Free Republic

Full Committee Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Time: 10:00 AM Location: Dirksen 226 Presiding: Chairman Grassley Member Statements Senator Chuck Grassley R (IA) Adobe Acrobat Document Download Statement Senator Patrick Leahy D (VT) Adobe Acrobat Document Download Statement Witnesses Mr. Richard Trumka President AFL-CIO Washington , D.C. Adobe Acrobat DocumentTrumka Testimony Professor Ron Hira Associate Professor of Public Policy Howard University Washington , D.C. (SNIP)

The number of students graduating with STEM degrees already far exceeds the number of STEM jobs available but powerful interests in the business community are pushing Congress to allow more foreign skilled workers into the country. Congress is considering new immigration laws that would flood the U.S. with “guest workers” from the Middle East and Asia, a plan some are calling an open invitation for jihadists to walk right through America’s front door. Critics say lawmakers – including top Republican leaders – are playing with fire and could jeopardize national security with the proposals to double or even triple...

You've heard it from Big Government lobbyists. You've heard it from Big Business lackeys in both political parties. And you've heard it from journalists, pundits and think-tankers ad nauseam: The H-1B foreign guest worker program, they claim, requires American employers to first show that they searched for and tried to recruit American workers before tapping an ever-growing government-rigged pipeline of cheap foreign workers. The foot soldiers of the open-borders brigade are lying, deluded, ignorant or bought-off. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee brought top independent academics and informed whistleblowers to Washington to expose the truth. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, hosted...

JNS.org – In various cultures, a particular month, day or time is associated with a certain annual activity. For example, here in the United States, November—every other year—is election time. In Israel, every May brings the solemnity of remembering fallen soldiers, followed immediately by celebrations of national independence. And if it’s March and you happen to live in Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled territory, then you know it’s time for publicly praising and honoring one of the most gruesome Palestinian massacres of Israelis and Americans in modern history. That’s because March 9, 1978, was the day that a squad of 13 Palestinian...

Some consumers who order medication from safe international pharmacies are finding themselves unable to use their VISA credit cards. We hope that doesn’t interfere with their ability to access safe and affordable medication. What’s going on? Essentially, in taking actions to stop rogue online pharmacies from selling medication, VISA’s online pharmacy policy ends up discriminating against consumers seeking affordable medication from safe international online pharmacies. It appears that VISA has adopted the online pharmacy worldview of LegitScript, a verification service that categorizes safe international online pharmacies as “unapproved” (but not “rogue”) and teams up with big pharmaceutical companies and U.S....

LOS ANGELES - Chinese tourist Yu Hu felt relief when she got a 10-year multi-entry US visa recently, which means she can visit the US whenever she has time in the next 10 years. In 2013, 891,000 Chinese visitors entered California and spend 1.9 billion dollars, according to California tourism authority. In addition, the numbers of Chinese students and people coming for business are also on the rise. The number of Chinese students in the US rose for the eighth consecutive year in 2014, reaching more than 886,000, a 16-percent increase over 2013, according to a US report. Los Angeles...

The case count for the measles outbreak linked to Disneyland is steadily ticking upwards. Health officials in more than a dozen states are tracking down thousands of people to try to make sure they don't spread the virus any further. It sounds bad, but European health officials say they're looking at the United States with envy. To them, America's current total of just over 100 measles cases looks comparatively good. Last year, Europe had 3,840 measles cases. Italy alone had 1,921 cases. And that's an improvement over 2013, when there were more than 10,000 cases across Europe. France has had...

Will Congress rein in the president’s immigration lawlessness? President Obama is running a massive illegal operation that has issued 5.5 million work permits never authorized by Congress, according to a disturbing new report from the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies. The report comes as Congress prepares to vote today on legislation that would reverse some of Obama’s executive overreaches that reward illegal aliens with lawful status for breaking the nation’s immigration laws. The report also comes as Republicans grapple with profoundly disturbing comments made by the president’s nominee to replace Attorney General Eric Holder. Loretta Lynch, currently U.S. attorney for...

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Friday that Islamic extremists were at war with the United States, and urged the Obama administration to adopt the same view. "I'm upset that the president and the White House...is not actually saying this is a war that the Islamic extremists are posing against the United States and against the West," she said during an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Friday. In the same interview, Gabbard referred to the threat posed by “this radical Islamic extremist agenda." The White House has tried to avoid using the...

In a nation in which 1 out of every 3 homes is unaffordable, you’d think the primary goal of public policy wouldn’t be to ensure real estate becomes even more out of reach for the average citizen. However, we live in a country in which policy isn’t being driven by logic and what’s in the best interest of “the people,” rather, we live in an neo-feudalistic society in which policy is being driven by what is best for a handful of white-collar criminals. It’s bad enough that American financial oligarchs have leveraged free money polices of the Federal Reserve to...

A new deal dramatically extending the length of visas for individuals traveling between the U.S. and China will be a “game-changer” for relations between Washington and Beijing, the White House said Monday. The U.S. and China will now issue short-term tourist and business visas that are valid for up to 10 years. Students traveling between the two countries will now be granted visas lasting five years. Previously, all three types had been valid only for a single year. “In terms of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, this is a game-changer,” said National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Evan Medeiros....

Canada has joined Australia in suspending entry visas for people from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa in an attempt to keep out the disease. […] Australia’s similar move was slammed Thursday by Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, who said closing borders will not stop spread of the Ebola virus. …

The Democrat-controlled Senate Select Committee on Ethics said that it never received a complaint pertaining to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and the Obama administration’s efforts to approve visas for certain investors, according to a government watchdog group, despite previously confirming that it received the complaint — and saying that it opened an investigation. **SNIP** And when The Washington Times wanted comment for a Jan. 21, 2014 report on the complaint, a “spokesman for the ethics committee and Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, said they couldn’t comment on the details of any investigation.”

SYDNEY - Australia issued a blanket ban on visas from West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak Tuesday, making it the first rich nation to shut its doors to the region and earning criticism from health experts and rights groups. Australia has not recorded a case of Ebola despite a number of scares, and conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has so far resisted repeated requests to send medical personnel to help battle the outbreak on the ground. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told parliament Monday that all non-permanent or temporary visas from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia were being cancelled...

Newser) – Three teenage girls from Denver flew overseas in a bid to join ISIS in Syria before being stopped, reports the Denver Post. The girls, ages 15 and 16, apparently were lured by a "slick" online campaign to join militants with the Islamic State, an FBI official tells ABC News. They made it as far as Frankfurt, Germany, before being detained, and all three have been returned to their families in Denver. It's unclear whether they will face charges. The Voice of America first reported the incident, saying that two of the girls are of Somali origin, while the...

In August, Duncan's visa was approved. He and Troh had rekindled their relationship, and she helped pay for his plane ticket. He packed a backpack and a suitcase, and told neighbors he was going to America and would not be back for two years. When he returned, he said, he planned to build a house for his family.

BLOCK VISAS BEING GRANTED TO PEOPLE IN WEST AFRICAN NATIONS. WE DON'T WANT TO EVEN BE EXPOSED TO THE EBOLA VIRUS... It occurs to be from reading various articles and posts on Freerepublic.com that some people including political 'leaders' think it is okay to have Government policies that have caused American citizens to be exposed to Ebola by a foreign national who was allow to enter the U.S. coming from a known Ebola Hot Spot - because they claim that an Ebola outbreak would not occur and/or if it did it could easily be contained. I find this attitude totally...

Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public-health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid. The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going. On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it’s completely random, like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners...

Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid.The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going.On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it's completely random like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners will...

For the first time since its creation in 1990, the “investor immigrant” visa program looks on track to have its annual 10,000 allotment fully used up this year. This milestone for the program is due to the increasing number of wealthy applicants from mainland China, a country that now boasts almost 2.5 million millionaires. The “EB-5 visa”, which gives expedited citizenship to applicants who invest $500,000 in a jobs-generating business for 2 years, is not only confusing and poorly designed but it’s been rife with investor fraud since it started. Nevertheless, because of the access a green card provides to...