My Commentary: “Crunch Time”

Hi Gang:

As 2013 draws to a close, we may leave that year behind but not the problems that continue to plague us.

Unemployment and underemployment has touched millions of American workers and their struggling families.  It has been estimated that one in four American children are now living below the poverty line.  Nevertheless, the Labor Department continually cranks out unemployment statistics that are less than worthless, they are an insult to the intelligence of Americans!

I have come to think of the 7.1% unemployment statistic as being not unlike a failing student who comes home one day and proclaims that he received an 80% on an exam.  His parents are ecstatic with his apparent success until they review his actual test and find to their horror that he got 80% of the first question correct but scored zeros on the other 9 questions!

The Labor Department blithely ignores the unemployed workers who have given up looking for work, have gone on long-term disability or have run out of unemployment benefits.

The Labor Department also ignores high tech professionals who are working at relatively menial jobs earning a fraction of their previous salaries.

Additionally, there was no mention of any efforts to identify, locate or arrest any of the estimated more than 25,000 aliens who successfully gamed the immigration system. The 12 individuals who have been thus far named did not include any of the tens of thousands of aliens who benefited from their crimes. 

“Financial Crisis Panel: Bank Meltdown Could’ve Been Avoided”

Here is the astounding quote Greenspan uttered while providing testimony on April 30, 2009 before a hearing conducted by the 

Whether or not Comprehensive Immigration Reform is ever enacted, the administration has achieved its goal of flooding the United States with a human tsunami of foreign workers from the four corners of the earth.  It is not just about illegal aliens from Mexico, Latin America or even OTM’s (Other Than Mexico) who evade the inspections process but even the way that aliens who violate the terms of their admission into the United States or successfully game the visa process.

In addition to undermining national security and public safety, as duly noted by the 9/11 Commission, this is also destroying America’s middle class and increasing the amount of money being wired from the United States to the countries from which foreign workers come.  It is estimated that last year more than 200 billion dollars were wired from the United States to countries including Mexico, China, India and other, around the world.  Because of the “Multiplier Effect” this is the equivalent of increasing the national debt of the United States by more than a half trillion dollars!

This is bad for America and Americans- yet not a word is ever uttered about it in the media!

It is disgusting that so many “journalists” on the various “news” programs are quick to show contempt for unemployed Americans but refuse to say a word about how the failures to secure America’s immigration laws and enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States are forcing American workers to run up a “down” economic escalator that is accelerating even as you read this!

“Crunch Time”

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

Senior Fellow, Californians for Population Stabilization

On December 28, 2013, news reports announced that as a cost saving strategy, Congress recessed without extending unemployment benefits for out of work Americans.

Unemployed Americans were interviewed and, as would be expected, they all talked about how traumatic is was for them to realize that they could not find work and are now about to lose and an important source of income.

What no one talked about was how the United States continues to admit more authorized foreign workers each month than the number of new jobs that are being created. This includes high-tech workers.

In December 2011 “Dan Rather Reports” aired a disconcerting hour-long report on how highly educated and experienced American computer programmers are being replaced by programmers from India. The report was titled:

“Dan Rather Reports: No thanks for everything”

On May 15, 2007 a four minute infuriating video was aired on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on CNN. It features an immigration lawyers’ conference in which lawyers were being coached to “not find qualified U.S. workers!” The lecturer is identified in the video as being Lawrence M. Lebowitz, the Vice President of Marketing for the firm of Cohen & Grigsby.

This outrageous strategy is still being employed by immigration lawyers.

Additionally, failures of the administration to enforce the immigration laws adds still more foreign workers to the already overcrowded and desperate labor pool of unemployed Americans.

The longer that workers are unable to find jobs, the more undesirable they become to employers who are seeking employees, creating the vicious cycle of desperate American workers finding that the longer they are unable to find a job, the more difficult it becomes for them to get hired.

The clock is ticking and it is not on the side of desperate American workers and their struggling families.

The plight of many of these families is directly attributable to the immigration crisis that has been greatly exacerbated by the administration.

Meanwhile cities and some states have declared themselves to be “Sanctuaries” for illegal aliens who have violated the borders and the immigration laws of the United States, for reasons known only to them. Our borders and immigration laws are supposed to prevent the entry and continued presence of aliens whose presence is harmful or dangerous to America and Americans.

The administration has taken the utterly unjustifiable step of providing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens with employment authorization and creating an irresistible incentive for aliens to run our borders and violate our immigration laws by promising to do whatever it can to ultimately provide these aliens with a pathway to United States citizenship while members of the Republican Party’s leadership have promised to provide, as a minimum, employment authorization to unknown millions of illegal aliens.

One of the sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 which enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded. Among these classes are aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases or extreme mental illness. Additionally convicted felons, human rights violators, war criminals, terrorists and spies are excluded as well as aliens who would seek unlawful employment or become public charges.

This afore-noted section of the INA also contains this provision which is of extreme importance to American workers, their families and the American economy:

(A) Labor certification

(i) In general Any alien who seeks to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor is inadmissible, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General that—

(I) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified (or equally qualified in the case of an alien described in clause (ii)) and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place where the alien is to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and

(II) the employment of such alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.

The importance of our borders and our immigration laws cannot be overemphasized. In the war on terror and transnational gangs, they are our first line of defense and our last line of defense. They are equally important to American workers who are facing unfair competition from foreign workers, aided and abetted by the administration and advocates for “Sanctuary Cities” and Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

In his famous speech before the 3^rd Army on May 31, 1944 General George S. Patton said, on the strategy of holding a position:

“We’re not holding anything, we’ll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy.”

Pushing back against Comprehensive Immigration Reform is the same as holding position. The time has come for us to advance by demanding that our borders be made truly secure and our immigration laws be effectively administered and enforced.

This must be our New Year’s Resolution!