Joe Guzzardi: Joe Biden’s SOTU; amnesty is border crisis solution
Leading up to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech, reporters speculated about how much time, if any, he would give to the Southwest border crisis. The answer is now known. From his one hour, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds-long speech – the eighth-longest State of the Union address of the last 60 years, and exceeded only by President Bill Clinton, four times, and President Donald Trump, three times, Biden spent about 60 seconds on his open border debacle. Some analysts said that the brief one-minute reference proved that Biden is indifferent to America’s eroded sovereignty that the border chaos created. Others claimed that the border mess is too embarrassing for Biden to acknowledge, and the less he said, the better for him, and his fellow Democrats. At about the one-hour mark, Biden launched his foray into immigration. Biden shouted out: “America’s border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts.” He then spoke more specifically about the direction in which he wants Congress to act. “If we don’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, [and] essential workers.” Biden followed the well-traveled path that immigration expansionists have long trekked. Whatever problem society might face, the solution today, yesterday, and always is comprehensive immigration reform that includes citizenship. But granting amnesty to an unknown total of illegal immigrants already residing in the U.S. has no relationship to the sovereign-busting open border. Amnesty doesn’t equate to a secure border. More to the point, no one on Capitol Hill knows the precise number of illegal immigrants living within the interior. Estimates range from 12 million to 30 million. Illegal aliens have to be unlucky to get deported under Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 72,177 illegal immigrants in FY 2022, slightly more than the 59,011 deported in FY 2021. That number, in turn, marked a sharp drop from the 185,884 deported in FY 20 and 267,258 in FY 2019. Biden may want to dismiss the border, or he may be satisfied that his welcome-the-world policy is correct. But the reality is that under Mayorkas, border agents have processed and released more than five million aliens into the interior. Another million or so migrants, called gotaways, have slipped past agents and are roaming among the general population. No one is certain of their identities, their intentions, or their current whereabouts. No one is looking for them either, and if they’re located, ICE cannot, as per a Mayorkas memo, deport them. Mayorkas does not have the constitutional authority to rewrite settled immigration laws, but in the Biden administration, legality in immigration law is inconsequential. The only thing Biden and Mayorkas know about immigration laws is that they refuse to enforce them. The illegal alien border surge will cost U.S. taxpayers $100 billion and counting. The $100 billion is the open border’s dollar cost. But the human cost, disregarded by Biden and Mayorkas, is tragic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote that over 150 people die every day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Drug cartels have taken advantage of the open border to traffic fentanyl and have built a multi-billion business around their deadly drug. In his Spanish-language rebuttal, Mexico-born U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) said: “In my home county in Southern Arizona, fentanyl overdoses are the number one cause of death among young people — outpacing car crashes.” A post-SOTU good news, bad news summary: amnesty has no chance to pass in the 118th Congress, but the nation will have to endure another two years of the lawless Biden administration and its determination to destroy historic America. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Population pressures drying up Great Salt Lake
Utah’s Great Salt Lake may disappear within the next five years, experts predict. A Brigham Young University report found that as of January 2023, the lake is 19 feet below its average level. Since 1850, the Great Salt Lake has lost 73 percent of its water and more than half of its surface area. BYU ecologist Benjamin Abbott, noting “unprecedented danger,” called for emergency measures to save the Great Salt Lake from further collapse. Abbott wrote that despite encouraging growth in legislative action and public awareness, “most Utahns do not realize the urgency of this crisis.” At this point, and since 2020, the lake has lost more than 1 million acre-feet of water annually. Each acre-foot represents about 360 gallons of water, nearly the size of a one-foot-deep football field. Today, only about 0.1 million acre-feet of water is returned to the lake each year. Abbott pointed to worldwide examples which show that saline lake loss triggers a long-term cycle of environmental, health, and economic suffering. He urges a coordinated rescue to stave off widespread air and water pollution, further losses from animals listed as part of the Endangered Species Act, and greater declines in agriculture, industry, and overall quality of life. If Utah Governor Spencer Cox hopes to deliver on his promise that the Great Salt Lake will not go dry on his watch, he’ll have to adopt some if not all of Abbott’s suggested measures, many of which will be unpopular among constituents. Specifically, the BYU scholars called on Cox to implement a watershed-wide emergency rescue plan that will set a requirement of at least 2.5 million acre-feet per year until the lake reaches its minimum healthy elevation of 4,198 feet. In conclusion, and in light of what the authors called an “all-hands-on-deck emergency,” the BYU analysis asked farmers, counties, cities, businesses, churches, universities, and other organizations to “do everything in their power to reduce outdoor water use.” Utahns must, BYU counseled, adopt a “Lake First” approach to water preservation. The Great Salt Lake’s rapidly dwindling water level is attributable to two factors: the ongoing drought that’s affected large swathes of the nation and an unprecedented population boom. Despite above-average snowfall in 2022, most of Utah remains in severe to extreme drought mode. The bigger culprit in the Great Salt Lake’s demise, however, is population growth. Between July 2021 and July 2022, Utah’s estimated population grew by more than 61,000, which marked the state’s largest spike in absolute growth since 2006, putting its total population at slightly more than 3.4 million residents. Of Utah’s 29 counties, 28 added population, except for Daggett, which declined by six people. Utah’s population growth is calculated by the standard formula: net migration accounted for an estimated 38,141 more residents, while natural increase – births minus deaths – accounted for another 23,101 residents. From 2010 to 2020, Utah was the nation’s fastest-growing state. Utah’s growth will continue unabated. By 2060, Utah’s population will hit 5.5 million, with intervals of 4 million between 2032 and 2033 and 5 million between 2050 and 2051. Put another way, in the next 40 years, Utah’s population will increase 66 percent. By the time the 2030 Census rolls around, Utah will have more Venezuelan migrants admitted under President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Already in Utah in significant numbers, Venezuelans are part of Biden’s program to grant immigration parole every month to 30,000 total Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. For Venezuelans who have family ties and prospective sponsors in Utah, the state becomes a magnet. And once settled, the migrant Venezuelans will start families or expand their existing families, thereby putting more pressure on Utah’s natural resources. The Great Salt Lake is one of many disappearing U.S. lakes and rivers, victimized by overpopulation and mismanagement. Others in grave danger of drying up include the Colorado and California’s Lake Mead and Lake Tahoe. BYU’s environmentalists have rolled out a sound plan to save the Great Salt Lake. For its part, the federal government is irresponsibly adding population to states like Utah that are struggling to provide precious water and other resources for existing residents. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Clock ticking on Alejandro Mayorkas; House files impeachment articles
The 118th Congress had barely convened before the Senate’s amnesty addicts traveled to the border and began pontificating about the bipartisan immigration action they were about to embark upon. Whenever Congress touts bipartisanship as it relates to immigration, the sub rosa message is that amnesty legislation, which Americans have consistently rejected, is percolating. Neither amnesty’s failed history – countless futile efforts since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act – nor the Republican-controlled House of Representatives stopped determined Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Mark Kelly, (D-Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Tillis tipped off the group’s hand when he said, “It’s not just about border security; it’s not just about a path to citizenship or some certainty for a population.” One of those populations would be the “Dreamers,” with a 20-year-long failed legislative record. Sinema took advantage of the border trip to promote her failed amnesty, her leftovers from the December Lame Duck session, a three-week period when radical immigration legislation usually finds a home. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) tweeted that “our immigration system is badly broken…” drivel that’s been repeated so often it’s lost whatever meaning it once may have had. The immigration system is “badly broken,” to quote Coons, because immigration laws have been ignored for decades. Critics laughingly call the out-of-touch, border-visiting senators the “Sell-Out Safari.” Coons’ tweet is classic duplicity. Coons, Sinema, Kelly, and Murphy have consistently voted against measures to enforce border security and against fortifying the interior by providing more agents and by giving more authority to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans Tillis and Cornyn are also immigration expansionists. Tillis worked with Sinema on her unsuccessful Lame Duck amnesty. Cornyn sponsored, with Sinema and Tillis as cosponsors, the “Bipartisan Border Solutions” bill that would have built more processing centers to expedite migrants’ release and to create a “fairer and more efficient” way to decide asylum cases. The bill, which never got off the ground, would have rolled out the red carpet to more prospective migrants at a time when the border is under siege. The good news is that the border safari, an updated version of the 2013 Gang of Eight that promoted but couldn’t deliver an amnesty, was a cheap photo op that intended to reflect concern about the border crisis when, in fact, the senators’ voting records prove that the invasion doesn’t trouble them in the least. More good news is that Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the new Speaker of the House, represents enforcement proponents’ best chance to move their agenda forward since 2007 when Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) first held the job. Republicans John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) followed Pelosi from 2011 to 2019 when Pelosi returned as Speaker. Although Boehner and Ryan are Republicans, their commitment to higher immigration levels was not much different than Pelosi’s. Boehner and Ryan received 0 percent scores on immigration, meaning that they favor looser immigration enforcement and more employment-based visas for foreign-born workers. Also in McCarthy’s favor is the public support for tightening the border. Polls taken in September 2022 showed that a majority of Americans, including 76 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Independents, thought President Joe Biden should be doing more to ensure border security. Moreover, a plurality of Americans opposes using tax dollars to transport migrants, a common practice in the Biden catch-and-release era. McCarthy must become more proactive and make good on his November call for the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to resign or face impeachment. “He cannot and must not remain in that position,” McCarthy said. “If Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action, and every failure to determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.” McCarthy has the backing of the Chairmen of the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan and James Comer. On January 9, Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment that charged Mayorkas with, among other offenses, “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Mayorkas insists he won’t resign and that he’s prepared for whatever investigations may come his way. Assuming the House presses on, and that the DHS secretary remains committed to keeping his post, Capitol Hill fireworks are assured, the fallout from which could lead to Mayorkas’ departure. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: U.S. ecological footprint confronts Southwest border crisis
Ask the millions of migrants who have either entered the United States or are lined up at the border what motivated their journeys, and all will answer that they’re in pursuit of the proverbial better life. Translated, a better life means they’re longing to become consumers—consumers of housing, hard goods like cars, and natural resources such as water, electricity, and natural gas. The migrants’ goal is great news for big businesses that never met a consumer they don’t love but bad news for environmentalists who hope to preserve a vanishing America. As conservationists look ahead, the future they see is unsettling. With Title 42 set to expire on December 21st, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district includes 42% of the Texas-Mexico border, predicts a “hurricane” of illegal immigration. Everyone in his district, Gonzales said, is in “batten down the hatches” mode as they await a historic and unmanageable increase in migration—more eventual consumers. Border patrol agents advised Uvalde residents to expect about 150 daily migrant drop-offs indefinitely, evidence which, Gonzales said, proves that the Biden administration has no meaningful plan to cope with the ongoing invasion. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Title 42 has been enforced since March 2020 to expel migrants at the southern border. But, in November, in his 49-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, President Bill Clinton’s appointee, ruled that Title 42 is “arbitrary and capricious” and violated federal regulatory law. For FY 2022, an estimated 5.5 million aliens, a total that includes the 4.4 million that CBP reported, and 1.1 million gotaways, are in the U.S. interior. Princeton Policy Advisors’ analyst Steven Kopits, who correctly predicted the FY 2022 crisis, wrote that “… based on the last two months [October and November], 2023 should set yet another record for illegal border crossing — and by a substantial margin over 2022.” March, April, and May 2023 will be, Koptis concluded, especially high as part of the illegal immigrant siege. Only if Republicans captured both congressional chambers, Kopits envisioned, could the migrant invasion be halted—wishful thinking as the mid-term results were tallied. The red tsunami that Kopits saw as the vehicle that might level off illegal immigration turned out to be a mere trickle. The House will have a narrow margin, and the Senate remains under Democratic control. All fifty senators have, since 2020, an unbroken voting record that supports open borders. Many of those senators are captives of the corporate donor class that wants the steady stream of consumers to continue unabated. Environmentalists should be front and center in the battle to preserve the nation’s green space and irreplaceable resources. But not only have congressional Democrats abandoned limiting immigration to sustainable levels, but environmentalists have also given up the battle. Although population surges destroy the ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and farmland that exists between their cities and towns, no large environmental group today advocates for saving natural habitat from relentless growth. The Census Bureau projects that by mid-century, immigrants and births to immigrants will drive more than 85% of U.S. population growth and add more than 100 million people to its current 333 million population. America has one of the world’s largest ecological per capita footprints, 8.04. Any and all U.S. population growth— let alone the massive multi-million-person border surge–will grow its existing footprint. The average U.S. citizen’s ecological footprint is about 50% larger than that of the average person in most European countries. The nation has more suburban sprawl and less public transportation than most countries, which means it burns more fossil fuels that add to its per-capita carbon consumption and uses more energy and water per person than most other developed countries. No one in the Biden administration or in Congress, or among the major environmental organizations has meaningfully addressed the open border’s long-term consequences, even though they are potentially dire. E.O. Wilson, a biologist and writer, expressed the ecological threat dramatically but accurately: “The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.” Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Tech workers brace for possible Omnibus job-killer
Like the proverbial bad penny that keeps reappearing, lousy immigration bills are hard to kill off. Consider the EAGLE Act of 2022, also known as Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment, formally recognized as H.R. 3648. The newest proposed legislation is another iteration of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. Although it passed the House by a 365-65 vote, eventually, it stalled in Congress. Introduced by immigration lawyer, amnesty advocate, enforcement foe and expansionist champion Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the new and the old versions of her proposed legislation both share the same ruinous-to-U.S. tech workers’ feature: the legislation would rob thousands of U.S. tech workers of access to well-paid, white-collar, high-skilled jobs in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, STEM jobs for which they are fully qualified. Along with her like-minded congressional allies that include Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who was just elected as House Majority Whip for the 118th Congress and thus became the third highest ranking Republican in the House, Lofgren has scheduled a vote on the EAGLE Act, which has bipartisan support, when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving recess. Briefly explained, the EAGLE Act would dramatically revise portions of the Immigration Act of 1990. Almost any alien who has been on the visa waiting list for at least two years with an approved petition for an employment-based green card could apply for adjustment of his status, which then wouldn’t count against existing numerical caps. Stated another way, employers can sponsor a temporary foreign-born worker for an H-1B nonimmigrant visa and convert that worker to permanent by merely sponsoring him for a green card. Aliens go from temporarily present to permanent residents. With the stroke of a pen, job searches become more challenging for U.S. tech workers – Congress’ twisted idea of sound legislation. The bill also eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas, which means that within about a decade, Indian and Chinese nationals will receive virtually all such visas, especially the H-1B; other countries’ nationals would have an uphill climb to obtain a visa. Under current law, no country’s nationals can comprise more than 7 percent of any visa category. This provision ensures that skilled workers from around the globe have an opportunity to come to America. The EAGLE Act, however, seeks to entirely remove all caps from employment-based visas and more than double the existing family-preference visa from 7 percent to 15 percent, a hike that would, because of family reunification, ensure significant population surges. The proposed visa cap elimination is ironic because Lofgren and the EAGLE Act’s cosponsors claim to embrace diversity, but the bill heavily favors Chinese and Indian citizens to the exclusion of most others. Moreover, dependent children of the aliens granted the new status would be allowed to retain their legal standing, a form of amnesty, as dependents of their parents for the duration of the green card application process; they would be protected from aging out while their parents move up in the backlog. An estimated 190,000 minors would be protected. Time was when Democrats purported to care about America’s minority workers. But their empathy toward U.S. workers is long gone and is now redirected to foreign nationals, particularly Chinese and Indians. Blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities aspire to IT jobs, too. But they’ve had little luck in obtaining those coveted STEM jobs. Pew Research found that black workers make up 9 percent of the STEM workforce, while Hispanics also comprise about 9 percent. The low STEM representation among blacks and Hispanics is largely unchanged from 2016. For rational thinkers, few and far between in Congress, a push for liberalized immigration laws and amnesty in light of the border surge and its 2 million-plus encounters in 2022 is beyond the pale. But those sound-of-mind types don’t understand the congressional mindset; nothing stops its amnesty drive. And if the EAGLE Act doesn’t get Senate approval, Lofgren always has the option to attach it to a must-pass Omnibus bill. With the 118th House about to transfer into GOP hands, EAGLE Act supporters view December as their last chance to subvert U.S. tech workers. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Congress makes last-ditch amnesty push
Emboldened by their better-than-anticipated mid-term election performance, the Democratic Party is entering the Lame Duck session with an aggressive agenda that includes one of its favorite goals – amnesty. Democrats will control the Upper Chamber during the 118th Congress, but the GOP, by the narrowest margin – a handful of seats – will have the edge in the House. The Democrats’ strong showing inspired President Joe Biden to unequivocally pronounce that he plans to do “nothing“ differently during the two years that remain in his first term. Biden interprets the election results as an endorsement of his policies, especially at the border and with his quest to legalize as many illegal aliens as possible. The status quo, especially as it relates to enforcement, is exactly what’s happening. Just days after Biden’s stand-pat commitment, the Border Patrol reported that agents had at least 230,678 known October encounters, exclusive of nearly 1 million known gotaways, compared to 159,113 last October and 69,032 in October 2020. The October 2022 total, driven by Cubans and Nicaraguans, is the highest in Department of Homeland Security history. Immediately after the Thanksgiving recess, all eyes will be focused on the Lame Duck session that will provide a chance for Biden to finalize his legislative objective. And Republicans may be willing to lend a helping hand, a possibility enhanced with the re-election of pro-amnesty Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Although amnesty goes against most Americans’ wishes, Congress dismisses voters’ concerns and presses on. Common sense dictates that already present illegal aliens shouldn’t be granted amnesty until, at a minimum, the DHS seals the border against the new illegal alien wave that includes thousands of unaccompanied minors. But looking ahead to a possible 2024 re-election bid, the president’s advisors are scratching together a possible slogan, “Promises Kept.” Since immigration doesn’t fall into the “kept” category, at least in the White House’s view, Biden’s advisors perceive the need to forge ahead on amnesty. Earlier this year, the House laid amnesty’s foundation when it passed the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, amnesty for about 2.1 million illegally present farm workers. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – DACA – and farm workers are the two top amnesty priorities. Democrats have already written a game plan to send DACA legislation to the Senate that would amnesty more than 4 million illegal immigrants before their House majority expires. A sidebar: legislation to grant amnesty to deferred action recipients has, since 2001, when it was first introduced, consistently failed to get congressional majorities. Just behind deferred action legalization’s priority are the farm workers who would be tied, if the amnesty passes, to agricultural employment for years – indentured servitude – with the carrot being eventual citizenship. Despite the bill’s title, which suggests modernization, no such feature is included. Modernization means using artificial intelligence, the bane of donors who support keeping the ag industry dependent on cheap, stoop labor. Both DACA and the farm act require ten Senate yeas which the House is unlikely to get. Without the ten necessary upper chamber votes, amnesty advocates could attach either or both DACA and the farm act to must-pass omnibus legislation – the landmine that immigration restrictionists most fear. Nothing stops the amnesty lobby – not 9/11, not the mortgage crisis, and not dismal employment markets. When amnesty advocates have friends in high places such as the White House, the Senate, and the House, pressure for passing amnesty is, as proven during the days leading to the 2022 Lame Duck, intense. Amnesty recipients obtain lifetime valid employment permits, a coveted affirmative benefit that expands the labor market and hinders blue-collar Americans, including blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities, the constituency that Congress deceivingly purports to care about. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Tech layoffs may give U.S. IT workers opportunities
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new Chief Executive Officer, and the firings he immediately called for that included H-1B visa holders, as well as the tech industry’s mass, across-the-board layoffs, raise a three-decade-old question: should the H-1B visa be eliminated, and should U.S. tech workers be put first in line for the white-collar, well-paid jobs? Musk, who completed his $44 billion Twitter takeover last month, declared that he would end lifetime bans from his platform and tweeted that diverse viewpoints would be welcome. He has a golden opportunity not only to end censorship and restore free speech as he’s promised, but to also hire U.S. tech workers when the workforce needs to grow again. Going forward, Musk would have a chance to replace the Twitter employees that he’s fired with U.S. tech workers. The firings – about half the Twitter staff, or around 3,700 employees – are allegedly a cost-cutting measure. He summarily dismissed big earners like CEO Parag Agrawal, $30 million annually; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, $18.9 million; Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, $17 million; and General Counsel Sean Edgett, whose salary is unknown, but likely in the same range as his peers. A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court, claiming that the employees were not given the mandatory 60-day notice prior to the layoffs. Many of the fired Twitter workers may be in the double-whammy vortex. As H-1B employees, unless they find another job within 60 days or successfully change their immigration status, they must leave the U.S. or, no longer legally present, risk deportation. H-1B holders who are legally required to leave must depart and not overstay their visas which the federal government clearly identifies as temporary. The U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services estimates that about 8 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, between 625 and 670, have H-1B visas. Tech and social media are either laying off workers by the thousands or imposing hiring freezes. With Intel’s 20 percent slash, Snapchat’s 20 percent cut, and hiring freezes at Amazon and Apple, H-1B holders are on edge. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, cut 11,000 jobs, 13 percent of its staff after Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his so-called metaverse project was a $15 billion bomb. Meta/Facebook is in a tough spot vis-à-vis its H-1B layoffs. Per the Department of Labor classification, this means 15 percent or more of Meta’s full-time employees are H-1B nonimmigrant workers. For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley and other employers have falsely claimed that without nonimmigrant H-1B visa employees, their businesses would suffer. Yet now, with widespread tech layoffs that include H-1B holders, admitting 85,000 international workers in 2023, the visa’s annual cap, would further hurt U.S. tech workers who are either displaced and forced to train their replacements or denied interviews. Because H-1B employees are cheaper to hire than U.S. tech graduates, the corporate elite prefer them over more skilled, more well-educated Americans. The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place. The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said. The Journal debate represents the challenge that H-1B critics face. No matter how many H-1B visa holders lose their jobs, or how economically depressed the tech sector is, the demand for more visas will remain. Pro-immigration media supporters like the Journal, immigration advocacy groups, lawyers, corporate America, and the powerful Chamber of Commerce will incessantly lobby Congress for more, more, more H-1B visas. Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s Labor Secretary and University of Texas Professor Emeritus, gave a no-frills summary of the H-1B that its advocates should heed: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Musk has an opportunity to set an example for Meta and others to follow: hire U.S. tech workers. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: For immigration expansionists, everything isn’t enough
Imagine if White House officials, the Chamber of Commerce, the establishment media, corporate America, and ethnic identity advocacy groups agreed to an immigration roundtable. Then, further, imagine that the moderator asked three questions. The first question: “Given that fiscal year 2022 ended with a record 2.4 million migrant encounters exclusive of 599,000 known ‘gotaways,’ but including 238,000 in September alone, how many more migrants should be admitted before enforcement begins?” Second: “Assuming Congress passes amnesty for every unlawfully present alien, would you agree to stop or at least pause in your support for unlimited immigration?” Finally: “Research indicates that loose borders harm mostly black Americans in terms of depressed wages and lost job opportunities. Immigration also provides higher incomes and profits for businesses while redistributing wealth from the native poor to the native rich. Do those findings cause you to question your immigration advocacy?” A decade ago, advocacy groups agreed to participate in such a discussion; the hypothetical others weren’t present. No matter how the moderator pressed for answers to questions about how many immigrants were too many, no specific response was forthcoming. The moderator prefaced his questions by acknowledging that most legal and illegal immigrants are hard-working individuals who want better lives for their families and that, with the exception of having broken civil law by being in the U.S. without permission, most aliens are law-abiding. For their part, the pro-immigration debaters insisted that family reunification remain unchanged and that employment-based immigration continue indefinitely. And while vaguely concurring that some numerical limits should be set, none of the participants was willing to set a fixed total. Either speaking on behalf of their group or expressing a personal opinion, the participants refused to discuss, even hypothetically, what the maximum number of immigrants should be or what might represent permissible enforcement regulations. Advocates repeatedly stressed what they perceived as immigration law’s “inhumanity,” but at the same time, wouldn’t specifically define why open borders should be perceived as humane. In summary, the open borders coalition demanded unlimited immigration but rejected border or interior enforcement as quid pro quos. Ten years later, the Biden administration has rewarded immigration advocates with a clearcut victory. Their immigration wish list, identified a decade ago, has come true beyond their wildest imaginations. While Congress hasn’t passed an amnesty per se, interior enforcement is gutted, making removal unlikely for most illegal immigrants. Moreover, many of the millions of migrants have been granted parole, a misused and abused immigration status that includes work authorization. Not precisely an employment-based visa, parole nevertheless effectively provides the same affirmative immigration benefit – legal access to U.S. jobs. Going beyond complying with advocates’ wish list, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has diluted the citizenship test. Long used as the basic guideline for identifying which among the recently arrived lawful permanent residents qualify for coveted naturalization, the standards have been dramatically loosened. USCIS director Ur M. Jaddou said that, under certain circumstances, the exam can be bypassed. This represents how the agency “is removing barriers to naturalization…” Jaddou’s reasoning: the public is “better served” by “eliminating questions and language barriers that no longer have practical utility and were redundant.” At first glance, the Biden administration, through its various immigration violations, which some dismiss as merely loosening inconvenient laws, is an overt attempt to swell the Democratic voter base, especially among Hispanics. But with porous borders having pushed Hispanic voters away, the inescapable conclusion is that the administration’s primary goal is to cancel, by any and all possible means, sovereign America. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Cartel-enriching border betrayal
Only a handful of insiders realize the true magnitude of the border crisis and its consequences. Those in the know include defanged Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, neutered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, journalists whose truthful reporting rarely makes national headlines, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and his White House superiors. Otherwise, the dangers that open borders represent are kept tightly under wraps to avoid bad optics. The world, however, knows that accessing the U.S. interior is merely a matter of getting to the border, crossing, and beginning the journey – often White House-aided and abetted – to the final destination for those who enter illegally. In President Joe Biden’s eyes, the world is welcome. In mid-August, for example, CBP caught ten illegal immigrant adults posing as the ubiquitous unaccompanied alien child (UAC). The phony minors, apprehended at Texas’ El Paso Sector, ranged in age from 18 to 26; by law, UACs must not have reached age 18. All were Guatemalans who claimed to be minors to avoid deportation. Days later, at the Del Rio Valley Sector, agents stopped an 18-wheeler crammed with 150 smuggled aliens that included 17 gang members, one sex offender, and one convicted of murder. MS-13 members were among the identified gangsters. This fiscal year, an estimated 130,000 UACs, some self-defined, have entered. The CBP press release on the DRV action concluded vaguely: “All subjects were processed accordingly.” The Coalition Against Trafficking Women, Latin American branch, estimates that 60 percent of Latin American children who embark on a U.S.-bound journey, either alone or with smugglers, are captured by cartels and then forced into pornography or drug trafficking. In addition to enduring a moral nightmare, those migrants who successfully make it to the U.S. interior will have outstanding debts owed to the coyotes and cartels that will take them a lifetime to pay off. To make sure that smuggling accounts are settled, the aliens are forced to wear GPS wristbands so that the cartel can monitor their movements. Cartels are the world’s most powerful criminal organizations and have created the largest form of modern slavery. The New York Times estimated that cartel revenues reached $13 billion this year, up from $500 million in 2018, a 26x increase in fewer than five years. Over the years, illegal immigration has reached such extraordinarily high levels that it begat more illegal immigration. Decades of porous borders, inadequate interior enforcement, and the current welcoming environment have facilitated today’s historic and continuous wave. In 2018, during interviews in Guatemala’s tiny 17,000 residents-strong Concepción Chiquirichapa, reporters learned that almost everyone has family or knows someone with a family in the U.S. Think about what that amazing statistic conveys: individuals thousands of miles away from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and with few transportation options in their remote villages, have departed for the U.S., confident that they’ll get in, and will remain indefinitely. But neither unlawfully present parents nor their children who are joining them, trafficked or not, deserve a free pass from the Biden administration. In previous UAC waves, 60 percent of the children were handed over to illegally residing parents. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, in the Southern District of Texas, wrote of several instances in which parents “initiated the conspiracy to smuggle minors into the country illegally,” a reference to contracting with traffickers. Then, Hanen continued, instead of enforcing immigration laws, “DHS completed the criminal conspiracy…by delivering the minors into the custody of the parent living illegally in the United States.” Hanen’s message: Nonenforcement encourages parents to pay coyotes to bring their minor children north. UACs will continue to flock to the border as long as their illegal alien U.S. families can criminally bring their children to the U.S. without concern for their own removal. Judge Hanen’s criminal conspiracy allegation is tough talk but accurate. And with the entire U.S. a sanctuary nation, nonenforcement’s failures, and the fallout are painfully obvious. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Bill Clinton’s post-1994 mid-term immigration awakening
Every now and again, both during and after his two-term presidency, Bill Clinton espoused sound immigration thoughts that focused on the nation’s best interests. Most recently, Clinton, without naming Joe Biden, took direct aim at the sitting president’s open border fiasco. On a CNN podcast, and in response to a question about economic migrants who are, in the host’s description, “gaming” the asylum system, Clinton replied that “there’s a limit,” at which point open borders will cause “severe disruption.” Clinton added that the established immigration protocols, presumably a reference to the traditional agencies that assist incoming immigrants, function on the assumption that border conditions would “be more normal.” “Severe disruption” may be the kindest way to describe the chaos in the Rio Grande Valley and other entry points along the Southwest Border. And severely disrupted is an understatement to define the conditions in sanctuary cities New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., where the mayors are grappling unsuccessfully to accommodate the migrants that Texas and Florida governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis send north. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul summoned the National Guard to help Eric Adams with his plan, still in flux, to relocate the migrants to a Randall Island tent city. Adams, who declared the incoming migrants’ need for assistance “a humanitarian crisis,” pleaded to no avail with Biden for a minimum $500 million emergency aid infusion. Having no money to deal with incoming migrants is as disruptive, to use Clinton’s word, as conditions get. Clinton has long been aware of over immigration’s effect on American citizens. In his 1995 State of the Union address, given shortly after Republicans picked up eight Senate seats and a net 54 House seats post a GOP mid-term rout to win congressional control for the first time in four decades, Clinton spoke about the anxiety Americans experience during periods of unchecked immigration. Clinton listed many dangers that illegal immigration presents to Americans that, included illegal hiring, the subsequent U.S. job losses, and providing costly social services. Clinton’s word-for-word conclusion: “It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.” During his SOU speech, Clinton mentioned Barbara Jordan, the former U.S. representative who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The commission’s goal was to establish a “credible, coherent immigrant and immigration policy.” The African-American Democrat from Texas endorsed significant legal immigration reductions, emphasizing high-skilled admissions, fewer refugees, more deportations, and a chain migration overhaul that would limit sponsorship to nuclear family members. Jordan distilled her immigration vision in a sentence: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave. However, Jordan died just months after releasing her report, after which a civil rights, Hispanic advocacy coalition opposed to Jordan’s immigration goals strong-armed Clinton into backing away. Had Jordan lived, her presence would have kept Clinton committed to her commonsense immigration reform rules. Should the GOP manage to recapture Congress, no sure thing, the results won’t spawn a 1995-style immigration awareness in Biden similar to Clinton’s. As Vice President, Biden continuously hailed “constant” and “unrelenting” immigration stream “in large numbers” as America’s source of strength. Given the red carpet welcome Biden has extended to millions of illegal immigrants and gotaways, complete with, in many cases, parole and work authorization, a presidential immigration awakening is highly improbable. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: Hispanic voters trending red
For the last several presidential election cycles, media messaging has been consistent: candidates who capture the Hispanic vote will win. The suggestion, often unstated, was that GOP candidates need to promote an illegal alien amnesty, pledge to curtail interior enforcement, and promote expanded immigration. In 2022, however, Hispanics could indeed hold the key to a GOP victory, but not because they endorse amnesty. Hispanics, realizing that an open border creates job competition, classroom chaos, and disrupts their communities, oppose President Joe Biden’s immigration agenda. The Hispanic shift toward Republicans has been slowly but steadily building. In 2004 and 2016, Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump scored well among Hispanics, 40 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Trump’s 2020 total was almost 10 points higher than his 2016 tally. But in the 20 months since Biden’s inauguration, the White House’s open borders agenda has accelerated the Hispanic shift to the GOP. Remember that Hispanics who vote are U.S. citizens, and their hopes and concerns are largely identical to other Americans. In his new book, “Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move,” Jim Robb wrote that Biden’s refusal to enforce border laws and instead to opt for catch-and-release has been disastrous for all Americans, but especially legal immigrants and the 40-plus million American-born Hispanics. This fall, indications are that Hispanics will vote Republican at a higher rate than they did in 2020: 41 percent plan to vote Republican against 45 percent who will support Democrats, with others undecided. Since only 29 percent of Hispanics voted Republican in the 2018 mid-term election, 41 percent would be a significant GOP move toward capturing an important demographic. In fact, 41 percent would be the highest mid-term election share Republicans have ever received from Hispanics. On important life-affecting issues, Hispanics side with the GOP. Among likely Hispanic voters, 52 percent believe the government is doing “too little to reduce illegal border crossings and visitor overstays.” Only 15 percent believe the government is doing “too much.” Hispanic voters overwhelmingly agree that chain migration should be limited to spouses and minor children, that Congress should mandate E-Verify, which helps assure that only citizens and lawfully present foreign nationals can hold jobs, that businesses should raise wages to attract American workers before hiring foreign nationals, and that legal immigration should be reduced from its current one million-plus annually inflow. Other poll findings may vary, but tangible evidence exists that the Hispanic shift to the GOP is real and may represent the difference in November. In a special June election to determine who would represent Texas’ 34th congressional district in the illegal immigration-besieged Rio Grande Valley, Mayra Flores defeated Democrat Dan Sanchez. A citizen since age 14 and married to a border patrol officer, Flores represents a burgeoning breed of Hispanic officeholders who promote strict border enforcement. Flores is the first Republican to represent her historically blue district in 150 years and the first woman born in Mexico ever elected to Congress. Just weeks after her victory, Flores called on her colleagues to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his abject failures to enforce immigration laws which have caused the ongoing border crisis. Texas gubernatorial challenger Robert O’Rourke, trailing Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, explained why Hispanics have abandoned Democrats. O’Rourke, harkening back to 2020, blamed Biden, who “…didn’t spend a dime or day in the Rio Grande Valley or really anywhere in Texas….” Flores will be on the November ballot when she faces Democrat Vicente Gonzales, who has consistently voted to support Biden’s open borders policy. Political forecasters maintain that the 34th still leans blue. But a Flores victory would confirm that the Hispanic trend to red is real. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Joe Guzzardi: White House shrugs at Chinese espionage
A federal jury in Chicago recently found Chinese national Ji Chaoqun, 31, a member of the U.S. Army reserves, guilty of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. The jury also found Chaoqun guilty of one count of making false statements to the U.S. Army during his application process. Ji enlisted in 2016 via the controversial Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program (MAVNI) – an initiative allowing U.S. military offices to hire legal aliens deemed sufficiently useful for service. In light of Ji’s conviction, the MAVNI program should be re-evaluated. In a statement, the Department of Justice said that Chaoqun worked for intelligence agents that operated within the Chinese government. In that capacity, he attempted to recruit engineers and scientists on behalf of the Chinese Intelligence Ministry. Ji arrived in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which had forged ties with Chinese universities and colleges. During the academic year 2020/2021, 317,299 Chinese students were enrolled in U.S. academic institutions. China is the major sender of international students to U.S. college campuses. Among all international graduates, more than a million have remained in the U.S. and work as part of the Optional Practical Training Program. They have displaced American information technology employees or aspiring college degree holders looking for jobs. Chaoqun’s conviction is the latest in a growing list of Chinese nationals who have infiltrated, with little difficulty, the federal government, academia, and U.S. corporations. Because of the victims’ high profiles, the two most well-known Chinese spy cases are Fang Fang, California U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s mistress, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s chauffer and aide for two decades. At the time, Feinstein was the Senate Intelligence Committee chair. When the FBI investigations heated up, the two Chinese operatives fled the country and returned home. No further information about them has been gleaned. The conclusion is, however, that if two low-level Chinese spies can access the U.S. Congress, then infiltration must be a snap. If China represents the biggest threat to the U.S., as FBI Director Christopher Wray and others insist, then tighter oversight on arriving Chinese nationals is paramount. Wray said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has implemented a multi-layered, generational campaign with the goal to become the world’s economic and technological leader. Wray listed economic espionage, data hacking, intellectual property theft, bribery, blackmail, and other coercive attempts “to sway our government’s policies, distort our country’s public discourse, and undermine confidence in our democratic processes and values.” The FBI director could have pointed to Swalwell and Feinstein as examples to drive his point home. In June 2015, Chinese hackers stole the personal data of 145 million Americans when they accessed the Office of Personnel Management’s servers. With a warning from Wray, a top-ranking law enforcement officer, and documented case history to support his concerns, the federal government should, at a minimum, be on high alert to China’s efforts to undermine the government. Instead, the Biden administration proceeds blasély on its existing course and may accelerate Chinese nationals’ admissions and their path to citizenship. In February, the President’s Advisory Commission of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) held its first-ever meeting. Joe Biden established the commission through a 2021 executive order and appointed Health and Human Services Secretary and U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai to co-chair. The 25 individual commissioners have extensive involvement in diversity and equity issues. Six subcommittees were formed to advance equity, justice, and opportunity, including a subcommittee to address immigration and citizenship. Whenever the Biden administration talks about immigration in the same breath with equity, justice, and opportunity, the takeaway is more immigration which in turn means more employment permits granted to immigrants and fewer jobs for Americans. AANHPI is toiling in obscurity and will be disbanded when a new Congress takes over in January 2023. But the commission reflects Biden’s mindset; equity for all except working Americans, and specifically border city residents whose communities migrants have overrun, and whose lifestyles have been altered, possibly forever, by the president’s unshakeable commitment to open borders. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
