Category: Joe Guzzardi

NYC Mayor Adams’ Woes Mount

By Joe Guzzardi

The FBI is ramping up its criminal investigation into New York Mayor Eric Adams’ winning 2021 campaign. The New York Times reported last week that federal investigators seized at least two of the mayor’s mobile phones and an iPad just days before the newspaper published its story.

The federal probe centers on whether Adams’ campaign colluded with the Turkish government to solicit donations laundered through a Brooklyn construction company. Earlier, the feds raided the home of a former Adams intern and the mayor’s chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs. A search warrant that The Times obtained showed that the agents grabbed two laptops, three iPhones, a manila folder labeled “Eric Adams,” seven files titled “contribution card binders” and other potentially incriminating hard copy materials. To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must convince a judge that the electronic devices contain probable cause evidence of criminal offenses. In his statement, Adams said he would be “shocked” if any campaign team member had done anything wrong, adding that, for his part, he “had done nothing wrong.”

At issue is whether Adams, who had just won the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, pressured Fire Department officials to allow the new Turkish consulate across from the United Nations to open despite safety concerns. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the $300 million, 35-story-tall building a “masterpiece” and presided over its September 2021 grand opening.

Despite his staunch denials, and citing long-standing ties to Turkey, Adams must be uneasy. Although Adams is not charged with personal wrongdoing, the FBI is playing hardball, a tactic that’s ended poorly for the agency’s previous targets – Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, the 1,200 citizens charged in the January 6 protest and, most notably, President Donald Trump.

Insider speculation is rampant that the feds don’t care much if at all about Adams’ potential involvement in an illegal campaign financing scheme. Around Washington, election financing irregularity accusations are barely newsworthy. At the root of Adams’ problems are that he’s spoken publicly, loudly, critically and repeatedly about President Biden’s open border policy and how the arriving illegal aliens are bankrupting his once proud city. Even prominent Democratic supporters like Adams can’t get away with such candor. Adams may have sealed his fate when, in frustration, he said that without federal assistance the illegal alien debacle “will destroy New York City.” He warned that he saw no end to the unmanageable, unending wave of needy human arrivals.

Adams made his truthful but ill-advised warning about New York City’s potential destruction more than two months ago. Since then, conditions have grown significantly worse. The latest in New York’s constantly eroding fiscal situation, which pits spending on migrants against funding for legal resident programs, is Adams’ announcement that parents might have to volunteer to keep Big Apple schools nonviolent. Hundreds of trained safety agents were fired because migrant-related overhead, an estimated $12 billion and counting over the next three years, has crippled the city. Working 9-t0-5 parents howled about the task’s impossibility, and nonworking parents decried the injustice.

Boiled down to its bare bones, nothing will stop Biden from his lawless, unconstitutional, treasonous open border commitment. Tens of thousands of words have been written about how, to citizens’ detriment, cartels have trafficked humans and deadly drugs through the border.  Add to the sad list that, because Adams has to fund illegal aliens’ housing and food, the city can’t pay school security guards. Without experienced personnel, children will be at greater risk. Only months into the 2023-2024 academic year, three students have been slain so far, and at least 18 others have been stabbed or shot, victims of gang rivalries and ever-younger gun-toting kids who take advantage of the state’s forgiving judicial system.

Ironically, in April, Biden tweeted that “our children are our nation’s future” and that the “White House will always have their backs,” the president’s sad, dishonest cliché that he passes off as compassion.

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

NYC Mayor Adams’ Woes Mount

Europeans Experiencing Migration ‘Compassion Fatigue’

By Joe Guzzardi

An article published in The Spectator, a British weekly and the world’s oldest magazine, should raise eyebrows in the U.S., especially among voters who consider the Southwest border disaster a national security threat. The story, “In Europe, opposing mass migration can be a crime,” summarizes a bleak demographic future for the EU. “Europeans will vote for politicians who want to stop the migration, and they may even come into office, but the situation will not change,” adds the subhead.

All across Europe, citizens are ringing alarm bells to convey their apprehension about mass immigration. This summer, long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte resigned after the government coalition he led disagreed on how to stem the refugee flow into the Netherlands. Rutte’s departure is the latest example of migration politics as an increasingly challenging predicament for European officials, with conservative parties using their rising influence to promote reduced immigration in campaign platforms.

For Europeans, the stakes are high. Over centuries, national identities have been formed with commonality in heritage, language, religion, custom and history. Immigration threatens to destabilize or destroy those commonalities. With one coalition already toppled in the Netherlands, experts say similar issues face leaders in Germany, Italy and perhaps France and Spain. A Pew Research report found that majorities or pluralities in most EU nations want less immigration into their countries. Many that Pew polled believe that immigrants remain distinct from the broader culture, and they further worry that immigration increases terrorism risks.

Much like the immigration crisis that began when President Biden assumed office in 2021, five years ago more than 1 million people crossed into Europe, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The migrants took huge risks, embarking on dangerous journeys in search of better lives. All said that they had no future in their native countries. But some died along the way; others once they arrived at their destination could not find meaningful employment.

Receiving countries, however, adopted then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das” or “We can manage” philosophy. With significant grassroots volunteer assistance, the countries did indeed get by, at least in the beginning. But as the numbers of incoming migrants grew, so did compassion fatigue. Merkel eventually dropped her slogan. In the end, asylum requests far outnumbered approvals at about a 4-1 ratio, meaning that only a small percentage of migrants had valid claims to remain in countries they hoped would embrace them.

As with opposition that grew in the EU, resistance to Biden’s open borders has grown in the U.S. In areas where migrant overflow has most severely affected communities, the backlash is significant, although not yet a crime as The Spectator story inferred it might one day be. New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston and Denver have pled for federal assistance, a plea consistently ignored by the administration.

Time will tell whether President Biden’s open border agenda will topple his 2024 re-election bid. The three recent debates with GOP candidates skirted immigration, and the expansionist faction stifles meaningful discussion. Any suggestion that poorly managed and too much immigration contributes to unsustainable population growth and overcrowding, placing an estimated $20 billion financial burden on taxpayers, is shouted down with allegations of racism and xenophobia. This sophomoric, but too-often successful tactic, often sways crucial, independent voters.

The question that The Spectator raised – “Will the situation [immigration] change?” – is the crux of the matter. Whatever the eventual presidential nominees may have said on the stump, the elected president is only part of the immigration equation. Although Biden has ignored virtually every enforcement-related immigration law, marching down his own unconstitutional path, Congress has the sole responsibility to lead the way.

A year from now, voters will need to focus on electing congressional candidates who genuinely want an immigration policy that’s designed to help America, a huge challenge. Today, Congress is mostly split on immigration along party lines, although the House GOP has several representatives who bow to the donor class that wants more cheap labor delivered via immigration.

Overcoming five decades of lax enforcement is a steep mountain to climb, as is voiding legislation designed to attract more immigration, such as the spate of employment-based visas that President George H.W. Bush signed into law with the Immigration Act of 1990.

At the risk of sounding alarmist, the 2024 election could be America’s last chance to retain its sovereignty. Maintaining the status quo means that, assuming the current migrant entry rate, by the 2028 election between 15 and 20 million unvetted illegal immigrants would be residing in the U.S., a treasonous act.

Europeans Experiencing Migration ‘Compassion Fatigue’

Speaker Johnson’s Moment Of Truth

By Joe Guzzardi

With a Nov. 17 deadline looming to pass a new budget, and with lingering GOP divisions over former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ousting, House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a tall challenge. But, in the short time that he’s has been Speaker, Johnson has built significant good will among his peers and generated excitement among the GOP voting base.

One thing Johnson can’t afford to do in the budget discussions is come away empty-handed. With the border wide-open, and terrorism suspects easily infiltrating the interior, the budget squabble is the ideal time to insist that the strong border enforcement HR-2 bill be included in any legislation that provides funding for the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

House Republicans have slowed their Ukraine enthusiasm, understandably so. Reports from the U.S. State Department Office of Inspector General and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget showed that, to date, the U.S. has approved about $113 billion in aid to Ukraine. Biden vowed in his September speech to the UN that the U.S. will “continue to stand with Ukraine” indefinitely. Many House Republicans reasonably question where, with a $33 trillion deficit, the money will come from.

The open-borders’ negative effect on Americans is ongoing and continuous with a dramatic, adverse impact on schools, hospitals, communities and crime. Countless millions of illegal aliens, literally, have been processed at the border, with some flown during the middle of the night into major airports, compliments of an unlawful Biden program, the CBP-One app. Others have snuck in. These gotaways have alluded the otherwise occupied Customs and Border Patrol officers. CPB agents are processing, not arresting, removable aliens.

HR-2 would 1) prevent the Biden administration from continuing its policy of catch-and-release, thereby discouraging future illegal immigrant waves, 2) stop the surges of family units and unaccompanied alien children which would protect them from cartel and traffickers’ criminal exploitation, 3) enforce expiration dates on visas and ensure that nonimmigrants depart on a timely basis, actions that would deter overstays and 4) end parole abuse in which the administration has illegally rewarded aliens with work permission and other affirmative benefits. Crimes related to parole have all been committed in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Biden and his aide-de-camp, Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, have been, since Inauguration Day 2021, negligent, incompetent and criminal in their disregard for national security, with tragic consequences inevitable. The spotlight now falls on Johnson whose impressive voting record promotes a pro-America agenda. Johnson has consistently voted for stronger border and interior security, tighter asylum laws and eliminating amnesty enticements.

Within the GOP conference, stopping Biden’s border invasion has near-unanimous support, great news for Johnson. Even immigration apologists want immediate action to end the invasion. Johnson’s moment of truth will arrive soon. If Johnson doesn’t make good on his agenda, to quote verbatim an Arizona CBP border officer when Biden ended Title 42, America is “screwed.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.

Speaker Johnson’s Moment Of Truth

DHS Gives Low-Wage Workers Short Shrift

By Joe Guzzardi

Today’s headlines are about the Israel-Gaza War, pro-Palestine rallies, Democrats’ success in the Nov. 7 elections and President Donald Trump’s legal travails. But away from the bold print, permanent Washington continues its nonstop assault on American workers.

As is the Department of Homeland Security’s cowardly practice when the agency anticipates voters will wince from its announcement, it chose a late Friday afternoon to make public its decision to increase by 65,000 yearly the H-2B nonagricultural, low-skilled workers’ visa. The hike is staggering because the existing annual total is 66,000. With a stroke of the pen, DHS doubled the number of foreign nationals who will arriving to do a wide number of jobs that Americans would otherwise perform.

Every year, congressional immigration expansionists and the Chamber of Commerce along with its corporate allies repeat the same tedious stories: No workers! Bankruptcy alert! Neither side of the aisle mounts much of a challenge to the false narrative. Over the decades, the mainstream media has done little if any investigative journalism to uncover and then reveal the H-2B program’s widespread fraud and abuse.

From time-to-time, however, insightful reports, surprisingly from left-leaning sources, have dug deeply enough to disclose the distasteful truth lurking within:

• NPR: “It’s not just about labor scarcity, it’s about employer control.”

• New York Times: The shortage claim “does not stand up”… H-2B [is] “not an acceptable solution.”

• The Economic Policy Institute: Their blockbuster report uncovered that over the past two decades major H-2B employers have stolen $1.8 billion from workers.

EPI’s researcher and the damning report’s author, Daniel Costa, turned out to be prescient. Costa wrote that, despite its shameless exploitation of workers, and its consistent failure to add worker protections to the program, the H-2B program is “growing.” Lo and behold, at 4:08pm, Friday, Nov. 3, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ DHS doubled the H-2B program. David North, a long-time H-2B observer and critic, broke down the new 65,000 as follows: a 20,000 set-aside for aliens from Haiti, Colombia and Central America’s Northern Triangle – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. DHS bureaucrats slipped this outrage through even though previous work permission expansions to Haiti, for example, yielded almost no applicants. The remaining 45,000 in DHS’ harmful giveaway are retreads from recent H-2B workers who have, over the last three years, toiled for a pittance.

DHS’ unwarranted labor market expansion action is a direct slap in the face to American workers. President Joe Biden’s open borders has led to more than 5 million mostly unskilled, undereducated individuals who are perfect fits for H-2B labor in construction, landscaping, hospitality and the seafood industry. For employers, the border surge represents Christmas everyday – thousands of workers to choose from and without having to fill out the tedious paperwork that the government requires to secure an H-2B visa.

Moreover, in yet continued good news for employers, through the first eight months of 2023, nearly a quarter million migrants received parole at the Southwest border. Customs and Border Protection paroled another 221,456 foreign-born nationals who flew, compliments of U.S. taxpayers, into their preferred port of entry using Biden’s illegally concocted CBP One App. In all, nearly 475,000 parolees received work permission, further diminishing down to zero the need for more H-2B visas.

As subversive as DHS’ disregard for U.S. workers and American sovereignty is, the story just begins when illegal aliens get their employment authorization. Overwhelmingly unvetted, most quasi-legalized migrants will never return home, will add to already-unsustainable population growth and collapsing social services, and will contribute mightily to school and hospital overcrowding. Doubters who view this interpretation as overstatement should ask themselves if they think Haitian, Salvadorans, Guatemalans or Hondurans, once settled in the U.S., will return home. Such a possibility is unlikely, at best. Barring a new 2025 administration’s heroic intervention, complete with a vigorous removal plan of those who arrived through Biden’s unconstitutional and illegal scheming, the migrants are here to stay.

Here is a final thought on the long-standing, unproven claim that the nation has a worker shortage. The traditional solution to labor scarcities, when and if they exist, is offering workers higher wages.

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

DHS Gives Low-Wage Workers Short Shrift

Hall Of Fame War Heroes Include Kiner and Greenberg

By Joe Guzzardi

Legendary Pittsburgh Pirates sluggers Ralph Kiner and Hank Greenberg shared more than Hall of Fame induction. They were World War II heroes whose Buccos power-hitting careers overlapped, and led to the construction of Forbes Field’s controversial Greenberg Gardens. Over the years, Kiner and Greenberg developed an enduring friendship.

The day after Pearl Harbor, Kiner enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Kiner flew Martin PBM Mariners from Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station in Hawaii on submarine search patrols, and accumulated 1,200 flying hours. Unlike most other major league players stationed in the Pacific, Kiner played little baseball during his Navy service. As Kiner recalled, he played at the most six games during his two and a half Navy years. Kiner considered his pilot training and defending America more valuable than baseball.

When the war ended, the Pirates had Kiner penciled in to begin the 1946 season for the Pacific Coast League’s Hollywood Stars. But during Spring Training, Kiner tore the cover off the ball, and made the Pirates active roster. The Pirates chose wisely. Despite Forbes Field’s imposing dimensions for a right-handed hitter, 365’ down the left field line, 406’ in left center and 457’ in dead center, Kiner’s 23 home runs led the league in his rookie 1946 season, and he topped the league every year thereafter through 1952. Kiner’s home run title streak for seven consecutive years is an unbreakable record.

Enter Greenberg. In the 1946 off season, the Pirates bought American League home run king and two-time MVP Hank Greenberg, who was embroiled in a bitter salary dispute with the Detroit Tigers. Like Kiner, Greenberg served in World War II. Greenberg was drafted in 1941, and he was honorably discharged when Congress released servicemen age 28 years and older. After Pearl Harbor, Sergeant Greenberg volunteered to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. “We are in trouble,” Greenberg told The Sporting News, “and there is only one thing for me to do – return to the service.” Assigned to the first Boeing B-29 Superfortresses’ group to go overseas, Greenberg spent 1944 flying in the India-China-Burma theater. Greenberg served 47 months, the longest of any major league player.

When he joined the Pirates, Greenberg befriended Kiner, corrected his swing, which during the following season helped raised his anemic batting average from .247 to .313, and increased his home run output to 51. Pirates’ management, in turn, acted swiftly to help Greenberg hit more homers; they installed an inner fence that shortened left field’s distance by 30’. Society for American Baseball Research historian Ron Backer analyzed the controversial Greenberg Gardens’ consequences, and found that the new construction benefited Kiner more than Greenberg.

In his one year with the Pirates, 1947, Greenberg hit only 25 home runs. Of that total, 18 were hit at Forbes Field, of which nine landed in the Gardens. Of the 369 home runs that Kiner hit throughout his major league career, 71 landed in Greenberg Gardens, or about 20 percent. Eventually, Greenberg Gardens became known as “Kiner’s Korner.” Greenberg Gardens and the home run barrage launched from Kiner’s bat that it facilitated made Pirates ownership the biggest winner. In 1947, for the first time in Pirates’ history, more than 1 million fans showed up at Forbes Field, a milestone that, even though the Pirates were perennial cellar-dwellers, continued throughout most of Kiner’s Corsair days.

In June 1953, General Manager Branch Rickey abruptly traded Kiner to the Chicago Cubs. Since Rickey’s arrival, the relationship between the two had been acrimonious. The next day, Rickey ordered the fence torn down and said: “I don’t believe in building artificial barriers to suit any individual.” The league intervened, ruled that parks could not be reconfigured in mid-season. The gardens remained in left field until February 1954.

After their playing days ended, Greenberg and Kiner had prosperous careers. In 1948, Greenberg became the Cleveland Indians farm director and in November 1949 was promoted to general manager. Greenberg assembled the 1954 Indians squad, which set the then-American League record for most wins in a season, 111. In his eight years as GM, the Indians finished in first or second place six times.

In 1956, Greenberg became the first Jewish ballplayer inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Greenberg died from liver cancer on September 4, 1986. Greenberg, along with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx and Ted Williams, is one of only five players to hit over .300, have an on-base percentage over .400, and a slugging mark above .600. In 2013, Greenberg received the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award given to 37 Baseball Hall of Fame members to recognize the courage he displayed during his World War II Army Air Force service.

Kiner, injury-plagued, was traded from the Cubs to the Indians in 1955, but was unable to produce for his old friend Greenberg. After hitting only 18 homers, Kiner retired. During the late 1940s, Kiner dated Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh and Ava Gardner before marrying tennis star Nancy Chafee in 1951. Greenberg was Kiner’s best man. Then in 1962, he joined the expansion New York Mets broadcast team. Kiner joked that he was chosen “because I had a lot of experience with losing.” Kiner broadcast through 2013, and is one of the longest tenured broadcasters with a single team in MLB history. In tribute to Greenberg Gardens, Kiner’s post-game television show on WOR was called Kiner’s Korner and aired for more than 30 years. Kiner died of natural causes in February 2014. Like Greenberg, Kiner received the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award given in honor of his heroic World War II Navy service.

Kiner and Greenberg played important roles in Pittsburgh’s history and are remembered for being bright lights in an otherwise bleak chapter in the Pirates’ early 1950s Forbes Field era.

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

Hall Of Fame War Heroes Include Kiner and Greenberg