WASHPOST: Catherine Rampell Takes The Measure Of Stephen Miller’s Neo-Nazi View Of American Immigration History – Exposing A Lifelong Hater’s Knowingly False, Misleading & Existentially Dangerous Narrative!

WASHPOST: Catherine Rampell Takes The Measure Of Stephen Miller’s Neo-Nazi View Of American Immigration History – Exposing A Lifelong Hater’s Knowingly False, Misleading & Existentially Dangerous Narrative!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/20/stephen-miller-is-right-about-immigration-not-way-that-he-means/

By Catherine Rampell

Columnist

August 20 at 4:58 PM

In a Post profile over the weekend, White House senior policy adviser and de facto immigration czar Stephen Miller explained why he cares so much about immigration policy:

“Immigration is an issue that affects all others,” Miller said, speaking in structured paragraphs. “Immigration affects our health-care system. Immigration affects our education system. Immigration affects our public safety, it affects our national security, it affects our economy and our financial system. It touches upon everything, but the goal is to create an immigration system that enhances the vibrancy, the unity, the togetherness and the strength of our society.”

Miller is right: Immigration does touch all those realms. Though perhaps not in quite the way he suggests.

For instance, immigration affects our health-care system in many ways — including by supplying it with talent.

In fact immigrants are overrepresented in the health industry. About 16.6 percent of the health industry is foreign-born, 13.7 percent of the U.S. population overall. A whopping 29.1 percent of physicians are foreign-born, according to a recent analysis of Census Bureau data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Immigrants also are overrepresented among dentists (23.7 percent); pharmacists (20.3 percent); registered nurses (16 percent); and nursing, psychiatric and home health aides (23.1 percent).

Immigration also plays an important role in our education system. International students, who generally pay full freight, have helpedkeep public universities afloat even as state legislatures have slashed their budgets. Their tuition dollars help schools cross-subsidize in-state students. Immigrants also have populated the STEM study programs that Americans show little interest in, especially at the graduate level — where many of those same immigrant students help educate American undergrads.

Here’s the share of students in a selection of STEM graduate programs who are in the United States on temporary visas, according to the National Science Foundation’s Science & Engineering Indicators 2018 report. Note that this measure likely understates the fraction of students who are foreign-born, as it does not include those who are permanent residents or naturalized citizens.

Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, special tabulations (2016), 2015 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. (Washington Post)

As for the relationship between immigration and public safety, the data suggest you might conclude that greater immigration leads to greater public safety.

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At least, a study of immigration and crime trends across 200 metropolitan areas over four decades found that “immigration is consistently linked to decreases in violent (e.g., murder) and property (e.g., burglary) crime throughout the time period.” Other studies have found a similar relationship between the two trends. We don’t know that the link is actually causal, of course, but we do have evidence thatundocumented immigrants commit (non-immigration-related) crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans.

With respect to national security, Miller might do well to remember that immigrants serve in our military. As of 2018, there were 527,000 foreign-born veterans, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of Census Bureau data. About 1.9 million veterans are the U.S.-born children of immigrants.

Some of those noncitizen military members with in-demand skills were expecting that their service would expedite their naturalization process, under a program launched in 2008 called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest. However, changes in recent years, under first the Obama administration and then under Trump, have effectively frozen that program.

What about our economy?

There’s a lot to be said about how immigrants contribute to the economy, including through high rates of entrepreneurship. For example, immigrants have started more than half of the United States’ start-up companies valued at $1 billion or more, according to a National Foundation for American Policy study. They start lots of smaller companies, too, at much higher rates than native-born Americans, according to data from the Kauffman Foundation.

Without immigration, the U.S. working-age population would be falling, which would weigh on economic growth. (Just look at Japan’s struggles). And as I’ve written elsewhere:

There’s reason to believe that new immigrants may depress wages for earlier waves of immigrants who have similar skill sets. However, recent studies suggest that immigration (both authorized and unauthorized) actually boosts labor force participation rates, productivity and wages and reduces unemployment rates for native-born American workers, whose skills these immigrants tend to complement.

But don’t these people drain the public coffers?

Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, pay taxes — taxes that fund government benefits that in many cases they are not legally eligible to collect.

A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that the net fiscal impact of first-generation immigrants, compared to otherwise similar natives, is positive at the federal level and negative at the state and local levels. That’s due mostly to the costs of educating their children. When their children grow up, though, they are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population, contributing more in taxes than either their parents or the rest of the native-born population.” In other words, by the second generation, immigrants are net-positive for government budgets at all levels.

What about the most destitute immigrants who come here, though? Surely they’re sucking the government dry!

Nope.

An internal government report commissioned by Trump found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in tax revenue over the past decade than they cost the government. Finding those results inconvenient, the administration suppressed them, though they were ultimately leaked to the New York Times last year.

So by all means, Miller, please remind the public that immigration has consequences for the broad policy landscape. But remembering the directionality of those consequences seems pretty important, too.

*******************************************************************

Thanks, Catherine, for setting the record straight!

Catherine’s wonderful article would have fit well within the readings for the Bjorklunden Seminar that Professor Jenn Esperanza and I did earlier this month. Basically, those who oppose and demean immigrants have forgotten that we are all immigrants, we are all very similar, and without immigrants there would be no America.

No, our country isn’t “full” by any means and no, the “quality” of recent immigrants hasn’t “dropped off.” If anything, we are more dependent on the skills, hard work, and loyalty (sometimes hard to fathom, considering how they are treated) of recent immigrants, both documented and undocumented, than at any time in our history since the founding.

Unlike Miller, “Cooch Cooch,” Pence, Trump himself, and the other political hacks charged with making immigration policy these days, I actually spent years dealing face to face with migrants of all types, races, religions, backgrounds, and situations in performing my duties as a U.S. Immigration Judge. Contrary to the false narratives promoted by the “Millers of the world,” most of them wanted just three things 1) the chance to live a relatively safe and stable life; 2) an opportunity to use their skills to support themselves and others; and 3) a better future for their children.

That’s largely what I wanted out of life and accurately describes the aspirations of probably 90%+ of the people I have known as I move into my seventh decade of life.

I don’t know what entitles folks like Trump, Miller, and their followers to demean and dehumanize the contributions of other humans who are just as, or in many cases more, worthy as they are – simply because they didn’t have the same fortune of birth or circumstances.

Undoubtedly, there is somewhere out there a point at which admitting larger numbers of refugees and other types of immigrants would be counterproductive, at least for our country, if not for the migrants themselves. Even then, there might still be moral and religious arguments for helping our fellow men even when it ceases to demonstrably benefit our economy and our society.

But, the factual and moral bankruptcy of the “case for fewer immigrants” put forth by Trump, Miller, and the White Nationalists shows that whatever that “magic number’” might be, it’s multiples of the number of legal immigrants we are admitting at present. That’s why Trump, Miller, and the White Nationalists don’t want to have the real national dialogue that we should be engaging in: How do we expand our current refugee and legal immigrant admission systems to more realistically reflect the market forces that cause migration, and how do we as a country put ourselves in the best position to benefit from the ongoing phenomenon of human migration?

The longer we screw around with and are diverted by the racist myths of the Trumps and Millers, the longer it will take us to get around to the hard work of addressing immigration issues in a smart, humane, and realistic way that benefits the immigrants, our country, and humanity as a whole.

PWS

08-21-19

TRUMP, MILLER, & “COOCH COOCH” ARE AS INTELLECTUALLY DULL AS THEY ARE RACIST — “USEFUL IDIOTS” PROVE NO MATCH FOR SMART WOMEN: CNN’S ERIN BURNETT, HUFFPOST’S SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN, HISTORIAN ANNIE POLLAND, & VANITY FAIR’S BESS LEVIN — No Wonder The Administration’s Malicious Incompetents Surround Themselves With (Mostly Old White Male) Folks Who Might Be Even Dumber (But Not More Vile) Than They Are!

Watch Erin eviscerate “Coach Cooch” — talk about debunking many of Trump’s flse narritives and blatant racist lies in one short piece:

https://apple.news/AzfXx6N_GTA-c-0HtLeBxmQ

Sarah Ruiz-Grossman — Sarah Ruiz- Grossman
News & Politics Reporter
Huffington Post

Read Sarah’s report of the mismatch, featuring American Jewish Historical Society’s Historian Annie Polland:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ken-cuccinelli-statue-liberty-poem-about-europe_n_5d535ed3e4b05fa9df0671ee

POLITICS

7 hours ago

Ken Cuccinelli: Statue Of Liberty Poem About ‘People Coming From Europe’

Trump’s citizenship and immigration chief followed up his earlier comments about the famous Emma Lazarus poem with a racist clarification.

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Ken Cuccinelli, the Trump administration’s acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reinforced his controversial interpretation of the inscription on the Statue of Liberty ― this time giving it a racist twist.

CNN journalist Erin Burnett was asking Cuccinelli about his earlier interview with NPR, in which he reworded the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus,” saying: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

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“‘Wretched,’ ‘poor,’ refuse’ – right? That’s what the poem says America is supposed to stand for. So what do you think America stands for?” Burnett asked Cuccinelli.

“Well, of course, that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe,” Cuccinelli answered, “where they had class-based societies, where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class … And it was written one year after the first federal public charge rule was written.”

It is unclear why Cuccinelli felt the need to specify the group of immigrants Lazarus was referring to. The poem itself describes the Statue of Liberty by saying, “From her beacon-hand/ Glows world-wide welcome.” USCIS did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Cuccinelli was on NPR defending the Trump administration’s controversial new rule effectively barring legal immigrants who are on government benefits, like food stamps and Medicaid, from becoming permanent residents.

Josh Marshall

✔@joshtpm

Lotsa folks asking for longer version of this cuccinelli clip. Here it is.

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7:36 PM – Aug 13, 2019

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After his remarks on NPR, HuffPost spoke to Annie Polland, a historian and director of the organization that has the original manuscript of Lazarus’ poem.

“To see how something so expressive of the country’s greatest ideals, to see how it could be so contorted or distorted, is really, I think, dismay is the only word,” said Polland, the executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, adding that she was “not surprised because we’ve been hearing these sentiments more than we have in the past.”

Lazarus originally wrote the poem in 1883 and it was added to the statue in 1903. Since then, the poem has become a symbol of the United States’ history of immigration.

Polland argued that the poem “is as much about who America or what America should be, as it is about immigrants,” adding that “in many ways, America defines itself by how it’s welcoming immigrants.”

And, speaking of “evisceration,” perhaps no pundit in American does it better than Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin, who as had “Don the Cons’s “number “dialed up” from the get-go:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/ken-cuccinelli-statue-of-liberty

Lady Liberty

TRUMP OFFICIAL REWRITES STATUE OF LIBERTY POEM TO REFLECT TRUMP’S “NO POORS” POLICY

Ken Cuccinelli doesn’t think the whole “give me your tired, your poor” business applies anymore.

BY

BESS LEVIN

AUGUST 13, 2019

BY WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES.The base of the Statue of Liberty famously displays the words of Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But, if Donald Trump’s top immigration official had it his way, the poem would be revised to reflect the president’s “rich immigrants only” policy.

Speaking to NPR on Tuesday, the day after the administration unveiled a new rule that will penalize green card applicants for “financial liabilities” like having a low credit score or using Medicaid, Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was asked if Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” remains “part of the American ethos.” To which Cuccinelli offered some suggested edits inspired by the executive branch’s take on who should or shouldn’t be allowed to live in the United States. “They certainly are,” Cuccinelli said. “Give me your tired and your poor—who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

Aaron Rupar

✔@atrupar

Here’s acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli saying on NPR this morning that the Statue of Liberty plaque should be changed to read, “give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

8,535

8:31 AM – Aug 13, 2019

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One day prior, Cuccinelli had told reporters at the White House that he was “certainly not prepared to take anything down off the Statue of Liberty,” though apparently, having slept on it, he’s now up for some kind of appendage. During his interview with NPR, Cuccinelli noted that the plaque bearing Lazarus’s words “was put on the Statue of Liberty at almost the same time as the first public charge was passed—very interesting timing.” It’s not at all clear what point he thought he was making.

WATCH NOW:

Jon Favreau Breaks Down The Lion King’s Opening Scene

Despite having zero actual experience in immigration policy, Cuccinelli was hired in May thanks to previous work sponsoring bills that tried to repeal birthright citizenship and would force employees to speak English in the workplace. (Had the latter passed, we assume Cuccinelli would have proposed revising the Statue of Liberty’s poem to read, “Speak English, bitch.”) In 2013, his mother told the Washington Post that as Christians, the Cuccinellis raised their children to “care [for] the poor” and that “if someone is starving, you want to bring him a meal, not a book on how to cook,” lessons her son apparently forgot. (Speaking of his Christian values, Cuccinelli has said that homosexuality “brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”)

This isn’t the first time a member of the Trump administration has cast aspersions on the whole “give me your tired, your poor,” business. Back in 2017, Stephen Miller, the president’s chief white rage officer, told Jim Acosta that he didn’t give a shit about the poem because it “was added later and is not part of the original Statue of Liberty.”

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We are “governed” by evil racist fools. It’s up to the “The Due Process Army” and others to defend America and American ideals from these ignorant, yet existentially dangerous, White Nationalist racists!

PWS

08-14-19

NO MISSION, NO CREDS, NO SHAME: DHS Abandoned Our “National Security” When Trump Took Power — Now (Wittingly or Not) It’s Largely A White Nationalist Tool With A Huge Racism Problem Whose Highest Profile Activities Harm America, Rip Off Taxpayers, & Have Little Or No Relation To Real Law Enforcement — In Plain Terms, A Dangerous & Unnecessary Internal Political Police Force!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/09/poultry-industry-recruited-them-now-ice-raids-are-devastating-their-communities/

Angela Stuesse writes in the Washington Post:

By Angela Stuesse

Angela Stuesse is a cultural anthropologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. To learn more about immigrant and U.S.-born workers in Mississippi’s poultry industry, pick up her book, “Scratching Out a Living: Latinos, Race, and Work in the Deep South.”

August 9 at 6:00 AM

On Wednesday people across the United States were shocked by the news that ICE raids at a handful of Mississippi chicken plants had resulted in the largest single-state immigration enforcement action in U.S. history, with nearly 700 people detained. As surprising as the news was, coming on the heels of a deadly mass shooting that targeted Latinos, perhaps just as surprising was the location of the raids in the deep, rural South.

The prominence of Latinos in Mississippi’s chicken plants and communities today was not accidental. It was calculated, strategic and intimately related to deeply rooted structures of labor exploitation in the region. Beginning in the 1990s, Latin American immigrants were recruited to the state by the poultry industry, where they arrived to work in some of the lowest-paid and most dangerous jobs in the country. This week’s raids target deeply rooted workers and families and leave behind a devastated community, while also terrorizing many others across the country.

The roots of the heavily Latino workforces in Southern poultry plants lie in the growing American appetite for chicken during the 1990s, and the stirrings of a labor movement by African American plant workers. As poultry production expanded, workers’ pay and opportunities remained stagnant. As a result, labor organizing among the plants’ predominantly African American workforce began to gain traction.

Facing the prospect of its first union contract negotiations and in search of more “flexible” (read: exploitable and expendable) workers, in 1994 a chicken plant in Morton, Miss., headed to Miami in search of immigrant labor.

Advertising in Cuban stores and local papers, it took the poultry processor just one week to fill a Greyhound bus of immigrants eager for work. This experiment marked the beginning of the plant’s formal Hispanic Project, which included not just recruitment and transportation from Florida but also the provision of housing — mostly in dilapidated and overcrowded trailers — as well as local transportation and leisure activities, all for fees deducted from workers’ paychecks that often reduced their meager earnings to below minimum wage.

In its roughly four years of operation, the Hispanic Project recruited nearly 5,000 workers to two Mississippi towns with a combined population of less than 10,000. Not everyone stayed, but this scheme caught on, and other plants began recruiting Latinx immigrant workers from Florida, Texas and even farther afield.

Getting creative, one poultry processor offered its workers $600 for each new employee they recruited who stayed at least three months. Entrepreneurial individuals took full advantage of this incentive to recruit family, friends and others in their social networks in the United States and in their home countries. Once these connections were made, the plants no longer had to leave the state to recruit foreign workers. In the words of the architect of the Hispanic Project, “They were right here.”

By the time I arrived to work in Mississippi’s poultry communities alongside the Mississippi Poultry Workers’ Center in 2002, over half of the country’s quarter-million poultry workers were immigrants, most of them in the South. A mapping of poultry production and Latino population growth shows that poultry has been a major driving force of a demographic transformation in the region. In Mississippi, it was the driving force, increasing the Latino population in some poultry towns by over 1000 percent in the 1990s.

And this transformation of the poultry workforce has only continued over time. Today’s Mississippi poultry workers are from nearly every part of the continent, hailing from Argentina, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras, Venezuela and other Latin American and Caribbean countries. They are doing work that is hazardous, painful and often degrading. They work long hours for low pay, scratching out a living so that the rest of us can buy cheap chicken.

And they do so because they were literally invited, recruited and incentivized to come. For ICE to be conducting raids in Mississippi ignores this history and ignores how the poultry workers recruited to these towns a quarter century ago have laid down roots. They have made Mississippi home and raised families.

Though industry leaders didn’t predict it at the time, the Hispanic Project changed the landscape of Mississippi and the rural South. In poultry towns across the region, today you can find authentic Mexican food, pickup soccer games, an abundance of Spanish-language churches, and schools brimming with bright and eager young Latinx Americans, U.S. citizens who are growing up as Southern as their peers.

Rooted members of the community, regardless of immigration status, deserve better than to be ripped away from their jobs and loved ones. Although neighbors and community organizations like the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance are working to support affected children and families, these raids ripple through communities, devastating individuals and families, and the most vulnerable people pay the highest price. As the alt-right celebrates this wreckage as another win for white nationalists, let us keep in view that these immigrants are here because 25 years ago one Mississippi poultry executive conceived an inventive idea, to flood the processing lines with eager and compliant immigrant workers.

And while they come at enormous costs to thriving, vibrant communities, these raids do little to affect immigration trends; people continue to migrate to the United States to survive. What they do affect is the working conditions for everyone. With the threat of family separation, detention and deportation hanging over people’s heads, immigrant workers are less likely to organize and less likely to speak out against poor conditions — and employers are more likely to take advantage of them. This ripples through the economy, depressing wages for U.S.-born workers, as well. The mounting threat of deportation and rising xenophobia help keep workers compliant, serving owners’ interests and consumers’ pocketbooks — but harming the people who prepare our food.

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Today, DHS has morphed into an agency without legitimate purpose, direction, values, or decency. It operates largely without regard for strategically effective use of limited public resources. It’s also horribly managed, mostly by “malicious incompetents.”

Undoubtedly, there are many necessary and legitimate functions within the “DHS mess.” And probably the majority of DHS employees are dedicated public servants, trying to do the best they can under the circumstances. But, the “DHS experiment” has miserably failed. Time to cut our losses as a nation.

The DHS should be dissolved, ridded of its racist culture, and the essential security, public service, and law enforcement functions reassigned to other agencies with legitimate missions, workable management structures, and proven competence (e.g., FBI, HHS, State, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, etc.).

The “civil” immigration enforcement function likely could be sharply reduced in terms of both funding and personnel without any adverse effect on true “national security.” Indeed, elimination of the current misdirection of resources toward cruel, inhumane, and overwhelmingly unnecessary “civil detention,” mindless enforcement of provisions that often defeat the national interest (like the cruelly inane operation described in this article), failure to exercise prosecutorial discretion in a rational and professional manner, and racist grandstanding would greatly increase our actual national security while allowing resources to be directed in a more efficient and effective manner. And safeguards and oversight should be put in place to ensure that immigration enforcement and adjudication never again become tools of White Nationalism, racism, and neo-fascism.

A focus on election security and stopping White Supremacist domestic terrorism, missions that DHS has shamefully swept under the table, at best, and actively undermined, at worst, is also essential.

PWS

08-09-19

ABUSE OF POWER: Eleanor Acer Of Human Rights First Blasts Administration’s Latest Scheme Promoting A Massive Hemispheric Violation Of Human Rights!

https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/press-release/mexico-border-deal-avoid-tariffs-would-endanger-lives

June 06, 2019

Mexico Border Deal to Avoid Tariffs Would Endanger Lives

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Refugee Protection

New York City—In response to reports that the Mexican government is planning to make a deal with the United States to avoid tariffs threatened by President Trump, Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer issued the following statement:

President Trump is trying to bully another country into endangering the lives of vulnerable men, women, and children, who want nothing more than to live in freedom and safety. Mexico and Guatemala are not—in a legal or practical sense—safe countries for many refugees. In Mexico too many refugees face kidnapping, assault, and murder.

People seeking refuge are not required to seek asylum in the first country they set foot in. In fact, many face grave dangers in neighboring countries, as well as serious risks that they will be returned to their country of persecution.

Such a plan would not only makes a mockery of U.S. law and treaty commitments, but would also return refugees to places where their lives are in danger. It is yet another abdication of leadership, setting an abysmal example for other countries around the world.

Instead of more attempts to block and punish people seeking refuge, the United States needs real solutions that restore order and uphold America’s refugee laws and treaty commitments, including:

Tackle the root causes pushing people to flee the Northern Triangle countries through a targeted strategy that leverages both diplomacy and aid, focusing on effective programs that reduce violence, combat corruption, strengthen rule of law, protect vulnerable populations and promote sustainable economic development.

Launch a major initiative to enhance the capacity of Mexico and other countries—which are already hosting growing numbers of refugees—to provide asylum, host, protect, and integrate refugees, along with a robust regional resettlement initiative that provides orderly routes to the United States and other countries while safeguarding asylum.

Immediately end the dysfunction at the border, and instead launch a public-private humanitarian initiative and a long overdue case management system to actually manage asylum cases.

Fix the asylum and immigration court adjudication systems to provide fair, non-politicized and timely decisions.

For more information see Human Rights First’s blueprint: The Real Solution: Regional Response Rather than Border Closures, Mass Incarceration, and Refugee Returns. To speak with Acer contact Corinne Duffy atDuffyC@humanrightsfirst.org or 202-370-3319.

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As usual, Trump’s outrageously illegal and immoral proposal relies on:

Bullying weaker countries;
A gullible public;
A cowardly GOP Congress;
Complicit courts.

A simple perusal of the country condition materials publicly available on the EOIR and Department of State websites shows that the idea that either Mexico or Guatemala are “safe” countries where refugees “would have access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum or equivalent temporary protection,” as required by U.S. law, is preposterous.

Mexico’s asylum adjudication system is plagued by bribery, corruption, and incompetence. It adjudicated only about 10, 000 cases in the last reported period, denying the overwhelming majority. Moreover, gangs and cartels operate freely throughout the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico. Our State Department Report acknowledges that the same organized gangs who force people to leave the Northern Triangle can also harm them in Mexico.

Guatemala is a highly corrupt country basically without a functioning asylum adjudication system. It is a major sender of asylum applicants to other countries. The Guatemalan Government is unable to maintain order and protect its own citizens, let alone refugees from nearby countries.

Also, we are encouraging Mexico and Guatemala to use troops and military force against asylum seekers — something our own laws do not permit.

Essentially, the Trump Administration seeks to “get away with murder.” In two years they have turned the U.S. from a leading defender of human rights to a major international human rights violator. So, why are we allowing our Government to get away with such dishonest, morally bankrupt, and illegal proposals?

Even if these corrupt proposals go into effect, it seems doubtful that they will stem the follow of refugees in the long run. While there might be a short term downturn, eventually smugglers will adjust to the new policies and desperate individuals will find different routes to the United States. They will be more dangerous, so more will die.

Perhaps we will see “Central American Boat People” and more deaths at sea. Maybe there will be more “Golden Ventures.” More deaths at the border will be inevitable as smugglers seek to evade the Border Patrol and get to the interior. Perhaps the human smuggling action will switch to the even longer U.S. Canada border. How about a “Northern Wall” from the Atlantic to the Pacific?

As long as the U.S. stubbornly refuses to acknowledge and address the causes of migration it will continue, in extralegal channels as necessary and as the market “push pull factors” determine. More focus on barring refugees means less focus on drug smugglers and others who present a real threat to our safety and security.

Also, smugglers will be able to change a premium — so those who are willing to take the risk and outsmart the new system will reap even higher profits than the increased ones Trump has already conferred upon them with his maliciously incompetent policies to date. Finally, walls, jails, cages, abuses, family separations, prosecutions, racist rhetoric, armed violence, tariffs, exploitation, massive violations of our Constitution and international laws, or whatever won’t stop desperate refugees from coming. But we will eventually convince refugees to give up on the U.S. legal system and just find ways to get beyond the border and lose themselves in the interior. No enforcement system, no matter how cruel, repressive, expensive, and lawless will be able to get rid of more than a fraction of those who don’t want to be found after reaching the interior.

Moreover, if Trump’s actions succeed in destabilizing Mexico, then Mexican migration, which has actually been a negative flow recently, will resume in large numbers, also adding to the pressure on our borders. The worse things get in Mexico, the less likely that the Mexican Government will stop their citizens from heading north. So, there is every reason to believe that Trump’s “malicious incompetence” will make things even worse for everyone — but particularly for those who are most vulnerable — desperate asylum seekers!

Another future possibility to ponder: Tired of being publicly bullied, humiliated, and dealing with a dishonest unreliable idiot and his incompetent sycophants, Mexico and Canada will “wise up” and cut a trade deal with China that really gives them leverage and puts the squeeze on the U.S. And, why wouldn’t China love a chance to establish factories just across our Northern and Southern borders that could also serve as “listening posts” and repositories for hijacked U.S. technology? Maybe the EU and India could also be cut into the deal.

We are diminishing ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

PWS

06-07-19

RUDE AWAKENING? — Some In GOP Finally Concerned About Idiotic Actions Of White Nationalist “Tariff Man” — But Don’t Expect Much Action Given GOP’s Endemic Cowardice In The Face Of Trump!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/politics/republicans-mexico-tariffs.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fcatie-edmondson&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

Catie Edmonson & Maggie Haberman report for the NY Times:

June 4, 2019

WASHINGTON — Republican senators sent the White House a sharp message on Tuesday, warning that they were almost uniformly opposed to President Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on Mexican imports, just hours after the president said lawmakers would be “foolish” to try to stop him.

Mr. Trump’s latest threat to impose 5 percent tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico, rising to as high as 25 percent until the Mexican government stems the flow of migrants, has prompted some of the most serious defiance in the Republican ranks since the president took office.

Republican senators emerged from a closed-door lunch at the Capitol angered by the briefing they received from a deputy White House counsel and an assistant attorney general on the legal basis for Mr. Trump to impose new tariffs by declaring a national emergency at the southern border.

“I want you to take a message back” to the White House, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, told the lawyers, according to people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Cruz warned that “you didn’t hear a single yes” from the Republican conference. He called the proposed tariffs a $30 billion tax increase on Texans.

“I will yield to nobody in passion and seriousness and commitment for securing the border,” Mr. Cruz later told reporters. “But there’s no reason for Texas farmers and ranchers and manufacturers and small businesses to pay the price of massive new taxes.”

The president’s latest foray into a global trade war has troubled economists and roiled stock and bond markets. The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome H. Powell, hinted on Tuesday that the central bank could cut interest rates if the trade war started to hurt the economy. The remarks sent stocks higher for their strongest day in months.

But senators were mindful of the long-term stakes for their home states.

[Mr. Powell’s comments sent a signal that the central bank was watching Mr. Trump’s trade wars warily.]

Texas would be hit the hardest by the proposed tariffs on Mexican products, followed by Michigan, California, Illinois and Ohio, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A 25 percent tariff would threaten $26.75 billion of Texas imports.

“We’re holding a gun to our own heads,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

If Mr. Trump were to declare an emergency to impose the tariffs, the House and the Senate could pass a resolution disapproving them. But such a resolution would almost certainly face a presidential veto, meaning that both the House and the Senate would have to muster two-thirds majorities to beat Mr. Trump.

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said he warned the lawyers that the Senate could muster an overwhelming majority to beat back the tariffs, even if Mr. Trump were to veto a resolution disapproving them. Republicans may be broadly supportive of Mr. Trump’s push to build a wall and secure the border, he said, but they oppose tying immigration policy to the imposition of tariffs on Mexico.

“The White House should be concerned about what that vote would result in, because Republicans really don’t like taxing American consumers and businesses,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Trump, just hours before at a news conference in London with the British prime minister, Theresa May, said he planned to move forward with imposing tariffs on Mexican imports next week as part of his effort to stem the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.

“I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on, and we’ll probably be talking during the time that the tariffs are on, and they’re going to be paid,” Mr. Trump said. When asked about Senate Republicans discussing ways to block the tariffs, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think they will do that.”

He said, “I think if they do, it’s foolish.”

Republicans are still holding out hope that the tariffs can be avoided. Mexico’s foreign minister is leading a delegation to Washington this week to try to defuse the situation with the Trump administration. A White House meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday could prove pivotal.

“There is not much support for tariffs in my conference, that’s for sure,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. “Our hope is that the tariffs will be avoided, and we will not have to answer any hypotheticals.”

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

Leaving the lunch, lawmakers complained they were facing too many such hypotheticals. Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, asked the lawyers what the precedent for imposing tariffs through an emergency declaration would be. His question was left unanswered. In fact, since the National Emergencies Act was signed in 1976, it has never been used to impose tariffs on a single country.

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said he “would not be inclined to vote on a tariff against a friend,” but ventured that “what you’re likely to see is the Mexican government and our government finding some way to work on this collaboratively and not reach a tariff.”

Others were less convinced.

“He’s committed to this,” said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, who spoke with Mr. Trump on Sunday and was sure the president would proceed with the tariffs, regardless of the concerns. “He’s serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. He’s moving forward.”

Opponents of the tariffs would use the same motion of disapproval that they tried to use to block the president from grabbing federal money for a border wall that was not appropriated for that purpose. That motion did pass Congress with significant Republican support, but not enough to overcome Mr. Trump’s veto.

Mr. Johnson warned White House officials that they should not count on a veto override vote going the same way. But Mr. Trump has supporters, and Republicans, especially in the House, have been loath to oppose him on immigration. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, once a moderate on immigration policy, took to Twitter to say the president was within his rights to use tariffs to force Mexico’s hand.

Marco Rubio

✔@marcorubio

The law provides @potus broad authority to control transactions with other nations if there is an unusual & extraordinary threat to the national security &/or economy of the U.S.. Unlawful migration & drug flow transiting through #Mexico into U.S. clearly poses such a threat.

1,347

6:28 PM – Jun 3, 2019

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840 people are talking about this

Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, expressed support for the president, as did Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is up for re-election in 2020 and faced blistering criticism after flip-flopping this year on whether he would vote to disapprove the president’s emergency declaration to build the wall.

“I think Mexico could help us solve the crisis down at the border,” Mr. Tillis told reporters. “What’s the tax on handling 80,000 additional illegal immigrants coming across the border, housing them, adjudicating them? You’ve got to look at the total cost of the prices.”

If a revolt comes to pass, it would start in the Senate, but House Republicans would have to join the effort to overturn a veto.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, declined to forecast whether the House would try to block the tariffs on Mexico.

“The administration’s tariff policy is erratic and all over the place,” he said. “We will see what the Senate Republicans ultimately decide to do, but we will certainly strongly consider proceeding in a way that is appropriate and consistent with our legislative powers.”

Mr. Trump seemed unimpressed when a reporter noted that Mexican officials said that they had increased the number of migrants they had apprehended coming into their country from elsewhere in Central America. He offered no specifics on what it would take to keep the tariffs from being imposed.

“Look, millions of people are flowing through Mexico,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Catie Edmondson reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from London. Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Emily Cochrane and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting from Washington.

**************************************************

Rubio’s pro-Trump tweet seems pretty off-base. Other than the fact that Trump is incompetently using Border Patrol on a self-created emergency that could be handled by Inspectors and Asylum Officers at ports of entry, allowing Border Patrol Officers to focus on more important law enforcement duties, there doesn’t appear to be any known connection between families from the Northern Triangle turning themselves in and applying for legal asylum under our laws and “drug smuggling.” Nor do such individuals who turn themselves in present any known threat to either national security or our economy (particularly since Trump plans to bar them from working unless and until they actually receive asylum under a system he has intentionally skewed against them). Indeed, smugglers would have to be pretty stupid to use individuals who intended to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol at the border as “drug couriers.”

On the other hand, Trump’s incompetent handling of the border situation, his gross misuse of national emergency and tariff authorities, and his attacks on trade with Canada and Mexico, two of our major allies and trading partners, does promise to threaten both our econommy and our national security. Rather ironic that the asylum applicants are the ones using our legal system while Trump is the one trashing it in multiple ways.

Sen. Tillis also seems out of bounds. Individuals have a right to apply for ayslum. Undoubtedly, the number of individuals now applying could be processed fairly and legally for much less than Trump’s tariffs would cost U.S. consumers, not to mention the money wasted on useless walls, unnecessary detention, and misuse of American troops. Even spending some money on helping Mexico improve its system and joining Mexico’s initiative to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle would be more cost effective than tariffs.

Why would Tillis expect Mexico, a smaller and poorer country, to do a better job of stopping the flow than the U.S. has? How would he expect Mexico to process all the migrants without major human rights violations? Wouldn’t wrecking the Mexican economy, along with our own, restart the flow of Mexicans going north that actually has been reversed in recent years? Pretty scary how little the GOP understands about migration and sound immigration policies.

When policy is made based on irrational factors such as White Nationalism, racism, contempt for foreign countries, and disregard for human rights, bad things are going to happen. But, I’m still not betting on the GOP to stand up to Trump. Lots of grumbling; but, in the past, such grumbling has seldom been turned into action.

PWS

06-05-19

CHIEF CLOWN VOWS TO “MAKE AMERICA PAY” FOR HIS FAILURES: With His “Maliciously Incompetent” Immigration Policies in Shambles, Trump Promises To Punish American Consumers & Businesses With Tariffs On Mexico Having Nothing to Do With Trade!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/politics/trump-mexico-tariffs.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Annie Karni and Ana Swanson report for the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that he planned to impose a 5 percent tariff on all imported goods from Mexico beginning June 10, a tax that he said would “gradually increase” until Mexico stopped the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border.

The announcement, which Mr. Trump hinted at on Thursday morning and announced on his Twitter feed, said the tariffs would be in place “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.”

In a presidential statement that followed, he said that tariffs would be raised to 10 percent on July 1 “if the crisis persists,” and then by an additional 5 percent each month for three months.

“Tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory,” the statement said.

Mr. Trump’s anger over undocumented immigrants has been steadily increasing since January, after he failed to force Democrats to give him billions of dollars to build his long-promised wall along the southwestern border. Since then, he has moved to cut off all foreign aid to countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and threatened to completely seal off the border with Mexico, in an attempt to punish countries he blames for the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States.

His growing frustration of his own administration’s handling of immigration issues this year led to a purge of the top officials at the Department of Homeland Security, including its secretary, Kirstjen M. Nielsen.

Mr. Trump has previously threatened to tax cars flowing across the border with Mexico, saying in April that he would take such action if Mexico did not stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States.

“If the drugs don’t stop, or largely stop, we’re going to put tariffs on Mexico and products, in particular cars — the whole ballgame is cars. And if that doesn’t stop the drugs, we close the border,” he said at the time.

Mr. Trump’s announcement of tariffs came the same day that his administration told Congress it planned to seek congressional approval of the new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The president has used the threat of tariffs to try to pressure foreign leaders into taking a wide array of actions, like renegotiating trade deals as well as limiting the amount of metal or cars they ship to the United States.

In April, he threatened to place a 25 percent tariff on Mexican cars if the country would not take action to stem the flow of migrants through the southwestern border, walking back a promise he had made in the revised North American trade agreement to exempt Mexico from such a measure.

The president has told his advisers that he likes tariffs because they can be done immediately and unilaterally. But tariffs are typically used to counter trade-related violations.

Such a move would also risk derailing relations with Mexico and Mr. Trump’s revised North American trade pact, which preserves the ultralow tariffs the original deal put into place.

The announcement comes as the Trump administration started a congressional process on Thursday that both clears a procedural hurdle toward having Congress vote on the agreement and ramps up pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who have called for substantial changes to the pact before it is ratified.

The White House sent a draft “Statement of Administrative Action” to Congress on Thursday. Under congressional rules, that clears the way for the administration to submit an enforcement bill to Congress after 30 days, which in turn starts a 90-day clock for an up-or-down vote on the pact.

That is likely to come as a challenge to Ms. Pelosi, who has recently told other lawmakers and union officials that Democrats are planning a study of the pact that could drag on well into the fall. In a statement, Ms. Pelosi described the move as “not a positive step. It indicates a lack of knowledge on the part of the administration on the policy and process to pass a trade agreement.”

*************************************

Wow! Just think of how far we have fallen as a nation. Let’s imagine that Obama, Bush, or Clinton proposed such idiotic, incoherent, nonsense, blatantly exhibiting something between total derangement and gross incompetence.

Journalists would be stunned, economists horrified. Politicians of both parties would be “talking 25th Amendment!”

Yet with Trump, it’s merely “ho hum, another day in nut-land” with only our country’s and the world’s future at stake. After all, he’s always threatening to take utterly insane, totally illegal actions. And, he only follows through about half the time.

Can we really survive this type of Clown Kakistocracy? Why won’t Mexico, China, Canada, India, and the EU just get together, negotiate some sound trade agreements based on real economics and sane diplomacy, and let the U.S. wander off into never-never land?

Yeah, I know, the economy continues to blaze away, markets are high, and unemployment low. But, remember the little warning line at the bottom of the prospectus of your most successful financial investment: Past results are not a prediction of future returns.

Well, there is some good news. At least there won’t be any suspense on who gets the “Courtside Five Clown Award” for this week. Who else but the Chief Clown! He’s earned it, and you can’t say that about much else in his tawdry life.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

05-31-19

CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY: More Trump White Nationalist Lies Exposed: Facts Show That, Beyond The Compelling Legal & Humanitarian Reasons, Refugees & Asylees Are A HUGE Economic Benefit For The United States!

https://publicintegrity.org/immigration/data-defies-trump-claims-that-refugees-and-asylees-are-a-taxpayer-burden/

Madeline Buiano & Susan Ferriss report for the Center for Public Integrity

DATA DEFIES TRUMP’S CLAIMS THAT REFUGEES AND ASYLEES BURDEN TAXPAYERS

In this May 18, 2018, photo, Majed Abdalraheem, 29, a Syrian refugee and chef with meal delivery service Foodhini, prepares Moussaka, a grilled eggplant dish, at Union Kitchen in Washington. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)

Researchers found that between 2005 and 2014, refugees and asylees here from 1980 on contributed $63 billion more to government revenues than they used in public services.

Data defies Trump’s claims that refugees and asylees burden taxpayers

Introduction

How does someone gain refugee or asylee status?

Refugees come with nothing

Madeline Buiano

James R. Soles Fellow

Susan Ferriss

Immigration Project Manager and Senior Reporter

In this post, we’re answering a question we received from Jen: What is the economic impact of refugees in the near and long term (transition time between needing assistance and adding to the economy)?

Since the beginning of his presidency, Donald J. Trump and top advisers have portrayed refugees and asylum seekers as a risky, undesirable demographic.

In 2016, Vice President Mike Pence tried to ban the resettlement of Syrian refugees while he was Indiana’s governor. A federal appeals court blocked the attempt, finding that Pence lacked evidence supporting claims that Syrian refugees were a threat to the people of Indiana. Trump, for his part, issued an order in March 2017 with language suggesting that refugees are a fiscal burden.

The order demanded that U.S. officials produce a report “detailing the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program at the Federal, State, and local levels, along with recommendations about how to curtail those costs.”

The draft report didn’t support that assumption of burden, though.

In fact, researchers found that during the 10 years between 2005 and 2014, refugees and asylees here from 1980 on contributed $63 billion more to government revenues than they used in public services. Senior administration officials, possibly including White House aide Stephen Miller, quashed the 55-page draft and submitted a three-page report instead, The New York Timesreported. Soon after, the White House released a fact sheetselectively borrowing from the draft report by noting that the U.S. “spent more than $96 billion on programs supporting or benefitting refugees between 2005 and 2014.”

There were no references to the $63 billion more in taxes that refugees put into public coffers than the value of the services they used.

This pattern of cherry picking one side of the ledger isn’t unusual for those seeking to bolster a political argument. Trump used similar cherry-picked numbers to link immigration, in general, with American wage decline and fiscal strain during his 2016 campaign, as the Center for Public Integrity reported previously.

Before diving deeper into fiscal research on refugees, though — including what the quashed draft report found in detail — it helps to understand how refugees and asylum seekers differ. Some fiscal studies, including the study Trump ordered, scrutinize both groups. It’s also helpful to understand the size of these groups compared to the U.S. population.

HOW DOES SOMEONE GAIN REFUGEE OR ASYLEE STATUS?

Refugees are fleeing persecution or war and are admitted from abroad. To vet them, U.S. officials are dispatched to interview candidates as part of a lengthy screening process. United Nations or U.S. embassy officials refer candidates to the U.S. State Department. Refugees often seek temporary shelter in neighboring countries to escape violence and threats. Many Syrian war refugees, for example, have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. After intensive screening, approved refugees enter the U.S. with the help of resettlement organizations and must sign promissory notes to repay the U.S. government for travel costs. About 75 percent of loans are repaid within 15 years and 64 percent within five years, according to the U.S. State Department.

Asylum seekers claiming to be fleeing violence or persecution, by contrast, can present themselves at a U.S. port of entry and request to apply for asylum, as outlined in international treaties the U.S. has signed, as well as U.S. law. The law also allows foreigners to apply for asylum after they’re already inside the United States, whether they entered originally on visas or entered illegally, with some restrictions. Immigration judges review cases to determine whether the asylum applicant’s fear meets the criteria for granting refuge. Asylum seekers have a right to retain an attorney at their expense — or seek pro bono help — but they don’t have a right to an appointed attorney in proceedings.

In 2018, even as refugee numbers surged globally, the Trump administration capped refugee admissions at 45,000. Only 22,000 were ultimately admitted, mostly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma and Ukraine. Trump used his executive power to cap refugee admissions this year to a new low, for annual caps, of no more than 30,000. In 2016, under President Barack Obama, the U.S. admitted 85,000 refugees.

Trump has also sought to deter mostly Central American migrantswho are arriving often with children at the southern border and asking for asylum.

“The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility … not on my watch,” Trump said last year. In April of this year, after tweeting that the “country is full,” Trump unveiled an unprecedented proposal to require that asylum seekers pay an application fee. Trump argues that changes to the asylum system are needed because he believes that the vast majority of migrants are faking or exaggerating their fears — despite U.S. State Department recognition that murder rates, gang rapes and extortion are rampant in Central America, especially the main source countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Refugees and asylees are a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, so it’s hard to credibly pin major national fiscal impact on either group.

Between 2009 and April 2019, a total of 648,482 refugees were admitted to the U.S., according to U.S. Department of State refugee data. That admissions total is equivalent to about 0.2 percent of the U.S. population of 328 million. Separately, between 2007 and 2017, a total of 263,215 people were granted asylum, according to the 2017 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. That cumulative number is equivalent to about 0.08 percent of the U.S. population.

But isn’t there a backlog of asylum requests, potentially adding more people?

Yes. As of January 2019, 325,277 asylum request cases were pending. But even if all those cases were approved (they won’t be), that number would be equivalent to 0.1 percent of the U.S. population of 328 million. Further, if you were to multiply all those asylum cases by 10 — to account for an exaggerated number of family members who could benefit — that number would add up to the equivalent of 1 percent of the U.S. population.

But can’t refugees or asylees have a noticeable fiscal impact on communities, especially if the newcomers settle in groups, as immigrants often do? Yes. Let’s see what reputable studies show.

REFUGEES COME WITH NOTHING

Randy Capps is the director of research at the Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., that’s studied how refugees with a range of language skills and education integrate over time.

“Refugees come to the U.S. with nothing,” Capps said, but they “start making economic contributions right away and they’re not living off government assistance for very long.”

A 2015 MPI refugee-integration study found that between 2009 and 2011, the proportion of refugee men working was 7 percentage points higher than among their U.S.-born counterparts. Refugee women were as likely to work as U.S.-born women. Refugees’ income increased the longer they were in the country. The median income of refugees in the U.S. for at least 20 years was $31,000 higher than the median income of refugees here for five years or less.

MPI researchers also found that refugees’ use of public benefits decreases substantially over time.

Unlike other immigrants, refugees can access public health insurance and some other forms of aid when they arrive. Between 2009 and 2011, food-stamp assistance was a relatively high 45 percent for refugees for their first five years or less, the MPI study found. But food-stamp assistance fell to 16 percent among refugees here at least 20 years. Cash aid dropped from 7 percent to 2 percent for refugees in these same respective cohorts. And reliance on public health insurance fell from 24 percent to 13 percent.

Capps and his fellow authors suggested that providing English classes and job training for refugees while they’re still in camps undergoing the long vetting process could lead to even better outcomes. Ironically, the report also suggests, refugees’ high rate of employment in the U.S. could make it difficult for many to find the time to pursue more education to upgrade skills and earning potential.

Even so, as the Center reported in 2017, refugees are readily sliding into jobs in areas where labor is in short supply. Refugees from various countries are filling jobs at a Chobani facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, the world’s largest yogurt factory. And newly arrived refugees from rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Asia are finding work at dairy farms.

In 2017, a draft of the refugee fiscal report that Trump had ordered was leaked to The New York Times, which posted it. The report was produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement is involved in refugee arrivals and initial integration. Research looked at both refugees and asylees.

Researchers looked at local, state and federal expenditures on refugees — as well as refugees’ tax contributions to those government coffers over the 10 years between 2005 and 2014.

The study found that 8 percent of refugees received Social Security or Social Security Disability benefits compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population. About 12 percent of refugees relied on Medicare benefits compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population.

On the other hand, 21 percent of refugees used SNAP, or food stamps, compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population. But only about 2.3 percent of refugees received TANF benefits, or cash aid, close to the same percentage as the U.S. population generally.

Overall, during the 10-year period, refugees and their non-refugee family members received $326 billion in government benefits and services, 60 percent from the federal government and 40 percent from state and local government. K-12 education accounted for 11 percent of expenditures on refugees. But that K-12 spending was only 0.4 percent of spending on K-12 nationally.

In the end, because of taxes they paid, refugees and their family members contributed more than $343 billion in revenue to federal, state and local coffers. On balance, refugees contributed $63 billion more than they received in benefits from various programs.

“In general,” researchers wrote, “after 10 years of residence those who entered the U.S. as refugees were similar to the U.S. population in terms of income and employment.”

The HHS draft also referenced research produced in various regions.

A 2012 analysis of the Cleveland, Ohio, area credited refugees with the creation of 650 jobs and $48 million worth of economic impact. A 2015 study of the Columbus, Ohio, area found that about 16,600 refugees supported more than 21,200 jobs and added $1.6 billion to the local economy.

Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute cautioned against putting too much faith in fiscal studies that zero in on costs alone. For example, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a group that advocates slashing legal immigration, published a study in 2018 focusing on the first five years of refugee settlement and arguing that “the American taxpayer is being asked to feed, clothe and shelter” people with “few marketable job skills.”

In 2017, the Center for Public Integrity reported that U.S Department of Homeland Security staff were discussing adding an assessment of a refugee applicant’s “skills” to criteria that’s part of the foundation for the vetting process. The skills idea, confirmed by a Homeland Security spokesperson, upset U.S. refugee officers who screen applicants who’ve fled the trauma of war and persecution. It hasn’t gone anywhere.

“The [current] litmus test is: Does the person have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political

Adding a skills test would mark a profound change, Knowles said, for U.S. criteria developed in the wake of World War II, a time when the U.S. and other countries turned away some desperate Jewish refugees.

***********************************

A number of things are absolutely clear: 1) refugees and asylees are a huge benefit to the United States from any legitimate perspective; 2) we could easily absorb everyone applying for asylum status right now; 3) there is no “invasion;” 4) the country is not “full;” 5) Trump, Pence, Miller, Cotton, Perdue, and the rest of their “White Nationalist Gang” are liars.

PWS

05-22-19

TRUMP IS FULL OF IT, BUT OUR COUNTRY ISN’T – Outside The White Nationalist World, Nearly All Experts Agree That We Need More Immigration

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html

Neil Irwin & Emily Badger report for the NY Times:

Trump Says the U.S. Is ‘Full.’ Much of the Nation Has the Opposite Problem.

An aging population and a declining birthrate among the native-born population mean a shrinking work force in many areas.

By Neil Irwin and Emily Badger

President Trump has adopted a blunt new message in recent days for migrants seeking refuge in the United States: “Our country is full.”

To the degree the president is addressing something broader than the recent strains on the asylum-seeking process, the line suggests the nation can’t accommodate higher immigration levels because it is already bursting at the seams. But it runs counter to the consensus among demographers and economists.

They see ample evidence of a country that is not remotely “full” — but one where an aging population and declining birthrates among the native-born population are creating underpopulated cities and towns, vacant housing and troubled public finances.

Local officials in many of those places view a shrinking population and work force as an existential problem with few obvious solutions.

“I believe our biggest threat is our declining labor force,” said Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, a Republican, in his annual budget address this year. “It’s the root of every problem we face.

“This makes it incredibly difficult for businesses to recruit new employees and expand, harder for communities to grow and leaves fewer of us to cover the cost of state government.”

Or if you look at a city like Detroit, “many of the city’s problems would become less difficult if its population would start growing,” said Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist. “All sorts of things like the hangover pension liability become much more solvable if you’re actually looking at new people coming in.”

A road less traveled in Rutland, Vt., last spring. Vermont’s governor has described the state’s shrinking labor force as “at the root of every problem we face.” CreditCaleb Kenna for The New York Times

Image
A road less traveled in Rutland, Vt., last spring. Vermont’s governor has described the state’s shrinking labor force as “at the root of every problem we face.” CreditCaleb Kenna for The New York Times

This consensus is visible in official government projections. The Congressional Budget Office foresees the American labor force rising by only 0.5 percent a year over the coming decade, about one-third as fast as from 1950 to 2007. That is a crucial reason that economic growth is forecast to remain well below its late 20th-century levels.

And that, in turn, is reflected in the national fiscal outlook. There are now 2.8 workers for every recipient of Social Security benefits, a rate on track to fall to 2.2 by 2035, according to the program’s trustees. Many state pension plans face even greater demography-induced strains.

In smaller cities and rural areas, demographic decline is a fundamental fact of life. A recent study by the Economic Innovation Group found that 80 percent of American counties, with a combined population of 149 million, saw a decline in their number of prime working-age adults from 2007 to 2017.

Population growth in the United States has now hit its lowest level since 1937, partly because of a record-low fertility rate — the number of children born per woman. The United States increasingly has population growth rates similar to slow-growing Japan and Western Europe, with immigration partly offsetting that shift.

The Trump administration has portrayed the surge of asylum seekers at the southern border as a crisis, and applied aggressive tactics to deport undocumented immigrants already in the United States. But it has also announced plans to issue up to 30,000 additional H-2B visas for temporary workers.

“That immigrants keep showing up here is a testament to our freedom and the economic opportunity here,” said Matthew Kahn, an economist at the University of Southern California. If immigrants weren’t trying to come — if they believed the United States to be full — that would be a problem, Mr. Kahn said.

A particular fear, said John Lettieri, president of the Economic Innovation Group, is that declining population, falling home prices and weak public finances will create a vicious cycle that the places losing population could find hard to escape.

He proposes a program of “heartland visas,” in which skilled immigrants could obtain work visas to the United States on the condition they live in one of the counties facing demographic decline — with troubled counties themselves deciding whether to participate.

Although some of the areas with declining demographics are hostile to immigration, others, cities as varied as Baltimore, Indianapolis and Fargo, N.D., have embraced the strategy of encouraging it.

“One of the key solutions is to welcome immigrants into these communities,” said Brooks Rainwater, director of the National League of Cities’ Center for City Solutions.

Many parts of the country that are growing in population and that are more economically dynamic have depended on the arrival of immigrants for that success.

Sun Belt metros like Dallas and Phoenix have been built on the logic of rapid expansion — of quickly built homes, of poached employers, of new highways paved to ever-newer subdivisions. Their economic development strategy is growth. Their chief input is people — the more, the better.

“Growth cities need immigrants to continue their growth,” said Joel Kotkin, executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism, which promotes policies to help cities grow. “The older historically declining cities need immigrants to reinvigorate their economies. And the expensive cities need them because, frankly, white people, African-Americans and middle-class people are leaving for more affordable areas.”

As many industrial cities have lost population since the mid-20th century, Americans have built whole new metropolises on land that was virtually empty then. The Las Vegas metropolitan area, with more than two million people today, had barely 50,000 in 1950.

Still, only about 3 percent of the country’s land is urbanized.

America’s metropolitan areas remain among the least dense in the world, said Sonia Hirt, a professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Georgia. Nationwide, the United States has less than one-third of the population density of the European Union, and a quarter of the density of China.

“Factually speaking, the country is not actually full — that’s impossible,” Ms. Hirt said. “The real question is, if you continue on the current path of immigration, does this bring more benefits than it brings costs?”

Economists, too, argue that countries, or even cities, can’t really fill up. Rather, communities choose not to make the political choices necessary to accommodate more people. At the local level, that means neighbors may be unwilling to allow taller buildings or to invest in more schools or improved infrastructure. At the national level, it means that politicians may be unwilling to take up immigration reform, or to address workers who fear unemployment. The president’s comments echo such local fights.

“We’re full” has often been a motto for people to keep out poorer renters, minority households or apartment buildings, among both conservatives and liberals. The claim can be a way of disguising exclusion as practicality. It’s not that we’re unwelcoming; it’s just that we’re full.

When it comes to the economy, at least, the country looks more like one that is too empty than too full.

**************************************************

The White Nationalist agenda, which is being pushed not only by the White House but also by a number of GOP Senators and Representatives, prevents us from having the discussion we really must have: how many more individuals should we admit through our legal immigration system and how should we allocate those admissions to:

Best respond to market needs;
Reduce the need for a “black market system” that will continue to flourish as long as our system is out of whack with supply, demand, and humanitarian needs and obligations; and
Assist legitimate law enforcement by shifting the focus away from (often futile and always wasteful) efforts to prevent entry of those we should be welcoming through our legal immigration system.

PWS

04-10-19

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: GOOD NEWS: Migration Is Good For The World, Sending & Receiving Countries Benefit, & The Oft-Repeated Myths Of Fiscal Burdens & Wage Depression For “Host Countries” Are False — BAD NEWS: Countries With Nationalistic Leaders Who Are “Invested In The Myths” Are Unlikely To Realize The Full Potential Of Migration

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-compact-opposition-migration-development-by-mahmoud-mohieldin-and-dilip-ratha-2019-02

On December 19, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, with 152 votes in favor, five votes against, and 12 abstentions. Supporters hailed the Compact as a step toward more humane and orderly management of migration, yet opposition remains formidable.

The Compact is not a legally binding treaty, nor does it guarantee new rights for migrants. In fact, the Compact’s 23 objectives were drafted on the basis of two years of inclusive discussions and six rounds of negotiations, focused specifically on creating a framework for international cooperation that would not interfere excessively in countries’ domestic affairs.

Because of misunderstandings about the Compact, it is worth taking a closer look at the migration challenge – and the vast benefits that a well-managed system can bring to host countries and home countries alike.

Migration is motivated, first and foremost, by lack of economic opportunities at home. With the average income level in high-income countries more than 70 times higher than in low-income countries, it is not surprising that many in the developing world feel compelled to try their luck elsewhere.

This trend is reinforced by demographic shifts. As high-income countries face population aging, many lower-income countries have burgeoning working-age and youth populations. Technological disruption is also putting pressure on labor markets. Moreover, climate change, as indicated by a recent World Bank report, will accelerate the trend, by driving an estimated 140 million people from their homes in the coming decades.

But, contrary to popular belief, nearly half of all migrants do not move from developing to developed countries. Rather, they migrate among developing countries, often within the same neighborhood.

Moreover, return migration is increasing, a fact that is often overlooked, often because migrants were denied entry into the labor market or their work contracts ended. For example, the number of newly registered South Asian workers in the Gulf states declined significantly – by anywhere from 12% to 41% – over the last two years. Between 2011 and 2017, the number of potential returnees in Europe – asylum-seekers whose applications were rejected or who were found to be undocumented – increased fourfold, reaching 5.5 million. Over the same period, the number of potential returnees in the United States more than doubled, to over three million. Return migration from Saudi Arabia and South Africa has increased as well.

Those migrants who remain in their host countries make substantial contributions. Although the world’s estimated 266 million migrants comprise only about 3.4% of the global population, they contribute more that 9% of GDP.

To achieve this, migrants must overcome high barriers to economic success. For example, unskilled workers, especially those from poor countries, often pay very high fees – which can exceed an entire year’s income for a migrant worker in some destination countries – to unscrupulous labor agents to find employment outside their own countries. That is why the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a target to reduce recruitment costs.

Migration also delivers major economic benefits to home countries. While migrants spend most of their wages in their host countries – boosting demand there – they also tend to send money to support families back home. Such remittances have been known to exceed official development assistance. Last year, remittances to low- and middle-income countries increased by 11%, reaching $528 billion, exceeding those countries’ inflows of foreign direct investment.

Globally, the largest recipient of remittances is India ($80 billion), followed by China, the Philippines, Mexico, and Egypt. As a share of GDP, the largest recipients were Tonga, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Nepal. The increase in remittances during 2018 was due to improvement in the labor market in the US and the recovery of flows from Russia and the Gulf States.

But the potential of remittances to support sustainable development is not being met. A major obstacle is the high cost of transferring money.

Migrants sending money home pay, on average, 7% of the total of the transfer itself, owing to weak competition in the market for remittance services – a result of stringent regulations intended to combat financial crimes like money laundering – as well as reliance on inefficient technology. Achieving the SDG target of reducing transfer costs below 3% – which would support progress toward the target of increasing the total volume of remittances – will require countries to address these weaknesses.

We are closely monitoring these often-overlooked ways that migration can support development, owing to their links to SDG indicators. But recent research busts other migration myths as well, showing, for example, that migrants neither impose a significant fiscal burden on host countries nor depress wages for lower-skill native workers.

Migration flows are increasing – a trend that is set to continue. Fragmented migration policies shaped by popular myths cannot manage this process effectively, much less seize the opportunities to spur development that migration creates. Only a coordinated approach, as envisioned in the Global Compact, can do that.

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Written by

Mahmoud Mohieldin, Corporate Secretary, World Bank

Dilip Ratha, Manager of Migration and Remittances, Development Prospects Group of the World Bank

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Needless to say, the Trump Administration has rejected the Global Compact out of hand, as an “infringement on sovereignty,” and takes a unilateral “America first, last, and always, who cares about anyone else” approach to migration issues.

These authors speak a “core truth:”

Migration flows are increasing – a trend that is set to continue. Fragmented migration policies shaped by popular myths cannot manage this process effectively, much less seize the opportunities to spur development that migration creates. Only a coordinated approach, as envisioned in the Global Compact, can do that.

That’s why “regime change” will be essential for the U.S. to take full advantage of the benefits of migration and for our country to regain its leadership role on the world stage.

PWS

03-06-19

BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR – Ryan Closes Out A Truly Toxic Career Aimed at Widening The Income Gap, Promoting Social Inequality, And Destroying the Safety Net That Most Americans Depend On In One Way Or Another! – “Boy Wonder” From Wisconsin (Who Betrayed His Working Class Home Town & Was Re-elected Only Because Of Massive Gerrymandering) Was One Of America’s Worst Politicos

Here’s the latest “Levin Report” from Vanity Fair:

Since the day he developed what would become a lifelong, unremitting, probably-actually-really-awkward-for-his-wife crush on Ayn Rand, House Speaker Paul Ryan has dreamed about two things: cutting taxes on the wealthy and destroying the social safety net. (Three things if you count convincing his wife to style her hair in a side-swept bob, which he’s been told time after time is never gonna happen, so stop asking.) So devoted was he to the hallowed principle of redistributing wealth to the people at the top that, for the past year and a half, he’s put up with just about everything that’s come out of the White House, be it the firing of the F.B.I. director, a refusal to condemn white supremacists, an alleged affair with a porn star, hush money, the attacking of his colleagues via Twitter, and the strong suggestion that special counsel Robert Mueller may be next to get the ax. Because in Donald Trump, Wisconsin’s first son saw the potential for a payoff that outweighed having to align himself with a born swindler who’s made a mockery of the White House and sought to destroy America’s standing in the world: a historic transfer of wealth thinly disguised as tax “reform.” With the bill once known as the “Cut Cut Cut Act” safely signed into law—a moment Ryan cited as one of the proudest of his career—the speaker announced to rank-and-file Republicans on Wednesday that he would retire at the end of the year, ducking out at a crucial crossroads for his party.

So what gives? Aside from facing political headwinds at home, and a pre-emptive battle for his job on the Hill, Ryan likely looked into the future and saw little hope of carrying out the rest of his agenda, even under a Republican president. For a brief moment after the tax legislation was passed, Ryan was lustily eyeing the opportunity to embark on welfare “reform,” positioning it, basically seconds after ushering in a historic giveaway to corporate America and the ultra-wealthy, as the reason the country’s finances were in total disarray. But sadly for Ryan, Mitch McConnell almost immediately put the kibosh on those plans, realizing how politically unfeasible they were. And so, as New York’s Ed Kilgore put it, Ryan likely “look[ed] ahead to a straitened G.O.P. margin in the House . . . and the prospect of having to wait until 2021 at the earliest to resume the fight against the welfare state [and] decided to go home to Wisconsin and regroup.”

By bowing out, Ryan will also be well clear of Washington by the time his tax bill really starts to bear fruit. We speak, of course, of the report released by the Congressional Budget Office just two days before Ryan announced he was throwing in the towel. Among other things, the report estimates that, thanks in large part to December’s tax bill, the U.S. deficit will top $1 trillion annually starting in 2020, with the national debt soaring past $33 trillion by 2028, a situation that increases the likelihood of a fiscal crisis. Which, come to think of it, is something Ryan used to care about when tax cuts weren’t so close he could taste ’em. (Under Barack Obama, Ryan absolutely railed against deficits, turning them into the right’s monster in the closet, and winning a hilariously named “Fiscy” award in 2011 for “being the first [congressman] in several years to step forward with a specific scorable budget plan that would actually solve the nation’s long-term structural deficits.”)

Five years later, however, he can take credit for setting the U.S. on a path to run trillion-dollar deficits from now to eternity, beginning in 2020. Because, as his supply-side brother from another mother Larry Kudlow explained Monday night, deficits are fine when they’re for tax cuts or the type of spending that will line the private sector’s pockets, but for things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? Well, then they’re a total scourge on society that must be stopped at all costs. Luckily, at roughly half the age at which he wants Americans to work until they can retire, Ryan has plenty of years left to collect checks from the Brothers Koch and other corporate donors, who coincidentally just came into a large amount of money.

The Trump organization finds a new way to lower its tax bill

You would think, what with the historic tax law passed in December that was particularly kind to real-estate enterprises like the Trump Organization, that the president’s family business would be content to pay whatever taxes the I.R.S. decides it owes. But, given who we’re dealing with here, you would of course think wrong:

Across the country, the Trump Organization is suing local governments, claiming it owes much less in property taxes than government assessors say because its properties are worth much less than they’ve been valued at. In just one example, the company has asserted that its gleaming waterfront skyscraper in Chicago is worth less than than its assessed value, in part because its retail space is failing and worth less than nothing.

No president in modern times has owned a business involved in legal battles with local governments. “The idea that the president would have these interests and then those companies would sue localities is really a dangerous precedent,” says Larry Noble, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. The dynamic between local and federal governments is impossible to ignore in these cases, says Noble. Municipalities “rely on resources from the federal government and the federal government can make your life easier or much more difficult.” The concern arises because the president did not fully separate from his businesses, he says.

For its part, the Trump Organization has naturally claimed that there’s nothing to see here and that, in fact, anyone suggesting otherwise should be ashamed of him or herself. In a statement, a spokesperson for the firm told ProPublica: “Like any other business or property owner when property taxes become inflated it is not uncommon to challenge the process to ensure fair treatment. This is a routine practice and any suggestion otherwise is simply ridiculous.”

The gun industry can’t believe Bank of America is being so rude

As part of corporate America’s decision, in the wake of the Parkland massacre, to step back and assess whether or not associating with mass murder is a good look, Bank of America has decided to stop lending money to companies that produce assault-style weapons for non-military purposes. And the new policy is not sitting very well with those companies.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry lobby, puts the economic impact of the gun and ammunition industry at $51.1 billion nationwide in 2017. That organization criticized the bank’s move on Tuesday, saying it’s wrong to deem semiautomatic rifles long available to civilians to be military-style weapons.

“We as an industry would welcome the opportunity to sit down with Bank of America executives and explain our industry’s perspective to discuss what really would work to keep firearms out of the hands of those who should not have them,” Michael Bazinet, a spokesman for the N.S.S.F., told Bloomberg. “We should be part of the discussion.” (Bazinet did not get into specifics, re: what would “really” work to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, but presumably it falls under the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” umbrella.)

John Paulson’s gonna need a bigger check

The billionaire hedge-fund manager, for whom the last several years have amounted to basically being kicked in the ribs and then kneed in the balls while coughing up blood, apparently owes a large amount of money to the I.R.S.:

By April 17, the hedge-fund manager must make federal and state tax payments of about $1 billion, on top of roughly $500 million in taxes he paid late last year, said people close to the firm. That sum is so big it dwarfs the maximum amount the Internal Revenue Service will allow any single taxpayer to pay with a single check. (That’s $99,999,999, in case you’re wondering.)

Mr. Paulson, 62, isn’t exactly struggling to pay the $1.5 billion bill. But he’s also not as flush as the heady days of 2008. In fact, after a string of poor results, a bad bet on pharmaceutical stocks and client defections, Mr. Paulson has been selling various investments to cover the bill. He’s also in the process of cutting costs and shrinking his firm, including laying off senior traders.

“It is safe to say it is one of the largest tax bills on earned income in history,” Henry Bregstein, co–global head of the financial-services group at the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, told The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Zuckerman.

And speaking of taxes . . .

Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, whose house, hotel room, and office were raided by the F.B.I. on Monday, reportedly owes $54,000 in taxi-medallion back taxes, which sounds about right.

Scott Pruitt contains multitudes

Time was, we thought E.P.A. administrator was simply all about the cause of destroying the Earth for the benefit of his buddies in the private sector. But according to a new report from The New York Times, he’s actually also a complete and total megalomaniac:

When Scott Pruitt wanted to refashion the Environmental Protection Agency’s “challenge coin”—a type of souvenir medallion with military origins that has become a status symbol among civilians—he proposed an unusual design: Make it bigger, and delete the E.P.A. logo.

Mr. Pruitt instead wanted the coin to feature some combination of symbols more reflective of himself and the Trump administration. Among the possibilities: a buffalo, to evoke Mr. Pruitt’s native Oklahoma, and a Bible verse to reflect his faith. Other ideas included using the Great Seal of the United States—a design similar to the presidential seal—and putting Mr. Pruitt’s name around the rim in large letters, according to Ronald Slotkin, a career E.P.A. employee who retired this year, and two people familiar with the proposals who asked to remain anonymous because they said they feared retribution.

“These coins represent the agency,” Slotkin, a former director of the E.P.A.’s multimedia office, told the Times. “But Pruitt wanted his coin to be bigger than everyone else’s and he wanted it in a way that represented him.”

Elsewhere!

Dow closes more than 200 points lower after Trump taunts Russia (CNBC)

China Talks Stalled Over Trump’s Demands on High-Tech Industries, Source Says (Bloomberg)

Larry Kudlow: Tariffs might come before negotiations with China (CNBC)

Elon Musk is stressed, says he’s sleeping on Tesla factory floor and has no time to go home and shower (CNBC)

It Turns Out $25 Million Won’t Buy Schwarzman His Name on a High School (Bloomberg)

Wynn’s Boston Casino Is Rising on Land Tied to a Mobster (Bloomberg)

Zuckerberg tangles with Congress on control of Facebook data (Reuters)

Federal Reserve policymakers all saw strengthening economy, inflation (Reuters)

Escaped tortoise traveled a five-minute walk in three days (UPI)

The Levin Report by Bess Levin at Vanity Fair

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Ryan and his “Reverse Robin Hood Philosophy” has always been among the “worst of the worst” frauds in American politics. Like many others, he has benefitted from the “Age of Trump.”

By taking idiocy, ignorance, and inhumanity to new levels, Trump has eclipsed less overtly outrageous yet truly “bad guys” like Ryan and to some degree allowed them to escape complete accountability for their grotesque anti-Americanism and crimes against average Americans. Given the ugliness of today’s GOP, his replacement easily could be even worse. But, still, good riddance!

PWS

04-12-18

EUGENE ROBINSION @ WASHPOST & DAVID BROOKS @ NY TIMES: GOP IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONISTS’ PROPOSALS TO CUT LEGAL IMMIGRATION LEVELS HAVE NO RATIONAL BASIS! – That’s Going To Be A Big Problem In Trying To Forge A “Compromise!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-trying-to-make-america-white-again/2018/01/29/9afa7afa-053d-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html

Robinson writes:

“. . . .

There’s a simple question here: Do you believe in America or not?

Throughout its history, the country has accepted waves of mostly low-skilled immigrants — German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, now Latino. There are highly skilled immigrants, too; African newcomers, for example, are better-educated than the U.S. population as a whole, and an estimated 63 percent of people holding “computer and mathematical” jobs in Silicon Valley are foreign-born. But most immigrants over the years have arrived bearing not much more than grit, ambition and a dream.

Does an influx of workers with entry-level skills tend to depress wages? That’s the wrong question. Instead, we should be asking why the federal minimum wage is so low as to be almost irrelevant.

And we should recognize that immigration gives the United States a tremendous competitive advantage. In other advanced countries, populations are aging rapidly. Immigration provides a steady stream of younger workers whose brain and brawn keep programs such as Medicare and Social Security viable.

The only coherent — if despicable — arguments for Trump’s plan are racial and cultural. The way they used to put it in the Jim Crow days was succinct: White is right.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/opinion/east-germany-immigration-usa.html

Meanwhile, over at the NY Times, Brooks writes:

“. . . .

The results are just as clear as in the German case. Between 2014 and 2016 the counties that embrace diversity accounted for 72 percent of the nation’s increased economic output and two-thirds of the new jobs. The approximately 85 percent of counties that support restrictionists like Donald Trump accounted for a measly 28 percent of the growth.

Republicans’ problem is that since George W. Bush left town they’ve become the East Germans of the 21st century. They have embraced a cultural model that produces low growth and low dynamism. No wonder they want to erect a wall.

Progressives say Republicans oppose immigration because of bigotry. But it’s not that simple. It’s more accurate to say restrictionists are stuck in a mono-cultural system that undermines their own values: industry, faithfulness and self-discipline. Of course they react with defensive animosity to the immigrants who out-hustle and out-build them. You’d react negatively, too, if confronted with people who are better versions of what you wish you were yourself.”

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You can can read the complete versions of both op-eds, which I highly recommend, at the above links.

Yup!
When you’re coming from the same places as Jim Crow and the East Germans, there is no acceptable “rational basis” for the restrictionist agenda. It’s bad for America as well as for immigrants. But, it’s difficult or impossible to make rational arguments against deeply held, factually incorrect, irrational beliefs, particularly those based on racial, economic, cultural, and class bias. That’s probably why rational “immigration reform” has been, and remains, so difficult to achieve.

And, having seen thousands of migrants and their families come before me at the Arlington Immigration Court over the years, gotten to know many of their stories, and having represented immigrants, entrepreneurs, and businesses during my time in private practice, there is no doubt that Brooks is right: they “out-hustle and out-build” many of those “native-born” Americans who despise and look down on them.

And, it’s not just the doctors, professors, and top execs — folks who pound nails, lay foundations, make food, sweep floors, put on roofs , and pick our produce are also performing essential services that keep our country going — and, in many if not all cases, doing it better than the rest of us could or would. Really, how long would YOU last picking lettuce or laying shingles on a 100 degree day? And, how GOOD would you really be at it? There is more “skill” to so-called “unskilled” work than most of us in the “privileged classes” want to admit!

PWS

01-30-18

ELIZABETH BRUENIG HAS AN INTERESTING IDEA: WHAT IF THE “IDLE RICH” HAD TO WORK FOR A LIVING?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-the-poor-must-work-to-earn-every-dollar-shouldnt-the-rich/2018/01/05/c36d9a10-f243-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html

Bruenig writes in the WashPost:

“The lion’s share of poor people are elderly, children or disabled persons; another chunk are caregivers. And while caregiving isn’t compensated as market labor, parents looking after children and people caring for elderly or sick family members are hardly shiftless layabouts. Being both a mother and a writer, I am well aware that the less compensated of my two jobs is the more demanding one.

But what about that small number of people who could work but, for whatever reason, don’t? Shouldn’t they have to? Well, before deciding whether it’s morally right for them to receive income without working, consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income. Salaries and wages — that is, money paid for work — only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more; the rest is capital income from simply owning assets.

And yet rarely do politicians inveigh against the laziness of the well-off. In fact, the government shells out huge sums of money to the rich every year through tax breaks and subsidies.

. . . .

In other words, the well-to-do already do what workfare advocates seem so nervous about: rake in money they haven’t earned through market labor and thrive off the government’s largesse. Perhaps that itself is unfair — so why duplicate it on the other end of the economy? Put simply, it seems ludicrous at best and sadistic at most to start one’s fairness policing from the bottom up. If we mean to transform our economy into one in which people earn precisely what they work for and no more, and receive nothing from the government lest their work ethic wither, it would be best to start from the top down, where nobody runs any risk of starvation or homelessness if they lose their benefits.

In fact, none of us live entirely on what we earn. We rely on the infrastructure, knowledge and technology developed by those who have come before us, and those contemporaneous with us. Instead of trying to mince each person’s life’s work into careful calculations of contribution and merit, it seems more sensible to pursue a fairer economy overall: one that directs its excesses not to the already rich, but to those who have the greatest need; one that recognizes in its distributive structure that every person is immeasurably valuable, deserving of life and dignity.”

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Read the rest of Bruenig’s article, which includes statistical support for her position, at the link.

Wow! Valuing human lives, achievements, and contributions as much as capital! What a revolutionary concept for a capitalist society.

PWS

01-07-18

BANISHING THE BEST & THE BRIGHTEST: One Would-Be H-1B Nonimmigrant’s Tale Of How The Bureaucracy & America’s New Anti-Immigrant Attitude Sent Her Packing!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/immigration-visa-h1b-trump-.html

Frida Yu writes in the NY Times:

“Six months ago I won the lottery — the H-1B visa processing lottery for skilled foreign workers. I called my thrilled parents and celebrated with friends. I’m from northeastern China and have an M.B.A. from Stanford, and was planning to stay in Silicon Valley to help start a company based on a promising new technology to improve the use of data. I was overjoyed because, historically, being selected in the lottery was a near guarantee that an applicant could remain in this country at least three more years.

But at the end of July, I received the dreaded Request for Further Evidence from immigration authorities. I provided the extra information that United States Citizenship and Immigration Services asked for. In September, I got another request. I complied again. Finally, on Oct. 11, half a year after my celebration, I learned I had been denied a visa.

After earning law degrees in China and at Oxford, after having worked in Hong Kong as a lawyer at a top international firm, after coming to United States three years ago for an M.B.A. and graduating and joining a start-up, I was given just 60 days to leave the country. I have 17 days left.

In the past, it was fairly safe to assume that once you were selected in the lottery, your H-1B petition would be accepted by immigration officials. In 2016, this happened about 87 percent of the time. But things began to change in April when the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice announced measures to increase scrutiny of the highly skilled applicants who use the H-1B program, and President Trump signed an executive order calling for federal agencies to suggest reforms to the program.

While it’s unclear exactly what percentage of petitions have been approved so far in 2017, requests for evidence like the ones I received have increased by 44 percent compared with last year, according to immigration statistics, strongly suggesting that more people are being denied than before Mr. Trump took office.

Many of my fellow international students are in situations similar to mine. Some had job offers from companies like Google, Apple and PwC when they learned that their applications had been denied or did not even make it into the lottery. For those whose employers have only United States offices, losing the lottery meant losing jobs and going home, with no real way to use the skills they were on the verge of contributing to the American economy.

And some classmates who, like me, were picked in the H-1B lottery last spring are still waiting for an answer. The Trump administration on April 3 announced that it would suspend the “premium processing” service that, for a fee, guaranteed applicants responses to their petitions within 15 days. This has caused problems for students who needed a quick decision because their work authorization expired over the summer or because they wanted to plan overseas trips that they couldn’t make while their status was in limbo. My mom had surgery for cancer in July, but I simply couldn’t go back to China to be with her and risk being denied at the border upon my return because I didn’t have H-1B approval.

My two requests for evidence asked me to prove my job was a “specialty occupation” — that is, work that only someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher can do. My work involves artificial intelligence and big data, and my letters of support came from an authority in my industry and veteran start-up investor, and a Nobel Prize winner. But it wasn’t enough to convince the government that my job requires advanced skills.

While I gave up my law job and used my savings and my parents’ to pay my Stanford graduate school tuition, in the grand scheme of things, I know my situation is much better than that of many immigrants who are forced to leave this country: Just this week, thousands of Haitians in the United States learned that they may have to return to Haiti as a result of the administration’s decision to strip them of the Temporary Protected Status they were granted while their country recovered from disasters.

It’s true that I’m brokenhearted about missing the chance to return to China to care for my mother (she insisted that I stay and pursue the visa that was her dream for me), but I’m not looking for sympathy. As much as I hate to leave, I know I will be fine.

Rather, I’m frustrated, because I know I’m part of a pattern: America is losing many very skilled workers because of its anti-immigrant sentiment, and while this is a disappointing blow to me and my classmates, it will also be a blow to the United States’ competitiveness in the global economy. Tech giants such as Google and Tesla were founded by immigrants.

I can’t make sense of why an administration that claims to want this country to be strong would be so eager to get rid of us. We are losing our dreams, and America is losing the value we bring.

As I make plans to go back to China, I find myself wondering: If I am not qualified to stay in the United States, then who is?

Steven Pearlstein In WonkBlog In The WashPost: When It Comes To Governing, The GOP Is NQRFPT — By A Long Shot! — The President & Party Of Irresponsibility Can’t Duck Responsibility For The Mess THEY Have Created!

NQRFPT = Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/pearlstein-on-gop-health-care-debacle/?utm_term=.d51013b98429

Pearlstein writes:

“The inability of a Republican Congress and a Republican president to repeal Obamacare, or even just dial it back, is yet the latest demonstration that Republicans simply aren’t ready to govern.

The facile explanation for this is the unresolved division, within the party, between its radical tea party populist wing and its more moderate, business-friendly establishment wing. But the bigger issue is that the party’s elected politicians are unwilling to make the trade-offs that are the essence of what governing is about.

On health care, for example, they promised to lower premiums but refused to embrace any of the three approaches that could accomplish that: increase co-payments and deductibles; squeeze the incomes of doctors, hospitals and drug companies; or finance more of the country’s health care through higher taxes.

. . . .

As a group, they have demonstrated a breathtaking lack of policy knowledge and sophistication, a stubborn disregard for intellectual honesty, lousy political instincts and a broken moral compass. Their leaders have forgotten what it means to lead, if they ever knew, while their backbenchers don’t have a clue of what it takes to be constructive followers. If there were a bankruptcy code for politics, it’s safe to say the Republicans would be in Chapter 11.

This complete abdication of governing responsibility was confirmed Tuesday when the party’s nominal leader, President Trump, announced to the country, “I think we are probably in that position where we will just let Obamacare fail. … I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it.”

Even Sen. Shelly Caputo, the reliably party-line toting Republican from West Virginia, was moved to distance herself from that cynical win-at-any-cost strategy. “I did not come to Washington to hurt people,” she said.

“It’s almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world … listening to the stupid s‑‑‑ we have to deal with in this country,” Jamie Dimon, the chairman of JPMorgan Chase, said in an unguarded moment last week. Dimon was quick to add, reflexively, that it wasn’t a Republican or a Democratic issue, but he knows better than that. Republicans were handed a golden opportunity to govern and they have blown it. This one is on them.”

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At the link, read Pearlstein’s complete op-ed which contains many great examples of how the GOP fails to “do the right thing” over and over. And, he only touches on the “gonzoness,” moral vapidness, and complete disregard for sound government and prudent expenditure of public funds demonstrated by Trump’s immigration policies.

PWS

07-21-17

N. RAPPAPORT IN HUFFPOST: “Is Trump withdrawing Lady Liberty’s invitation to the poor, huddled masses yearning to be free?”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/597274e1e4b0545a5c31000

Nolan writes:

“In 1903, these lines were engraved on a plaque and placed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

But should our immigration system be based on a desire to help immigrants from around the world? Or should it be based on our own national interests?

The main difference between legal and illegal immigration is that with legal immigration, the government decides which aliens will be allowed to come to the United States. Whereas, with illegal immigration, the aliens decide themselves whether they are going to come.

That distinction loses significance when the government does not base its immigration policy decisions on the country’s needs.

President Donald Trump believes that the current system for legal immigration does not meet our national interests.

. . . .

“Should we reject this approach and honor Lady Liberty’s invitation? That might have been possible when the plaque was put on the base of the Statute of Liberty more than a century ago, but it is no longer possible. Even if we limited the invitation to the huddled masses who have been driven from their countries by war, criminal violence, and persecution, there are too many of them.

And is it really wrong to base America’s immigration system on our own national interests instead of on a desire to help people from other countries? Trump and the Jordan Commission concluded not only that we should do what’s in our national interests, but that the current immigration system is hurting us.”

********************************

Read Nolan’s complete article over at HuffPost at the above link!

Sorry, Nolan, but I think it’s all lots of White Nationalist bull. We wouldn’t even be having this debate if the immigrants were White Christians. It would be in the country’s best interests to legalize everyone who is here now and also to boost legal immigration limits for skilled, unskilled, and family to levels that more realistically match the market of supply and demand. And, we can take many more refugees than we take now.

By having a bigger and more realistic legal immigration system, our need for all the wasteful and largely ineffective law enforcement we have now would be reduced. We could concentrate on folks who really don’t belong here. And, by having a real “line,” instead of the fake one we have now, we would increase the incentives for folks to wait their turn and come in an orderly manner.

Most economists who have looked at our situation are appalled at the so-called RAISE Act. One has only to look at who sponsors it to see the motives behind it.

I largely agree with the recent article in the Washington Post by Heather Long which demonstrates how harebrained the Trump and RAISE policies would be. However, I don’t agree with the idea of some interviewed in the article that family immigration should be cut to raise employment-based immigration. Family immigration does great things for America, and folks with family ties here have a “leg up” in getting started and making a difference.

Trump doesn’t care two hoots and a holler about America’s future. He’s out to 1) cement his position with the White Nationalists in his base, and 2) to loot the U.S. for his and his family’s benefit any way he can. Cotton and Purdue also are about cultural issues and white Nationalism, not what’s best for America’s future.

I reprint Heather Long’s article below in full:

Wonkblog

Analysis

Cutting legal immigration 50 percent might be Trump’s worst economic idea

By Heather Long July 17

President Trump’s “to do” list still includes cutting legal immigration. Economists say that’s a “grave mistake.”

A Washington Post survey of 18 economists over the weekend found that 89 percent said it’s a terrible idea for Trump to curb immigration to the United States. Experts overwhelmingly predicted it would slow growth — the exact opposite of what Trump wants to do with “MAGAnomics.”

“Restricting immigration will only condemn us to chronically low rates of economic growth,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. “It also increases the risk of the recession.”

Thomas Simons, senior economist at the Jefferies investment firm, called the idea “absolutely harmful to an economy with a population undergoing the demographic transformation.”

The bottom line is: The United States needs more workers. Growth happens when one of two things occurs: The economy gets more workers or the existing workers become more productive. At the moment, both of those factors are red flags. Productivity growth is sluggish, and, as Trump has pointed out many times, the percent of American adults who actually work — the labor-force participation rate — is hovering at the lowest levels since the 1970s.

A big part of the problem is the baby boomers are starting to retire. The United States needs more people to replace them, but the U.S. birthrate just hit a historic low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s why many economists, demographers and business owners keep calling for more immigration, not less.

“Limiting immigration to the U.S. is a grave mistake,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The only way to meaningfully increase U.S. economic growth on a sustained basis anytime soon is to increase immigration.”

During the campaign, Zandi predicted that Trump’s protectionist stances on trade and immigration would lead to a “lengthy recession.” According to Zandi’s economic models, Trump’s worst policy was his plan to deport 11 million immigrants currently in the country illegally.

Now scaling back on legal immigration is a serious part of the policy discussion.

Congress and the White House are dealing with a slew of issues. Immigration appeared to be sidelined until a much-cited Politico report last week that top Trump aides are actively working with Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) to cut legal immigration by as much as 50 percent. It would be a revised version of the RAISE Act that the senators introduced in February and that would cut back on the number of refugees allowed in each year and make it much harder for anyone other than spouses or minor children of U.S. citizens or permanent residents to immigrate.

Trump still sees action on immigration as a critical part of his agenda. He brought it up on his trip to France last week.

“What I’d like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan,” the president told reporters on his way to Paris. “But our country and political forces are not ready yet.”

If Trump can’t get the bigger immigration overhaul he wants, he’s likely to push for something like the RAISE Act. Trump says the United States needs to limit immigration, legal and illegal, to give workers at home a better chance. One of the proposals Cotton and Perdue are considering is slashing the number of legally issued green cards from 1 million a year to 500,000 over the next decade.

Trump portrays immigrants as scooping up American jobs. But the data appears to tell a different story.

U.S. unemployment is at 4.4 percent. In May, unemployment hit the lowest level since 2001, a milestone Trump celebrated. That implies there aren’t many people struggling to find work. At the same time, the United States has 5.7 million job openings, which is near a record high. It’s been that way for a year now. Business leaders with big and small firms say they can’t find enough workers. They are especially vocal about not being able to find enough people for really low-skilled, low-pay work and for really highly skilled jobs.

Take Bayard Winthrop. He is founder and chief executive of American Giant, a company that Slate said produces the “greatest hoodie ever made.” American Giant makes those masterpiece sweatshirts by using only U.S. workers, U.S. cotton and U.S. manufacturing. In other words, Winthrop is the living embodiment of the “Made in America” a movement Trump is trying to resurrect. Yet one of the biggest problems Winthrop faces is not enough American workers want to do the hard work of picking cotton.

“If you go through our supply chain and talk to a lot of the business that are ginning cotton, dyeing and finishing cotton, what you hear pretty universally is they have open job requests but few people actually want these entry-level, lower-wage jobs,” he said Monday in an interview with WAMU radio. His message to Trump is, “Make immigration much more accessible.”

Trump is already heeding the calls for more lower-skilled workers. His administration just bumped up visas for seasonal foreign workers by 15,000, a 45 percent increase from last year.

There’s little love among economists and business leaders for a 50 percent cut in immigration overall, but there is growing support for moving the United States to a more merit-based immigration system. The idea is to attract more of the immigrant workers that the country desperately needs. At the moment, only 15 percent of green cards are issued for employment reasons, according to Department of Homeland Security data.

“There is a case for adopting a Canada-style system of ‘points’ whereby preference is given to people with desired skills,” said Martin Barnes, chief economist at BCA Research in Montreal.

The vast majority of legal immigrants are entering the country because they are relatives of someone already in the United States. It’s known as “chain immigration,” and the RAISE Act wants to limit that substantially so only spouses and children could come with a visa holder, not more-extended relatives.

From an economics standpoint, the key is to get more workers with the desired skills into the country. It’s why the tech community is lobbying so hard for more H-1B visas.

Immigrants also tend to start more businesses. While start-up founders in Silicon Valley are glorified, the reality is, business formation in the United States is near a 40-year low. That worries Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust.

“Countries that get collectively older are granted fewer patents, start fewer small businesses and take fewer risks with capital,” Tannenbaum said. All of that hurts economic growth.

Tannenbaum is concerned not only that Trump will cut immigration in the future but also that the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and controversial travel ban are already encouraging the best young minds in the world to look elsewhere for their college educations and early careers.

“If smart kids get educated elsewhere, the U.S. will experience a talent drain that we will certainly come to regret,” Tannenbaum warned.”

PWS

07-21-17

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