” Newsom, 51, told a crowd of hundreds packed into a tent outside the state Capitol. …

Click here to read the full article from CBS Local

Mexico deporting nearly 500 migrants after California border blitz

The Mexican government announced Sunday evening that it will deport nearly 500 migrants who rushed the U.S. border between Tijuana and San Diego, Calif.

In a statement, Mexico’s interior department said these migrants were captured with the help of local authorities of the government from the state of Baja California and will be deported after attempting to cross the border “violently” and “illegally.”

Videos and photos of the migrants, including children, crossing a footbridge over a canal in Tijuana as they headed to the border were posted to social media. The incident prompted both the U.S. and Mexico to shut down the port of entry on their respective sides. …

Click here to read the full article from The Washington Examiner

Gov. Brown Vetoes Bill Allowing Undocumented Immigrants in Public Office

SACRAMENTO, CA - OCTOBER 27: California Governor Jerry Brown announces his public employee pension reform plan October 27, 2011 at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California. Gov. Brown proposed 12 major reforms for state and local pension systems that he claims would end abuses and reduce taypayer costs by billions of dollars. (Photo by Max Whittaker/Getty Images)

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill Thursday that would have allowed immigrants in the U.S. illegally to serve on state and local boards and commissions.

Brown said he believed “existing law — which requires citizenship for these forms of public service — is the better path,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

California state Sen. Ricardo Lara and Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, both Democrats, introduced the legislation.

The bill would have struck the phrase “transient aliens” from the government code, which first appeared in an 1872 provision to prevent mainly Chinese immigrants from holding civil positions, according to the LA Times.

California has taken some of the most progressive stances and is at the epicenter of the left’s battle against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. …

Click here to read the full article from The Hill

Bill to Stop ICE Arrests at State Courts Awaits Governor’s Signature

ICE 2A bill with the potential to worsen California’s already-frosty relationship with the Trump administration passed the Legislature on a near-party-line vote in late August and was presented to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature last week.

Senate Bill 349, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (pictured), D-Bell Gardens, is a direct response to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s embrace of the tactic of detaining unauthorized immigrants when they come to state courthouses to deal with matters in the California criminal justice system.

Exact statistics are not provided by ICE on its detentions. But there have been regular reports of ICE raids at state courts and their parking lots in California – especially in the Fresno area – as well as in Arizona, Texas and Colorado within the last year.

ICE officials issued a formal notice in January of their intent to go after targeted individuals when they have scheduled appearances in state courts. Some have said they moved to adopt new policies after the California Legislature adopted and Gov. Brown signed “sanctuary state” legislation last year limiting state cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Lara’s bill would specify that state court officials have the authority to block activities that interfere with the proceedings and operations at state courts. It would require federal immigration agents to have a warrant before they can enter schools, courthouses and state buildings to arrest or question people. It would ban civil arrests in courthouses and authorize the state Attorney General’s Office to pursue civil claims against individuals who violated SB349’s provisions.

The legislative aides who wrote the analysis of the bill cited historical evidence that the practice of not picking up people at courthouses for offenses unrelated to their visits – known as “the common law privilege for civil arrests” – goes back hundreds of years and far predates any controversy over illegal immigration.

Brown and state Attorney General Xavier Becerra have been joined in their sharp criticism of ICE’s tactics by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. In a statement issued last month, she blasted arrests at state courts as “disruptive, shortsighted, and counterproductive … . It is damaging to community safety and disrespects the state court system.”

Some sheriffs want more cooperation with feds

Nonetheless, conservative sheriffs in some counties who oppose “sanctuary” policies are supportive of ICE’s aggressive tactics, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times. Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims is openly looking for ways to increase her department’s cooperation with ICE in spite of the state law.

That suggests that even if Lara’s bill is signed by Brown, some police agencies may be far less enthusiastic about enforcing it than others. Court battles over what exactly “sanctuary”-style laws compel these agencies to do seem likely.

At issue is the scope of the generally accepted doctrine that the federal government cannot compel state law enforcement agents to enforce federal regulations and that state laws prevail unless they directly conflict with federal laws.

Historically, conservatives in the post-Reagan era and Southern Democrats in the 1950s and 1960s have had more of a “states’ rights” approach to interpreting this doctrine, while liberals have leaned more toward the idea that the federal government deserves deference in gray areas open to different interpretations.

In the Golden State, these political roles have been swapped in the Trump era.

While sharply critical of the Trump White House on many immigration issues, Brown has not commented specifically on Lara’s bill. He has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it and the hundreds of other passed bills he has not yet made a decision on.

Lara is the Democratic candidate for state insurance commissioner on the November ballot. He is running against Steve Poizner, who is now an independent after serving as insurance commissioner from 2007-2011 as a Republican.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

California has largest immigration court backlog

Christmas_Island_Immigration_Detention_Centre_(5424306236)California has the largest immigration court backlog, but the number of pending cases is growing more rapidly in other states, according to a new report.

Average wait times for hearings are also lengthening, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University, an organization that analyzes data from immigration courts.

Regardless of political stance on immigration, most involved in the system agree that, for years, there haven’t been enough immigration judges for the volume of cases coming in. While the Trump administration has hired more judges, the backlog continues to grow.

Nationwide, the backlog grew to 746,049 cases through the end of July, according to TRAC. About 80 percent of those cases are in 10 states — California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia. (Immigration courts are present in 31 states or territories.)

California has the largest backlog at 140,676 cases as of the end of July. Maryland has the fastest growing backlog, at 33,384, which is almost double the number of cases in the state at the beginning of fiscal 2017. …

Click here to read the full article from the San Diego Union-Tribune

Trump Blasts Newsom’s Universal Healthcare Plan for Illegal Immigrants

trump-debatePresident Donald Trump on Friday blasted California Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom for supporting universal health care for illegal immigrants, asking, “What happens if the whole world decides to go to California?”

Speaking at a North Carolina event, Trump said Newsom wants “health care for everyone. He wants everything for everyone. He wants to open up the borders. He wants to take care of everyone.”

“And I was just saying, what happens if the whole world decides to go to California?” Trump continued.

Trump said Newsom’s plan means “they’re going to take care of the whole world.”

“Where do you stop?” Trump asked. “You’re going to take care of a lot of people, but they’re not going to be able to do it for very long because it’s not going to work.”

Earlier this week, Newsom said he would like to extend San Francisco’s universal healthcare plan for illegal immigrants that he ushered in when he was mayor to the rest of the state.

“I did universal health care when I was mayor. Fully implemented, regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay, and regardless of your immigration status,” Newsom said. “San Francisco is the only universal health care plan for all undocumented residents in America. Very proud of that. We proved it could be done without bankrupting the city. I’d like to see that extended to the rest of the state.”

Newsom also claimed on Twitter that offering universal health care to illegal immigrants is “the economically smart thing to do.”

“If we don’t offer coverage to everyone – regardless of income or immigration status – we will still carry the expense,” Newson said. “Universal access isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s the economically smart thing to do.”

This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California

Bill to Provide Free Healthcare for Adult Illegal Aliens Dies in CA Legislature

MedizinCalifornia Senate Bill 974, which would provide for “full-scope” Medi-Cal health benefits to all illegal aliens, died in the State Assembly after concerns about up to $3 billion in new costs.

“SB-974 Medi-Cal: Immigration Status: Adults” failed quietly in the Assembly’s Appropriation Committee on August 18, despite an effort to save part of the bill by reducing the cost of taxpayer coverage to $200 million by only covering adult illegal aliens 65 years and older.

After the Democrat-controlled California legislature passed “Health for All Kids” (SB 75) in 2016, which extended full Medi-Cal benefits to 200,000 illegal alien children under the age of 19, Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) promised that he would fight to expand coverage to all adults who would be eligible, regardless of their immigration status.

When Lara introduced SB 974 on April 2, he told Politico that despite President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, California Democrats continue to believe that health care is a civil right for all residents. “California has never waited for the federal government, or for a political climate, to be able to take leadership on a whole host of issues,” he said.

Lara and other California Democrats had been claiming that there would be no added taxpayer burden from SB 974, because California is already paying for poor undocumented adult illegal aliens through emergency rooms across the state.

But the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) examination in May of the financial impacts of SB 974 revealed the cost for extending the coverage to full-scope Medi-Cal coverage for all eligible adult illegal aliens would be $4.74 billion — a $3 billion increase in the taxpayer burden above what is currently provided to illegal aliens through emergency rooms alone. …

Click here to read the full article from Breitbart.com/California

California Demands Trump, Congress Apologize to Illegal Aliens

border fence mexico immigrationCalifornia state legislators passed a resolution Thursday calling on Congress to formally apologize, and for President Donald Trump to join them in acknowledging wrongdoing in separating illegal alien family units at the border.

State Senators Kevin de León, Richard Pan, and Scott Wiener authored the joint resolution that was scheduled for debate, and passed on Thursday. KPBS reported just three legislators opposed — Joel Anderson, Mike Morrell, and Jim Nielsen — while 29 approved it, and eight didn’t vote.

The California Senate resolution calls on Congress to specifically apologize to the children separated from the adult foreign nationals who illegally brought them across the U.S. border. It also petitions Congress and President Trump to acknowledge wrongdoing in separating illegal alien adults and children.

The resolution describes the policy of separating foreign nationals who have crossed the border illegally as “detrimental.” De León described the separations as “government-sanctioned kidnapping.”

“They created the problem, they need to fix the problem and make sure there is clear accountability,” de León proclaimed in the California Senate resolution, according to the report. “We should apologize to these children we have permanently harmed,” said Sen. Pan. Pan compared family separation to U.S. WWII internment of Japanese citizens.

The 1997 Flores settlement under President Bill Clinton dictated that children could not be detained more than 20 days. That policy continued to exist under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Due to the pre-existing policy, President Trump’s no tolerance border security policy resulted in separation of illegal alien adults held for crossing the border illegally,from children they brought over with them. …

Click here to read the full article from Breitbart.com/California