Category: Joe Guzzardi

Trump Unloads on ‘Woke’ UN

By Joe Guzzardi

Even President Donald Trump’s millions of critics cannot deny one central aspect of his character that has kept him at the forefront of U.S. presidential politics for more than a decade: Trump takes all questions, even from the most hostile reporters who have written bias stories about him. When Trump finishes his reply, everyone in the room knows exactly where he stands. Most politicians, as they climb the political ladder, encourage questions but then do their best to dodge actually answering them. Trump breaks this mold.

Trump’s candid speaking style enabled him to secure the 2016 GOP presidential nomination against overwhelming odds. The 13½-month primary campaign began on March 23, 2015, when Texas Senator Ted Cruz entered the race, and ended on May 4, 2016, when John Kasich, former Ohio governor and nine-term U.S. Representative, conceded to Trump’s inevitable victory.

Throughout the campaign, Trump proved nimbler on his feet than his 17 opponents, all of whom had more direct political experience than the newcomer. His rivals included Cruz, Kasich, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and former three-term New York Governor George Pataki. The New York Times described the presidential field as “tough and talented.”

After defeating his Republican opponents and his Democratic nemesis Hillary Clinton in debates hosted by NBC, CBS, and Fox News never-Trumper Mike Wallace, Trump won the presidency. His electoral successes shared a common denominator: straight talk that audiences might disagree with but would always leave them knowing exactly where he stood.

This background sets the stage for Trump’s approach to international forums like the United Nations General Assembly, where member nations may have anticipated his direct style when he spoke to them recently but were likely unprepared for the bluntness of his remarks. Trump addressed two of what he considered the world’s most pressing challenges: climate change, which he condemned as a fraudulent, budget-draining “con job,” and illegal immigration, which he referred to as “migration.”

Speaking from his position of strength—having implemented strict border policies that shut down the southwest border—the president urged assembled nations to stop “ruining” their countries with unchecked that facilitate illegal immigration. Trump criticized the UN, London mayor Sadiq Khan, European countries facilitating “uncontrolled migration,” Russian President Vladimir Putin, countries recognizing Palestinian statehood, former President Joe Biden, renewable energy initiatives, and what he called the “climate change hoax—the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” He promoted an anti-globalist agenda throughout his remarks.

“Europe is in serious trouble,” Trump declared. “They have been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe, and nobody’s doing anything to change it or get them out. It’s not sustainable. Because they choose to be politically correct, they’re doing absolutely nothing about it.”

Trump hammered the UN for “creating new problems for us to solve,” referencing its refugee agency UNHCR, which receives billions in U.S. taxpayer funding and provides cash debit cards to illegal aliens along migration routes, further enabling a mass immigration crisis that American citizens neither want nor can afford.

Citing statistics from the Council of Europe, Trump stated: “In 2024, almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants. In Austria, the number was 53%. In Greece, it was 54%. And in Switzerland—beautiful Switzerland—72% of prison inmates are from outside of Switzerland.”

Trump specifically criticized London’s Mayor Khan, calling him “terrible” and claiming that London “has been so changed” that “now they want to go to Sharia law, but you’re in a different country—you can’t do that.” He argued that both immigration policies and “suicidal energy ideas” would “be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately.”

Trump emphasized the importance of national sovereignty: “What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique, but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders. You have the right to control your borders, as we do now, and to limit the numbers of migrants entering their countries—paid for by the people of that nation who built that particular country with their blood, sweat, tears, and money. Now they’re being ruined.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage offered perhaps the most insightful commentary, suggesting that with Trump, people should “never take what he says literally, ever, on anything, but always take everything he says seriously. Farage continued, “He makes a comment and you might disagree with the tone, you might disagree with the context, you might disagree with the number that he puts out, but you find that what he says has a point.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

For Rosh Hashanah, Ron Blomberg Was First Designated Hitter

By Joe Guzzardi

Ron Blomberg, baseball’s first designated hitter, grew up in Atlanta where hearing anti-Semitic slurs was a regular part of his young life. As Blomberg recalled, “I heard it. I saw it. My parents [Billie Rae and Sol] had always told me you have to have a strong faith, you will always have adversities in life, people will be against the Jews, that I had to watch out for it and had to be a lot stronger. If somebody said something to me along those lines, it made me even stronger. My conviction was strong.” Blomberg’s childhood dream of playing for the New York Yankees and in front of the Bronx’s large Jewish population came true when the Yankees made Blomberg their first free agent choice in 1967. Said Blomberg, “To be able to play in front of eight million Jews! Can’t beat it. I lit everyone’s candles for every bar mitzvah in the city.”

It’s no fault of Blomberg’s that the designated hitter (DH) ruined baseball’s reputation as the thinking man’s game, a well-earned nickname. To understand, imagine that Pittsburgh Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh’s 1958 team is clinging to a 1-0 lead against pennant race rival Milwaukee in the bottom of the eighth. Starting pitcher Bob Friend is tossing a gem and has held Braves sluggers Joe Adcock, Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews at bay. The Pirates have two runners in scoring position. But it’s Friend’s turn to bat and he’s a career .148 hitter. Sending in a pinch hitter is the obvious move, but Murtaugh’s bullpen is tired and his bench, thin. Murtaugh’s decision, right or wrong, is the stuff of great baseball high drama and will be debated on the air, in print and at the dinner table. The DH relegates one of baseball’s biggest appeals—second-guessing the manager, the old Hot Stove League pastime—to the dustbin.

The idea of a DH was first raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906. Mack saw the DH’s value not necessarily as an option to generate offense but to save wear and tear on his pitcher’s legs. Owners rebuffed Mack’s concept as too radical. Prominent pitchers also rejected the idea of giving up hitting. In 1910, Hall of Fame twirler Addie Joss stated, “If there is one thing that a pitcher would rather do than make the opposing batsmen look foolish, it is to step to the plate, especially in a pinch, and deliver the much-needed hit.” A 1918 article in Baseball Magazine quoted Babe Ruth, who stated, “The pitcher who can’t get in there in the pinch and win his own game with a healthy wallop isn’t more than half earning his salary in my way of thinking.”

The DH, which American League owners foolishly put into place in 1973, has taken much out of the game but added little, least of all the clutch hitting the rule was supposed to supply. Instead of more excitement, the DH created endless rounds of silliness as the American League adopted the idea first, but the National League didn’t follow until several years later. During the World Series, games played in American League stadiums used the DH; games in National League stadiums did not. The annual All-Star Game also juggled DHs depending on which league hosted the game. Finally, on February 10, 2022, Commissioner Rob Manfred, who never met a rule change he didn’t embrace, announced that a universal DH would begin with the 2022 season. The rule was ratified as part of a new collective bargaining agreement with the MLBPA.

An outfielder/first baseman, Blomberg’s career started with a bang. An injury to Yankees veteran Roy White opened a 1969 roster slot and Blomberg took full advantage. He started in right field in a home game against Washington on June 25 and went 2-for-5 with two hits, including a two-run homer, two RBIs and two runs scored in the Yankees’ 12-2 victory. Four days later he went 3-for-4 against Cleveland, driving in two more runs as New York pasted the Tribe, 9-2. He clubbed two home runs in a game at Minnesota on August 1 and two more round-trippers at Kansas City on August 28. In 64 games, Blomberg batted .322 with seven home runs and 31 RBIs.

By 1973, Blomberg had a new role as the Yankees’ DH. Unsure exactly what that involved, manager Ralph Houk explained to him, “You get up to bat, you take your four swings, you drive in runs, you come back to the bench, and you keep loose in the runway. You’re basically pinch-hitting for the pitcher four times in the same game.” The Yankees opened 1973 against arch-rival Boston at Fenway Park. Blomberg was penciled in as the sixth batter on manager Houk’s lineup card. Boston’s DH was Orlando Cepeda, the former NL star who signed with the Red Sox in the off-season after playing a year in Oakland in 1972. Red Sox skipper Eddie Kasko slated Cepeda to hit in the five-hole. Since the Yankee-Red Sox tilt was the first game scheduled on the AL docket, Blomberg was the first-ever official DH batter. With the bases loaded, Blomberg drew a walk from Sox starter Luis Tiant, which allowed the runner on third to score for an RBI. For the day, Blomberg went 1-for-3; Cepeda, an inglorious 0-for-6.

Injuries cut Blomberg’s Yankees time short, and in 1978, he finished up with one unhappy, unproductive season with the Chicago White Sox. His career statistics included a .293 batting average with 52 home runs and 224 RBIs. Blomberg’s stats are not up to Hall of Fame standards, but his first DH bat and the uniform he wore that historic day are on display. In retirement, Blomberg stays close to baseball. He runs the Ron Blomberg Baseball camp and is one of the most popular instructors at the Yankees fantasy camp. He does some high school and college scouting for the Yankees from his suburban Atlanta home. In 2007, Blomberg managed the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox of the first-ever Israel Baseball League. In 2008, Blomberg and Dan Schlossberg co-authored his autobiography, Designated Hebrew.

Blomberg, age 77, is in high demand as a motivational speaker, telling his story of perseverance and success. “Boomer,” as his Yankee teammates called him, works with the Israel Cancer Research Fund, where he serves as honorary chairman. He resides in Roswell, Georgia, where by all accounts he’s a great guy and generous to all.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Chicago Killing Fields

By Joe Guzzardi

Years ago, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band released a popular song titled ‘Born in Chicago.‘ Butterfield’s song talked about a group of young friends that, while politicians debated gun control, are shot to death on Chicago’s tough streets. Over the issue of safe Chicago streets, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have painted themselves into a tight corner. They cannot intelligently deny that crime is a huge problem in Chicago. Yet Pritzker and Johnson rail against the possibility that President Trump may send in the National Guard to stem citywide violence. Illinois Policy (IP) analysts found that Chicago residents reported 25,000 or more violent crimes since 2004. The 2025 summer was particularly deadly—June 22, summer’s first weekend, saw 23 people shot, 2 fatally; Independence Day weekend, 44 shot, 6 killed; Labor Day weekend at least 55 shot, 8 dead. IPI also found that black and Hispanic Chicagoans made up 95% of the city’s homicide victims during the past 12 months. Blacks were 20 times more likely to be homicide victims than white residents, while Hispanics were 4.7 times more likely. Chicago’s FBI head Doug de Podesta said that the agency had just wrapped up Operation Summer Heat, in which 25 murderers, gun runners, and fentanyl dealers were arrested. As IP summarized, crimes were up; arrests down.

Yet despite the carnage, resistance to federal intercession is fierce. Johnson, whose favorability rating recently bottomed out at 7%, signed an executive order establishing the Protecting Chicago Initiative and launching a Family Preparedness Campaign in multiple languages to educate families on how to prepare for potential detention by federal agents. Chicago, Johnson emphasized, “will be ready for anything and everything,” and he suggested that innocent grandmothers could be thrown into the back of unmarked vans and hauled away. Pritzker, a probable presidential candidate, said about President Trump’s commitment to send in the National Guard: “Let’s be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here.” He insisted that there’s “no emergency” in Chicago that warrants federal intervention and argued that any federal action was not about fighting crime or making Chicago safer but instead about targeting blue and Democratic-led cities.

An alternative that neither Johnson nor Pritzker has considered could protect Chicago’s citizens, enhance their political futures, and save face. Accept the president’s offer to help. The mayor and the governor both know that National Guard intervention has not only made Washington, D.C., a safer place but has converted Mayor Muriel Bowser from skeptic to a true believer. On September 1, just before President Trump’s emergency order that tackled D.C. crime was set to expire, Bowser signed an order requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with their federal peers “to the maximum extent allowable by law within the District.” Bowser’s order extends through December. Last month, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith issued a similar order allowing her officers to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and detain illegal immigrants.  A baseless law suit that activist D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed on September 4 against the Trump administration doesn’t change the fact that Washington is a safer place and that the president, who presides over a federal enclave, has the authority to send in the troops.

Chicago minorities, located mostly on the city’s west and south sides where much of the violence occurs, want law and order. They want illegal aliens deported from their communities, where their unlawful presence has disturbed local lifestyles, disrupted schools and helped create a $1.15 billion Chicago budget deficit. In San Francisco, however, Judge Charles Breyer ruled that when President Trump sent in 300 National Guard troops to restore order during the ICE protests—which saw criminals throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at agents—he broke the law. While Breyer wrote that the National Guard members still in Los Angeles can remain and “continue to protect federal property in a manner consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act,” he stayed his ruling until the following week, giving Trump a chance to appeal. Breyer’s ruling presents a moment for the White House to reflect before moving on to Chicago or anywhere else.

But Johnson and Pritzker have a path out: call President Trump to request that he send in the troops. If the National Guard fails, the mayor and governor can claim victory—federal involvement changed nothing. But if crime decreases, they can still declare a win—they recognized that strong steps had to be taken, and they took them. Back in the White House, President Trump can also take a bow. Winners all around are the best way to dampen hostility.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Trump Must Slash Employment Visa

By Joe Guzzardi

President Donald Trump has a second golden opportunity to end the H-1B visa program that, since it became commonly used in the early 1990s, has displaced millions of qualified Americans.

During his first presidency, Trump—who campaigned on a “Hire American” platform—let the opportunity to cut 85,000 H-1B visa foreign nationals from the labor market and replace them with U.S. tech workers slip through his hands. In 2017, President Trump’s first year in the White House, the H-1B visa represented a grave threat to U.S. tech workers and recent college graduates seeking entry-level, white-collar technology jobs. Today, the tech job market is more dire.

A recent social media post revealed depressing statistics that America First supporters should note. President Trump must examine these numbers closely and end the job-destroying H-1B program. In 2024, 384 tech companies—including Cisco Systems, Intel, mMicrosoft, Meta, and Amazon—laid off 124,000 workers. Combined with the 428,449 tech workers who lost their jobs in 2022 and 2023, plus those laid-off in 2025, the employment picture is ominous. In the current year to date, 100,000 jobs were cut. Meanwhile, H-1B petitions hit the fiscal year cap within six months, and foreign nationals received 82% of all new tech jobs. Offshoring has reached record highs, with entire shadow economies emerging worldwide to replace American tech jobs which led to office closures across the nation. Meta, Microsoft, Instagram, and Walmart Tech have shut offices in Austin, Portland, Menlo Park, and other IT centers. U.S.-based employers have expanded hiring abroad faster than domestically for the past seven years—a trend especially evident among tech and consulting firms.

Salesforce, having recently announced major Bay Area workforce layoffs, provides a good example. Concurrently, over the past five years, the company has shifted its employee base increasingly to international hires. Salesforce is not alone: U.S.-headquartered multinational enterprises that employ workers both abroad (offshore) and domestically (onshore) have grown their offshore workforce faster in recent years than their onshore workforce. Among these companies, the number of offshore workers grew by 32% since 2019, while those employed onshore grew by 16.7%—a net 15.3% increase in offshore employment.

President Trump has done outstanding work securing the Southwest border. Within six months, border apprehensions dropped to zero—an all-time monthly low. Now is the time for the president to turn his attention to ending the dozens of temporary non-immigrant visas that include work authorization. He should start by curtailing the H-1B, an idea that first came to him in June 2020. More than five years ago, President Trump signed an Executive Order that directed the Secretaries of Labor and Homeland Security to take appropriate actions within 45 days to protect any adverse effects on wages and working conditions caused by H-1B visa holders including doing work at 3rd party sites.

Nothing productive came of that EO perhaps because by November President Trump would be a lame duck. At a recent White House AI summit, however, President Trump hinted that he’s again leaning in the right direction. For too long, the president said, much of America’s tech industry has pursued “radical globalism” that left millions of Americans feeling “distrustful and betrayed.” Many of our largest tech companies, the president continued, “have reaped the blessings of American freedom while building their factories in China, hiring in India, and shifting profits to Ireland. All the while dismissing [via H-1B hires] and even censoring their fellow citizens right here at home. Under President Trump, those days are over.”

Congress has also taken notice of the negative impact the H-1B visa has in academia. Representatives Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and Andrew Clyde (R-GA) introduced the Colleges for the American People Act, or CAP Act, which would end the long-standing H-1B visa cap exemption for U.S. colleges and universities. If enacted, all prospective foreign hires seeking to enter on a U.S. visa—including administrators and professors—would be required to compete under the existing visa cap. Wisconsin Right Now found that the University of Wisconsin System employs nearly 500 foreign workers on H-1B visas, earning salaries totaling almost $43 million annually—income that could have gone to qualified U.S. citizens.

Guest worker visa programs have operated on autopilot for so long that both Republican and Democratic administrations have either forgotten about or stopped caring about its collective and devastating effect on the domestic labor market. In 2024, an estimated 740,000 H-1B holders and an additional 100,000 H-4B visas designated for H-1B holders’ spouses were issued. Another j500,000 work-authorized foreign nationals with temporary, unnecessary visas compete with Americans for employment in a shrinking labor market.

For President Trump to fulfill his America First agenda, he must slash legal visas that allow temporary workers easy access to blue and white-collar jobs yet rarely require them to return home. He should take aim at the biggest offender—the H-1B visa, which President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall called “one of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems.” Ample evidence from left-leaning and conservative think tanks supports Marshall’s brutally honest assessment of the H-1B visa.

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Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

 100th Anniversary Of The Great Independence Day Pitching Duel

By Joe Guzzardi

On Independence Day 100 years ago—July 4, 1925—50,000 baseball bugs flocked to Yankee Stadium to watch the traditional holiday double-dip between two teams that had fallen from their American League pinnacles.

The Philadelphia Athletics, led by manager/owner Connie Mack—”Mr. Mack” to the baseball world—were between two dynasties. Mack had led his A’s to pennants from 1910-1914, and with his $100,000 Infield and pitchers Eddie Plank, Albert “Chief” Bender, and Rube Waddell, won three World Series during that period. But when the nascent Federal League raided MLB teams, Mack chose not to engage in bidding wars for his players. Instead, he sold or traded his superstars and rebuilt a second dynasty that included Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, one of baseball’s best hitting catchers, and Jimmy Foxx, who hit 30 or more home runs in 12 consecutive seasons and drove in 100 or more runs in 13 straight campaigns.

The Yankees had also plunged from American League royalty. In 1925, the Yankees would finish in seventh place with a 69-85 record, 30 games behind the pennant-winning Washington Senators. The team’s biggest concern in 1925 was Babe Ruth’s illness, also referred to as the “Bellyache Heard Around the World.” Ruth had persistent high fevers during spring training, and after an early-season game, he fainted at an Asheville, North Carolina train station. Upon arrival in New York, the Yankees rushed Ruth to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where surgeons operated. Some reports claimed it was influenza, but this wasn’t the consensus opinion. Whispers circulated that he might never play again and that “the true nature of his illness was being kept secret”—an inference that the culprit was, at best, excessive hot dog consumption or too much bootleg whiskey, or at worst, venereal disease. Concerns about Ruth’s fate spread worldwide. Sportswriter W.O. McGeehan penned the lasting story that Ruth’s ailment resulted from eating a dozen hot dogs, and a legend was born. The Dundee (Scotland) Daily Telegraph headline read: “BASEBALL FANS GET SHOCK: IDOL OF THE CROWDS REPORTED DEAD!”

A few days after Ruth’s release from St. Vincent’s, on June 1, Ruth made his 1925 debut. Independence Day fans harbored modest expectations from the great Bambino. In 1925, Ruth suffered through his worst season. For most players, batting .290 with 25 home runs in half a season would be outstanding, but not for the Sultan of Swat.

Although fan hopes may have been modest, in Game One they witnessed one of the greatest all-time pitching duels  between two Hall of Fame left-handers: the Yankees’ Herb Pennock and the A’s Robert “Lefty” Grove. The hurlers had dramatically different personalities and pitching styles. Pennock was a laid-back, humble Pennsylvania Quaker who placed soft curves on the corners; Grove was a short-tempered flame-thrower. Baseball historians rate Grove as one of the three best left-handed pitchers ever, along with Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax. Grove’s nine ERA titles, seven strikeout crowns, and his .680 winning percentage (300-141) represent the highest among 300-game winners and sixth-best overall in the modern era.

When Pennock took the mound, fans settled back to watch the crafty lefty set down batters one-two-three. A big zero went up on the scoreboard for the A’s. More zeros followed through 15 innings. Pennock’s challenge was Grove, who matched the crafty Kennett Square hurler goose egg for goose egg until the bottom of the 15th, when Yankees catcher Steve O’Neill knocked in the winning run with a sacrifice fly.

Pennock faced 47 batters—two over the minimum—surrendered four hits, struck out five, and didn’t walk a batter. After the game, Grove said, “I was breaking my back trying to knock bats out of their hands, and Pennock was just lobbing the ball up there.” Pennock had once been on the A’s roster, and Mack always regretted the day he released him. In World Series play, Pennock amassed a 5-0 career win-loss record with three saves, becoming the second pitcher to win five World Series games, after another A’s ace, Jack Coombs. Pennock was part of seven World Series championship teams —1913, 1915, 1916, 1923, 1927, 1928, and 1932—, though he played on four World Series winning teams as an active member.

Although not as spectacular as Pennock in World Series play, Grove posted a 4-2 record with a 1.75 ERA. After Grove retired from the Boston Red Sox in 1941, he mellowed, coached youth baseball, and operated his bowling alleys. He passed away at age 75. Pennock, on the other hand, remained baseball-active in his post-playing career. He coached in the Red Sox farm system, then moved up to become the Red Sox pitching and first-base coach. Pennock later became the Philadelphia Phillies’ general manager. In 1948, in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel lobby, Pennock, age 53, collapsed and died from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Pennock and Grove were among baseball’s best, but their accomplishments are, sadly, fading from fans’ memories.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research historian. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Dodgers’ Dicey Relationship With Immigration Law

By Joe Guzzardi

For an organization that the Federal Bureau of Investigation once probed for possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations regarding their involvement with human traffickers and document forgers, the Los Angeles Dodgers have adopted high-and-mighty airs. Since no legal avenue exists to travel from communist Cuba to the United States, the Department of Justice wondered how, in 2012, the Dodgers managed to get outfielder Yasiel Puig to Los Angeles.

Sports Illustrated, in a weekly magazine article titled “Inside the Underbelly,” wrote that it obtained a large dossier of information that was originally provided to the FBI. The dossier included videotapes, photographs, confidential legal briefs, receipts, copies of player visas and passport documents, internal emails, and private communications among franchise executives. The evidence pointed to how smugglers access underground pipelines to ferry prospects from Cuba to Haiti or Mexico—waystations to MLB riches. The Dodgers, with their extensive scouting operations throughout the Caribbean, were prominently featured in the FBI dossier, which described efforts to circumvent federal and MLB laws. Puig, for example, paid Florida businessman Gilberto Suarez $2.5 million from his $42 million Dodgers bonus to help him travel from Mexico, where he had been holed up in a cheap seedy motel, to Los Angeles. The DOJ found evidence of shredded documents and large-scale forgeries. The criminal activity reached its peak when Cuban Jose Abreu testified under oath before a grand jury that, prior to his arrival in Miami from another smuggler’s route through Haiti, he ate his fake passport and washed it down with a Heineken. “I knew I could not arrive in the U.S. with a false passport,” Abreu said before signing his $68 million contract with the Chicago White Sox.

The recent dust-up outside of Dodger Stadium consisted of a relatively small group of malcontents, unemployed agitators, and immigration activists. The gathering was responding to an NBC News report that quoted Eunisses Hernandez, a Los Angeles City Council member, who alleged that she received calls early in the morning stating that “federal agents were staging here at the entrance of Dodger Stadium. We got pictures of dozens of vehicles and dozens of agents.”

The Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to deny that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had plans to take removal action in or around Dodger Stadium. DHS replied via X: “This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement.” In the meantime, the Dodgers boasted that they blocked ICE from entering their grounds.

Prohibiting federal law enforcement from entering and conducting lawful business constitutes a federal crime; “The current policy allows ICE agents to enter public areas without permission.”  Independent journalist Ali Bradley provided the backstory, reporting: “CBP teams went to Hollywood Home Depot to make apprehensions. They did, and we’re going to transfer the illegal aliens to transport vans off Sunset Boulevard, but when things escalated outside of Home Depot, they went to an open parking lot at Dodger Stadium to make the consolidated transfer. Agents say no one came over and told them to leave.”

In his book “Baseball Cop: The Dark Side of America’s National Pastime,” Eduardo Dominguez, a decorated Boston police officer, a FBI agent and then a MLB Department of Investigations task force member documented his ongoing efforts to alert MLB executives to the trafficking crimes that brought Cuban players to their teams. Aiding and abetting and human trafficking are federal crimes, and cases could potentially be made against major league teams that sign Cuban players. MLB ignored Dominguez’s warnings but instead attempted to suppress his well-received book’s publication. MLB desperately sought to prevent public access to the book and hired law firm Clare Locke to threaten Dominguez and his publisher with defamation lawsuits if the book were published. Later fired, Dominguez said that he could not understand how MLB was so dismissive of a federal investigation’s findings.

The Dodgers are more than just a baseball team—they are a politically progressive, DEI-focused multibillion-dollar business that acts in what it perceives as its best interests, including misrepresenting what occurred with ICE. MLB operates as a collective $79 billion industry, with the Dodgers representing a $6.9 billion segment of that market. In a word salad announcement,  the Dodgers pledged $1 million—an infinitesimal fraction of the team’s value—to assist illegal immigrant families who claim to be adversely affected by ICE operations. The Dodgers and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred maintain in-house legal counsel and have immediate phone call access to the nation’s most experienced outside attorneys. They should rely on that legal expertise to assess the validity of DHS immigration removal operations when they occur.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ fan base should recognize the reality of their team’s transformation. The Dodgers are no longer the romanticized “Boys of Summer“–they are multimillion-dollar athletes employed by billionaire corporate executives who show criminal disregard for federal immigration laws.

 Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@iffsp.org

The Reality Of The Housing Crisis

By Joe Guzzardi

For stumping political candidates, vowing to build affordable housing remains one of their biggest rallying cries. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris promised three million new housing units over four years, along with tax incentives and $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time buyers. Harris also proposed a whopping $40 billion innovation fund that would empower local governments to fund and support community solutions for housing construction.

When she made her campaign promise, Harris had been hearing about affordable housing from her Democratic peers for more than 20 years. In 2002, then-California Governor Gray Davis signed a package of bills designed to address the state’s housing crisis. Davis promised that the package would provide “new, affordable housing being built all across the state. More families will have the American dream of home ownership within their grasp.” Two decades later, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a 56-bill package that he said would “incentivize and reduce barriers to housing and support the development of more affordable homes.” As of April 30, 2025, Newsom’s vision for the California home market remained deeply flawed, with a median sale price of $910,000 for houses on that date.

Governors Janet Mills of Maine, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Maura Healey of Massachusetts have all bemoaned home shortages and signed multi-million-dollar bills they hope will solve the problem of high housing demand and limited supply. Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act, which authorized $5.2 billion to be spent on housing over the next five years and established 50 policy initiatives to counter rising prices. Fifty policy initiatives may be overkill—too many cooks spoil the broth. As Edward Pinto, senior fellow and co-director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center, noted, it’s “much, much harder” for the government to pass “supply-side proposals” compared with efforts that generate demand by making home-buying easier for consumers. Pinto concluded that Harris’s plan was worse than doing nothing.

Then-candidate and former President Donald Trump also discussed ways to increase housing supply as part of his presidential campaign proposals. “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction,” Trump said in an August 15 press conference. “We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”

Since President Trump’s election, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced plans to identify federal lands where affordable housing could be built. Turner and Burgum will launch the Joint Task Force on Federal Land for Housing to find underutilized lands for residential development and to streamline the process of transferring lands for housing use.

In their Wall Street Journal op-ed, they promoted the plans as a way to increase housing supply and lower costs for Americans. They wrote:

    “Working together, our agencies can take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable—all while ensuring affordability remains at the core of the mission.”

The Interior Department oversees more than 500 million acres of federal land, and the department contends that much of it is suitable for residential use. However, implementation would likely take decades, if it happens at all. Most of the developable land is in western states like California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado, said Bureau of Land Management Director Jon Raby. The lands vary widely, ranging from deserts and grasslands to mountains and forests. Moreover, most of the federal government’s land—whether west or east—lacks the required water and sewage infrastructure to support new communities. Environmental groups are concerned that development will adversely affect wildlife habitat. As BLM’s Raby noted, “People love their public lands. Every acre is important to somebody.”

Nowhere in HUD or DOI’s planning is a commitment to scrutinize sustainability. The constant factor in affordable housing is population growth. With more than one million legal immigrants admitted annually and chain migration—which allows each immigrant to petition for an average of three non-nuclear family members who can eventually petition their own families—housing developments, even those built in remote areas, will eventually be overwhelmed. Reducing the number of people competing for existing affordable housing would automatically create more of this elusive commodity.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguuzzardi@ifspp.org

The Reality Of The Housing Crisis

Assessing Katie Hobbs

By Joe Guzzardi

Of the 1,287,891 Arizonans who cast their 2022 gubernatorial votes for Democrat Katie Hobbs to replace termed-out Republican Doug Ducey, at least 25% would likely want to take their votes back. Hobbs has proven to be, at best, ineffective and, at worst, a viable threat to national security.

Hobbs’ latest gubernatorial action, consistent with her apparent indifference to Arizonans’ well-being, was to veto Republican-backed Senate Bill 1109. The bill’s objective was to prevent nationals from the People’s Republic of China from purchasing Arizona property. The measure sought to add Arizona to the growing list of states that, because of national security concerns, ban the communist nation from acquiring U.S. land.

In her veto message, Hobbs stated that while protecting infrastructure is important, the bill is “ineffective at counterespionage and does not directly protect our military assets.” Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp, who sponsored SB 1109, slammed Hobbs for the veto and called out the governor for threatening state and national security. Shamp pointed to China’s recent effort to lease property near Luke Air Force Base in the west Phoenix suburb of Glendale. Luke serves as a primary training base for F-35 stealth fighter pilots from the U.S. and several allies.

The bill also applied to Chinese citizens unless they are permanent U.S. residents. The only exception was for homes on less than two acres located at least 50 miles from a military base or 25 miles from a military practice range—meaning not in Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, or Sierra Vista.

The “Veto Queen”

Around Arizona, Hobbs has earned the nickname “Veto Queen.” She has already smashed the Arizona veto record during her first two years as governor, killing 216 bills: 143 in 2023 and 73 in 2024. Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano previously held the record with 181 bills vetoed from 2003-09. Hobbs is running up her winning margin, with 138 vetoes so far this year including SB 1109, as she approaches surpassing her 2023 record.

In defiance of the Department of Homeland Security, Hobbs has vetoed multiple Republican-backed bills that would have forced cooperation with federal immigration and deportation efforts, including three border-related bills on May 12. The Democratic governor’s vetoes demonstrate that she will not embrace federal immigration law, even as the Republican-majority Legislature advances the Trump administration’s priorities on enforcement and deportation. Hobbs frequently states that Arizonans will determine Arizona’s future, not the federal government—a position that could put her on the Department of Justice’s list of states that defy the Supremacy Clause.

Questionable Campaign and Early Actions

Hobbs’ 2022 candidacy raised ethical questions. As the then-Secretary of State, Hobbs was responsible for certifying the gubernatorial election results—a clear conflict of interest since she was in a tight race against Kari Lake. Once she won the nomination, Hobbs ran a Biden-like campaign: she refused to debate Lake and avoided reporters and their questions. Immediately after Hobbs’ paper-thin victory, inquiries arose about Maricopa County’s malfunctioning electronic voting machines and mail-in ballot validity. Maricopa is Arizona’s largest county and leans Republican.

From the start, Hobbs proved herself an open-borders advocate. In her 2023 inaugural address, she promised to extend the Arizona Promise Scholarship Program to illegal aliens attending state universities and colleges. Before Title 42 ended, Hobbs established five new bus routes from border communities to Tucson, overwhelming the city to accommodate undocumented immigrants.

Ongoing Legal and Financial Issues

The governor’s problems are ongoing. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled that Hobbs violated state law when she appointed 13 de facto state agency heads to sidestep the Senate confirmation process. This judicial rebuke represents only the tip of the iceberg regarding Hobbs’ legal troubles.

Her $2 million taxpayer-funded Super Bowl LVII celebration included open-bar parties, 70 hotel rooms at the high-end Arizona Biltmore, sponsorships, and free tickets valued at between $4,000 and $40,000 for teachers, staffers, and political allies. This extravagance drew criticism in a state struggling to provide essential services like helping the homeless and funding responses to the growing illegal alien immigrant presence at Arizona’s southern border.

Pay-for-Play Allegations

The most serious charge against Hobbs involves alleged pay-for-play schemes. Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Thomas Shope demanded an investigation after reports emerged that Sunshine Residential Homes, which donated $400,000 to Hobbs, received an exclusive daily care rate increase from Hobbs’ Department of Child Safety (DCS). The reports alleged that Sunshine’s daily rate increased from $149 to $195 per child while DCS denied rate increases to similar service providers. The Democratic Attorney General has acknowledged that her office has begun an investigation.

Political Future in Question

Hobbs often boasts that she has never lost an election. However, with border politics likely to be at the forefront of voters’ minds and state issues close behind in her now-long-shot reelection bid next year, the question more commonly heard around Arizona is: “How can she win?”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Assessing Katie Hobbs

Xi’s Daughter Is Harvard Grad

By Joe Guzzardi

The Trump administration is spot on in its decision to slow foreign-born students’ arrival on F-1 student and M-1 vocational visas. The administration has halted scheduling of new student visa appointments at U.S. embassies abroad as the State Department prepares to expand social media vetting of foreign students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently announced that the U.S. would “aggressively revoke” some Chinese students’ visas, especially those enrolled in sensitive courses of study or with CCP ties. Future visa requests from China and Hong Kong will be more diligently vetted. Immigration officials are revoking dozens of student visas, with many more cases going unreported at small colleges anxious to avoid federal scrutiny. The battle between the administration and America’s oldest university has entered a new front.

More than 1.1 million international students are enrolled at America’s academic institutions. At Harvard, the administration’s focal point in its battle on behalf of fairness for U.S. high school applicants and intensified national security, about 27% or 6,800 of the student body is foreign-born, a point of pride at the elite Ivy League institution which promotes diversity, equity and inclusion. Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem ordered her department to “terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification”, citing that “Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals.” This action would have meant the school could no longer enroll new foreign students, and that current foreign students must either “transfer or lose their legal status.” However, a federal court has temporarily granted Harvard’s motion, allowing the university to continue enrolling international students and scholars as the case proceeds through litigation.

President Trump’s proposed 15% cap on Harvard’s foreign-born students as a percentage of total enrollment may not be sufficiently restrictive. The time is overdue for a complete recalibration on U.S. visa policy starting with the F-1. The administration’s goal should be to return the F-1 visa to its original guidelines which allowed foreign students to study in the U.S., but with a requirement that their visas had to be renewed every year. Such a condition would tamp down on violent anti-Semitic rioting. Moreover, the fundamental F-1 concept required that the international students would put their American educations to use by returning home to improve their nation’s well-being. At the time, optional practical training (OPT), circular practical training (CPT), and STEM OPT did not exist.

Here’s today’s breakdown on international students’ distribution through academic year 2023/2024. Graduate students: 502,291, an 8% increase year-over-year and an all-time high; OPT: a record high of 242,782 students, an increase of 22% from the prior year. Most foreign-born students, 56%, studied in the STEM fields, 25% studied math and computer science while 19% studied engineering. The number of international undergraduates remained stable at 342,875. The top two sending countries are India and China. Since admission to a Chinese university is virtually impossible for an American, many question why the U.S. should permit any Chinese students. The increases were most pronounced at public colleges and universities, which faced budget cuts during the Great Recession and began to rely more heavily on tuition from foreign students. With visa policies tightening under the current administration, consular officers are expected to be more cautious in approving F-1 applications, and visa denials are expected to rise in 2026.

Because employers don’t have to pay FICA or Medicare taxes on their OPT employees, they save roughly 8 percent in payroll costs when they hire a foreign national instead of an American. OPT workers often hold jobs that range from $60,000-$100,000 a year, but they cost Social Security and Medicare about $4 billion dollars annually. Statisticians predict that, at their current pace, Social Security and Medicare might go bankrupt by the mid-2030s.

Giving OPT workers waivers on paying into those vital programs is self-defeating. President Trump’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services nominee, Joseph Edlow, supports ending OPT. During a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Edlow said that OPT has been “mishandled” in recent years and that F-1 employment authorization should not extend past the period that students are enrolled. Edlow’s comments, practical though they are, shocked universities and immigration expansionists.

All in, when comparing 2007 to 2023, an enormous 320 percent increase occurred in the number of foreign students who obtained work authorization through some form of practical training. OPT violates federal immigration law and ending the program should not be a partisan issue.

Republican and Democrat administrations have consistently ignored the obvious threat that international students represent to national security. In early May, Stanford University discovered a CCP agent disguised as a student but who was engaged in espionage. A Stanford Review investigative journalist concluded that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. Chinese spies have infiltrated Stanford. Also consider that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s only daughter Xi Mingze, a 2014 Harvard graduate who enrolled under an assumed name, is believed to still be living in the U.S., possibly in Cambridge. No one knows who the unvetted Xi Mingze knew at Harvard, what secrets she may have uncovered—remember U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s tawdry romance with Fang-Fang— or what confidential information she may have shared with her powerful father. The dangerous truth: on national security, China is a serious and powerful country; the U.S. is frivolous and unconcerned about self-preservation.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Xi’s Daughter Is Harvard Grad

Dodgers’ Superstar Welcomes Anchor Baby into Family

By Joe Guzzardi

In anticipation of the Supreme Court’s May 15 birthright citizenship review, consider that the Los Angeles Dodgers’ $700 million superstar Shohei Ohtani and his wife Mamiko Tanaka, Japanese nationals, just welcomed their first child, a girl. Shohei and Mamiko’s U.S. citizen baby was born in Arlington, VA. His baby daughter is luckier than 99% of anchor babies. Going into the 2025 season, Ohtani’s career earnings reached approximately $46 million, which includes his contracts and signing bonuses with the Los Angeles Angels. Since Ohtani’s new deferred contract covers a decade, the All-Star, MVP, pitcher/designated hitter will earn, exclusive of endorsement income, $2 million per year with the Dodgers or $20 million in total. After that, the Dodgers will pay Ohtani for another 10 years despite not being under contract. In those 10 seasons, he will make $68 million per year. Ohtani’s endorsement income is estimated at $40 million from Mitsubishi, Seiko, Japan Airlines, and New Balance, among other mega-billion-dollar corporations.

Ohtani chose to have his child born in the U.S. instead of Japan because having American citizenship will be, over her lifetime, advantageous to his baby girl. Think of the foolishness of granting precious citizenship to foreign nationals residing in the country on work or tourist visas in relationships, new or established, that result in births and automatically conferred American citizenship.

Japan, a country whose immigration standards reflect how seriously the nation takes citizenship, has tighter oversight. The Japanese Nationality Law requires that at least one parent must be a citizen for the child to qualify for citizenship. The U.S. Congress has written several bills with the same common sense citizenship requirement. None gained congressional support. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” addressed the obvious flaws in the long-standing misinterpretation of the 14^th Amendment. The Executive Order, announced on January 20 and one of the first President Trump issued, spelled out what citizenship in the Trump administration would require:

 “Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States:  (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

A day after President Trump released his EO, Congressman Brian Babin (R-TX), Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, introduced The Birthright Citizenship Act to restore the 14^th Amendment to its original purpose and end the misuse of birthright citizenship. Babin’s legislation aligns with the EO and seeks a congressional remedy to the misreading and exploitation of the 14^th amendment.

Center for Immigration Studies’ research found that one out of every ten births in the United States is to an illegal immigrant mother. Additionally, nearly 400,000 expectant mothers cross the border illegally each year, often with the sole intention to give birth in the U. S. Once granted automatic citizenship, these children can initiate chain migration, opening pathways for extended family members to gain legal residency. This practice has also fueled a global birth tourism industry, which takes advantage of the current loophole in U.S. immigration laws. Birth tourism is a criminal enterprise that, for an enormous fee, openly allows worldwide temporary visa-holding foreign nationals to stay in their hotels until the women are ready to give birth to a new American citizen. Such hotels, their criminal proprietors, and their pregnant guests who committed visa fraud would be easy targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead, ICE has winked at birth tourism hotels for years.

An intelligent overhaul of birthright citizenship is imperative. The Biden administration’s open borders admitted about ten million illegal immigrants and another estimated two million got aways. Those millions represent many more anchor baby citizens and eventual chain migration arrivals. Crossing the border illegally or as a temporary worker like Ohtani or a tourist and then giving birth on U.S. soil should not entitle the newborns to citizenship.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy Institute. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org