Category: Joe Guzzardi

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

Biden Restoring America The Beautiful Program Is Misguided

By Joe Guzzardi

A week after Joe Biden became president, he signed Executive 0rder 14008 (EO) that announced his commitment to protect 30 percent of U.S. land and water – 41.5 million acres per year – by 2030. Then, on May 6, 2021, the Department of the Interior published “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful,” a preliminary report about what’s become known as the “30 x 30” plan. Under the Department of Interior’s direction, in collaboration with the Agriculture and Commerce departments and consistent with Biden’s EO, the report reaffirmed the mission to conserve within the next seven years at least 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters. The order is tall, and time is short for the urgent undertaking.

As of 2023, the U.S. is going in the wrong direction if its intention is to preserve precious, irreplaceable natural resources. The growth and development mantra that the Chamber of Commerce, the media and most in Congress embrace have overwhelmed Americans who want to preserve what remains of the nation’s biodiversity.

The valiant battle against the powerful, wealthy, craven growth mongers is worth the fight. In the book, “Precious Heritage, the Status of Biodiversity in the U.S.,” the authors point out that the U.S. is, for species like salamanders and fresh water turtles, at the global center of ecological biodiversity. From Appalachia’s lush forests to Alaska’s frozen tundra, and from the Midwest’s tallgrass prairies to Hawaii’s subtropical rainforests, the U.S. harbors a stunning, unique ecosystem array. These ecosystems in turn sustain an incomparable variety of plant and animal life. Among the nation’s other extraordinary biological features are California’s coast redwoods, which are the world’s tallest trees, and Nevada’s Devils Hole pupfish, which survive in a single 10’ x 70’ desert pool, the smallest range of any vertebrate animal.

And yet, relentless growth continues. Between 2010 and 2020, the U.S. grew by about 20 million residents, the equivalent of Los Angeles x5. Today L.A. has 3.9 million people, and a density of 8,382 persons per square mile.

Since Biden’s EO, there have been few, if any, identifiable successes. A recently released Department of Interior preliminary report is best viewed as a guideline or a starting point two years into the venture. Details are few. Rather, the report repeats themes that have been bandied about for decades: “Pursue a collaborative and inclusive approach to conservation” and “conserve America’s lands and waters for the benefit of all people.” No one argues with those objectives or the six other so-called “central recommendations.” But the progress report lacks the specifics of how to accomplish the lofty goals and ignores the harsh reality that, on its current course, U.S. population will continue ever upward.

As encouraging as the White House’s awareness and conservation activism is, Biden’s EO makes not a single mention of immigration, the nation’s main population driver. And while discussions about immigration may be uncomfortable or even off the table for expansionists, no serious approach to conservation can exclude the controversial topic.

More than 1 million legal immigrants arrive annually, many beginning new families or expanding their existing families. Many eventually petition their relatives, the family reunification process that adds significantly to U.S. population growth. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach about 350 million, up from today’s 334 million. By 2060, the Census Bureau predicts that population will hover around 400 million, more than 15 million more per decade, and a 20 percent spike from 2023. These figures were calculated pre-Southwest Border surge.

The obvious consequence is more development. More roads, hospitals, schools, stores and places of worship must be built.  With that, green spaces and open spaces are destroyed to make room for the inevitable sprawl that building creates. The establishment wants more immigration because more new residents mean more consumers. Despite elitists demands, at a minimum immigration must be slowed. Reduced immigration levels – fewer people – would help the White House Council on Environmental Quality move toward its conservation goal. Ignore immigration as a variable in population growth, and sprawl and environmental degradation will continue unabated.

In 2001, Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day founder, called out faux environmentalists. Under that would fit today’s Biden administration’s interior, ag and commerce departments’ officials. Nelson spoke words as true today as they were two decades ago: “…it’s phony to say ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’”

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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.

Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo; Bad News for Change Advocates

By Joe Guzzardi

Voters are, to understate their mood, disenchanted with Congress. Yet paradoxically, voters re-elect, over and over, the same representatives they hold in dismally low esteem, consider ineffectual and out-of-touch.

On average for 2022, about 80 percent of polling respondents disapproved of how congressional representatives handled their jobs. Many critics had previously claimed that underrepresentation of women and diverse legislators was a key reason that Congress was so incompetent. But the 117th Congress was the most racially and gender diverse in history. In 2022, 142 women were in the U.S. House of Representatives, a record high. Despite these House gains, voters maintained their same opinion of Congress – a bungling, self-important body that does little right.

In November, when the moment-of-truth mid-term election was held, 73 percent of voters disapproved of incumbents’ job performance. But the vote count told a different tale. Despite their 73 percent disapproval rate, congressional incumbents had a 98 percent win rate. Forty-one states had a 100 percent win rate in congressional races. The takeaway: talk is cheap, but the votes tell the true story. Overwhelmingly, the majority wants to maintain the status quo.

The status quo translates into continuing high inflation which in 2022 averaged 8.4 percent per month. Status quo also means national debt mounting from its current $31 trillion and funding the Ukraine war which, with Biden’s signature on a $1.9 trillion omnibus spending bill, will put the U.S. investment in the faraway conflict at $100 billion.

As entrenched as those costs are, Biden’s open border is another unsustainable drain on taxpayers’ pocketbooks. To provide public education, Medicaid and other affirmative benefits to the 1.35 million illegal immigrants that have become part of the general population since Biden took office will cost taxpayers $100 billion over the aliens’ lifetimes. Many recent arrivals have limited education and English language skills, so jobs they may end up accepting likely will pay little.

Regardless of which candidate voters supported in the 2020 presidential election, only a tiny percentage would have cast their ballots in favor of adopting the current border policy. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, Customs and Border Protection reported that it had released 430,677 aliens into the interior, witnessed 240,340 migrants the agency calls “gotaways” and expelled 186,340 illegal immigrants. Agents caution that their official numbers may be low because many more aliens may have escaped without CBP’s knowledge. Nine out of 10 agents, a whistleblower reported, are away from the line.

The southwest border chaos also represents a dangerous criminal threat to innocent citizens. Too many migrants have either criminal or terrorist histories. Retiring Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told his agents that known or suspected terrorists, as identified in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, are entering in huge numbers, representing “a real threat.”

CBP, which operates at ports of entry and along the border between entry ports, reportedthat during fiscal year 2022, they encountered more than 25,000 convicted criminals. When the numbers that pour across the border total millions, ill-intended people will be among them.

The argument against the border “management” of Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shouldn’t be construed as anti-immigrant. Rather, the disagreement reflects reasonable questioning about the wisdom of open borders and a sincere concern that citizens are funding the administration’s immigration follies that only it approves of.

The border crisis is a direct result of the Biden’s administration’s willingness to allow anyone from anywhere to enter the U.S., even though the electorate is strongly opposed to such recklessness. The nation wants a responsible, sensible immigration policy, a prudent but, to date, elusive goal.

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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.

Mid-Term Voters Preferred Status Quo

Citizenship No Longer Important For Immigrants Under Biden

By Joe Guzzardi

Every year at Natale, my family gathered at my Sicilian-born grandmother’s home for the annual feast that she spent days preparing. The courses included the traditional Sciabbó, a lasagna made with pork ragú seasoned with dark chocolate, and cannoli alla Siciliana. One year, Nona told us that although she still wanted everyone to visit her at Christmas, she had grown too old to continue her cooking tradition. After feasting, we gathered around, and I asked Nona to tell me about the highlights of her Italian and American lives. Without hesitation, Nona answered that her happiest four moments were the three days that each of her children was born, and the day she became a United States citizen.

In today’s U.S., citizenship’s importance is quickly slipping away. Over the decades, the citizenship test has been watered down to the most basic questions with three of the four answers obviously incorrect. Example: “What is the one promise you make when you become a U.S. citizen?” A) Never travel outside the U.S., B) Disobey U.S. laws, C) Give up loyalty to other countries and D) Don’t defend the Constitution and U.S. laws.

Time was that the citizenship test required a reasonable knowledge of U.S. history and civics. Questions about the Federalist Papers and the amendments to the Constitution were standard. No more. In fact, the Biden administration has put the very concept of citizenship under siege. Just three months after his inauguration, Biden ordered federal agencies to drop “assimilation,” and use “integration.”

Assimilation, the process of absorbing new facts and of responding to new situations to conform with the new norm, has long been most immigrants’ goal. Banning the word from the lexicon makes little sense. For new immigrants, assimilation, mastering English and obtaining citizenship are essential for a fulfilling life. Without assimilation, conversational English skills and citizenship, most immigrants will be doomed to low-paying jobs, and will never experience the personal and professional joys that they ostensibly came to America to achieve.

Compare the early 20th century to today. In a long-ago interview with a Hollywood-based journalist, Austrian-born Billy Wilder said that shortly after he arrived in the U.S. in 1933 at age 27, he stayed in his hotel room, listening to the radio to learn English. While his fellow ex-pats met at coffee shops to drink espresso, eat pastries, speak German and reminisce about the old days, Wilder was determined to assimilate. Wilder said he knew he would never return to Europe and was determined to live out his life as an American. After earning multiple Academy Award nominations and winning six Oscars, Wilder died in Beverly Hills at age 95.

Biden must encourage, not discourage, assimilation. With the U.S.’s legal and illegal immigrant population in November 2022 at a record number, nearly 48 million, assimilation is critical. More than 70 ethnic identity congressional caucuses, each lobbying for their individual objectives, underline the need for the U.S. to unify, and to progress harmoniously toward shared ideals. That road, as Robert Frost might have written, is not being traveled.

The president’s failure to enforce immigration laws at the Southwest Border – a curious position for the man who as a U.S. senator voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 to build a wall to separate Mexico from the U.S. – will lead to a further dilution between the distinction of citizen and noncitizen. Since Biden took office, nearly 5.5 million illegal immigrants have entered the U.S., including nearly 1 million got-aways, as immigration officials refer to them, from about 150 different nations; they care little about citizenship. Migrants’ goal is amnesty, affirmative benefits and, most especially, the employment authorization that’s part of the amnesty package that rewards illegal crossers.

Woke, powerful elected officials are working hard and successfully to eliminate distinctions between legal and unlawful residents. On January 9, New York became the largest municipality to offer voting rights to noncitizens when newly sworn-in Mayor Eric Adams approved a local act allowing participation in New York City elections. About 800,000 visa holders, deferred action recipients and lawful permanent residents – noncitizens all – will be allowed to register as municipal voters, assuming they have lived in New York for 30 days.

The Republican legislature filed a lawsuit against the act on the grounds that it breaks New York State’s Constitution. Among its other violations, Intro. 1867 bypasses naturalization’s five-year residency requirement and mandatory English and civics tests without substituting a way to acclimate new voters. The city and state impose 30-day registration requirements for U.S. citizens; noncitizens are unlikely to be able to make informed election decisions after living in the city for a mere month. Moreover, opponents argue that granting voting rights to noncitizens disenfranchises citizens’ ballots, makes a mockery of citizenship and discourages immigrants from naturalizing.

Biden, Adams and others are wrong-headedly pursuing policies guaranteed to further split and weaken America. For the woke, the time is overdue to reacquaint themselves with the wonderful, if unofficial, U.S. motto, “E pluribus unum,” from the many one.

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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.

Citizenship No Longer Important For Immigrants Under Biden