Category: Joe Guzzardi

Parolee Immigrants Want White-Collar Jobs

By Joe Guzzardi

President Joe Biden, the magic man who can convert illegal immigration into legal immigration with the stroke of his pen, took bows at his State of the Union address. Biden tried to convey the impression that granting immigration parole to illegal aliens from Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba converted their status to legal. Biden boasted: “Since we launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97 percent.”

Patting himself on the back during his SOTU speech, Biden neglected to mention that his latest sovereignty-destroying immigration scheme is unlawful and unconstitutional. Since his inauguration, Biden has consistently broken immigration laws and mocked Americans who want enforcement, not $20 billion-dollar giveaways to 5.5 million unlawfully present foreign nationals.

Backing up to Biden’s disingenuous assertion that illegal immigration “from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97 percent…,” it’s true on its face. But the back story that explains the how and the why that precipitated the drop is more telling and reveals — again! — the extent to which Biden blatantly breaks immigration laws.

In early January, the Biden White House and the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release that promised “border enforcement measures to improve border security” and — for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans — “create additional safe and orderly processes.” The migrants, the press release claimed, are “fleeing humanitarian crises.” Going forward, 30,000 migrants a month, 360,000 annually, will be parole-eligible, but conveniently for Biden, because they will be entering legally, their totals won’t be included among the numbers for illegal immigrant border surgers.

In 1996, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gave statutory power to temporarily “parole” aliens into the United States “in emergency cases, such as the case of an alien who requires immediate medical attention” or “a witness or for purposes of prosecution.” But to curb parole abuses, the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act clearly stated that only on a case-by-case basis, and assuming compelling humanitarian reasons or urgent public need, can parole be granted.

Obviously, 30,000 per month is neither case-by-case nor a pressing public necessity. The rewarded aliens, with unknown intentions, will be arriving from far-left, authoritarian countries, including impoverished Haiti. For citizens concerned about safety and security from extremists, DHS assured the public that all migrants are thoroughly vetted, a physical impossibility since too little confirmable data is immediately available to U.S. officials.

While aliens from the parole-designated countries aren’t lined up at the border, the 97 percent decline Biden touted, the migrants are nonetheless U.S. bound, and likely lifetime residents. Here’s an example of how parole will work out: as the Los Angeles Times reported, a 25-year-old Cuban engineer applied online for parole. Within a week, he landed in Florida, hoping to eventually earn a master’s degree from MIT, and then get a white-collar IT job. The young Cuban’s dreams conflict with many U.S. high school grads who also aspire to quality education and high-paying jobs, a reality that Biden doesn’t care about. If the Cuban migrant’s dreams go awry, he can collect welfare and await U.S. citizenship, the greatest gift. Look for the Cuban’s tale to endlessly repeat itself as other parolees arrive.

Enforcement advocates wonder what lawbreaking immigration venture Biden will embrace next, and whether Congress will intervene to save the nation from the president’s lawlessness. They won’t have to ponder long. The Canadian border is the latest sieve for illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol’s Swanton, Vermont, sector, responsible for protecting New Hampshire, Vermont and the northern tip of New York, is generally the most active region in the north.

Agents say that they’ve detected “historic” levels of illegal crossings, with a nearly 900 percent increase in encounters. Included are Canadians, Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, Filipinos, Brazilians and Columbians. The word is out: Biden and his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas are patsies. The Biden-Mayorkas tandem’s message to the world is come, settle and thereby deny Americans of their own dreams for a better life.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.

Parolee Immigrants Want White-Collar Jobs

Woodrow Wilson Was Greatest Baseball Fan

By Joe Guzzardi

U.S. presidents’ love affair with baseball dates back to George Washington who wrote in his journal that during Valley Forge he “sometimes throws and catches a ball for hours with his aide-de-camp.” Every president since Washington, except Teddy Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, had a passion for base ball, as Washington then referred to the game. Roosevelt thought baseball was a “mollycoddle game,” and Coolidge attended to appease his passionate-fan wife, Grace.

Abraham Lincoln, upon hearing in 1860 that he won the presidential nomination, allegedly responded, “They’ll have to wait a few minutes [for his formal acceptance] until I have another turn at bat.” In 1893, Herbert Hoover was Stanford University’s shortstop, and at age 88 called himself one of the sport’s “oldest fans.” In 1910, William Howard Taft became the first president to toss out the now-traditional first pitch.

Dwight Eisenhower played semi-pro baseball under the pseudonym “Wilson” which, luckily for Ike, preserved his West Point scholarship. Richard Nixon was an avid fan, a players’ favorite and knowledgeable enough about baseball to be seriously considered as a potential MLB commissioner. George H. W. Bush, a 1948 Yale University graduate, was a standout Eli first baseman who played in the first College World Series and kept his well-oiled MacGregor mitt handy in his Oval Office’s desk drawer.

But after historians researched the baseball archives, and read countless news accounts, the nearly unanimous consensus is that Woodrow Wilson, the former Princeton University president, New Jersey governor, and from 1913-1921, a two-term 28^th president, was baseball’s biggest fan.

From an early age, baseball and its intricacies absorbed Wilson. As a child, Wilson sketched in his geometry notebook a hand-scribbled diagram of a baseball diamond, and labeled it “Base Ball Ground.” Wilson later played varsity center field for Davidson College and was Princeton’s assistant manager. Scouts said that Wilson was “a fine player,” but his teammates countered that the scholarly outfielder was often too caught up in his studies to show up for practice.

Author Curt Smith in “The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House” wrote that Wilson absorbed baseball more deeply than any White House occupant who preceded or succeeded him, an opinion that Washington Senators’ owner Clark Griffith, premier Senators’ first baseman Joe Judge and the peerless Ty Cobb all agreed with. Griffith had been watching Senators’ Opening Days for nearly 30 years, more than enough time to make a sound evaluation. Judge concurred that “Wilson was by far the best fan. He knew a lot of us players and came out to the park often. He’d run his car right on the field and we’d put a player who wasn’t in the game at each corner of the car to watch for fly balls.” Through a special arrangement between Wilson and Griffith, Wilson’s chauffeur would enter the stadium through an outfield gate where the then-ailing president could watch the game undisturbed. But Cobb paid Wilson the highest compliment when he called the president “the greatest American.”

In Wilson’s final years, the travails of World War I and a stroke had taken their toll on the former president, but he still found solace in baseball. Wilson invited his secretary Randolph Bolling to his Washington home’s basement, referred to as “the dugout,” where they reviewed the previous day’s box scores, and second guessed the losing managers. At his life’s end, infirm from his stroke, plagued with constant migraines and painful dyspepsia, baseball provided Wilson with a few, rare calming moments. Wilson died in 1924, age 67, one year before his beloved Senators won the World Series.

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

Woodrow Wilson Was Greatest Baseball Fan

Don Zimmer Married At Home Plate

By Joe Guzzardi

During Don Zimmer’s 66-year career in professional baseball, the scrappy infielder shook Babe Ruth’s hand, posed for pictures with Clark Gable and Lana Turner, played with Brooklyn Dodgers’ Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, played as a New York Mets for Casey Stengel, managed the Boston Red Sox when Carlton Fisk hit his 1975 12^th inning World Series home run to defeat the Cincinnati Reds, and coached the 1978 New York Yankees when Bucky Dent broke bean towners’ hearts his with game winning, American League East clinching four-bagger. Zimmer played and managed winter baseball in Japan, Cuba and Puerto Rico where he managed Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays. In all, Zimmer played for six major league teams, managed four and coached 11. Except for a single Social Security check he cashed between gigs, Zimmer never earned a penny outside of baseball.

But despite Zimmer’s Hollywood experiences and his baseball achievements – he was a two-time All-Star and a six-time World Series champion – he was most proud of his 1951 home plate marriage to Carol Jean Bauerle before a night game in Elmira, New York, where, as a top Brooklyn Dodgers’ prospect, he had worked his way up to the Class A Pioneers. Zimmer and Carol Jean, nicknamed “Soot” by her German grandmother, had been sweethearts since the 10^th grade at Cincinnati’s Western Hills High School when the couple were on a girl-asks-boy hayride. A star quarterback, the basketball team’s starting guard and shortstop on the Ohio state championship baseball nine, Zimmer was the state’s most widely recognized high school athlete. As Soot recalled the hayride, “We were 16, and were together from then on.”

Soot attended and documented every Opening Day for each of the teams that her husband played in, managed or coached during Zimmer’s 66 years in baseball. In 2015, about 18 months after Zimmer’s death, Tampa Bay Times reporter Lane DeGregory visited Soot at her Seminole, Fla., condo where she shared the contents of more than 70 scrapbooks and photo albums she had lovingly compiled.

Soot’s cabinets were filled with “Zim” bobbleheads and baseballs that Ronald Reagan, Robert Redford, Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson had signed. Also, the shelves contained the scrapbooks Soot meticulously stacked in chronological order. With loving dedication, Soot collected everything printed about Don, including team bios, photos, stories, programs and baseball cards, and tiny print box scores. She cut out each entry, underlined Zim’s name with a blue pen, and then gently pasted the clipping into the pages of her scrapbooks.

In her senior year, Soot went to the local dime store, bought a scrapbook, and the cardboard corners used long-ago to secure pictures in place. The first scrapbook was conceived, intended as a gift to her boyfriend, and compiled evenings after she completed her homework assignments. Soot subscribed to every Ohio newspaper whose city had a ball park. Outside of Ohio, Soot asked friends to mail her newspapers. As Zim’s baseball skills improved, stories about him started appearing in more widely distributed newspapers, eventually landing him on the front page of The New York Times. Soot’s albums had clippings from more than 10,500 games played in hundreds of ballparks.

From 2004 to 2014, Zimmer worked for the Tampa Rays as a senior advisor, his last baseball job. On Opening Day 2014, Zimmer, wearing number 66 to honor his years spent in professional baseball, rode across the diamond in a golf cart, too weak to walk. Fans gave him a standing ovation. Two months before their 63^rd anniversary, Zimmer died from heart and kidney failure. But Soot had one more event to chronicle. A Rays’ representative called to tell Soot that the team would honor Zim on Opening Day 2015, hang his jersey from the Tropicana Field rafters and retire number 66. Then age 84, Soot had a few empty pages in one of her volumes to add the latest Zim stories. “Good thing there’s still room in here,” Soot joked, “Too old to start a new scrapbook.” Soot, now 92, treasures her memories of life with Zim, on and off the field.

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

Don Zimmer Married At Home Plate

Population Growth Would Slow With Low Immigration

By Joe Guzzardi

The United States Forest Service (USFS), a Department of Agriculture agency that administers the nation’s 154 forests and manages 194 million acres of land, released an analysis which estimated that, every day, the nation loses 6 million acres of open space. USFS defines open space as publicly or privately owned, protected or unprotected areas that include forests, grasslands, farms, ranches, streams, rivers and parks. The 6 million acres lost to development at what USFS called “an alarming rate” hampers a functioning ecosystem, agriculture, forest health and recreational pleasures.

Although the USFS developed its “Forests on the Edge” program to emphasize preserving open space, no educational campaign can keep up with U.S. population growth and the urban sprawl that it generates. A NumbersUSA study, “Vanishing Open Spaces, Population Growth and Sprawl in America,” analyzed the projected long-term decline in per capita farmland. Using the projected cropland losses based on 1982-2010 data, and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, the study found as follows: available cropland will have declined from 1.9 acres per person in 1982 to 0.3 acre per person in 2100, an 84 percent cropland loss decrease. After two centuries of nonstop development, little of the remaining acreage would be in pristine condition.

Assuming the Census Bureau 2050 and 2100 population projections prove accurate, population of 404 million and 571 million, respectively, and available cropland per person declines to a corresponding 0.7 and 0.3 acre per person, government officials should be gravely concerned. Available food production will be drastically slashed – too many mouths to feed and not enough farmland to produce the food. 

Selling farmland to developers is lucrative and often too good a deal for farmers to decline. Farming is a tough, often uncertain business. Crops can be hit with blight; bad weather can impact yield, and crop prices may decline. The land is more valuable to developers than to the farmer-owner. Farmland might be worth $10,000 or $20,000 per acre, but as residential or commercial land, rezoned, it might be valued at $100,000 or more per acre.

The core issue is the federal government’s inability – some say refusal – to adopt sustainable population policies. The Census Bureau has identified immigration and births to immigrants as the population growth’s primary driver. In February 2020, the Census Bureau published “A Changing Nation: Population Projections Under Alternative Immigration Scenarios.” It showed that between 2020 and 2060 different legal immigration levels – zero, low and high – could change the population in those years by as much as 127 million people, with estimates ranging anywhere from 330 million to a high of 447 million total U.S. residents. 

In the zero-immigration scenario that also accounts for out-emigration, natural increases – births minus deaths – are the only way population can increase. Negative natural increases will, in the zero-immigration scenario, create a shrinking population with annual declines starting in 2035 and continuing at an accelerated pace through 2060.

The Census Bureau is the ultimate Washington, D.C. nonpartisan agency. Many wonder, then, why the Biden administration, and the many Republican and Democratic administrations that preceded the current one, have ignored, or merely paid lip service to, the population conclusions. The Census Bureau acknowledges that its zero immigration calculations are hypothetical, but low immigration, generally considered about 500,000 or about half the current admission level, would be an overdue step in the right direction. Under the high immigration estimate, the 2060 population will increase 124 million to 447 million. The 5 million-plus ongoing border surge, which grows numerically every day, is excluded from the Census Bureau’s data, but if included would increase the 2060 population increase well beyond the 124 million.

Even if legal immigration is reduced to the Census Bureau’s low-level, the U.S. will still remain the world’s most welcoming nation, open to refugees, asylees and others. At the same time, reduced immigration will help protect the natural resources that make the U.S. the preferred destination of immigrants.

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Project for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc  dot com.

Population Growth Would Slow With Low Immigration

Amnesty Is Not Border Crisis Solution Despite Biden Claim

By Joe Guzzardi

Leading up to President Biden’s State of the Union speech, reporters speculated about how much time, if any, he would give to the Southwest border crisis. The answer is now known. From his one hour, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds-long speech – the eighth-longest SOU address of the last 60 years, and exceeded only by President Bill Clinton, four times, and President Donald Trump, three times, Biden spent about 60 seconds on his open border debacle. Some analysts said that the brief one-minute reference proved that Biden is indifferent to America’s eroded sovereignty that the border chaos created. Others claimed that the border mess is too embarrassing for Biden to acknowledge, and the less he said, the better for him, and his fellow Democrats.

At about the one-hour mark, Biden launched his foray into immigration. Biden shouted out: “America’s border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts.” He then spoke more specifically about the direction in which he wants Congress to act. “If we don’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, [and] essential workers.”

Biden followed the well-traveled path that immigration expansionists have long trekked. Whatever problem society might face, the solution today, yesterday, and always is comprehensive immigration reform that includes citizenship. But granting amnesty to an unknown total of illegal immigrants already residing in the U.S. has no relationship to the sovereign-busting open border. Amnesty doesn’t equate to a secure border. More to the point, no one on Capitol Hill knows the precise illegal immigrant total living within the interior. Estimates range from 12 million to 30 million. Illegal aliens have to be unlucky to get deported under Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 72,177 illegal immigrants in FY 2022, slightly more than the 59,011 deported in FY 2021. That number in turn marked a sharp drop from the 185,884 deported in FY 20, and 267,258 in FY 2019.

Biden may want to dismiss the border, or he may be satisfied that his welcome-the-world policy is correct. But the reality is that under Mayorkas, border agents have processed and release more than five million aliens into the interior. Another million or so migrants, called gotaways, have slipped past agents, and are roaming among the general population. No one is certain of their identities, their intentions or their current whereabout. No one is looking for them either, and if they’re located, ICE cannot, as per a Mayorkas memo, deport them. Mayorkas does not have the constitutional authority to rewrite settled immigration laws, but in the Biden administration, legality in immigration law is inconsequential. The only thing Biden and Mayorkas know about immigration laws is that they refuse to enforce them.

The illegal alien border surge will cost U.S. taxpayers $100 billion, and counting. The $100 billion is the open border’s dollar cost. But the human cost, disregarded by Biden and Mayorkas is tragic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote that over 150 people die every day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Drug cartels have taken advantage of the open border to traffic fentanyl, and have built a multi-billion business around their deadly drug.

In his Spanish-language rebuttal, Mexico-born U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) said: “In my home county in Southern Arizona, fentanyl overdoses are the number one cause of death among young people — outpacing car crashes.”

A post-SOTU good news, bad news summary: amnesty has no chance to pass in the 118th Congress, but the nation will have to endure another two years of the lawless Biden administration, and its determination to destroy historic America.

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Amnesty Is Not Border Crisis Solution Despite Biden Claim

CBO Population Projection Off-Mark Regarding Illegals

By Joe Guzzardi

In January, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its projection for U.S. population growth from 2023 until 2053. CBO anticipates a huge hike from today’s 336 million U.S. residents to 373 million three-decades out, a 37-million-person surge.

Over the next decade, immigration will represent about three-quarters of the overall population increase, and the greater number of births than deaths will account for the remaining one-quarter. After 2033, population growth will be increasingly driven by net immigration, which beginning in 2042 will account for all population growth.

CBO released its report without fanfare, perhaps because it included, buried deep on page five, this sentence: “Net immigration of foreign-born people without legal status” (my emphasis) – a wokeism meaning illegal aliens – into the U.S. is projected to average 220,000 a year over the next decade, a remarkable 175 percent bump from the 80,000 average the CBO had forecast a mere six months ago.

Although the CBO identifies as objective, critics question how its analysis could arrive at the modest 220,000 annual illegal alien projection, a completely detached conclusion from the Southwest border reality. In December 2022 alone, the Department of Homeland Security announced that CBP had more than 300,000 migrant encounters. And since President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, an estimated 5.5 million migrants from at least 160 nations have unlawfully crossed into the U.S.

The administration’s goal is to grant parole, and the work authorization that parole status includes, to as many illegal immigrants as possible. The consequences for citizens seeking entry-level employment, especially minorities and the working poor, will be devastating. Using even the low CBO estimate of 220,000 illegal immigrants annually means a significantly expanded labor pool. When using the year-to-date total since Biden’s inauguration of 5.5 million arrivals, more than the combined populations of Chicago and Houston, and the aggregate available workers, mainly unskilled or low-skilled, the labor market bloats dramatically.

The inarguable labor supply and demand fact applies. And because the nation will have an in-take of millions of aliens instead of hundreds of thousands that occurred with previous administrations, the newly arrived illegal immigrants will compete for employment not only with U.S. workers, but also with each other – a dream come true for profit-driven corporate America.

The supply and demand truism exists at all economic levels. In New York City’s subway system, next to the arriving/departing train platforms, Ecuadorians and Hondurans are, without a mandatory city general vendor’s license, selling M&Ms and Skittles for $2. But one level above, a vendor who’s done everything correctly, including paying his licensing fee, loses life-sustaining revenue, pays less in city and state taxes, and may eventually go out of business. Everyone loses including the migrants who sell candy in New York’s dangerous underground.

Annual illegal immigration totals are twice those of legal immigration. In 2021 and 2022, and referring back to the 5.5 illegal entrants, about 1.25 illegal immigrants on average crossed each year contrasted to about 1 million legal immigrants.

U.S. workers deserve a break. Not only does the federal government issue more than 1 million annual permanent residency green cards that include lifetime valid work permission, the State Department approves another 1 million guest worker visas, some without numerical ceiling, and without risk that the government might intervene to assure that employers comply with the regulations.

Employers have a bottomless supply of foreign-born workers to hire. Evidence: At the end of 2022, 29.6 million legal and illegal immigrants were employed, 1.9 million more than during the pre-pandemic years. Meanwhile, the Labor Force Participation rate for Americans continues to decline. As long as Biden continues his reckless and wanton policy of welcoming the world, then workers’ best friend – a tight labor market – won’t exist

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined The Project for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

CBO Population Projection Off-Mark Regarding Illegals

PFIR Becoming Institute For Sound Public Policy — Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) announced its name change to the Institute for Sound Public Policy (IfSPP), Feb. 34.  The new name signals the organization’s broader vision and expanded mission to advocate for national policies that prioritize the security and well-being of U.S. citizens in a world where roughly 5 billion people live on less than $10 per day.

“2023 marks a sea change. Our repositioning as the Institute for Sound Public Policy will enable us to reach out and earn the moral and financial support of those who feel the pressures of the global billions.” said Kevin Lynn, executive director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy. 

“For the past 15 years Progressives for Immigration Reform has identified numerous ways in which the inadequacy and abuse of immigration policy has destroyed livelihoods and diminished the overall quality of life in the U.S.  Today as the Institute for Sound Public Policy we expand beyond the adverse effects of unbridled human capital to address other essential factors and the root cause crippling our nation: globalist policies and neoliberal ideologies that pursue the unrestricted flow of capital, goods, and people.”

Progressives for Immigration Reform will immediately brand itself as the Institute for Sound Public Policy with a new logo, and a new website to be announced mid-March 2023.

It’s existing entities, U.S. Tech Workers, Doctors without Jobs, and Our Carbon Footprint will now operate under The Project for Immigration Reform, a  supporting organization to the Institute for Sound Public Policy.  The entities will continue to bring attention to the abuse of U.S. employment visa programs, the inequities in the U.S.’ medical residency matching program, and the impact of immigration-fueled population growth on the environment. 

During the name change process, the organization’s legal name will remain Progressives for Immigration Reform.

Chinese Sending Baseball Players To USA

By Joe Guzzardi

The New Year we’re moving into this week under the Chinese Lunar calendar is the Year of the Rabbit, considered the luckiest of the 12 animal signs to be born under in the Chinese zodiac. While some may be born to it, others’ luck is made through lucrative CCP deals.

In 2021, Major League Baseball extended its contract with Tencent, a Chinese tech company that broadcasts NBA games and has an audience of more than 1 billion. Through its international WeTV service in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, Tencent’s viewership will expand. China’s baseball interest is at unprecedented levels, and intensifying. Baseball is played in more than 80 Chinese colleges and universities, and dozens of new baseball facilities have been built in recent years by local governments and individuals.

Always anxious to enlarge its $11 billion industry, in 2017 MLB and Beijing Enterprises Real-Estate Group Ltd. (BEREGL), a major Chinese state-owned enterprise, announced a 10-year relationship to further promote baseball in China. Jim Small, MLB’s Vice President, Asia Pacific division, said that MLB’s objective is to provide first-rate facilities and coaching for the increasing number of Chinese baseball players and that MLB is “honored,” his word, to team up with what he called one of China’s most forward-thinking, innovative and successful companies.

BEREGL and MLB plan to build nearly two dozen MLB-branded baseball facilities throughout China. Most of the new projects will be labeled MLB-BEREGL Baseball Development Centers and will provide top-notch facilities for talented Chinese student athletes in grades 7–12. The curriculum will offer mainstream academic instruction and baseball fundamentals. MLB maintains three development centers in Wuxi, Changzhou and Nanjing. No such facilities exist in U.S. for middle-school kids or any other age group.

MLB will continue to send, as it has in past years, visiting professional players and coaches to instruct all levels of Chinese players and teams. Previous MLB visiting instructors have included Prince Fielder, Curtis Granderson, Mark Melancon, Jeremy Guthrie and Jim Lefebvre.

In the globalist design that MLB developed with BEREGL, more Chinese players are on their way from the development centers to the U.S., either through the international draft, arriving on P-1A visas for professional athletes or by attending U.S. universities on nonimmigrant F-1 visas. In 2015, the Baltimore Orioles signed Gui Yuan Xu, the first development center graduate. Xu, a position player nicknamed Itchy because of his affection for Ichiro Suzuki, played 73 games over three seasons in rookie and Class A ball before being released. The Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies signed six other development center graduates; five of them were released after failing at the lowest minor league levels.

Many Chinese MLB aspirants prefer the college university route where more nationwide scouts will evaluate their skills. DJ, for example, is a 24-year-old native of Qinghai, a province in an autonomous Tibetan region. His visa documents identify him as Fnu Suonandajie. Fnu, however, is not a name, but initials that stand for First Name Unknown, a term the State Department assigns to foreign nationals with an unknown given name. And Suonandajie is not Fnu’s family name, but rather an appellation a Tibetan monk gave DJ, as his friends know him, when he was a child.

MLB, constantly prowling for promising athletes for their middle school program, discovered DJ in 2011. After graduating from Nanjing’s development center’s high school program, DJ came to the U.S., earned a roster spot as a walk-on at Los Angeles Harbor College, graduated in 2021, and was soon given a full baseball scholarship at Kansas City’s Division II Rockhurst University. He hopes to enter MLB’s first-year player draft, a longshot for a D-II player.

Evaluating the cozy partnership between MLB and the state-owned Chinese real estate business, clear winners and losers emerge. The big winners are MLB which will tap into an exploding market for not only players, but also for billions in streaming income and millions more in merchandise sales to Chinese baseball fanatics. Chinese players also win. They’ll receive a visa to legally enter the U.S., even though their prospects for reaching MLB are infinitesimally low. The website FiveThirtyEight calculates any player’s chances to make it to the major leagues, including standout NCAA players, are 0.17 percent.

The losers are the U.S. prospects from NCAA universities or other amateur leagues. Arriving Chinese players expand baseball’s labor pool, diminishing the chances of those already in the pool. But the biggest losers of all could be the public at large. Chinese players entering in significant numbers could represent a national security threat. Historically, the State Department does a poor job of tracking visa holders, regardless of the threat they may pose. In baseball’s multi-billion-dollar business, globalism reigns. Everything else is a distant second.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.

Chinese Sending Baseball Players To USA

Great Salt Lake Going Dry Due To Population Growth

By Joe Guzzardi

Utah’s Great Salt Lake may disappear within the next five years, experts predict. A Brigham Young University report found that as of January 2023, the lake is 19 feet below its average level. Since 1850, the Great Salt Lake has lost 73 percent of its water and more than half of its surface area.

BYU ecologist Benjamin Abbott, noting “unprecedented danger,” called for emergency measures to save the Great Salt Lake from further collapse. Abbott wrote that despite encouraging growth in legislative action and public awareness, “most Utahns do not realize the urgency of this crisis.”

At this point, and since 2020, the lake has lost more than 1 million acre-feet of water annually. Each acre foot represents about 360 gallons of water, nearly the size of a one-foot-deep football field. Today, only about 0.1 million acre-feet of water is returned to the lake each year.

Abbott pointed to worldwide examples which show that saline lake loss triggers a long-term cycle of environmental, health and economic suffering. He urges a coordinated rescue to stave off widespread air and water pollution, further losses from animals listed as part of the Endangered Species Act, and greater declines in agriculture, industry and overall quality of life.

If Utah Governor Spencer Cox hopes to deliver on his promise that the Great Salt Lake will not go dry on his watch, he’ll have to adopt some if not all of Abbott’s suggested measures, many of which will be unpopular among constituents. Specifically, the BYU scholars called on Cox to implement a watershed-wide emergency rescue plan that will set a requirement of at least 2.5 million acre-feet per year until the lake reaches its minimum healthy elevation of 4,198 feet. In conclusion, and in light of what the authors called an “all-hands-on-deck emergency,” the BYU analysis asked farmers, counties, cities, businesses, churches, universities and other organizations to “do everything in their power to reduce outdoor water use.” Utahns must, BYU counseled, adopt a “Lake First” approach to water preservation.

The Great Salt Lake’s rapidly dwindling water level is attributable to two factors: the ongoing drought that’s affected large swathes of the nation and an unprecedented population boom. Despite above average snowfall in 2022, most of Utah remains in severe to extreme drought mode.

The bigger culprit in the Great Salt Lake’s demise, however, is population growth. Between July 2021 and July 2022, Utah’s estimated population grew by more than 61,000, which marked the state’s largest spike in absolute growth since 2006, putting its total population at slightly more than 3.4 million residents. Of Utah’s 29 counties, 28 added population, except for Daggett, which declined by six people. Utah’s population growth is calculated by the standard formula: net migration accounted for an estimated 38,141 more residents, while natural increase — births minus deaths — accounted for another 23,101 residents. From 2010 to 2020, Utah was the nation’s fastest growing state. Utah’s growth will continue unabated. By 2060, Utah’s population will hit 5.5 million with intervals of 4 million between 2032 and 2033 and 5 million between 2050 and 2051.

Put another way, in the next 40 years, Utah’s population will increase 66 percent.

By the time the 2030 Census rolls around, Utah will have more Venezuelan migrants admitted under President Biden’s immigration policies. Already in Utah in significant numbers, Venezuelans are part of Biden’s program to grant immigration parole every month to 30,000 total Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. For Venezuelans who have family ties and prospective sponsors in Utah, the state becomes a magnet. And once settled, the migrant Venezuelans will start families or expand their existing families, thereby putting more pressure on Utah’s natural resources.

The Great Salt Lake is one of many disappearing U.S. lakes and rivers, victimized by overpopulation and mismanagement. Others in grave danger of drying up include the Colorado and California’s Lake Mead and Lake Tahoe. BYU’s environmentalists have rolled out a sound plan to save the Great Salt Lake. For its part, the federal government is irresponsibly adding population to states like Utah that are struggling to provide precious water and other resources for existing residents.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.

Great Salt Lake Going Dry Due To Population Growth

Clock Ticking on Mayorkas; House Files Impeachment Articles

By Joe Guzzardi

The 118th Congress had barely convened before the Senate’s amnesty addicts traveled to the border and began pontificating about the bipartisan immigration action they were about to embark upon. Whenever Congress touts bipartisanship as it relates to immigration, the sub rosa message is that amnesty legislation, which Americans have consistently rejected, is percolating.

Neither amnesty’s failed history – countless futile efforts since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act – nor the Republican-controlled House of Representatives stopped determined Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Mark Kelly, (D-Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Tillis tipped off the group’s hand when he said, “It’s not just about border security; it’s not just about a path to citizenship or some certainty for a population.” One of those populations would be the “Dreamers,” with a 20-year-long failed legislative record. Sinema took advantage of the border trip to promote her failed amnesty, her leftovers from the December Lame Duck session, a three-week period when radical immigration legislation usually finds a home. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) tweeted that “our immigration system is badly broken…” drivel that’s been repeated so often it’s lost whatever meaning it once may have had. The immigration system is “badly broken,” to quote Coons, because immigration laws have been ignored for decades. Critics laughingly call the out-of-touch, border-visiting senators the “Sell-Out Safari.”

Coons’ tweet is classic duplicity. Coons, Sinema, Kelly and Murphy have consistently voted against measures to enforce border security and against fortifying the interior by providing more agents and by giving more authority to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans Tillis and Cornyn are also immigration expansionists. Tillis worked with Sinema on her unsuccessful Lame Duck amnesty. Cornyn sponsored, with Sinema and Tillis as cosponsors, the “Bipartisan Border Solutions” bill that would have built more processing centers to expedite migrants’ release and to create a “fairer and more efficient” way to decide asylum cases. The bill, which never got off the ground, would have rolled out the red carpet to more prospective migrants at a time when the border is under siege.

The good news is that the border safari, an updated version of the 2013 Gang of Eight that promoted but couldn’t deliver an amnesty was a cheap photo op that intended to reflect concern about the border crisis when, in fact, the senators’ voting records prove that the invasion doesn’t trouble them in the least.

More good news is that Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the new Speaker of the House, represents enforcement proponents’ best chance to move their agenda forward since 2007 when Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) first held the job. Republicans John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) followed Pelosi from 2011 to 2019 when Pelosi returned as Speaker. Although Boehner and Ryan are Republicans, their commitment to higher immigration levels was not much different than Pelosi’s. Boehner and Ryan received 0 percent scores on immigration, meaning that they favor looser immigration enforcement and more employment-based visas for foreign-born workers.

Also in McCarthy’s favor is the public support for tightening the border. Polls taken in September 2022 showed that a majority of Americans, including 76 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Independents, thought President Biden should be doing more to ensure border security. Moreover, a plurality of Americans opposes using tax dollars to transport migrants, a common practice in the Biden catch-and-release era.

McCarthy must become more proactive and make good on his November call for the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to resign or face impeachment. “He cannot and must not remain in that position,” McCarthy said. “If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure to determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.” McCarthy has the backing of the Chairmen of the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan and James Comer.

On January 9, Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment that charged Mayorkas with, among other offenses, “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Mayorkas insists he won’t resign and that he’s prepared for whatever investigations may come his way. Assuming the House presses on, and that the DHS secretary remains committed to keeping his post, Capitol Hill fireworks are assured, the fallout from which could lead to Mayorkas’ departure.

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Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Clock Ticking on Mayorkas; House Files Impeachment Articles