Category: Joe Guzzardi

Biden Frivolously Neglects National Security

By Joe Guzzardi  

To learn first-hand how negligent the federal government is about national security, book an airline reservation to any destination. By comparison to the open Southwest border, airports are locked down tight.

The pre-boarding drill is too familiar. Travelers, once at the football-field long Transportation Safety Administration pre-boarding line, must remove shoes. After taking out iPads, liquids, gels and aerosol items (maximum 3.4 ounce-capacity) which have been packed into one quart-sized, clear plastic bag with a zip-top closure, airplane passengers then must toss their baggage into bins for screening.

After that frustrating drill, passengers must show government-issued identification with a current photograph to a TSA official, and go through a metal detector. Unlucky passengers are pulled aside for further screening with either a full-body pat-down or a handheld wand that’s passed across the upper torso, hands, legs and backsides. These considerable inconveniences that often involve affronts to privacy cost taxpayers $7.7 billion annually.

At the border, however, illegal aliens from more than 100 countries have been able to walk right in, surrender to Customs and Border Protection agents, and wait for transportation to their final destination within the U.S. The aliens’ backgrounds and health status at the time of their crossing are unknown. But, after the fact, officials learned that more than 18 percent of illegal immigrant families and 20 percent of unaccompanied minorswho recently crossed the U.S. border tested COVID-positive before border agents released them into the interior.

Moreover, trusted border sources revealed that, exclusive of their immigration offenses, 15 percent of border crossers have criminal records. Edgar Campos-Campos, for example, a previously deported and now detained Mexican national, was convicted of aggravated statutory rape in Bedford County, Tenn. Immigration law, until Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas redefined to his advantage what criminal behavior is, banned convicted felons from reentry. In his memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tae D. Johnson, Mayorkas also doubled down on keeping the border crisis overheated when he pronounced that “undocumented non-citizens,” as he calls illegal immigrants, won’t be deported unless they represent a threat to border security, national security or public safety.

The contrast between airport security and open border insecurity proves that the U.S. isn’t a serious country. If the federal government should suddenly become motivated to protect its citizens, the border could be secured in little time. Israel can share its approach. Last month, Israel Aerospace Industries, a defense contractor, introduced REX MKII, a remote-controlled robot that can patrol border zones and track infiltrators. The unmanned vehicle can be tablet or manually controlled to achieve the most effective movement or surveillance functions. REX MKII is the latest addition to the drone technology world. Proponents claim that semi-autonomous machines, like the four-wheel-drive robot REX MKII, provide a large range of protection as they gather intelligence. The Israeli military currently uses a smaller but similar vehicle called the Jaguar to patrol Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.

Israel is keenly aware of threats from foreign enemies, but the U.S. is indifferent to the identical risks. Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, ousted by Biden after his 30-year career defending the homeland, said that terrorists and other criminals, now aware that the border is open, are diligently trying to cross into the U.S. Scott said that criminals want to gain access to the U.S. interior. Statistically, Scott added, the widely available public CBP statistics prove that every year the illegal entries always include rapists, murderers and potential terrorists. “Those all exist in who we actually catch,” Scott said, concluding that “to think there is not just as bad or worse people in those getting away would be naive.”

Scott’s credible warnings should be heeded. Moreover, last year’s DHS Assessment Threat predicted the 15,000-strong Haitian surge, also ignored. Neither Biden nor his immigration czar Vice President Kamala Harris has been to the border, proof of their superficiality. DHS Secretary Mayorkas continues to undermine national security and subvert immigration law with his dangerous statements and inaction. In the Biden White House, naïveté, to Scott’s assessment, reigns.

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

Biden Frivolously Neglects National Security

September BLS Report Boon To Open Immigration Boosters

By Joe Guzzardi

For the second consecutive month, Wall Street analysts and media business forecasters badly missed the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s job creation total. Dow Jones projected 500,000 new jobs for September, a greater than 300,000 misfire after the true BLS number came in at 194,000. Television commentators were aghast at their second straight BLS whiff. August’s expected jobs creation total was predicted to be 720,000, which turned out to be a more inaccurate forecast than September’s when the so-called experts were off the mark by 485,000 jobs. In August, the economy created a mere 235,000 jobs.

No surprise that COVID-19 took the brunt of the blame for the steep declines, particularly among workers in education and local/state employment, but also among bus drivers, food service workers and substitute teachers. Another variable that added to the dismal September results was the disappearance from the labor force of many older, low-wage workers still fearful about COVID-19 and its Delta variant. A historic 11 million jobs are open and available. As far as the economy and job creation are concerned, the U.S. is still in COVID-19’s grasp.

“We’re hiring” signs are everywhere, yet few workers have stepped up to fill the jobs. Although openings are at or near an all-time record, one hurdle to attracting employees is that many of the positions require in-person work for construction, hospitality, delivery services or warehousing, the exact types of jobs too many Americans shun in the current environment. Thanks to the pandemic fear the government and scare-mongering media have instilled in the general public, potential workers stay away from close-contact employment. Consequently, most job seekers are hopeful of finding mostly unavailable remote work. A recent review of the ZipRecruiter websitefound that only one in 10 postings offered remote employment.

When workers are in short supply, the clarion call for more immigration inevitably follows. Bill Kristol, for example, once a conservative, now a Democrat, and always an immigration advocate, put out a tweet which proclaimed that immigration could solve the economy’s employment doldrums. Kristol wrote: “We can debate infrastructure, tax policy, government spending, etc. But it’s not a close call as to the one thing that would do the most for our economy across the board: More immigration. Both ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled.’ Which the Administration and Congress have done nothing on.”

Well – not exactly nothing. Kristol must not be paying attention to the immigration news. Encouraging illegal immigration, bringing Afghan evacuees to the U.S. and raising the refugee cap are definitely something. Soon the U.S. will have a worker surplus. The 15,000 Haitians who surged the border, the 50,000 or more Afghanistan evacuees and the 125,000 refugees that Biden has committed to for fiscal 2021-22, and the 2 million released-at-the-border illegal aliens will inevitably receive employment authorization. Also on their way to compete for jobs in the U.S. labor pool are the annual 1 million-plus legal immigrants who, as part of their permanent residency, receive lifetime valid work permits. Finally, add about 700,000 guest workers that traditionally enter the U.S. to perform jobs which range from medical doctors to agriculture-based employees.

The approximately 1 million legal and 2 million illegal immigrants, the evacuees, the refugees and the guest workers will go a long way to making Kristol and the immigration lobby’s dreams come true. And if Congress passes the reconciliation bill that it’s kicking around, about 8 million more aliens will be granted amnesty, receive legal status and work permits. COVID-19 restrictions could impact the foreign-born arrivals, but illegal immigrant amnesty candidates already represent several million work permits.

High immigration and the lower wages immigrants earn harm those that can least withstand economic setbacks – American blacks and Hispanics, other minorities, the disabled, recently arrived low-skilled legal immigrants and others without a college degree. More immigration, regardless of how much it may hurt Americans who fund it, is the blueprint that the Biden administration has, to the disappointment of most, chosen to follow, and is committed to.

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

September BLS Report Boon To Open Immigration Boosters

Chamber Of Commerce Wins, Workers Lose

By Joe Guzzardi 

A George W. Bush federal judge appointee voided a Trump-era H-1Bregulation that switched the visa allocation system from a random selection lottery to a process that prioritizes higher-wage jobs. By putting emphasis on higher wages, tech employers would, President Trump hoped, be less likely to hire cheaper, foreign-born workers, and instead select more qualified overseas and American employees.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division granted the Chamber of Commerce’s (COC) motion for summary judgment, and permanently struck down the Trump-era changes to the H-1B visa. White’s ruling, based on his assessment that then-Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was not lawfully serving in his role at the time, was a triumph for the Chamber and other cheap labor-addicted employers, and another setback for U.S. tech workers.

Chamber Vice President of Immigration Policy, Jon Baselice, called White’s ruling “…a major victory for American businesses and our economy. If implemented, the H-1B lottery rule would have denied many companies access to the talent they need to expand their operations and create American jobs.” COC is not the working man’s voice; the largest D.C. lobbyspent $30 million in 2021 often with the goal of keeping a steady cheap labor flow going to bolster American industries’ bottom line.

The COC’s lawsuit specifically brought up the issue that if the H-1B selection process prioritizes highest wages, then international students would be harmed because they are recent graduates and getting entry-level wages. The judge ignored that argument and decided to judge the case solely on the fact Chad Wolf was, in his view, illegally appointed as DHS Secretary.

President Trump’s goal aspired to raise the wages that employers would have to pay to H-1B visa holders, or optionally to hire from the unemployed, displaced U.S. tech worker pool. Early in his four-year term, President Trump signed his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order which, on January 21, Biden revoked. The Biden administration’s labor objective is the direct opposite of Trump’s. Biden proposed to increase employment-based visas, and eliminate the country cap which would open up jobs for foreign nationals, almost exclusively to Indians.

For decades, H-1B visas have been controversial. Supporters claim the visa holders are highly skilled, outperform U.S. tech workers, and without them, America would quickly become noncompetitive in the global market. Opponents allege that tech employers have abused the original intent of the visa to complement the existing American workforce and that as currently applied is unfair to both international and U.S. tech workers. The Economic Policy Institute’s Daniel Costa wrote that employers have “hijacked the system” by using between one-third to one-half of the H-1B visas to replace thousands of U.S. workers with “much-lower-paid H-1B workers while also sending tech jobs abroad.”

Lobbyists like the Chamber of Commerce argue, falsely, that U.S. tech workers aren’t available, and importing “the best and brightest” is essential. But employers aren’t legally required to recruit Americans or prove that they have a labor shortage before they hire H-1Bs who they can, also legally, underpay. Moreover, the employer chooses whether his employee receives Level 1 or Level 2 wages, the lowest, and the government doesn’t check unless the unlikely happens – workers file a lawsuit or a complaint. If and when a foreign national files a lawsuit, he risks that his employer, who controls his visa, could take steps to have him deported.

For more than 30 years, ample evidence has been presented to Congress that the H-1B harms U.S. tech workers. Nevertheless, tech employers, the Chamber of Commerce and immigration lawyers have consistently persuaded Congress – to U.S. tech workers’ detriment – that H-1B foreign-born employees are an indispensable cog necessary to keep the economy purring.

Ray Marshall from President Jimmy Carter’s administration put forward the most concise, critical, but accurate H-1B summation. Said Marshall, who as Labor Secretary understood the negative effect imported workers had on Americans: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…. H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Marshall described the great deal employers and foreign-born workers get, but the raw deal for U.S. tech workers.

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

Chamber Of Commerce Wins, Workers Lose

Biden Haitian Deportations, Too Little, Too Late

By Joe Guzzardi 

The Biden administration announced the other week that it was beginning daily flights to return Haitian illegal immigrants from their makeshift shelters under Texas’ International Bridge. The first flights left Sept. 19. As many as 14,000 Haitians have arrived in Del Rio with the anticipation that, like thousands of other aliens who preceded them, they’ll be processed and admitted to the U.S. But, the rub – Haiti, recovering from a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people and damaged more than 100,000 homes, is unwilling to accept more than three flights a day.

Ironically, given that since Biden’s first day in office, he’s abdicated the chief executive’s responsibility to enforce immigration laws that Congress has passed, and previous presidents have signed, the administration’s official statement that returning the Haitians is “about border enforcement” rings hollow.

More probable is that the disconcerting images and videos of thousands of Haitians wading across the Rio Grande, then clustered in squalid, unsanitary conditions – with rumors of more on the way – caught the attention of The Washington Post and The New York Times. Their awareness led to what is, for those publications, a harsh appraisal of the administration’s border crisis mismanagement. After observing the sea of humanity at the bridge, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose district runs along the majority of the Texas border with Mexico, just north of the Rio Grande, said he thought he was in a third world country with literally no border – “it’s just been muddied over.” The administration may have concluded that it couldn’t afford to lose the establishment media’s immigration policy support.

An Associated Press story on the migrant airlift to Haiti predicted that no more than two planes would depart daily, a conclusion that’s probably the most optimistic possible outcome. Whether two or eight flights back to Haiti, Texas would still be left with thousands of Haitian migrants, as well as foreign nationals from 90 countries arriving daily to seek asylum or humanitarian protection. Thousands of Haitians arrived stateside before the earthquake hit.

Nowhere has Biden’s law-shirking been more evident than his feckless open border tolerance that’s gravely harmed several border states, none more so than Texas. To his credit, Gov. Greg Abbott with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s assistance launched “Operation Lone Star” to push back against unchecked illegal immigration, fentanyl trafficking that with Chinese money launderers’ helping hand has earned criminals billions of dollars, and human smuggling that too often leads to children sold into the sex trade. Abbott’s strategy to protect Texans came after his agreement to work with Biden on the closure of six Texas ports of entry to restore immigration enforcement collapsed.

Operation Lone Star will deploy air, ground, marine and tactical border security assets to high threat areas to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas. In a statement, Abbott said that because of Biden’s neglect, the southern border crisis continues to escalate. Abbott added: “Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.” Abbott signed a $1.8 billion border security bill to increase immigration detention facilities, $750 million of which will be applied to a so-called border barrier that could include temporary chain fences and concrete barriers. This summer, Texas committed $250 million as a down payment for its version of the Trump border wall.

The Constitution, Article IV, Section 4, “guarantees to every state in this union” that “it shall protect each of them against Invasion.” With an anticipated 2 million illegal aliens who will surge the border this year, invasion is the proper word to describe conditions in the Rio Grande Valley, and other Texas entry points. The total illegal crossers include an estimated 40,000 COVID-19 positive aliens. Vaccinations are not mandated for these crossers, who are released into destinations across the nation. And in Texas, a record 10,800 unaccompanied minors entered. August was the second consecutive month that the Department of Homeland Security reported more than 200,000 illegal immigrant encounters.

Once released, aliens become the states’ responsibility – jobs training, housing, transportation, medical care, education – all the necessities that humans need to lead meaningful lives, but which taxpayers must underwrite. If the White House violates the Constitution, and refuses to protect Texas and the other 49 states against foreign incursion, then to safeguard its citizens, individual states must assume the responsibility to defend themselves.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.com.

Biden Haitian Deportations, Too Little, Too Late

International Student Enrollment Endures Despite Pandemic

By Joe Guzzardi

Amidst COVID-19 chaos and confusion, the new academic year has started. At some institutions, weekly COVID-19 testing for students, including those who are fully vaccinated, and mask requirements, regardless of vaccination status, are required indoors and outdoors. Faculty and staff members are subject to the same rigorous requirements.

To help end COVID’s spread, a few universities have implemented rigid protocols. The University of Virginia and Xavier University of Louisiana disenrolled students who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine prior to the fall semester. Duke University, specifically, stated they will fire unvaccinated faculty, the most extreme punishment that could set a new standard at other universities.

Since concerns about COVID-19 and its Delta variant are so widespread among campuses, the CDC and the Biden administration, issuing F-1 student visas to prospective enrollees from overseas nations struggling with the pandemic too is at odds with the cautionary advice that the establishment endlessly harps on. Nevertheless, more than 55,000 Indian students and exchange visitors will study in the U.S. this year, “an all-time record,” that exceeded pre-pandemic levels, the U.S. embassy boasted. Many more are expected to arrive as the year progresses.

The State Department’s approval of record numbers of Indian student visas is more incomprehensible in light of India’s battle to contain COVID-19. India, with its 1.4 billion population, has recorded more than 33 million COVID-19 cases, and rising, that have led to 442,000 deaths. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has rejected his own pandemic solutions. In his February remarks to the UN Security Council, Blinken urged global-wide participation in a transparent, robust process for preventing and responding to health emergencies, an impossibility for the U.S. if it persists in issuing temporary visas to foreign nationals.

The U.S. is poorly served when it continues to admit thousands from nations still coping with their own COVID-19 crises. India and China are the two largest student-sending nations. Open Doors, which conducts an annual census of international student enrollment in U.S. universities and colleges, reported that for the 2019/2020 academic year, the aggregate total hit 1.075 million arrivals.

Beyond the risky admission of hundreds of thousands of international students that may transmit the virus on the campuses and in the communities where they will reside is the other glaring negative. Republican and Democratic administrations have punished qualified U.S. high school graduates by allowing international students to occupy a fixed number of coveted, but limited, freshman classroom seats.

A partial explanation is that consecutive White Houses, beginning with President Carter up to and including President Biden, have been captured in globalism’s unrelenting grip. The local high school graduate may be a good student with impressive credentials, but the international student is the preferred candidate simply because he satisfies the White House’s globalism-at-all-costs goal.

The remaining, more specific clarification is that colleges and universities obscenely enrich themselves when they accept international students who pay significantly higher enrollment fees. At the University of Wisconsin, for example, instate students pay $10,800 per academic year versus $39,000 for an international student. At Wisconsin, the difference between out-of-state and instate tuition varies by a factor of nearly four, a typical nationwide discrepancy. A 2015 analysis found that the country’s public universities raked in more than $9 billion in foreign student tuition and fees which explains their determination to enroll as many international students as possible.

The quid pro quo for the foreign-born student is that exorbitantly high tuition fees may buy him not only a U.S. college degree, but also a white-collar job and, if he secures a sponsor, eventual permanent residency. Today marks a stark contrast to the original intent of the F-1 visa which didn’t include employment authorization, and required students to return home shortly after completing their coursework. Now, however, international graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can, through nonstatutory extensions that total 42 months, remain on the Optional Practical Training program (OPT) and get a tech worker job that otherwise might have gone to a worthy American.

Harvard Kennedy school labor economist George Borjas studied the long-term effects of admitting 1 million to-be international college graduates annually, and estimated that after a decade and a half, native-born college grads’ wages would drop by 15 percent. Furthermore, the reduced return on investment of the college education would, over time, translate into a 15 to 30 percent drop in native college enrollment. Wealthy overseas parents could afford to fund their children’s U.S. college education, but for native-born, the lofty tuition would be out of reach.

The winners in International enrollment are the international students, the universities, employers who profit from the cheaper labor that OPT workers provide and the elitists like immigration lawyers who promote but don’t suffer from endless immigration’s adverse consequences. The losers: high school students who, because of 1 million high-paying international students, are unfairly shut out from a college education opportunity; U.S. workers, especially minorities, displaced from their jobs in an over-immigration loosened labor market, and sovereign America.

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

International Student Enrollment Endures Despite Pandemic

International Student Enrollment Endures Despite Pandemic

Pedal to the Metal For Afghan Resettlement

By Joe Guzzardi
 

The State Department has designated 19 U.S. cities as acceptable for refugee resettlement which made the Biden administration’s resettlement policy clear: pedal to the metal; damn the torpedoes, full-speed ahead. Afghan resettlement deserves maximum caution; the administration took the opposite road. The official argument for speedy resettlement is that our allies – those who purportedly worked side-by-side with the American military – are in grave danger, and must be airlifted out of Kabul immediately. No doubt, there’s some truth in that assessment. But Americans want guarantees that only friends receive invitations.

Since Americans are, by and large, trusting people who want to help at-risk strangers, most would be accepting of new refugees if confident that they had been properly vetted, and the good guys were weeded out from the bad guys. The White House assures a wary public that incoming refugees are being processed by “intelligence professionals or law enforcement officials.” The Biden administration insists the vetting is “rigorous,” and dedicated officials are working “around the clock” to safely process Afghan refugees.

Safely vetting 83,000 refugees in a matter of hours is impossible. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, visited his home state’s Fort McCoy where Maj. Gen. Darrell Guthrie told him that many incoming refugees had no identification and weren’t Special Immigrant Visa holders. The administration classifies unidentified Afghans as part of a vulnerable population, are therefore granted humanitarian parole – once a rarely used DHS option, but now commonplace – and are admitted, no questions asked. Afghan advocates are lobbying for a 50,000-person humanitarian parole.

Biden’s resettlement strategy is slipshod, begs for abuse and could lead to tragic homeland consequences. Comprehensive refugee vetting is a six-step process that, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ website, should take between 18 and 24 months. First, the prospective refugee must register with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who refers the individual to a U.S. Embassy. Then, the State Department steps in, and begins several security checks carried out through myriad federal security agencies.

The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration will partner with other agencies to create an Overseas Processing Entity, a document ultimately given to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer. Eventually, the officer interviews the refugee face-to-face to determine if he can be resettled. Finally, the case returns to the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration for the final approval, subject to medical screening. The bottom line on faux vetting: the Taliban controls the U.S. Embassy. Documents that might help validate refugee petitions are inaccessible or have been destroyed. Anything other fable that the establishment elites’ offer up is smoke and mirrors.

Blood has been shed of Americans and innocent Afghans; trillions of dollars have been squandered, and countless establishment lies over two decades have been told and shamelessly retold. After American deaths, mountainous waste and brazen deceit, Biden adds insult to injury when he boasts about airlifting Afghans out of Kabul while citizens are left behind. Then, Biden, having done irreparable damage, forces his poorly managed resettlement plan on a skeptical public still coping with COVID-19’s fallout.

Although Americans never voted on the potentially nation-altering resettlement, taxpayers will fund the hundreds of millions of dollars the process requires over a multi-year period. No administration official has sought the opinions of the residents who live in the 19 cities. The administration is brazenly indifferent to deep doubts about the hasty decision to aimlessly resettle Afghan nationals. The refugees are, like it or not, on the way. Resettlement Biden-style is potentially a deadly Russian Roulette game of chance where Americans could be the victims.

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

Pedal to the Metal For Afghan Resettlement