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McCain's Amnesty for Illegal Aliens, Again

5/6/2008

McCain courts Hispanic voters - - Breaking News, Political News & National Security News - The Washington Times

 

McCain's Amnesty for Illegal Aliens, Again

by John F. Wilhite, Ph.D.

According to reports, McCain is speaking about renewing his push for comprehensive immigration reform focusing on border security first then guest worker and path to citizenship provisions immediately after.  Why does this have to be an either/or situation?  Securing the border will take two or three years of a massive effort.  Waiting until after that time will only exacerbate the problem.  Both border security and immigration reform need to be addressed at the same time--and that time is now! 
 
ICE round-ups of a few dozen illegal aliens at places of employment is woefully inadequate when considering the millions in this country.  The estimate of 12 million is an old statistic and understated; more recent and likely estimates place the number of illegal aliens at 20 million.  ICE needs more personnel devoted to apprehension and deportation and the participation and collaboration of other law enforcement agencies is sorely needed.  The deportation process should be streamlined as well since it takes far too much time to process individuals for deportation.

The large numbers of illegal aliens incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails should be entered into the immigration data base and flagged as never being allowed subsequent entry into the US and they should be deported en masse.  When illegal aliens are apprehended for a criminal offense they should NOT be released on bail.  ICE should be contacted immediately, the individual should be positively identified in the data base and barred from subsequent entry into the US, and deported.

Along with currently held prisoners and subsequently apprehended offenders, another group of illegal aliens that ICE and other law enforcement should be actively pursuing includes the unemployed criminal element.  The victims of this group, often innocent American citizens, deserve greater security and protection.  Raiding the homes, street corners, and other locations of gangs, drug traffickers, and similar criminals would deter crime while ridding the country of undesirable illegal aliens.

Illegal aliens who are employed and have no arrest record should report to government offices (more will need to be opened temporarily for this process) to apply for a temporary worker permit.  Priority should be given to those with children and then those who are married.  The work permit will NOT be a path to citizenship but after a period of time, perhaps three years, the status of permanent resident alien could by earned by those who desire it and meet current regulations for that status.  Permanent resident aliens who subsequently desire citizenship must fulfill existing requirements. 

A work permit is NOT amnesty since those who obtain it will face a double penalty for breaking our immigration laws.  First, all monies they have paid to the government through employment withholding will be forfeit and those funds should be earmarked specifically for border enforcement and immigration resolution (the term "resolution" is preferred over "reform").  This system for assessing the penalty is recommended rather than a specific amount since working illegal aliens have enjoyed the privileges of work and life in the US for varying amounts of time and earnings.  Second, an additional penalty should be imposed, consisting of a percentage (20% for example) of wages to be withheld from gross salary and, again, earmarked for border security and immigration resolution.  This second penalty should be for a set amount of time such as two years.

Those employed individuals who are granted a work permit should NOT be required to return to their home country to "wait in line" as required in some proposals for immigration reform.  This stipulation is unnecessary and would cause a hardship on employers, the illegal immigrant employee and his/her family, and taxpayers.  A "return home" clause in any legislation would have the end result of taxpayers footing the bill for the return trip as many granted a work permit will not be able to afford the expense.  Much like the "rights" of criminals, "you have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be provided for you (the criminal, at taxpayers' expense)" a "return home" provision will result in "you must return home, if you can't afford the trip a ticket will be provided for you at taxpayers' expense."  While it is unfair that those granted a work permit would jump ahead of those who pursued the immigration process legally, the balance is that the illegal immigrants would pay a heavy double penalty for this infraction.  Deleting the "return home" proviso eliminates a number of burdensome and unwieldy bureaucratic and economic problems involved in the working immigrant resolution process.

Finally, the "anchor baby" situation that concerns many can be addressed with a change in current immigration policy.  Changing the 14th Amendment to resolve this issue is a near impossibility and is unnecessary.  Current immigration policy that liberally allows foreigners to petition for an extended list of family members should be changed to allow petitions only for spouses and children under the age of eighteen.  Children, then, including "anchor babies," even though they are US citizens, cannot petition for their parents.  This should be allowed only to those who achieve permanent resident alien status, not those who are granted a temporary work visa.

Concerning border security, in addition to fences, cameras, motion sensors, and drones, a few other possibilities should be considered.  Military bases--including regular Army and Air Force and national and air national guard--should be established in border states and located in proximity to the border.  The focus should be on training for land and air (helicopter and drone) border security.  Active and guard duty personnel who train along our border assisting with border security patrols would then have the expertise to be used overseas as the need arises to perform border security duties such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Further, Border Security should raise the age limit for employees to allow for experienced retired military personnel, particularly MPs and helicopter pilots.     

McCain courts Hispanic voters - - Breaking News, Political News & National Security News - The Washington Times

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Stop Pelosi's Detrimental Blocking of Free Trade with Colombia

By Paul Weyrich
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Weyrich is right on the money with this article.  And I do mean money.  Pelosi blocking the free trade agreement that would remove tariff barriers to trade with Colombia hurts American agriculture and business interests.  Small and medium businesses in the US account for most of our exports and Colombia provides a large and important market for them.  Pelosi's action is detrimental to the American economy. 
 
Take action: Contact Pelosi and your representatives in Congress and demand that they approve the agreement now.
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Government Corruption Must Be Stopped

 
There are two key points to this article I want to point out.
 
First, throwing more taxpayer money at problems doesn't solve the problem:
 
"The federal government has spent about $6 billion on Reading First, which was created as part of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law and brings extra reading instruction, based on recommended practices, into low-income elementary schools.  The report out Thursday from the Institute of Education Sciences, an independent arm of the Education Department, finds no difference in reading comprehension scores among students who participated in Reading First and those who did not."
 
SIX BILLION DOLLARS OF OUR MONEY FOR NOTHING!
 
Second, corruption at all levels of government needs to be rooted out, severely punished, and stopped:
 
"Investigations by Congress and Education Department Inspector General John Higgins previously found that federal officials and contractors didn't guard against conflicts of interest in the program. For example, officials that gave states advice on which teaching materials to buy had financial ties to publishers of such materials ... The new study examining Reading First's impact has itself been the subject of conflict-of-interest questions because a contractor that worked on it was also among those that helped implement the Reading First program.  RMC Research Corp. was the contractor hired by the federal government to help with Reading First ... "
 
We have such corruption because "money is the root of all evil."  And we have "evil" because of moral "relativism," moral decline and decay, secularism, and a rejection of our Judeo-Christian morals, values, and traditions on which this country was founded and which the Founding Fathers intended to be constant, immutable, and ever-lasting.  Amending the Constitution, writing new laws, changing old laws according to the needs of the age are acceptable but it is not acceptable to change, re-write or eliminate what was intended to be their foundational principles and moral guidance.  The undergirding Judeo-Christian principles in support of the Constitution, laws, and governance are rapidly being eliminated, much to the detriment of this nation, the chagrine of the Founders, and the consternation of the citizen patriots who still value those principles and the vision of the Founders.
 
 
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Comments on Crouse's "Importance of Fathers"

 
Quotes from the article: 
 
"This should be the final word –– 24 scholarly studies covering 22,300 separate sets of data published in the 20 years between 1987 and 2007 report essentially the same finding: active fathers are absolutely essential in preventing behavioral problems with boys and psychological problems in girls. With such a massive body of evidence the debate ought to be over and the findings established beyond question.
 
(T)he lead researcher, Dr. Anna Sardaki of Uppsala University’s Department of Women’s and Children’s Health in Sweden, said, “We hope that this review will add to the body of evidence that shows that enlightened father-friendly policies can make a major contribution to society in the long run by producing well-adjusted children and reducing major problems like crime and antisocial behavior.”
 
(The) analyses showed that “regular positive contact” with the father “reduces criminal behavior among children in low income families and enhances cognitive skills like intelligence, reasoning and language development.”  In other words, when a father is around, the kids learn to behave, obey laws and end up learning more.  Having both a mother and a father present in the home and active in the children’s upbringing keeps them in line and reaps positive behavioral and psychological benefits.
 
In 2006, some 1.6 million births (38.5 percent of all births) were to unmarried mothers.  In fact, the United States leads the world in the percentage of mother-only families. In 2006, about 28 percent of all children were being raised in single-parent families, and children being raised in a mother-only family where the woman has never been married make up over 43 percent of all single-parent children."
 
johnfw:  Suggesting that Dr. Crouse did not offer any "government" solutions, most of those posting comments after this article referred to what the US government should or should not do about this issue.  They did not note that she did not use the term "government" once in the article.  They also failed to note that the title of the article does not include "... and my Solutions."  The article is a summary or review, along with a few comments of her own, of a scholarly scientific study.  The author makes brief suggestions for policy makers, which the commenters may have confused with law makers or legislators, hence "the government."  Policy makers are individuals working with think tanks, organizations focused on politics, government, society, culture, religion and so forth.  The devise policies in their areas of interest and promote them to the public and to the government in the hopes that legislators will address them with a pertinent law, bill or other means.
 
Some think the government cannot and should not be involved because the issue of children living in single-parent homes (currently 19 million with unwed mothers, in addition to those living with a divorced parent) is a sociocultural issue, not a government issue.  Just as government and business/industry are intertwined (too much so), government and society are interrelated.  The three areas form a mutually related, not mutually exclusive, whole.  They should support each other in some instances or get out of the way of each other in certain cases, in an ideal scenario.  In reality, one overwhelms the others.  The government interferes with business and society with some legislation and fails to protect or support business and society with other policies and laws.  Some aspects of the business sector (the media, entertainment, and others) undermine or diminish society (the individual, the family, education, communities, social organizations, religious denominations).  Society, which supports and is essential to government and business, is never on an equal footing with government and business, much less overwhelms and diminishes them.
 
As for the govenrment not having any influence over the social problem at issue here, it already does.  But one example can be found in government regulations and policies in education.  Young people have to be taught the nature, importance, and value of a strong traditional family but that cannot appear in the course offerings because such instruction might have to touch on topics such as virtue, ethics, and moral responsibility and that smacks of religion.  We can't have that in our secular schools and world.  Comprehensive sex education (translation:  you're going to do it anyway, so enjoy--never mind the consequences) is supported but not abstinence or abstinence first because here again these require those same principles that have religious overtones.  Gay Straight Alliances (translation:  we promote tolerance, inclusion, a safe environment [and gay sex with teenage boys] are legal and fostered in middle and secondary schools (3,000 at last count) but faith clubs, which are also legal, are scoffed at and thwarted.  Public schools should not be involved in sex ed or gay sex ed because the students are minors, not adults.  Private topics should be dealt with in other venues such as the home, church, or groups outside public schools.  Some sex-related issues, particularly the consequences of unwanted pregnancies and disease, should be presented as health or biology subjects.  Most, if not all, faculty advisors of the gay/straight alliances (generally only one advisor per club) are openly gay faculty.  That's like having a joint Democrat/Republican political club with a liberal Democrat faculty advisor.  Republicans would pretty quickly become extinct.  What does that tell us about the "straight" component of these "alliances"?
 
In fact, most social problems cannot be solved without the direct and appropriately guided intervention of government and business.  That is what policy makers addressing sociocultural issues hope to accomplish.  
 
   
 
 
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