Category: Joe Guzzardi

The Reality Of The Housing Crisis

By Joe Guzzardi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Reality Of The Housing Crisis

Assessing Katie Hobbs

By Joe Guzzardi

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

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

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

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

The “Veto Queen”

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

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

Questionable Campaign and Early Actions

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

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

Ongoing Legal and Financial Issues

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

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

Pay-for-Play Allegations

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

Political Future in Question

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

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

Assessing Katie Hobbs

Xi’s Daughter Is Harvard Grad

By Joe Guzzardi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xi’s Daughter Is Harvard Grad

Dodgers’ Superstar Welcomes Anchor Baby into Family

By Joe Guzzardi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Francis And DJT And Immigration

By Joe Guzzardi

“The Pope is Dead, Long Live the Papacy,” reads the Crisis Magazine headline. Crisis describes itself as the nation’s most trusted source for authentic Roman Catholic perspectives on church and state, arts and culture, science and faith. The article scathingly assessed Pope Francis for his progressive views and hoped that the next pope would adhere to more traditional Catholic values. Among the many criticisms leveled at Pope Francis were that he permitted Holy Communion for unrepentant sinners, okayed same-sex couples’ marriages, put Islam on the same footing as Catholicism, and forged the Vatican-China agreement which created a new diocese in totalitarian China.

My disclaimer: I’m a baptized Roman Catholic, an altar boy who served faithfully for several years, and remained active in church activities until my late teens. Priests frequently visited our home, so often that I considered entering the priesthood. But I gradually drifted away, and nothing distanced me faster and farther than when the Boston Globe in 2002 exposed the sexual abuse cases, which would eventually be revealed to span the globe to include hundreds of pedophile priests, thousands of victims and billions in settlements. In Boston alone, 140 priests were implicated in sex abuse charges against 552 victims, with more than $85 million in payments.  In retrospect, I’m lucky that I, as a former altar boy with priests welcomed as regular guests at our house, escaped the horrific crimes that my young peers suffered.

To the list of grievances that Crisis detailed, I’ll add one more. On immigration, the Roman Catholic Church is hypocritical. From parish priests all the way up to the pope, their message is consistent—accept more illegal immigrants. If the faithful turn their backs on their fellow man, they’re not true Christians but rather selfish xenophobes. The Roman Catholic clergy holds predictably hardline opinions on President Trump, his deportation policy and the White House’s determination to protect American sovereignty.

Take as an example the former San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy, a progressive like Pope Francis and recently transferred to Washington D.C. to become the district’s archbishop. Asked if he would meet President Donald Trump when he became a permanent D.C. resident, McElroy replied that, in the short term, he had no such plans. Then, McElroy added in an obvious criticism of U.S. immigration, “What does it mean in our society to be a compassionate society … and we believe in the human dignity of every person?”  McElroy called the wall and deportations “incompatible with Catholic doctrine,” added that Pope Francis shares his “profound concern” on the U.S.-Mexico border which he considers a “wider cultural attack” on those fleeing persecution and violence. The Pope said a problem today is an effort to portray immigrants as criminals. “When you classify people as criminals,” McElroy said, you class them as “the other, as different,” and thus deserving of lesser treatment, a curious statement that does not distinguish between convicted criminals like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua gangsters and family reunification immigrants. Ironically Italy, without papal interference, has cut immigration arrivals via sea by 60%, cracked down on false asylum claims, and made deals with some African nations to try to block departures.

Moreover, McElroy has his own shameful past tied to the pedophile disgrace. Victims’ lawyers claim that McElroy has been involved in serial cover-ups on behalf of the perpetrators. In 2007, the San Diego Diocese settled lawsuits brought by 144 victims, but recently more than 450 claims have been made. The Diocese said more than 60% of the latest claims are for incidents that occurred more than 50 years ago. If true, five decades still does not erase the victims’ pain or nightmarish memories. In his statement last year, McElroy alleged that settling the remaining cases at the same rate they were settled in 2007 would cost the church upwards of $550 million. To avoid that high-payout, McElroy put the Archdiocese into bankruptcy last year as he sought to delay or deny compensation to more than 500 victims. Just hours before the first of about 150 cases were scheduled for trial, the archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 protection. Now, alleged victims looking for a settlement with the church will find themselves in bankruptcy court.

McElroy scorned President Trump #45 and #47, but he said he had a lengthy call with former President Joe Biden that included a discussion about the border. The breathtaking hypocrisy starts here. McElroy once said that abortion “remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself.” Yet, McElroy was willing to interact with one of history’s most pro-abortion presidents and, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, women’s right-to-choose administrations. Biden signed an executive order defending women’s ability to cross state borders to obtain an abortion, and he admonished the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Pope’s duplicity reached a peak when earlier this year President Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor Pope Francis should have refused with the explanation that he could not accept the prestigious medal from a pro-abortion president. Because of his abortion advocacy, Biden should be a pariah to Pope Francis and McElroy.

Final thought: McElroy is foolish to avoid meeting President Trump. Differences are best resolved face-to-face, not using the media as his messenger. If McElroy would reach out to President Trump, he would assuredly be invited to the White House and the Cardinal could lay out his personal immigration vision. He may not sell it, but McElroy would have a chance to speak his mind to the U.S. president, a privilege few Americans ever get.

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

Globalist Billionaire MLB Owner Import Players

By Joe Guzzardi

On March 17, Major League Baseball celebrated its Opening Day but, alas, not on U.S. soil. In one of its innumerable money grabs, MLB’s first games that counted in the season’s standings have been played in Mexico, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, and San Juan. Opening Day was once considered an informal national holiday, hopefully a sunny, spring day to eat peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jacks while watching great baseball. The uplifting sentiment doesn’t transfer when the first game is played in the Tokyo Dome with its offerings of nori bento, sukiyaki and cod roe potato salad. The National Pastime concept, as it was once treasured, is dead and buried.

I’m fed up with MLB’s PED abuse tolerance, a federal felony, its acceptance of shifty and dishonest PED testimony to Congress, another felony, and its winking to federal authorities about known human trafficking of Cubans to a safe third country where they establish a fake identity, elude immigration officials, and then proceed to the U.S. and an MLB roster spot, innumerable felonies. Eddie Dominguez, a decorated Boston Police Department officer, FBI special task force agent, and for six years a member of MLB’s Department of Investigations wrote that, “When it comes to Cuban players, human traffickers, and all that goes with it [crimes], MLB isn’t interested.”

Looking at the facts, some could conclude that MLB has the smacking of a criminal enterprise. At the least, MLB is profoundly anti-American worker as attested to by the 30 training camps in the Dominican Republic and zero in the U.S. as well as its rush to sign high-ticket Japanese players. Remember, playing baseball is a job complete with a contract.  Maybe the Japanese are better than the American kid fresh off the Texas Longhorns campus, but the college youth is just as entertaining to watch. If you doubt me, tune in to the College World Series. Still, about 40 percent of Opening Day rosters featured foreign-born players from more than a dozen international countries.

Jose Abreau, a former Chicago White Sox MVP and now a free agent, testified before Congress that on the last leg of his journey from Cuba to Haiti to Miami, he ate his fake passport. Abreau knew that customs officials would instantly identify his phony documentation and arrest him. The Cuban national received immunity in exchange for his tell-all testimony. A series of crimes helped Abreau launch his career and paved the way to earning more than $150 million with $30 million more due from the when it released him.

My vigorous resistance to baseball’s corporatization is to have made the same vow that I did in 2023— to not watch either on television or in person or to listen to a single MLB inning. Abstinence was easy. I filled my baseball cravings with local high school and NCAA games, the Independent League, the Pony League World Series and minor leagues. I’m kicking myself that I weakened in 2024, a mistake I’ll try not to make again this year. One thing I can swear to on The Bible: I will not buy a MLB ticket or waste one thin dime on its flimsy, overpriced promotional junk.  If I had more years to live, I would aspire to the New York Yankees’ World Series championship shortstop and NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek’s accomplishment. In 1994, Kubek walked away from his lucrative television contract—$1.2 million annually adjusted for inflation— and has not watched one second of baseball in the three decades since. Kubek: “I hate what the game’s become, the greed, the nastiness.” Kubek, now 89, could have added hypocritical. Gambling is everywhere in baseball. Get your bets down! But contemptible, hard-hearted Commissioner Rob Manfred granted no forgiveness to one of baseball’s greatest, hardest playing, and the all-time hits leader. For his misdemeanor gambling offense 35 years ago, Pete Rose went to his grave, banned from the Hall of Fame.

No decision in baseball’s 150-plus years has fundamentally altered it for the worse than MLB’s elimination of 42 minor league affiliates before the 2021 season. Pulling out of 25% of its minor league towns would reportedly cut costs on what baseball’s suits considered an anachronistic player development system. Bring on the computers and the Ivy League geeks who know how to extract the minutia about launch angles, exit velocities and other mumbo-jumbo that traditionalists could care less about. As former All-Star and World Series champion Jayson Worth said, “the super nerds…are ruining the game. Just put the laptops out there and let them play.”

Dinosaur fans like me are living in a whole new and diminished baseball world. New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman explains: “Bottom line is this is big business … This should be run like a Wall Street boardroom where you pursue assets. No different than if you’re in the oil industry and you want to buy some oil rigs out in the gulf.” Forbes valued the Yankees’ franchise at $8.2 billion, the wealthiest among MLB teams.

Sadly, too few of my fellow baseball afficionados adhere to my admittedly hardline stance. Imagine my delight then when I came upon investigative journalist Will Bardenwerper’s new book “Homestand, Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” who wrote eloquently about the consequences on communities who lose their minor league franchises. On MLB’s chopping block were working-class communities like Pulaski, Virginia; Elizabethton, Tennessee; Bluefield, West Virginia; Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and Batavia, New York. The decision by billionaire, globalist major league owners to extinguish community ball clubs, some of the few remaining places where people could still find happiness and connection, for affordable prices as they had for generations, merely to save the equivalent of one major league minimum salary per franchise, $760,000, struck Bardenwerper as emblematic of so much of what was wrong with today’s America. Stadium workers lose their jobs, local restaurants and coffee shops struggle to stay afloat, and senior citizens lose a hallowed ballpark gathering place. But since the communities and their workers are blue-collar, globalists like MLB’s principals don’t care enough about small-town America’s fate to reconsider the damning effect their money-grubbing strategy will have.

The minor leagues’ contraction accelerated its ownership evolution from local mom and pop owners to private equity financiers who have been circling the teams that have thus far escaped MLB’s scythe. In just a few years, one enterprise, Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), has gobbled up a staggering 41 of the remaining 120 clubs. DBH is, in other words, a baseball holding company—just like the conglomerates on the Big Board.

Bardenwerper’s book focuses on Batavia, New York and its’ Muckdogs. Batavia is a small city on the Rust Belt’s periphery but for over a century, Batavia had enjoyed something special, a minor league ball club. Locals treasured being part of a direct pipeline from their cozy ballparks to the grand cathedrals of the game like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Just as importantly, they had a place to come together and enjoy the company of friends and neighbors, at affordable prices, on warm summer nights. Industries and factories may have left, but baseball did not.

Minor league professional baseball in Batavia dated back to the 1897 establishment of the Batavia Giants. The old railroad town had featured the New York-Penn League team almost continuously since its establishment in 1939. The Muckdogs, one of the teams disaffiliated in 2021, had been central to the life of the town for decades. For communities like Batavia, the local minor league ballpark meant cheerful shouts from kids playing catch in the shade of the bleachers, exuberant teenagers roaming about just as their parents had decades before, and grandparents bundled up to protect from the summer night’s chill.  

While the value of such happiness couldn’t be neatly quantified on an MLB spreadsheet — perhaps because happiness like that cannot be measured and marketed — the inefficiencies within the system or, in the words of potentate Manfred, the “stuff around the edges” that could be “cleaned up” to create “some economic flexibility that we can use.”

The small city in western New York between Rochester and Buffalo, Batavia was once full of heavy industry but has always been surrounded by fertile farmland, the local “mucklands” that inspired the team’s name. Prosperous in the first half of the twentieth century, Batavia began to struggle economically when the New York State Thruway bypassed Main Street, leading to the gradual death of many local businesses, as passing travelers no longer even knew they were there. Urban renewal projects, in which many of the historic old buildings along Main Street were bulldozed to make room for modern, brutalist style constructions, ravaged the once stately downtown. This was followed by the exit of much of its remaining industry in the 1980s and 90s.

Minor league baseball in Batavia was special in part because of what had been, at least on paper, its very ordinariness. The Muckdogs didn’t enjoy the highest attendance of the clubs that had been eliminated, nor had it been on the cutting edge of wacky baseball promotions like the Savannah Bananas.

In the wake of MLB’s cuts, Batavia refused to surrender baseball, rallying behind the creation of a new Muckdogs club, made up of amateur players competing in a summer collegiate league. With an extraordinary effort and much sacrifice from many people, driven by a community that would not allow its baseball team to disappear, Batavia survived. Pleasant summer evenings at the ballpark once seemed timeless but MLB’s craven decision put them on the endangered list. Through the vigorous efforts of its vibrant community, the crack of the bat will still be heard during the summer of 2025. Muckdogs fans of all ages will gather on warm summer evenings to overlook the tenderly manicured Dwyer Stadium.

The elitest billionaires are a mighty foe. But their fat bankrolls are not big enough to prevent Batavia’s dedicated fans from watching their beloved Muckdogs.

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

Will Bardenwerper served in Iraq as an Airborne Ranger-qualified infantry officer and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and a Bronze Star. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major publications. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he earned a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University.

Buy “Homestand, Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” here. Mr. Bardenwerper’s other books are here.

Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration

By Joe Guzzardi

In Tennessee, controversial House Bill 793 and SB 836 that allow Tennessee school districts to deny enrollment to illegal alien students have taken another step toward becoming law. The bills would give permission to Tennessee schools to verify that, before enrolling them, children are citizens or have legal immigrant or visa status. Schools could then deny enrollment to the children who cannot prove their status or charge them tuition. The two versions differ in one key respect: the House bill makes it optional to check student immigration status. In the Senate version, immigration status checks are mandatory in Tennessee’s more than 1700 public schools and all public charter schools. The bills’ sponsors argued that the legislation is needed to both quantify the number of illegal alien students attending Tennessee schools and to protect the state’s limited financial resources. Opponents protested that the bill violates constitutional protections, particularly the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, which guarantees access to public education regardless of immigration status.

On both sides of the aisle, passions ran high. House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons slammed the bill, and repeated clichés like, “Our country has a broken immigration system” and that the bill is about “punishing innocent children.” During the committee hearing, from the GOP side, Rep. Monty Fritts said, “We’re not talking about immigrants, we’re talking about illegals. There’s a distinct difference. There is no greater act of rebellion in these U.S. than illegally coming across that border.” The National Immigration Law Center issued a statement after the Senate vote that called the action a “shameful attempt to take away Tennessee children’s freedom.” The immigration advocacy firm is, it said, “prepared to defend the right to education for all alongside our partners in court.”

In June 2024, the Federation of American Immigration Reform wrote that under Plyler v. Doe, local schools are obligated to provide illegal alien children with a taxpayer-funded K-12 education. The cost is staggering. The nation’s price tag for educating illegal aliens’ children in 2022 was $70.8 billion. The data preceded the historic illegal immigrant surge that began in 2021 when President Joe Biden took office. Using Florida Rep. Aaron Bean’s conservative estimate of 500,000 new illegal aliens in U.S. public schools, the recent influx has added at least $9.7 billion in additional taxpayer costs. Bean chairs the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, and summed up Plyler v. Doe’s effect on the nation’s classrooms in two words: “Wreaking havoc.”

Parents’ frustration with the ever-expanding illegal aliens’ enrollment is understandable. Every teacher minute spent with a non-English speaking student, some of whom come in and out of the classroom depending on their parents’ work obligations, is one less moment spent with a citizen pupil. The Nation’s Report Card which showed sharp declines in reading and math scores for 9-year-olds, is attributable to, at least in part, the steady arrival of non-English speaking pupils.

Plyler v. Doe must take into consideration the nation’s current population levels. In 1982, the year SCOTUS handed down its ruling, the U.S. had 232 million residents including roughly sixteen million legal and illegal immigrants. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis showed that government’s January 2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) fixed the foreign-born or legal and illegal immigrant population at 53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population— both new record highs. The January CPS is the first government survey adjusted to better reflect the recent surge in illegal immigrants. Unlike border statistics, the CPS measures the number of immigrants in the country, which is what determines their impact on society including education. Without adjusting for those the survey missed, the estimated illegal immigrant population accounted for 5.4 million or two-thirds of the 8.3 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021. CIS’ best estimate is that 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the last four years.

Given the dramatic illegal immigration surge over the last 40 years, states’ request to reevaluate Plyler v. Doe is a modest proposal. States spend billions to educate Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students while citizen children get less of their teachers’ attention. In the meantime, while Plyler v. Doe review plays out in the courts, the federal government, which writes and approves immigration law, should pay for states’ illegal aliens’ education, an unfunded mandate. The bills’ sponsors have said they hope the legislation could serve as a test case for the Supreme Court to revisit its 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision. “If Plyler v. Doe were to stand, the federal government might finally step up and send the states the money to fund these students,” said a GOP representative. On LEP programs, Congress contributes barely 1 percent of the cost despite the federal requirement for states to educate the children of illegal aliens. Congress’ indifference to citizen children’s diluted education while it funds an ongoing illegal immigrant surge into already overcrowded classrooms represents yet another America last policy.

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

Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration

Orioles’ Irishmen Lit Up Scoreboard

By Joe Guzzardi

June 24, 1901, was a grand day for the Irish batsmen played who for the Baltimore Orioles’ third baseman-manager John J. McGraw, the son of Irish immigrants. Of the teams 22 hits in its 17-6 romp over the Detroit Tigers, Irishmen banged out 17. The Orioles had a team well-stocked with Hall of Fame-bound Irish hitters, and some of baseball histories most famous personalities.

Among the future Cooperstown inductees, McGraw was universally hated for grabbing runners rounding third by their belts, tripping or spiking them to keep them from reaching home. His colorful language directed toward umpires led to quick ejections; the “Little Napoleon” got the thumb 117 times. Not that McGraw paid attention to it, but his language was so foul that owners issued a ruling “A Measure for the Suppression of Obscene, Indecent and Vulgar Language on the Ball Field.” More than one hundred years after he hung up his spikes, McGraw still ranks third in on base percentage, .466, behind Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. McGraw reached base by choking up so far that he could have hit the pitcher’s offering with either end of his war club. Before the game began, McGraw ordered the field drenched and then left to dry until it was hard as cement. Once he reached the plate, McGraw would execute his famous “Baltimore Chop,” a batted ball which bounced high over infielder’s heads. By the time the bulb descended, McGraw stood safely on first base. Although rarely credited as such, McGraw—Mr. McGraw to his players— invented inside baseball and was unquestionably the Dead Ball Era’s most influential figure.

As a manager, McGraw had few peers. In 29 full seasons as the Giants’ pilot that spanned from 1902 to 1932, he led the New York Giants to 10 National League pennants, three World Series championships, and 21 first- or second-place finishes. His 2,763 managerial victories were second only to Connie Mack‘s 3,731 for the rest of the 20th century, but in 1927 Mack himself proclaimed, “There has been only one manager — and his name is McGraw.”

Another Orioles’ future Cooperstown inductee was Wilbert Robinson, one of the era’s best catchers and beloved by all. “Uncle Robbie,” led the Brooklyn Robins to two National League pennants. The incident for which Robinson is most famous occurred during Brooklyn’s 1915 Daytona Beach training camp. Aviator Ruth Lawl was making daily flights in the area, dropping golf balls as a publicity gimmick for the local courses. Eventually camp chatter among the Robins turned to the idea of catching a baseball dropped from the plane. Robinson, 53, accepted the challenge. On the big day, Law left the baseball back in her hotel room, and substituted a grapefruit which, when she released it from high altitude, landed in Robinson’s mitt and exploded, knocking him down and drenching him in warm juice. Thinking his own blood covered him, Robbie screamed for help, but his players were too doubled over with laughter to respond. Robinson was serious about baseball, however. The New York Times baseball scribe John Kiernan wrote that Robinson “… knew baseball as the spotted setter knows the secrets of quail hunting, by instinct and experience.” During his years with the Orioles, Robinson developed a close and long-lasting friendship with teammate John McGraw, 10 years his junior. The two men eventually went into business together, opening the Diamond Café, a Baltimore billiards parlor that featured a bar, a dining room, and a bowling alley.

Other Irish greats that appeared in that day’s lineup included Roger Bresnahan, a catcher who upgraded that position’s protective gear and during his career played all nine positions; Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity who, during August 1903, pitched and won both ends of a doubleheader three times; and “Turkey” Mike Donlin, so called because of his strut up to the plate. Donlin, one of the Dead Ball era’s best hitters who went six for six in the O’s rout of Detroit, was also a flamboyant playboy and heavy drinker whose misbehavior often landed him in jail. Later in his life, Donlin starred on Broadway and eventually on Hollywood’s silver screen where in starred in features directed by John Ford. Donlin’s career batting average was an impressive .340.

Irish players, born into humble immigrant circumstances and eager to succeed, dominated early 20^th century baseball. Too many of their accomplishments have been overshadowed by the hype around lesser skilled but heavily promoted modern day players.

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

Orioles’ Irishmen Lit Up Scoreboard

Sanctuary City Mayors Unbending in Defending Lawless Policies  

By Joe Guzzardi

On March 5, four of the tough-talking big city mayors appeared before the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. New York’s Eric Adams, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, Denver’s Mike Johnston and Boston’s Michelle Wu faced probing questions from Committee Chair James Comer and other members about their sanctuary policies which allow inadmissible aliens to seek and receive harbor. Sanctuary cities also block Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out immigration laws.

Comer opened by asking the four if they considered their city “a sanctuary.” Only Adams answered yes. The others deflected. Johnson said Chicago is a “welcoming city,”; Wu, Boston is “a safe city,” and Johnston offered a word salad. Wu repeatedly claimed that Boston is the nation’s safest city, but in the FBI’s newly released 2023 crime data, Boston ranked 16th safest of the nation’s 50 largest cities when measured against total violent crime

The defiant mayors made familiar but misleading talking points to support their unbending sanctuary city status. They maintained that without illegal immigrants their local work force would evaporate, that their “welcoming” posture is consistent with America’s open-arms immigration history. They also insisted that the answer to their problems is “comprehensive immigration reform,” code words for amnesty. Wu leaned heavily on her family’s history as the child of non-English speaking Taiwanese who raised their daughter on Chicago’s Southside. Johnson made repeated efforts to blame Texas Governor Greg Abbott for sending busloads of illegal immigrants to Chicago.

Under direct questioning, Wu did poorly. Missouri’s U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison dug in and asked Wu if there is an “acceptable number” of illegal aliens before she feels the city is overrun. Wu replied that she doesn’t decide who comes into the country or where they go, only how they are treated when they get to Boston. Wu ordered Burlison to do his job and pass legislation, another reference to amnesty. When asked several times to provide hard figures for the taxpayer expense to care for illegal aliens, Wu couldn’t provide a number. She said no cost data is available because Boston doesn’t inquire about immigration status. Neither Wu nor Chicago’s Johnson would explicitly answer Comer’s question about whether they would turn over illegal immigrant criminals to ICE.

Johnson drew Republican lawmakers’ ire for limiting his cost estimate at roughly 1 percent of his city’s budget while Denver’s and New York City’s Johnston and Adams provided concrete numbers at $79 million over the past two years and $6.9 billion, respectively. Wu was hammered for saying Boston doesn’t keep track. “You don’t ask how much money the city of Boston has spent on illegal immigration — are you out of your mind? Do you manage your budget?” asked Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.  She does not, as evidenced by her hiring of a legal team to coach her, the Washington D.C. law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, which charges $950 an hour, according to the Boston Herald.  In all, Wu spent $650,000 on legal fees and to transport eight staffers and her one-month-old infant to the hearing.

Adams came under intense fire from his fellow Democrats for his alleged deal making with the Trump administration. New York Democrats Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and Laura Gillen along with California’s Robert Garcia demanded that Adams resign for his purported quid-pro-quo deal to cooperate with ICE in exchange for DOJ ordering federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against the mayor. Adams vigorously denied any type of deal.

The Cato Institute’s David Bier, the minority witness, was on hand to give the pro-mayor, pro-sanctuary city testifiers a helping hand. Bier presented only the positive side of the sanctuary city debate—illegal aliens pay taxes but no mention of the services they consume, states have limited power to cooperate with the federal government, but no citation of the Supremacy Clause, Congress should follow the guidelines recommended by the Major City Chiefs Association, not those that National Border Patrol Council established, etc.

After six hours of contentious testimony, the next step is in the administration’s hands. AG Bondi has sued Chicago, Illinois and New York State for their sanctuary policies. Bondi called Wu “an insult to law enforcement,” and promised to intensify her efforts in Boston. Before the hearing, Wu sent condolences to Lemark Jaramillo’s family; police identified Jaramillo as the perpetrator who attempted to stab Chick-fil-A patrons and was then shot to death by an off-duty police officer.

After the hearing ended, Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna wrote on X, “I just referred the sanctuary city mayors to the Department of Justice for CRIMINAL investigations based on evidence from their own comments and policies, proving that they were breaking federal law.” Four other Republicans indicated that they too would file charges against the insolent mayors. Criminal charges, along withholding federal funds from the rebellious mayors’ cities, is the best way to end the illegal sanctuary city quagmire. The law is clear: Title 8, U.S. Code § 1324 is a federal law that makes it illegal to bring in and harbor illegal aliens and prohibits the unlawful employment of aliens. 

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

Sanctuary City Mayors Unbending in Defending Lawless Policies