Politicians Don´t want Employer Sanctions, Just Votes!!

Pols want it both ways on immigration, jobs
The Virginian-Pilot © September 13, 2007
POLITICIANS OF BOTH parties brag that Virginia is the nation's "best state for business," a title bestowed by Forbes magazine. Some of those pols seem intent on winning a new moniker for Virginia: the toughest state in the country on illegal immigrants. Candidates for the General Assembly are clawing over each other in a competition to propose the harshest penalties for undocumented workers and the businesses that - knowingly or inadvertently - give them jobs. Can Virginia be business-friendly and strict on illegal immigration? ...

State and local officials are understandably frustrated by the lack of leadership coming from Washington, D.C. But the response by some overzealous legislators has been troubling. Earlier this year, the General Assembly considered two bills that would have allowed local governments to strip the business license of any company that employed a single illegal immigrant, whether or not the violation was willful. Both bills were later killed in the state Senate.

But consider this: Would Peninsula bureaucrats deny Northrop Grumman Newport News a business license if a worker at the company's Mississippi subsidiary didn't have his papers in order? Or, should Smithfield Foods lose its license in Virginia because of the 29 illegal workers discovered at its North Carolina processing plant last month? Most of them had stolen the identities of American citizens. When Republican leaders rolled out their immigration proposals two weeks ago, they were more careful to clarify that businesses would be punished only for willful violations of immigration laws that resulted in criminal convictions. Even so, their pugnacious rhetoric has continued, putting the state's business leaders on edge.

Republicans are trying to fire up their base in a year when their party is under attack at both the state and national levels. ..

Summary: Sec Chertoff´s Testimony before the Senate 9/10/07

All, I´ve summarized Sec. Chertoff´s testimony before the Senate for you so you can quickly review it. If you want to study the longer version, access the link. Please note the sections on Border Security and Results. Please comment with your perspective on his Testimony.

Testimony of Secretary Michael Chertoff Senate Committee on Homeland Security
Summary
Release Date: September 10, 2007
Washington, D.C.September 10, 2007

Because the focus of this hearing is threats to our homeland, my testimony will highlight only the first three goals: preventing dangerous people and dangerous cargo from entering our country, and protecting critical infrastructure.

1. Protecting Against Dangerous People
a. Passenger Screening: info electronically gathered thru Advance Passenger Information System (APIS)
b. Secure Identification: Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) includes - As of January 23, 2007, citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda seeking to enter or re-enter the United States from within the Western Hemisphere must present a valid passport or acceptable alternative document. Beginning January 31, 2008, we will also end the acceptance of oral declarations alone at the border and require U.S. and Canadian citizens to present either a WHTI-compliant document or government-issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license, and proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. Fully implementing WHTI in 2008: travelers will need WHTI-compliant documents – a passport, a passport card, a NEXUS card for land and sea border crossings. We also continue to work with states to enhance the security of driver’s licenses under the REAL ID Act.
c. Border Security: remain committed to effective border security to prevent the illegal entry of people between our ports of entry. Increased the size of the Border Patrol from 9,000 agents in 2001 to 14,500 agents today. Deploy thousands of National Guard forces to support construction of new fencing and vehicle barriers, with a target of 370 miles of fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers by the end of next year. We have installed high-tech cameras and sensors, and deployed unmanned aerial vehicles as part of SBInet. We have expanded CBP air and marine branches to increase our coverage of the border. We have established Border Enforcement Security Task Forces to work collaboratively with state and local partners to fight criminal activity in border cities. And we have developed an Intelligence Campaign Plan for Border Security to provide comprehensive intelligence support for our operations.

RESULT: we have seen significant decreases in apprehensions – down 21 percent overall along our southern border, and in some sectors down as much as 68 percent – reflecting decreased flow due to stepped-up security. While we will never be able to hermetically seal our border, our efforts have strengthened our ability to keep dangerous people out of the country and have made our nation safer.

2. Protecting Against Dangerous Cargo
a. Overseas Inspection
b. Radiological and Nuclear Detection

3. Protecting Critical Infrastructure
Whether our aim is protecting boats, bridges, or other critical infrastructure, we cannot do so effectively without strong partnerships with private sector owners and operators of our nation’s critical infrastructure.
a. Sector Specific Plans: 17 Sector Specific Plans of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. Roadmap for working with private sector to assess vulnerabilities in our nation’s infrastructure, set priorities, measure our effectiveness, and ensure accountability. This is the first time in our nation's history that the government and the private sector have come together on such a large scale – across our entire economy – to develop a joint plan to reduce risk and protect key assets and resources. It is a tremendous milestone for our Department, the private sector, and the American people
b. Aviation Security: add additional layers of security to protect the traveling public
c. Improvised Explosive Devices
d. Chemical Security
e. Biological Security
f. Cyber Security

4. Sharing Information and Intelligence
Effective information collection, analysis, and sharing.
a. Office of Intelligence and Analysis
b. State and Local Fusion Centers
c. Closed Circuit Television: States and cities have taken the lead in developing information and intelligence fusion centers with important support from our Department, including more than $300 million in grant funding. But another important counter-terrorism tool we continue to support is the development and deployment of closed circuit television (CCTV) systems. (Big Brother?)
d. National Applications Office

5. Working as One Team
Our value as a Department rests in our network of assets and people, and our ability to leverage that network to achieve integration and work effectively with our federal, state, and local partners.

6. Conclusion
I believe the reason there have been no additional attacks against our homeland is because we’ve successfully raised our level of protection and we’ve succeeded in frustrating the aims of our enemies. That’s not to say our efforts have been flawless or that our work is done. On the contrary, we must move forward aggressively to build on our success to keep pace with our enemies.

Pictures posted for my Book

For those of you helping me review and edit my book Resilience, I just posted some family pictures.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see them.

Let´s Develop a Viable Comprehensive Immigration Reform Recommendation

I want to be the first one to say this. I want to be the first blog. I want credit for this. Mark down the date and time.

Today, the stocks were slammed!
They dropped 250 points.

The reason? Most economists agree.
The jobs report.
Why? Payrolls dropped by 4,000 in August. Yet, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6%.

My, my what could the difference be?

I reported on August 20 that Illegal Immigration is significantly down.

Bernanke has told us time and time again that the 12M have allowed us in the USA to avoid a Recession.

Now, according to Wall Street, we are embarking on a Recession.

I am saying it here and now.

The immigrants (legal and illegal) from Latin America, the workers, have allowed us in our country, our USA, to avoid a Recession and a Depression.

Now, due to the anger, the rhetoric, the Xenophia, we, in the USA, are on the brink of a Recession and future Depression.

We need to Re-Think the Immigration Dilemma we are in.
We need to STOP all the ANGER.
We need to talk, discuss, establish Comprehensive Immigration Reform recommmedations and develop a Solution... A Bill we can ALL agree upon.

Let´s bring the 12M Out of the Shadows.
Let´s either put them in a Guest Worker Program or Path to Citizenship.
Let´s Compromise!!!!
Stop the Rhetoric. Stop the Red Faced Anger!!!

Unite America!! Unite!!
Let´s develop a Comprensive Immigration Reform recommendation we can ALL Live with!!

Crystal Ball: If ANTIs get their Wish

Author Orson Scott Card wrote a brilliant article about what would happen if the ANTIs get their wish re: Mass Deportation


Ethnic Cleansing or "Amnesty"
by Orson Scott Card
August 30, 2007So the election grows closer, and it's time to satisfy all those people who have been demanding that we put a stop to illegal immigration. The failure of the so-called "amnesty bill" leaves the government no choice other than expulsion of anyone without papers.The National Guard is activated and the city and state police forces are nationalized. Sweeps of Hispanic neighborhoods round up all the Spanish-speaking people with brown skin and sort them out according to who has the right documentation.Six million of them are found to be illegal immigrants.They are loaded into buses, trucks, cattle cars and transported to the Mexican border.
...
Our culture has always tolerated thousands and millions of people who spoke other languages and clung together in memory of the old country. And then, a few generations later, we were all Americans together. Your fear of these immigrants merely shows your complete ignorance of American history."Hyphenate us all you want," the arrogant liberal continues, "go to whatever ethnic pride parades you want, but we're all Americans. We changed each other – the Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Black slaves, the Russian Jews, the Chinese, the Japanese, they all came here and changed the way we talk and think and dress and sing and dance and read and write and it was always still America. Until now.""What do you mean, until now?""Because it's time to take down the Statue of Liberty, sir. We no longer accept the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We no longer lift a lamp beside the golden door. The door is steel, and we've shut it tight. This isn't America anymore."
"That's treasonous!"
"No, sir, you are the traitor. You're the one who declared that America was no longer a nation built around an idea, which accepted all who embraced that idea. Now it's just like any other nation on Earth. It stands for nothing except for holding on to what we've got and making sure there's no room for the people most desperate to come and join us."
"They didn't want to live under our laws!"
"Yes they did. All we had to do was change a law that made far less sense than the traffic laws Americans break or bend all the time! If you make breathing a crime, then yes, all the breathers are criminals, but the people who made the laws are the stupid ones."
"How dare you! We're the ones who wanted to keep America American!"
"America is a nation that thrived because of a constant infusion of eager new citizens. You have closed the door against the best and bravest of them. You have cut off the lifeblood."
"At least we're still speaking English!"
"That's right," says the fuzzy-headed liberal. "It takes a lot of brains and determination to learn to speak two languages fluently. We kicked out six million people who were willing to try to do that. And what we have left is ... you."

Is this a Solution? Farming Outsourced to MX?

Is this a Solution? Farmers renting out land in MX, hiring MX Labor?

September 5, 2007
Short on Labor, Farmers in U.S. Shift to Mexico
By JULIA PRESTON

CELAYA, Mexico — Steve Scaroni, a farmer from California, looked across a luxuriant field of lettuce here in central Mexico and liked what he saw: full-strength crews of Mexican farm workers with no immigration problems.

Farming since he was a teenager, Mr. Scaroni, 50, built a $50 million business growing lettuce and broccoli in the fields of California, relying on the hands of immigrant workers, most of them Mexican and many probably in the United States illegally.

But early last year he began shifting part of his operation to rented fields here. Now some 500 Mexicans tend his crops in Mexico, where they run no risk of deportation.

“I’m as American red-blood as it gets,” Mr. Scaroni said, “but I’m tired of fighting the fight on the immigration issue.”

A sense of crisis prevails among American farmers who rely on immigrant laborers, more so since immigration legislation in the United States Senate failed in June and the authorities announced a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants. An increasing number of farmers have been testing the alternative of raising crops across the border where there is a stable labor supply, growers and lawmakers in the United States and Mexico said.

Western Growers, an association representing farmers in California and Arizona, conducted an informal telephone survey of its members in the spring. Twelve large agribusinesses that acknowledged having operations in Mexico reported a total of 11,000 workers here.

“It seems there is a bigger rush to Mexico and elsewhere,” said Tom Nassif, the Western Growers president, who said Americans were also farming in countries in Central America.
Precise statistics are not readily available on American farming in Mexico, because growers seek to maintain a low profile for their operations abroad. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, displayed a map on the Senate floor in July locating more than 46,000 acres that American growers were cultivating in just two Mexican states, Guanajuato and Baja California.

“Farmers are renting land in Mexico,” Ms. Feinstein said. “They don’t want us to know that.”
She predicted that more American farmers would move to Mexico for the ready work force and lower wages. Ms. Feinstein favored a measure in the failed immigration bill that would have created a new guest worker program for agriculture and a special legal status for illegal immigrant farm workers.

In the past, some Americans have planted south of the border to escape spiraling land prices and to ensure year-round deliveries of crops they can produce only seasonally in the United States. But in the last three years, Mr. Nassif and other growers said, labor force uncertainties have become a major reason farmers have shifted to Mexico.

While there are benefits for Mexico, as American farmers bring the latest technology and techniques to its crop-producing regions, American farm state economists say thousands of middle-class jobs supporting agriculture are being lost in the United States. Some lawmakers in the United States also point to security risks when food for Americans is increasingly produced in foreign countries.

Do You Think the Crackdowns will Lead to Severe Labor Shortages?

Do you think the Crackdowns will Lead to Severe Labor Shortages?

Immigration crackdown will be disastrous, experts predict
Hundreds of thousands of workers will lose their jobs as a result of the federal government's crackdown on companies that employ illegal immigrants, business lobbyists predict.

This will lead to severe labor shortages in some industries and eventually weaken the overall economy, they contend.

"It's a disaster for us," says Craig Silvertooth, a lobbyist for the National Roofing Contractors Association.

...

The new regulation, combined with the stiffer penalties, will lead to widespread layoffs and discrimination against Hispanic workers, business lobbyists predict.

"People are going to get scared," says Laura Reiff, an immigration attorney at Greenberg Traurig's McLean, Va., office and co-chair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition.
Many workers will just walk off the job when they are told there is a problem with their Social Security number, she adds.

"It's going to have a dramatic impact on the workforce," Reiff says.
That's just what many anti-immigration groups are looking for.