â??The Facts Don’t Add Up!â??

My commentary today delves into the issues that are not being raised during the debates about Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

I have attached a copy of it at the bottom of this e-mail.

Before intelligent consumers make significant purchases they usually do their “homework.”  They check out the websites and consumer magazines and speak to their neighbors before they purchase “bit ticket” items such as cars, major kitchen appliances or other such items.

Before hiring contractors to do home renovation consumers are well advised to check with the Better Business Bureau and perhaps speak to their neighbors who have hired companies that renovate kitchens and bathrooms.

Similarly, when our doctors tell us we need significant medical procedures we are well advised to seek out second and perhaps third opinions.

Herein is my “second opinion.”  If you find that the issues I raise concern you- please do two things- please forward this e-mail and my commentary to as many folks as you can and ask them to do the same- I am attempting to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth.”

Next, I ask that you contact your elected representatives and make certain that they understand your concerns.  You may want to forward this e-maiil to them as well.

Today the “Eight Gangsters” are preparing to “renovate” our immigration laws.  What is not being discussed is why our nation or, for that matter,  any nation has immigration laws in the first place.

Our immigration laws exist for two primary purposes, to protect our lives and to protect the jobs of economic future of American workers and their families.  You would never know it, however, if you listen to the arguments being posed by those who want to provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status in the United States.  While we are being told that these aliens would be provided with “Tamper proof” identity documents, no one is explaining how aliens who are described as being “undocumented” will suddenly emerge with reliable documents to attest to their true identities.

The identity documents that these aliens would be provided with will immediately enable them to receive Social Security Cards, driver’s licenses, credit cards, and other such identity documents even though there would be no certainty that they have really provided their true names or even their true country of citizenship in completing their applications.

While we are being told that these aliens and their applications will undergo a “security check” you should know that if an alien runs our borders and evades the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens into the United States who would pose a threat to the safety or well being of America and Americans, there is no way of knowing if that alien has been present in the United States for ten days or ten months or ten years without doing a field investigation.  There is no way for ICE to conduct field investigations of these applications.

There is no way of knowing if the alien is who he (she) claims to be.

Fingerprinting these aliens may uncover criminal histories in the United States but it is doubtful that any criminal records or substantiation of the identities of these aliens will be uncovered in their home countries, especially in Third World countries and in countries that are affiliated with terrorists.  An alien who provides a false name and has never been fingerprinted in the United States is likely to easily pass this level of scrutiny.

(The honor system only works for honorable people.)  If you had passed the Tsarnaev brothers in the street before they wrought such devastation in Boston on April 15 of this year, you would likely not have imagined the threat that they posed to America and Americans!

While the proponents for Comprehensive Immigration Reform are quick to say that these aliens will be placed at the “back of the line” for U.S. citizenship, they don’t discuss the fact that nearly half of all aliens who are granted lawful immigrant status and given Alien Registration Cards (Green Cards) that signify that they are lawful immigrants actually seek to naturalize and become citizens of the United States. 

Ask the average illegal alien why he ran the border and he (she) will say they came to work and send money to their families in their home countries.

These same advocates don’t mention that each year the United States provides more than one million aliens with lawful immigrant status, thereby placing them immediately on the pathway to United States citizenship.  This number of immigrants is greater than the total number of immigrants admitted into all of the other countries on the planet combined! 

What they are also not noting is that these millions of aliens would immediately be granted employment authorization.  If they have been working for employers who had been exploiting them, it is entirely likely that when they report for work the day after they receive their official identity documents that if they go to their employers and explain that they will no longer work “off the books” and want to be paid prevailing wages and have various safety and employment standards met, they are likely to be fired.  If you wonder how I know this- in 1986 when the first amnesty was enacted I was an INS Special Agent.  The phones in the New York office rang off the hook as call after call came in from newly legalized aliens who were furious that when they told their bosses that they would no longer accept substandard wages under substandard conditions they were fired!  That is, in part, how the number of illegal aliens in the United States soared into the stratosphere.

Many of these newly legalized aliens immediately went on unemployment, were provided with food stamps and other “safety net” programs. While it may be a good “sound bite” for advocates for Comprehensive Immigration Reform to say that aliens who participate in Comprehensive Immigration Reform will not be eligible for welfare, many cities and states will refuse to ask these folks about their immigration status.  This policy of “don’t ask / don’t tell” will nullify the promises of no welfare for these aliens.

All of these questions and many more need to be asked and answered before Congress seeks to create truly horrible legislation with irreversible affects on national security and a host of other issues.  The job of making certain that our elected representatives truly represent us falls on our shoulders- We the People!  Please contact your Congressional representatives in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Call, them, fax them and call their district offices in your neighborhood and arrange for a meeting with their staffers.  Bring along as many of your friends and neighbors.

 Immigration is not a single issue but a singular issue that impacts nearly every challenge and threat confronting the United States today! 

    

Comprehensive Immigration Reform: “The Facts Don’t Add Up!”

Michael W. Cutler, Senior Special Agent, INS (Ret.)

On Friday, April 5, 2013, the Labor Department released two numbers that the economists were eagerly awaiting- the unemployment stats and the number of new jobs that were created in March.

A television reporters commented that the numbers would seem to be a “good news / bad news” story but that the reality is that the numbers were all bad. As it turned out, the percentage of unemployed workers dipped to 7.6% while the number of new jobs that were created was pegged at 88,000. It had been hoped that 200,000 jobs would have been created.

A 7.6% unemployment rate might seem to be good news, however this number has dropped because more American workers have also dropped- dropped out of the labor market and have simply given up looking for work.

This is really as much an immigration story as it is an economic story. Immigration impacts ever so many of the challenges that America and Americans are facing today. Among theses issues are the economy and unemployment.

Today a large numbers of political “leaders” are calling for the implementation of Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the importation of large numbers of foreign workers and foreign students, claiming that without this influx of foreign “talent” American will not be able to compete in the world marketplace.

These leaders blithely ignore the catastrophic impact the implementation of Comprehensive Immigration Reform would have on unemployed and underemployed Americans. This ill-conceived program would grant lawful status and employment authorization to millions or more likely, tens of millions of heretofore illegal aliens who will now have equal standing in an already overflowing labor pool.

On October 20, 2012 Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) posted my commentary:

“Leveling the Playing Field for American Workers”

Advocates for immigration law enforcement call for the implementation of a mandatory E-Verify program- something that should have been mandatory many years ago. However, what is often not realized is that because of fraud, the lawful process by which permanent residents and foreign workers who have been issued temporary work visas often undermines American workers who are desperate to find meaningful jobs with decent wages that would enable them to support themselves and their families.

I wrote a commentary for CAPS that was posted on their website on March 3, 2013:

“With The Worst Economic Crisis since The Depression — More Than Ever, Charity Must Begin At Home”

Every month the United States admits nearly 100,000 lawful immigrants who are immediately placed on the pathway to United States citizenship. This number is greater than the total number of immigrants admitted by every other country in the world. While a number of these new immigrants are children, most will join America’s workforce when they get older. There are already millions of such young lawful immigrants in that “pipeline” today.

Additionally, annually, the United States admits hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of foreign students who invariably will be granted work authorization for practical training.

There is no meaningful oversight in any of these visa programs which results in high rates of fraud.

Even before we consider the impact of illegal immigration on the ability of Americans to find decent jobs, all too often, the legal immigration system fails to live up to its obligation to protect American lives and protect the jobs of American workers.

On August 7, 2012 I wrote a commentary that was predicated on a heart-breaking report that aired on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, July 29, 2012. The title of the disturbing and disheartening was:

“Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars.”

The title for my article was:

“60 Minutes” Report Shows American Families Hiding in the Shadows

What is clear is that the number of foreign workers legally admitted into the United States each month exceeds the number of new jobs being created.

When the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 and the massive amnesty program it would include, was being debated, its proponents said that roughly one million illegal aliens would emerge from the “shadows” to participate in what was billed as a “one time amnesty” to finally reset the immigration system to finally create an immigration system that would, for once and for all, have real integrity.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know that rather than involve roughly one million illegal aliens it ultimately involved more than 3.5 million aliens. We also know that rather than finally create an immigration system that has real integrity, we wound up with a dysfunctional immigration system and the number of illegal aliens are estimated to be ten times greater than the number of illegal aliens who were present in the United States in 1986.

Here are the questions that must be asked and honestly answered before Congress votes on Comprehensive Immigration Reform so that history will not be permitted to repeat itself.

1. What would happen to the United States and its citizens if, as we saw in 1986, more than three times as many illegal aliens participate in the program? Should this occur, we would wind up with 35 million aliens being provided with lawful status and and equal standing in the labor pool with unemployed and under-employed American workers.

2. How would this massive influx of aliens impact national security, public safety, criminal justice, the economy, unemployment, education, public health and healthcare.

3. How would this impact the infrastructure of America’s cities and towns that are already, in all too many instances, unable to provide vital services to members of their communities?

4. How would USCIS adjudicate the millions of applications that would wind up on the desks of their hapless adjudications officers? Face-to-face interviews would not be possible. With only a few thousand special agents at ICE to cope with allegations of fraud in addition to their already overflowing workload, it is likely that most instances of fraud will go undetected by the adjudications officers at USCIS and even when detected ICE would be hard-pressed to allocate special agents to conduct field investigations into suspected fraud. In fact, this is currently the situation at USCIS and ICE.

I recently wrote a commentary, “The Immigration Bon Bon Factory” for CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) that was posted on their website on April 28, 2013. In this commentary I focussed on the lack of integrity to the process by which applications for immigration benefits are being adjudicated currently.

This lack of integrity to the adjudications process does not only undermine the integrity of the immigration system but profoundly undermines national security.

On April 16, 2013 AIM (Accuracy In Media) published my article, “Unobtainium” and Border Deception.

In this article, my focus was the way that the proponents for Comprehensive Immigration Reform had manipulated the discussion to have most folks focus on whether or not the border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico is secure. Most certainly that border is anything but secure, but this is only one of many vital components to the immigration system. Just as only one hole in the bottom of a boat is able to cause a boat to sink, each failing of the immigration system has potentially catastrophic implications for America and Americans. Inexplicably with few exceptions, the great majority of our leaders and the media have come to be hypnotized by the issue of border security along the Southwest Border while ignoring a list of other issues that are being entirely ignored!

On May 2, 2013 I was invited to participate in an interview with Megyn Kelly at Fox News. The video of the interview was posted on the Fox News Insider website and given the title:

Immigration Expert: The System Failed in Boston and Keeps on Failing

Please take the time to watch the interview- it runs about 8 minutes. Megyn gave me ample opportunity to provide my views on the nexus between immigration and national security including the Boston bombing case. I have done many interviews over the years and this one is one of my absolute favorites!

Given all of the facts I think you will come to agree with me that Comprehensive Immigration Reform just does not add up!