The Answer to the World's Problems — Immigration to America

For the second time to three days, the Washington Post has an op-ed calling on us to help Haiti by reducing the number of Haitians living there. Elliott Abrams' piece, which I critiqued here on Friday, was wrongheaded in calling for substantial increases in Haitian immigration but at least it didn't reject American sovereignty. On the other hand, this most recent piece, by tranzi economist Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development, is remarkable as an example of forthright post-Americanism. For instance:

"We do know, however, why many individual Haitians are poor. For a large number, there is a clear reason: Many have been willing and able to leave Haiti for American shores, but armed agents of the U.S. government have forcibly stopped them or deterred them from trying. If they had not been stopped, virtually none of them would have been as poor and vulnerable as they were on Jan. 12."

Oh my, armed agents forcibly stopping illegal immigration — the boot of the Coast Guard is stomping on Haitians' faces forever. As for "many" Haitians who are willing to leave, Clemens himself notes that 51 percent of Haitians told Gallup last year that they want to emigrate — that's 4.5 million people.

"A moderately educated adult male, born and schooled in Haiti, typically enjoys a standard of living more than six times greater in the United States than in his homeland. In other words, U.S. policy wipes out more than 80 percent of a Haitian's earning power when it keeps him from coming to the United States. ... The difference has nothing to do with his ability or effort; it results purely from where he is."

Well, not where he is, but who he is — he's not an American, so he has no right to come here and increase his earning power. His unwillingness to even acknowledge the distinction between Americans and foreigners stands out in sharp relief when he asks:

"Who [in the wake of Katrina] would have blocked Interstate 10 with armed guards, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to suffer in the disaster zone, no matter how much assistance was coming in from outside? We wouldn't have done that, because it would have made us collectively responsible for their continued suffering. Why then, in the thoughtful debate that has emerged over how best to aid Haiti and help its citizens help themselves, are Americans still quiet about this sinister face of our immigration policy?"

Even without the post-Americanism, this would be morally infantile. In fact, any putative claim of Haitians to enter the United States based on suffering would pale in comparison to the millions of Congolese peasants who've died as a result of the war there — was our immigration policy "sinister" because we didn't take them? And if increase in earning power is the appropriate moral yardstick, then Haitians would still have to wait in line, after Zimbabweans and Nepalese and Ethiopians, among others.

The author's political agenda is clear — use the earthquake as a rationale for "comprehensive immigration reform":

"The earthquake in Haiti has laid bare the consequences of our restrictive immigration policies."

Or, as he's written elsewhere, "immigration policy debates must take some account of their massive effects on poor people overseas."

On the other hand, I can't wait for the amnesty crowd to adopt this line of argument — it would do more to sabotage amnesty than any number of May Day marchers holding Che Guevara posters.

Another good article today from CIS:

Failure to Uphold Immigration Laws Leads to the Death of a Deputy Sheriff By Ronald W. Mortensen, January 25, 2010

During the past several months, I have commented on the failure of law enforcement officials to enforce the nation's immigration laws, thereby giving illegal alien criminals an advantage that they should not have.

Law enforcement officials argue that they have to give illegal aliens a pass for violating immigration laws in order to gain their confidence and support. While this may work in some cases, it also leaves violent, criminal illegal aliens free to go about their business.

The most recent example of this can be found in a rural area in western Utah where an illegal alien has been accused of killing a female deputy sheriff.

The accused killer's immigration status should not have gone unnoticed in the small community where everyone knows everyone else. After all, he had been deported multiple times and been arrested twice for illegally reentering the United States. He had even served jail time for illegal entry.

In addition, he was a known drug dealer and had sold drugs to the brother of the deputy sheriff only minutes before he killed her.

His MySpace page showed him with firearms even though both as a convicted felon and an illegal alien he was not allowed to possess firearms.

He was apparently able to readily find employment with dairy farmers in the area even though he was not authorized to work in the United States.

This is a tragedy that did not have to happen. Had the accused killer served his first prison term of 15 years rather than being released and deported after just 14 months, or had he been given the maximum sentence for reentry into the United States, he would not have been back in the community.

Had the federal government controlled the border, he would not have been in the United States.

Had the sheriff and other law enforcement officials sought the assistance of immigration authorities, they could have arrested the accused murderer at any time for illegally reentering the United States and he could have been sentenced to a long prison term.

Had anyone viewing the MySpace page of the accused killer reported his illegal possession of firearms to law enforcement, he could have been arrested.

Had local dairy farmers used E-Verify rather than turning a blind eye to his illegal status, he would not have been able to find work and may have left the area.

And had citizens of the community truly understood that illegal aliens routinely commit multiple felonies to get jobs and that they foster a culture of corruption, they may have been less accommodating to the illegal aliens in their midst.

There is enough blame to go around in this case, but it is inexcusable for law enforcement officials to let a known illegal alien continue to live and work in their jurisdiction. Had they just used the immigration laws that are already on the books, they may have saved the life of one of their own.

http://www.cis.org/mortensen/deputy

What follows is a very good detail of the social services ‘temporary’ Haitians will receive.

Illegal Use of Welfare Can Justify Fee Waivers for Haitian TPS Applicants
By David North, January 22, 2010

http://www.cis.org/north/HaitiTPSfeewaiver

One of the ironies of the new Temporary Protected Status program for Haitians illegally in the country on the date of the earthquake is that they can use illegally obtained welfare benefits to support an application to waive the $470 application fee for the TPS program.

I doubt that there will be much utilization of this quirk – there are some useful bars to the award of such benefits to illegal aliens in these programs – but the Department of Homeland Security seems to be unaware of the possibility of the illicit use of programs such as Food Stamps and TANF (the old AFDC).

I learned about this possibility while listening between the lines to a United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) question-and-answer session on a teleconference yesterday. It dealt with the minutiae of applying for TPS status.

When the presentation moved from filling out the applications to applying for a waiver of the fees, the USCIS spokesman said that those seeking the waiver needed to argue their poverty, and one way to do it would be to cite, I am now quoting the regulations: “Receiving a federal/statement benefits that is determined by your level of income.” (DHS clearly needs editors as well as lawyers.)

The spokesman said it did not matter what program it was, just one that indicated a low income; as I recall, he mentioned Food Stamps, TANF, and Supplemental Security Income.

What he did not mention is that fact that with the exception of a single program (which he did not name) anyone eligible for TPS is automatically ineligible for a federally funded benefits program. (I happen to know something about this having done some pioneering research on the immigration/welfare nexus years ago for both the Ford Foundation and the State of Colorado.)

So why spend several minutes on this matter with the tele-assembled lawyers and advocates? I suspect that fee waivers, under some circumstances, in programs other than TPS, can be granted to applicants who are legally using welfare programs. DHS just had not noticed that this program is directly almost exclusively at illegals.

Interestingly, none of the teleconference people with questions asked about the benefit programs. More common was the question from several: what do we do if we have an applicant with no income in the States and no documentation of the lack of income? The answer to that was to get statements from supporting family members on the subject.

Others asked about the rights of re-entry for people granted TPS status. Without getting into the details, it sounded like some people with some brushes with the law can qualify for TPS, but not for the more stringent rules regarding admissibility. USCIS said don’t travel overseas with TPS status unless you are pretty sure you can get back into the States.

Another quirk was raised by one of the USCIS lawyers. She said that being born in Haiti does not automatically qualify you as a Haitian citizen – under Haitian law, you must be born to at least one Haitian parent. There is also a naturalization program there. That Haiti is much less generous to the newly born in this regard than the U.S. is, well, that was not mentioned.

Also not mentioned was the fact that for the sum of $470 each, the applicants will have at least 18 months access to the legal U.S. labor market, a huge financial boon to the individuals. A useful precedent – that people borrow money to go to law school so that they can get access to the often-lush legal labor market – was left unstated and probably unthought, even though many of the lawyers on the line had, in all probability, done just that.

The one U.S. benefits program that can be used legally by illegals is the Women’s, Infants and Children (WIC) program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are no questions asked in this fairly modest program about one’s civil status. This is probably the case because the focus of the program in on the baby involved; if it is already here, it may be illegal, but if it is an expected one, is extremely likely to be born here and thus become a little U.S. citizen. The program provides healthy food for expecting and nursing mothers, and to their infants and small children; its eligibility rules are here.

Bringing millions of Haitians here is simply not in the best interests of the country and its citizens, however well it serves Haitians. If OUR OWN GOVERNMENT doesn’t put the best interests of American citizens ahead of the interests of the rest of the world, WHO IS GOING TO? Post-Americanism is right. This person makes no distinction between American citizens and everyone else on the planet. We are, for all practical purposes, second-class citizens in our own country BEHIND foreigners of all stripes, including the ones who want to kill us and destroy our culture. Our government is supposed to defend us, and our interests first and foremost. That is the basis of the Constitution, and one step back, the Social Contract. Thank heavens people like Mark Krikorian are pointing out all of this. Every elected representative, at whatever level of government, needs to be called out on this, beginning with BO and members of Congress. They have taken an oath to “provide for the common defense” and they are falling down on the job.

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