Category: Joe Guzzardi

Feds Spend 5x More on Illegals Than On Appalachian Citizens

By Joe Guzzardi

“Rich Men North of Richmond,” the protest song that soared to No. 1 on iTunes during the August 12 weekend, is an ode to forgotten blue-collar America. The hit is sung by Christopher Anthony Lunsford, aka Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker who lives in Appalachia, an area dotted with abandoned factories. It’s also a region in a losing battle with opioids. Overdose mortality rates here for people in their prime working years are 70 percent higher than the rest of the country.

Washington, D.C., and most elites dismiss Appalachians as well as tens of millions more working-class Americans. They’ve been smeared, ignored, mocked, slandered and robbed by their own government. The scorned millions are what Hillary Clinton referred to in her 2016 presidential campaign as “a basket of deplorables.”

Anthony’s song has garnered more than 34 million views, and the artist has received more than 50,000 messages from people sharing their reactions, including personal stories about suicide, addiction, unemployment, anxiety, depression and hopelessness, conditions that too many Americans struggle to overcome. As Anthony said, he wrote the song because he too is “suffering with mental health and depression.” In a decision that shocked music executives, Anthony rejected an $8 million contract, saying he didn’t want a superstar’s trappings – a jet, tour buses and stage shows.

No specific references to how the federal government robs Appalachians are in the song, but the possibilities are many. At the top of the list may be D.C.’s mountains of wasteful spending. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, since January 2021, legislation signed by President Biden has set in motion a record $3.37 trillion in new spending. The most visible, and possibly most hurtful to struggling Americans nationwide, are the billions spent to resettle a worldwide illegal immigrant population.

A year after President Lyndon Johnson began his 1964 War on Poverty, the government created the Appalachian Regional Commission. As of fall 2021, 56 years after the agency was created, ARC had invested more than $4.5 billion on several projects. Eventually, other government agencies invested $10 billion on more projects. Despite significant investment, quality of life improvements are few, especially in central Appalachia which encompasses Eastern Kentucky, as well as parts of Tennessee and West Virginia.

The aggregate $14.5 billion to assist Appalachia is pocket change compared to the fed spending on sovereignty-destroying illegal immigration. A cost estimate of the current border crisis is $20 billion, according to analysis from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

A more comprehensive FAIR study found that at the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration – at the federal, state and local levels – was at least $150.7 billion, a total arrived at by subtracting tax revenue paid by illegal aliens, just under $32 billion, from illegal immigration’s gross negative economic impact. In 2017, the estimated net cost of illegal migration was approximately $116 billion; in just five years, the costs to taxpayers have increased $35 billion.

Municipalities’ crippling and mounting costs will continue as long as there is no end to illegal immigration. New York Mayor Eric Adams calculates that the city’s migrant surge will cost taxpayers $12 billion. Business owners are shutting their doors, a decision made reluctantly only after clusters of migrants sleeping on the city’s streets kept customers away. Shuttered businesses reduce vital tax revenue. Temporary shelters are over-capacity, and more migrants will be forced onto the streets, creating a vicious cycle of more business closings.

The math explains why America, and specifically Appalachia, is angry. In the five-year period from 2017 to 2022, the feds spent $55 billion to underwrite illegal immigration – the $35 billion increase laid out since 2017 plus the $20 billion to fuel the ongoing invasion. Rebuffed Appalachia got $10 billion-plus during the last six decades, $45 billion less than the unlawfully present migrants received in the last five years. A reminder when contemplating the inherent unfairness: illegal immigration and aiding/abetting illegal immigration are crimes.

Imagine the outrage Anthony and his neighbors feel when they realize that, as measured by a multi-billion-dollar margin, D.C. elites put illegal immigrants first, well-ahead of struggling Appalachians. The anger and frustration Anthony expresses in “Rich Men North of Richmond” is justified.

Feds Spend 5x More on Illegals Than On Appalachian Citizens

Illinois Joins California in Offering Police Jobs to Noncitizens

By Joe Guzzardi

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker caught up with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to see which of the Democratic leaders that oversee sanctuary states can do the most to accommodate their immigrant community at citizens’ expense.

Prior to Jan. 1, candidates for California police officers’ jobs were required to be either citizens or permanent residents to qualify. But a law Newsom signed, Senate Bill 960, opened law enforcement positions up to any California resident who possesses either a green card or a valid visa. The new law took effect January 1, 2023.

In July 2023, Pritzker signed HB3751, a bill similar to California’s, that will allow individuals who are legally authorized to work in the United States to apply for the position of police officer, deputy sheriff or special policeman, subject to satisfying that job’s specified requirements. Illinois’ applicant pool would, like California’s, include deferred action for childhood arrival recipients (DACAs), lawful permanent residents (LPRs) and temporary protected status (TPS) holders.

Illinois has more than 35,000 DACAs and about 30,000 LPRs. By-state statistics on TPS are unavailable, but because that program has expanded dramatically since President Biden’s inauguration, it represents a significant total. Currently, 15 nations have been granted TPS, and if history is a guide, their status will never be revoked. Instead, the TPS designees’ list will grow longer. Pritzker’s folly will begin January 1, 2024.

Founded in 1915, the Illinois-based Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers, strongly objected to HB3751. The group noted that police officers’ main function is to enforce the law and to ensure that people in their jurisdictions abide by all applicable laws. The union promised that it will “welcome these potential police recruits with open arms once their citizenship status is solidified, and look forward to the unique perspective they can bring to our profession.”

But the FOP asked what message does the legislation send when noncitizens become enforcers of our laws? “This is a potential crisis of confidence in law enforcement at a time when our officers need all of the public confidence they can get.” Making an important point that the FOP overlooked, Republican Illinois State Sen. Chapin Rose added: “It would be a ‘fundamental breach’ of democracy to allow noncitizens to arrest American citizens.”

Pritzker, in a half-truth-filled defense of his controversial legislation, said that about 20 years ago, post-9/11, Chicago and Illinois went on a hiring spree to safeguard against terrorist attacks. Those officers are now eligible for retirement and are leaving the force. Although Chicago’s crime rates are trending down this summer, they remain dangerously high. During a recent weekend, six people were shot and killed, and 27 others were wounded by gunfire, including innocent pedestrians.

Chicago’s police are increasingly frustrated by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s illogical limitations on their ability to carry out their duties. For example, officers can’t give chase to fleeing criminals because they’re suspected of having committed minor offenses. Under new Mayor Brandon Johnson, the road ahead for cops may be even rockier. Johnson promised during his campaign to eliminate Chicago’s gang database, a vital tool, and to redirect police funding to social services agencies. Johnson avoided using the phrase “defund the police,” but the end result will be the same. He also recently called events tantamount to riots just “large gatherings .”

If Newsom, Pritzker and Chicago’s administrators governed with more commonsense and less WOKENESS, Illinois and California wouldn’t have driven so many citizens out of those well-paid police jobs that include generous benefits packages. Often noncitizens’ backgrounds are murky; perhaps their ties to their homeland governments will outweigh their fealty to the U.S. If so, the bill put forth by Newsom and Pritzker will create long-term security risks.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.

Illinois Joins California in Offering Police Jobs to Noncitizens

Heightened Risks at Border And Interior

By Joe Guzzardi

The calamitous consequences of President Biden’s open borders and his hastily concocted Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) for Afghan resettlement are increasingly visible and will likely become graver as time passes. Stories about drugs, human trafficking and migrant border deaths have been told and retold so many times that, sad to say, they’ve lost their shock effect.

This week two reports, one from the border, and the other from the heartland, should jolt Americans back into reality. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) drone operators in Eagle Pass spotted an armed smuggler carrying a long gun, wearing body armor and guiding a group of illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande. Photographs of the suspected cartel members have been posted online. In a similar incident in June, five suspected members of the Cartel del Noreste were arrested in the same area after illegally crossing the border armed with rifles and tactical gear.

There’s nothing from the White House except, in anticipation of another surge, the Department of Homeland Security calling for more volunteers from within the agency to sign up with Customs and Border Protection to help process migrants – translation: to assist in releasing aliens into the general population. Cartels and transnational criminal organizations have reaped billions of dollars in profits. Hands down, they are the biggest winners under bad Biden policies, implemented by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

From the interior, heartbreaking news came from St. Louis, a city that encouraged and welcomed refugee resettlement. In 2021, St. Louis became home to a record number of refugees and asylum seekers, including more than 500 people from Afghanistan. One of the Afghan OAW refugees may have been Osmani Haji Gul, the 34-year-old accused of sexually assaulting a six-year-old on July 23. Gul is currently in protective custody in St. Louis’ City Justice Center, being detained under a “Hold SK ICE” status which means he is not a permanent resident or a U.S. citizen. Investigators tied Gul to another sex crime against a 12-year-old on July 16.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said Gul, seen in neighborhood surveillance footage, grabbed the 6-year-old while the child was riding a bike and took him to a vacant residence in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood on July 23. Then, police said, Gul sodomized the child. Charges against Gul include first-degree statutory sodomy and sexual misconduct involving a child, as well as charges of first-degree attempted statutory sodomy and fourth-degree assault.

Gul’s immigration background has been withheld from the public – the standard operating procedure when crimes that will cast a bad light on the nation’s welcome-the-world policy unfold. Despite repeated efforts, the reporting team at St. Louis News 4 Investigates has been unsuccessful in learning more about Gul’s background, including the vital facts about when and how he arrived in the U.S. Perhaps Gul was one of the 132,000 Afghans residing in the U.S. before OAW, or perhaps he was part of that misguided mission.

Javad Khazaeli, Gul’s lawyer, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutor, said that the federal government and the police know the child predator’s history, but will not release it. The lawyer then reverted to the often-told lie that refugees undergo a vigorous vetting process.

On February 15, the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office (IG) laid out the truth when issuing its “Evaluation of the Screening of Displaced Persons from Afghanistan.” The IG’s detailed account was a damning assessment of the Biden administration’s failures to screen, vet and transport tens of thousands of Afghan nationals to the U.S. following the botched U.S. withdrawal from that country. Eventually, reports surfaced that “none of the 82,000 individuals flown from Afghanistan to the United States were properly vetted.”

Gul’s story is unfolding, and the specifics may or may not eventually become public. But more of the same unashamed disregard for public safety is guaranteed as long as Biden and Mayorkas keep their jobs, a virtual certainty given the GOP’s failure to put up meaningful resistance to the immigration status quo.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.

Heightened Risks at Border And Interior

Fitch US Debt Downgrade To AA+ Is Generous

By Joe Guzzardi

Rating agency Fitch, Aug. 1, dropped the U.S. government’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+. Fitch said the downgrade “reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next two or three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance.” The surprise is that, in light of Fitch’s concern about how the Biden administration manages the federal government, the rating agency didn’t downgrade further. Save for the detrimental effect a further downgrade would have on the markets, a bigger lowering is justified.

“There has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters,” the agency said. “The repeated debt limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”

U.S. debt has surpassed $31 trillion and is expected to reach $52 trillion in 2033. Rising interest rates, as the Fed attempts to cool down inflation, have fueled Fitch’s concerns about the overall debt burden. The prediction of the Congressional Budget Office that the ratio of federal debt-to-GDP would nearly double from 98 percent in 2023 to 181 percent in 2053 is a nightmarish worry.

In an alternative but more troubling scenario drafted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the debt-to-GDP ratio could soar even higher, hitting 222 percent of GDP by 2053. In the past 17 months, the Federal Reserve has hikedits overnight bank lending rate 11 times. More increases are certain. Analysts predict the obvious — that the U.S. is on a course of “drowning in debt.”

When Fitch refers to “the erosion of governance” — meaning bad governance — surely those who pass judgment on the U.S. debt must have in their minds the wild, imprudent spending spree that the Biden administration immediately embarked on. A sampling: the “American Rescue Plan,” a $1.9 trillion bill disguised as a COVID-19 relief package; second, the “American Jobs Plan” at $2.3 trillion, falsely advertised as legislation that would upgrade the nation’s infrastructure, and third, the “American Families Plan,” $1.8 trillion in spending that’s vaguely defined as a bill to expand access to education, reduce the cost of child care and support women in the workforce. In total, the Biden administration has laid out $6 trillion that it doesn’t have for bills with questionable purposes that will produce dubious results, if any.

Also raising eyebrows over at Fitch regarding sound governance must be the White House’s determination to support Ukraine in its endless war against Russia. Ukraine is now the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and the White House has poured more than $75 billion into a corrupt country’s coffers without any accountability for how the funds have been disbursed. The consensus opinion is that the war has no end in sight and may drag into 2025, thereby sucking up more U.S. taxpayer money.

Fitch must also interpret the unprecedented Southwest border invasion as poor governance. The arriving migrants are mostly poor, undereducated and therefore likely to become government assistance-dependent. Estimated at more than 5.5 million since Biden’s inauguration, the migrants’ presence has disrupted major cities, including New York City and Chicago, as well as many Texas border communities. Because the migrant crisis is so severe and far-reaching, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy (D) has asked Bay State residents to house Haitian and Central American illegal aliens. The invasion costs taxpayers billions of dollars, and the costs are mounting. Since no one truly knows the migrants’ backgrounds and intentions, or what their total number may eventually reach, Fitch analysts must view the open border with skepticism, another example of misguided governance.

Finally, looking ahead to 2024, Fitch must look askance at the prospect of either former President Donald Trump, who will be 78 on Election Day, or Biden, who then will be 82, in the White House. Whoever wins, four more years of divided government is assured.

Looking at the whole disheartening picture, Fitch’s AA+ grade is generous. The piling of more debt onto the mountain of existing debt, the unnecessary and expensive entanglement in a foreign war that has no bearing on the U.S., an open border — an obvious national security threat — that’s given entry to known terroristsand enabled drug and human trafficking, and a contentious federal government at least until 2028 are all huge waving red flags. The agency’s declaration that the outlook for the U.S. is “stable” is highly doubtful.

Fitch US Debt Downgrade To AA+ Is Generous

Border Surge Creates Tuberculosis Threat – 44 States Directly Impacted

By Joe Guzzardi

The open Southwest border has enabled millions of illegal immigrants to cross into the United States and settle with little fear of removal. But aliens’ illegal entry is far from the only crime Biden’s open border has encouraged. Drug trafficking has soared, abetting a fentanyl crisis that is the No. 1 killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, with more than 100,000 deaths in 2021. Human trafficking has enabled child abusers and unscrupulous employers to prey on innocent minors.

Another bourgeoning crisis is the health status among incoming aliens, especially unaccompanied minors (UACs), as well as the children of illegal immigrants. Stephen Dinan’s recent Washington Times story revealed that the federal government has released thousands of illegal immigrants with latent tuberculosis infections into American communities with no assurances that they’ll be given appropriate treatment.

Federal law requires that the Department of Homeland Security quickly place most UACs with HHS which, in turn, provides shelter while searching for sponsor families in the U.S. The government claims it can’t treat the infected children because they are in its custody for only a brief time, and treatment requires three to nine months. On the occasions that HHS releases infected children to sponsors, the agency alerts local health authorities, notifying them to arrange for treatment before the latent infection becomes active. But local health officials claim such notifications are infrequent.

Moreover, the government often loses track of the UACs, which makes potential tuberculosis treatment more difficult, if not impossible. “We do not know how often the sponsors follow through on treatment,” the Virginia Department of Health told The Washington Times in a statement. “By the time outreach takes place, the child has sometimes moved to another area or state.”

Aurora Miranda-Maese, author of the court-ordered report, wrote, “Minors are not routinely treated for [latent tuberculosis infection] while in [resettlement] care because the average length of stay is typically shorter than the time required to complete treatment, and because there could be negative effects from discontinuing … treatment before completion, such as developing drug-resistant tuberculosis.”

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, citedrespiratory infections, diarrheal infections and bacterial infections as some of the health concerns medical staff working on the border would have to constantly be vigilant for. “Whenever you get individuals congregated in an enclosed space, no matter what their age, there is an increased risk of outbreaks of certain kinds of infections,” said Schaffner. The doctor also warned of possible outbreaks of preventable conditions like mumps, scabies and measles because the migrants, many from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, are unvaccinated.

The Mayo Clinic describes tuberculosis as a “serious illness” that “spreads easily.” Endemic tuberculosis would be another cruel irony that President Biden’s open border agenda created. Taxpayers who are funding every step of migrants’ journeys from the border to their sponsors’ homes, and beyond, may now have the added financial burden of paying for their own medical care if they become infected with tuberculosis.

The Biden administration remains indifferent to the harmful effect its immigration agenda has on U.S. citizens. Admitting migrants with an infectious, transmittable disease like tuberculosis is the latest proof of White House callousness and disregard for Americans.

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

Even $19 Billion Won’t Save LA Schools

By Joe Guzzardi

In what is certain to be financial history’s worst-ever return on investment, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) unanimously approved an $18.8 billion budget.

The district’s central budget will be $12.9 billion, but separate funds will contribute to the $18.8 billion total that will also be designated for adult education, the student body fund and construction projects. Funding will include the last federal government COVID-19 cash infusion which, in the aggregate, will reach more than $5 billion. State and federal taxpayers have paid into the LAUSD, regardless of where Sacramento officials claim the monies come from – the “separate funds” cited above. In education, the taxpayer is the first, last and only funding source.

For the astronomical, staggering almost $19 billion, parents and the taxpaying community, deserve educated graduates who are ready to meaningfully contribute to society. The goal, taken for granted during California’s golden 1960s era when the states’ public schools were the nation’s envy, will be elusive, and perhaps beyond reach. In truth, there may not be enough billions to reverse LAUSD’s downward spiral and insurmountable problems.

To begin with, the district’s geography is vast. LAUSD covers 710 square miles, an area 41 percent greater than the City of Los Angeles, and the district has 575,000 students, with about a 90 percent minority enrollment and about 120,000 English Language Learners. Within the Los Angeles metro area, more than 185 languages are spoken, and immigrants’ children are the most represented among LAUSD enrollees.

Unfortunately, and only partly of its own doing, LAUSD is barreling in the wrong direction academically. The COVID-19 school shutdown devastated LAUSD’s most vulnerable students. The latest state test scores revealed disappointing decreases in student performance. For poor, vulnerable students, the decline was more dramatic.

The 2022 assessment tests showed just 28 percent of LAUSD students met state standards in math, and only 42 percent met English standards in the 2021-22 school year, declines of two and five percentage points, respectively, from the 2018-19 school year. LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho acknowledged that kids most at risk – blacks, Hispanics and females – lost the most ground. “Five years of gradual academic progress…. have been reversed,” said Carvalho.

Test scores won’t improve unless chronic absenteeism is reversed. Nearly half of all LAUSD students missed classroom time post-pandemic, a two-fold increase from prior years. Carvalho found many students did not have either what he called “adequate care” from an adult at home, “were caring for young siblings” or working multiple low-paying jobs to support their families. LAUSD implemented strategies, such as targeting early absenteeism and going to students’ homes for follow up, but the programs’ specifics are vague, and the end results far from certain.

Carvalho has other plans with noble goals. Highest among them is his commitment to expanding a literacy intervention program called Primary Promise, originally limited to K-3 students, to students at higher grade levels. While parents applaud the more inclusive outreach, veteran educators know that if the basics aren’t mastered during a student’s earliest years, the climb to literacy will be long, hard and too often unsuccessful.

As challenging as the 2023-2024 academic year is, the worst is yet to come. COVID-19 funding goes away next year. Many of the 75,000 full- and part-time workers, including about 25,000 teachers, will have to change jobs or job locations, and unfilled classroom and staff positions will remain vacant, a true crisis for students already behind. If bus drivers are laid off – a strong possibility – then poor children without other transportation options will be unable to get to school.

The important question, however, is what long-term outcome awaits students whose fundamental reading and math skills are substandard? In an era that increasingly relies on automation and artificial intelligence, the undereducated young adults, whether their futures lay in California or elsewhere, will have a rocky road forward. The $18 billion is a high cost to taxpayers for failing Los Angeles’ children.

Even $19 Billion Won’t Save LA Schools