Unraveling California’s Quick Demise

Unraveling California’s Quick Demise

By Joe Guzzardi

Through incredibly good fortune, I’ve been unable to watch the tedious impeachment trial. I’m traveling and my destinations don’t have television. I can’t report having the same luck, however, with the daily immigration news. Bulletins pour into my email inbox, and since immigration has been my journalism beat for more than 30 years, I’m professionally obligated to keep current. The news is relentlessly dreary, and reflects how far from the rule of law California has drifted.

Unraveling California’s Quick Demise

In its story “This Immigration Lawyer Understands Her Clients; She’s Undocumented,” the Los Angeles Times was almost giddy over illegal alien Lizbeth Mateo and her representation before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) of a fellow illegal alien. Let that sink in: an illegal alien lawyer defending an illegal alien in a U.S. Court. According to a former legacy Immigration and Naturalization employee, no one can serve as an attorney or be a member of the state bar if they are criminals – Mateo entered and reentered the United States illegally. Nor are they eligible to represent an alien before the EOIR since their immigration status conflicts with the laws at issue.

Instead of focusing its story on the absurdity and legal questionability of an illegal immigrant subject to immigration laws, including arrest and deportation, representing another illegal immigrant, the Times instead referred to Mateo as “polished, savvy” which may be true but is also incomplete. Mateo is certainly savvy. Several years ago, she and eight other activists, known collectively as the The Dream 9, traveled to Mexico, then demanded and received reentry permission so they could protest what they perceived as President Obama’s harsh immigration policy.

That California would be the epicenter of such an outrageous immigration failure surprises no one. In 2013, as it began its slide into the depths of incomprehensible catering and entitlement-dole-out to unlawfully present migrants, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1024, legislation that allowed illegal aliens who passed the California bar to receive law licenses.

During the same week, Brown also approved state-issued drivers licenses for aliens. A boastful Brown said, “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead, I’m not waiting.” One year later, Brown signed more expansive legislation that ordered the 40 licensing boards which the California Department of Consumer Affairs recognizes to, by 2016, accept applications regardless of immigration status. To replace the previously required Social Security number on all professional license applications, aliens could substitute the easily acquired federal Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.

Brown was correct, but not in the way he imagined, when he called Washington an immigration waffler. In the nearly seven years that have passed since Brown signed AB 1024, Congress has done little to end the privileges like driving, sanctuary city protection, and access to lower in-state university education fees that states and counties have awarded to illegal immigrants. As a California native and long-time immigration analyst, the question I’m most often asked is: What happened to the Golden State? In recent memory California was a conservative bastion under U.S. Sen. Richard Nixon, and Governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson.

But then, as president, Reagan went rogue and signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. During the ensuing years, tens of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants arrived. The legal immigrants and their children who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s favor higher immigration levels, self-define as Democrats and vote accordingly. Among the illegal alien contingent that came to California, many have remained, and some have received amnesty and therefore voting rights. They too support immigration expansion.

Today in California, as the EOIR example proves, federal immigration laws are meaningless. If they’re willing to objectively study California’s immigration history, other states could learn an important lesson. Too much identity politics accelerates great states’ declines and fall. In about a half-century, California went from being America’s most coveted destination to today’s societal mess from which residents with options can’t flee fast enough.


Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Unraveling California’s Quick Demise

May God save William Lawrence Cryptowit 1-31-20

May God save William Lawrence Cryptowit 1-31-20

Zlyyxig cm nby zlyyxig ni mus nbun nqi jfom nqi guey ziol. Cz nbun cm aluhnyx, uff yfmy ziffiqm.
Ayilay Ilqyff

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.
Millard Fillmore

May God save William Lawrence Cryptowit 1-31-20
May God save William Lawrence Cryptowit 1-31-20

Dazhong Livestock William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-30-20

You can buy a live ostrich for 4,000 yuan –about $580 — at Dazhong Livestock and Game in the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Well, you could a few weeks ago. Maybe not now.

Dazhong Livestock William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-30-20
Dazhong Livestock William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-30-20
It sure would take a lot of peanut oil to deep fry an ostrich.

President Trump Fighting Robocalls

President Trump Fighting Robocalls — One of the more destructive aspects of the connected globe is robocalls, something many of us have despairingly accepted as a fact of life.

Not President Trump.

President Trump Fighting Robocalls
Yes, things are getting better.

His Justice Department is going pedal to the metal against these cretins.

On Jan. 28, it sought court orders restraining two groups of companies — one operating in New York and one in Arizona — from facilitating fraudulent calls most of which originate in India.

One of the Arizona companies carried 720 million calls over 23 days.

Yesterday, Jan. 29, the Federal Trade Commission — which is now controlled by Republicans — gave notice to 19 internet-based phone companies that facilitating robocalls will land them in legal trouble.

Thank you President Trump.

Why didn’t Obama do this?

President Trump Fighting Robocalls

Pelosi Stopping Fentanyl Ban; What's Up With That?

Pelosi Stopping Fentanyl Ban; What’s Up With That? — The satirical Twitter account @RepStevenSmith — yes, it’s satire — asked last night (Jan. 29) Do the Democrats work for El Chapo?

Pelosi Stopping Fentanyl Ban; What's Up With That?
Sometimes it takes a jester to tell the truth

We asked the same question a year ago.

We weren’t joking.

The House has strangely been dragging its feet to extend a ban on certain types of fentanyl. The House, of course, is the chamber of Congress controlled by the D party and run by Nancy Pelosi.

The ban expires Feb. 6.

The Senate has already passed the extension.

Seriously Nancy, what is your problem with stopping fentanyl?

Hey Mary Gay Scanlon, you OK with this?

@RepStevenSmith included the below video of a Jan. 28 press conference by Republican House members. The congresswoman is Debbie Lesko who represents Arizona’s 8th District.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1222737906277789696

UPDATE: We have been informed that the House did extend the ban 7:20 p.m. last night (Jan. 29) by a vote of 320-88. All dissenters were Democrats except for Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky4) . Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa5) was among those opposing the Fentanyl Ban extension.

Pelosi Stopping Fentanyl Ban; What’s Up With That?

Assess Skills For Better Pay Workshop

Assess Skills For Better Pay

By Kate Rainey

Elaine Herbert, who is Pathways PA coordinator for the Back to Work Program serving residents over 40, will present “Find Your Worth By Assessing Your Skills” 7-8:30 p.m., Feb. 18, at Parish Hall of St. Laurence Church, 8245 West Chester Pike, Upper Darby. The entrance to Parish Hall is from the rear church driveway, off St. Laurence Road. All are welcome to the free event, without regard to religious affiliation. There is parking in the well lit lot, adjacent to the meeting site. 

Learn how you can identify your skills and gain a better understanding of your personal and professional worth in the workplace. Skill identification plays an important role in career choices, writing resumes and preparing for job interviews. Attend this workshop to discover how you can utilize various resources and make this process easy while attaining confidence in your goal of securing employment in your field of expertise.

Prior to Pathways PA, Ms. Herbert worked at DeVry University in the Career Services as the Senior Career Advisor. She is gifted with helping others achieve their goals in finding satisfying employment.

Joseph’s People of Central Delaware County is affiliated with Joseph’s People, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping unemployed and underemployed workers. Local, affiliated chapters provide networking opportunities, guidance and emotional support to job seekers and career changers. For more information, send a message through the LinkedIn group listed above, visit www.josephspeople.org or email contactus@josephspeople.org.

Assess Skills For Better Pay
Assess Skills For Better Pay

Truth is the daughter of time William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-30-20

Truth is the daughter of time William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-30-20

Ftr Zhw ltox max vhngmkr, yhk bm bl xobwxgm matm max ixhiex pbee ghm.
Fbeetkw Ybeefhkx

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Francis Bacon  

Truth is the daughter of time William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-30-20
Truth is the daughter of time William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 1-30-20

Säkkijärven polkka William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-29-20

The Finnish Army during the Continuation War with Russia played a polka to keep the Reds from detonating radio controlled mines. Specifically, it was the Säkkijärven polkka or Karelian-Finnish Polka. It worked. It was played almost continuously at the front from September 1941 to Feb. 2, 1942.

Säkkijärven polkka William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-29-20
If I heard that for five months straight, I would have surrendered
Säkkijärven polkka William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-29-20

H-2B Visas Hurt American Wages

H-2B Visas Hurt American Wages

By Joe Guzzardi

In what has become an annual display of businesses’ addiction to cheap labor, commerce leaders are lobbying the acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Chad Wolf, to increase the H-2B visa cap. The H-2B is a seasonal, temporary, nonagricultural visa with a current 66,000 cap, and is frequently used in landscaping, hospitality and construction industries – blue-collar jobs where wages have been stagnant for years. Last year, the cap was increased by 30,000 visas.

H-2B Visas Hurt American Wages



Adding foreign-born workers to an economy that President Trump touts as the greatest in America’s history would be counter-productive and hurtful to middle-class U.S. workers who are just starting to benefit from a tight labor market. A record-high 158.8 million Americans are currently employed.

The H-2B visa has a long history of being used by employers to pass over qualified Americans and, under the false labor shortage narrative, hire instead cheap, pliant foreign-born labor. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report confirmed that multiple employers in numerous states violated wage, housing and documentation standards among H-2B workers. And a Buzz Feed News exposé based on Labor Department statistics and titled “All You Americans Are Fired” found that “many businesses go to extraordinary lengths to skirt the law, deliberately denying jobs to American workers so they can hire foreign workers….”

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office reported that mass immigration, which the U.S. has experienced for decades, adversely affects the wages of Americans who compete directly with new immigrants for employment. Expansionists argue that immigration grows the economy, a half-truth. More people mean a bigger economy, but per capita income suffers. From the CBO: “And there are many new immigrant workers to compete with. Immigrants account for about half of all newcomers to the workforce each year.” The CBO concluded that wages are negatively affected in whatever category in which American workers must compete in a labor market artificially inflated by mass immigration.

The degree to which Americans have suffered because of a surfeit of immigrant labor is eye-opening. Census Bureau data from the first quarter of 2019 show that 5 million adult immigrants without a bachelor’s degree have been allowed to settle in the country just since 2010. As a result, wages have stagnated or declined for the less educated. Since 2000, the bottom quarter of earners saw just a 4.3 percent real-wage increase – equivalent to an annual raise of just 0.2 percent. An immigrant labor overage most adversely affects teenagers, U.S.-born blacks and other minorities.

Despite pleas from big business that H-2B visa hikes are necessary to offset an acute labor shortage, and even avoid bankruptcy, numerous nonpartisan studies find no evidence of scarcity. Among other respected bipartisan organizations, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal, pro-immigration, Washington, D.C.-based research firm found “no evidence at all of labor shortages in the labor market.”

The H-2B visa has been so flawed for so long, and has been so harmful to American workers, that even hard-core pro-immigration Democratic senators have written to Wolf and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia urging them to reject corporate crocodile tears about worker shortages. Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Conn. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Ill. Senator Richard Durbin, all of whom throughout their long congressional careers have consistently voted in favor of more employment-based visas, joined their Republican colleagues Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley and Ark. Sen. Tom Cotton to object to increases in the existing 66,000 cap. In their letter to Wolf and Scalia, the senators asserted that the H-2B visa incentivizes employers to hire foreign nationals and pass over qualified Americans.

President Trump is the wild card in the equation. From time to time, the president has demonstrated an understanding about how excessive immigration hurts American workers. But President Trump’s recent comments about the need for more skilled immigration, talking points taken straight from the Chamber of Commerce’s playbook, have the pro-American labor lobby on edge. As is often said around Capitol Hill, when it comes to President Trump’s thinking, no one ever knows.


Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

H-2B Visas Hurt American Wages