Category: Immigration

Population Surges Drying West

Population Surges Drying West

By Joe Guzzardi

The grisly discovery of human remains at the bottom of Lake Mead is a grim reminder of the Southwest’s growing drought crisis. In early May, a family on a boating outing found, partially buried in Lake Mead National Recreation Area’s muddy banks, a four-decades-old skeleton of a man, a suspected homicide, stuffed into a rotted-out barrel. Skeletal remains were also discovered in May at nearby Callville Bay.

Asked if the victim might have been a mob hit, Geoff Schumacher, the vice president of exhibits and programs at Las Vegas’ Mob Museum, said: “I have a feeling that as this water continues to recede, we’re going to be finding more interesting things at the bottom of Lake Mead.” Schumacher may have been referring to the B-29 Superfortress wreckage found in 2015 in Lake Mead’s 130 feet of water; in 1948, when the bomber crashed, Lake Mead’s depth was 260 feet.

While Schumacher isn’t a climatologist, he like other Far West residents is aware of the inevitable and irreconcilable clash between too many people and dwindling natural resources, primarily water. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States and part of a system that supplies water to at least 40 million people across seven states and northern Mexico. Today, it’s dropped to its lowest level since the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era.

As of August 22, 2021, Lake Mead was filled to just 35 percent of its capacity, and now is at 30 percent. The low water level comes at a time when 95 percent of nine Western states’ land is affected by some level of drought; 64 percent is considered extreme or worse. Shrinking capacity continues a 22-year megadrought that some experts consider the worst in 1,200 years. Megadroughts are defined as droughts that last two decades or longer, but they are not measured by their intensity.

Population Surges Drying West

Snowfall in the Rocky Mountains is Lake Mead’s primary water source. But Audubon Southwest’s policy director Haley Paul said, “Even when the Rocky Mountains get to near-normal levels of snowfall and overall precipitation, what we’ve seen in the last few years is below average river runoff.” Paul explained that drought and heat mean thirstier soils and plants that soak up more water before the precious commodity ever reaches rivers – a compounding domino effect that, because the West is on year 22 of an extended megadrought, will take 22 wet winters to climb out of the hole.

An underreported variable in Lake Mead’s water levels is the population explosion – not an exaggerated expression – in California, Arizona and Nevada. In 1950, the population of Arizona, California and Nevada were, respectively, 750,000, 10 million and 158,000. Today, Arizona, California and Nevada have 7.6 million, 39.7 million and 3.2 million residents. Their principal cities, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas have, over the same 70-year period, grown from 221,000 to 4.7 million, from 2 millionto 12.5 million and from 35,000 to 2.8 million. Taken alone, the three states in the aggregate have about 40 million more people since 1950 bathing in, cooking with and drinking water. Housing complexes, luxury hotels, golf courses and mega-mansions are major water devourers.

No end is in sight to irresponsible water usage. The best California Gov. Gavin Newsom has come up with is a tepid, ignored suggestion that his constituents voluntarily limit everyday water consumption. The State Water Resources Conservation Board said that per-capita urban water usage rose 7 percent in March compared to last year, and rose 18.9 percent when compared to March 2020.

Although political correctness forbids identifying immigration as population growth’s major driver, Census Bureau facts confirm the reality. In their Center for Immigration Studies analysis that drew exclusively from Census Bureau data, Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler predicted that, by 2060, immigration will add 75 million people to the U.S. population. In 2017, the U.S. had 35.8 million legal and illegal immigrants. Those immigrants had 16.9 million U.S.-born children and grandchildren.

In sum, immigration added 52.7 million people to the U.S. population between 1982 and 2017, accounting for a little over 56 percent of overall population growth. A related Camarota-Zeigler study, which also drew from Current Population Survey’s monthly data, found that in November 2021, 46.2 million legal and illegal immigrants lived in the U.S., the largest number of immigrants ever recorded in a federal government survey or census dating back to 1850.

No one controls rainfall, but the federal government can help alleviate the worsening water crisis by managing immigration to levels consistent with the available natural resources. If officials continue to shirk their responsibility, then an increasing number of West Coast communities will eventually run dry, and civil disruption over water’s absence will likely ensue.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Population Surges Drying West

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits

By Joe Guzzardi

For immigration lawyers, these are heady times! Since January 2021, when the Biden regime moved into the White House, the Department of Homeland Security has, by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ own shameless admission, released 836,000 illegal aliens into the interior. The staggering total includes 398,861 let go since October 1, the fiscal year’s start, and also counts 80,116 admitted in March alone. Excluded are the got-aways; estimates vary, but several hundred thousand fall into that category. This astounding admissions’ total exceeds the population of each of the cities of San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Boston and Washington, D.C., and each of the states of Wyoming and Vermont.

Imagine the eager anticipation the immigration lawyer community must have when thinking of the fees those aliens might generate! At some firms, $1,000 an hour buys only a preliminary consultation. And the good times will keep on rolling! Once Biden removes Title 42, as he’s determined to do, an estimated 18,000 aliens are likely to cross into the United States daily, most in need of legal counsel.

Enterprising immigration lawyers could make a handsome living from Haitian alien applicants alone. Most Haitians, like others eagerly awaiting their post-Title 42 admissions, will apply for asylum. But a considerable percentage of Haitians who will file claims have already been granted asylum from South American nations like Chile, and have been long-time residents of those countries. But for the Haitians/Chileans, Biden’s lure to foreign nationals to live in America is irresistible. On their trip north, after reaching the bridge at Del Rio, Texas, the duplicitous Haitians/Chileans ditched their asylum documents into the river. The low-risk, but nevertheless fraudulent effort to eliminate any clue that they had already been granted asylum by a democratic, stable country may pay off one day with U.S. citizenship.

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Unbeknownst to the general public, asylum fraud is one of the biggest hoaxes in a U.S. immigration system where almost anything goes. The simple words “credible fear” spoken to an immigration official can be the first step to life in the U.S. Few, however, are fleeing true persecution or life-threatening violence. They’ve been coached, often by the smugglers to whom they’ve paid thousands of dollars, to say the magic words that will bring them, figuratively speaking, the keys to the U.S. kingdom.

The harsh reality is that among the thousands assembled at the border, and the thousands more on the way, few legally qualify for asylum. They are economic migrants seeking to improve their lives, and not as the Refugee Act of 1980 spelled out, persons with a well-established fear of persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Under the current administration, as voters head to the mid-term polling places, knowing the difference between refugees and legitimate asylum seekers is important. Refugees are – or were until Biden allowed admissions to mostly unscreened Afghans and Ukrainians – screened in depth before coming to the U.S. If found wanting, they can be denied refugee status before they step foot into this country. On the other hand, aliens who enter illegally and falsely claim “credible fear” have not been vetted or have been only superficially screened before physically entering the U.S. The current process is easily vulnerable to fraud and abuse. Fraudulent asylum cases, in addition to generous benefits given to those who may not deserve them, undermine and delay processing legitimate appeals from individuals who truly have credible fear.

The soaring numbers of migrants whether they’ve legally or illegally entered the country is a preliminary total. Once inside the U.S., chain migration – immigration’s major source – will increase the number by at least a factor of three. In 2018, The New York Times published a remarkable, but unexaggerated, story about one-single Indian immigrant who arrived in 1968 at age 23, and 50 years later, counts 90 family members who have joined him. Consider too that many of the resettled migrants will either add to their existing families or begin new ones.

Since citizens fund every penny of the migrants’ multiple and costly resettlement expenses, Americans justifiably wonder why, assuming border enforcement, they’re forced to underwrite their gradual but inevitable displacement.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Biden Immigration Parole Circumvents The Law

Biden Immigration Parole Circumvents The Law

By Joe Guzzardi

Twenty years ago, journalist Michelle Malkin wrote a column titled, “The Deportation Abyss: It Ain’t over ‘til the Alien Wins.” Written post-9/11, the nation yearned as it still does for a strict deportation strategy and for vigorous immigration law enforcement.

At the beginning of her commentary, Malkin quoted the late Barbara Jordan, a Texas Democrat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration reform from 1993 to 1996. Jordan said, “The credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, get in; people who should not enter are kept out; and people who are judged deportable should be required to leave.”

Jordan’s sensible immigration guidelines were ignored. Too many loopholes in the immigration system, too many squishy congressional representatives, too many lax immigration judges and too many spineless Board of Immigration Appeals’judges undermined legitimate deportations of criminals, including convicted murderers, sex predators, drunken drivers and aggravated felons, subverting Jordan’s sound solutions. Information on how to dodge immigration enforcement was readily available. The soup-to-nuts legal directory that advises aliens who “got trouble” is still operating 20 years later, doubtlessly thriving, and dispensing advice on how to avoid deportation.

In her worst nightmare, Jordan could not have imagined that a U.S. president would not only be inviting millions of illegal aliens from all around the world to come to American, but then rewarding them with air transportation, housing, food, mobile phones and, eventually, one of the most coveted documents that migrants seek from the instant they depart their homeland, employment authorization cards.

Biden is determined to undermine American workers with his reckless abandonment of border security, and his messaging to foreign nationals from around the globe that, despite DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ protestations to the contrary, the border is open. The odds are extremely high that foreign nationals who get to the border will gain entrance. Parole may await them. At least, it’s the administration’s coveted goal to illegally grant parole to foreign nationals that don’t qualify for what should be a rarely approved immigration status.

Biden Immigration Parole Circumvents The Law

Since the mainstream media tosses the word parole around loosely, knowing exactly who merits the status is important to understanding the administration’s deport-no-one intentions. Writing for the Center for Immigration Studies where he’s a Senior Legal Fellow, former DHS Deputy General Counsel George Fishman, in an article “The Pernicious Perversion of Parole: the 70-year battle between Congress and the President,” explained parole’s proper place in immigration law. As Fishman’s title suggests, the decades-long battle has been mostly a lost cause for Congress and immigration restrictionists.

Parole’s history dates back to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which contained a provision that allowed discretionary power to the Attorney General to parole into the U.S. temporarily under such conditions as the AG may prescribe for emergent reasons or for reasons deemed strictly in the public interest any alien applying for admission to the U. S. All parole grantees are issued on a case-by-case basis, and cannot be granted en masse. (Emphasis added.)

In 1956, Republican Dwight Eisenhower became the first president to violate parole regulations when he permitted Hungarian refugees to enter en masse. Prior to 1956, parole authority had been used only to benefit individual aliens. But as Professors Adam Cox of the University of Chicago Law School and Cristina Rodriguez of New York University correctly concluded, presidents have used powers expressly delegated to them by Congress to advance their own immigration agenda in a manner that accomplished personal objectives Congress almost certainly did not intend and expanding or repurposing Congress’s original design.(Emphasis added.)

Parole should be granted only under the five following conditions: 1) for a medical emergency, 2) for organ donation to a family member, 3) to visit a family member whose death is imminent, 4) for an alien who has assisted U.S. law enforcement and whose presence is needed by the government or whose life is threatened or 5) for criminal prosecution.

Biden’s flagrant use of parole to admit thousands of aliens into the U.S. proves that Malkin’s thesis – the alien always wins – is truer today than ever. Many thousands more aliens remain gathered at or on the way to the border, confident that parole will be their easy ticket into the U.S.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org

Biden Immigration Parole Circumvents The Law

Simply Have No Border Left Say Sheriffs

Simply Have No Border Left Say Sheriffs

By Joe Guzzardi

During March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 221,303 migrant encounters, a 33 percent increase over March 2021. The 221,303 figure represents the highest monthly total in 22 years, and pushes the aggregate fiscal year number to 1.2 million, and 2.5 million since President Biden’s inauguration day.

The border surgers included single adults, family units and unaccompanied children who spiked to 14,167 March encounters compared with February’s 11,984. More alarming is that the world has gotten the message: show up at the border, and the Biden administration will welcome you. While once mostly limited to Mexico and the Northern Triangle, migrants now come from 150 countries, including Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Venezuela, Albania, Romania and Ecuador.

Simply Have No Border Left Say Sheriffs

Among this year’s 221,303 March encounters, 109,549, or about half, were processed for removal under Title 42 which allows the U.S. to remove foreign nationals who are considered a public health risk. Through the third week in March, CBP expelled 1.7 million illegal immigrants under Title 42. Imagine, then, the unimaginable – what conditions, first at the border, and then in interior, will be like if Biden, defying logic as he’s determined to do – ends Title 42 on May 23.

The post-Title 42 estimates on illegal immigrant border crossings are frightening. Apprehensions could rise to 18,000 a day, more than half a million a month, and 6 million annually. Fortunately, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Judge Robert Summerhays issued a temporary restraining order to block Biden’s decision to end Title 42 expulsions until arguments for a more formal injunction can be heard. On May 9, Summerhays’ order will expire.

Biden & Co. are pressing on with their open border agenda, but without a thought about what happens next to the migrants and to the U.S. citizens who subsidize the foreign nationals’ relocation. Eagle Pass, Texas, the entry point for hundreds of border crossers, is indicative of what lays ahead for some cities. Airports and bus stations can’t keep up with the demand. Migrants have nowhere to go, day or night. They hang out in large clusters, and sleep on the street. Biden couldn’t care less that the 29,000 Eagle Pass legal residents’ lives have been disrupted, and their personal safety is at risk amidst the chaos. Mayor Rolando Salinas said: “This border issue – it’s a mess.”

Census Bureau data shows that Eagle Pass is 97 percent Hispanic, has a 58 percent labor participation rate, a $46,000 median household income, and a $19,000 annual per capita income. Biden should be concerned about the adverse effect mass immigration will have not only on Eagle Pass, but the nation’s 37 million residents who live below the poverty line. Open borders facilitate importing poverty, a condition the U.S. already has an abundance of.

Compare Eagle Pass residents to the lifestyles of the open borders architects. Biden owns two Delaware homes and has a $9 million net worth. Vice President Kamala Harris, the border czar, is married to Hollywood entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff. The couple share houses in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and enjoy a $6 million net worth.

Although Mayorkas was born in Cuba, he’s been in the U.S. since age one, and lived a privileged life. He grew up in Beverly Hills, went to Beverly Hills High School, attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. degree with distinction in 1981. Then, in 1985, Mayorkas received his J.D. from Loyola Law School. The DHS secretary lives comfortably in D.C. and has an estimated net worth of about $3 million. Unliked Eagle Pass citizens, the welcome-to-the-world trio is wealthy, and set for life.

Elites like Biden, Harris and Mayorkas are responsible for sound governance, and not jeopardizing Americans’ jobs, public school educations, security and access to prompt emergency medical care. Mass immigration will flood the jobs market with cheap labor, create overcrowd public schools, strain law enforcement, and add to hospital staffing workloads. But over-immigration’s consequences will never personally affect Biden, Harris or Mayorkas.

The National Sheriffs’ Association sent a letter to Senate leaders to share its front-line views. In the letter, Jonathan Thompson, the organization’s Executive Director and CEO, wrote: “We simply have no border left in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, or Southern California.” Erasing the border has been Biden’s goal since his first day as president, the sheriffs concluded. After 15 months in office, and to the dismay of Americans, Biden has achieved his goal.
 

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org. 

Simply Have No Border Left Say Sheriffs

Panama Betrayal, Mayorkas, Blinken Scheme for More Illegal Migration

Panama Betrayal, Mayorkas, Blinken Scheme for More Illegal Migration

By Joe Guzzardi

In anticipation of regaining a congressional majority after the 2022 mid-term elections, GOP leaders are drafting the game plan to help them achieve their goal. Not surprisingly, the Biden administration and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ immigration actions since Inauguration Day sit atop the checklist of items that Republicans consider ripest for criticism. A 60-page Guidance Memo drafted by Ohio U.S. Representative Jim Jordan and posted on his Twitter page emphasizes Democrats’ immigration vulnerabilities, especially the sieve-like open border that’s certain to worsen when Title 42 is removed.
 
Mayorkas admits that “significant challenges” will arise once Title 42 is lifted. But the DHS Secretary insists that his department is ready to meet the inevitable illegal immigration spike which he created. Speaking in Panama City at a ministerial conference on migration and protection and accompanied by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Mayorkas’ comments are best summarized as happy talk with destructive undertones that will irreversibly harm the United States.
 
At no time did Mayorkas speak with credibility about ending the illegal immigration surge through stronger border and interior security, or stepped-up deportation. Instead, Mayorkas identified his solution to the immigration challenges he correctly foresees as inevitable to include building “legal, orderly, and humane pathways so individuals do not need to place their lives, their well-beings, the well-beings of their loved ones in the hands of smugglers and traffickers who only seek to exploit them for profit.”

Panama Betrayal

Blinken doubled down on Mayorkas’ so-called solution with nation-busting ideas of his own on how to manage, not end, migration. Said Blinken: “Here in Panama, we [the 22 nations represented] talked about some of the most urgent aspects of this issue, including helping stabilize and strengthen communities that are hosting migrants and refugees; creating more legal pathways to reinforce safe, orderly, and humane migration.” He added, speaking for himself and his craven administration, but not for U.S. voters, that finding a solution to illegal immigration is a U.S. “priority.” Translation: More immigration that U.S. taxpayers oppose but will fund as they watch, helpless and voiceless, in the nation’s destruction.
 
The total disregard for immigration law that Biden, Mayorkas, Blinken, Vice President Kamala Harris and others too numerous to mention have demonstrated over the last 15 months raises the point that, given open borders, DHS is pointless and should be dismantled. The department’s $52.2 billion budget is a waste, and too many of its 240,000 employees, starting at the top, have as their mission America’s subversion.
 
Enacted after 9/11 to protect the nation, DHS and the programs that it spawned – the Transportation Security Administration, the Visa Security Program, the terrorist screening database and the no fly list – are meaningless when unidentified foreign nationals can walk at will across the Southwest border, surrender to immigration agents and then be transported across the country secure in the knowledge that they’ll never be removed.
 
Based on camera traffic, drone traffic and sensor traffic that border patrol records but that the Biden administration prohibits responding to, in March, 67,000 gotaways entered the U.S. which brings the administration’s post-inauguration total to about 700,000. DHS doesn’t know and could care less where the gotaways are or what their intentions may be.
 
Capitol Hill scuttlebutt is gaining steam that should the Republicans prevail in November, a Mayorkas impeachment might be the party’s first matter of business. Given Mayorkas’ disregard for immigration law and public safety, an impeachment case against him is mandatory if sovereign American is to be saved.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org. Subscribe to joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Panama Betrayal, Mayorkas, Blinken Scheme for More Illegal Migration

Panama Betrayal
 

California Bill Lets Illegals Enforce Law

California Bill Lets Illegals Enforce Law

By Joe Guzzardi

When the subject is California and the state’s extreme politics, nothing ever surprises. But even long-time California skeptics admit that Senate Bill 960 (SB 960) raises eyebrows for its audacity and disregard for public safety.

Introduced by State Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat who represents District 9 and its radical cities of Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, the bill proposes to allow non-U.S. citizens to become California law enforcement officers. Skinner’s bill removes the condition that an individual must be a citizen or a lawful United States permanent resident to become a police officer, a step too far in many Californians’ opinion. Since Skinner’s legislation doesn’t specifically ban illegal immigrants from the non-U.S. citizen category, the conclusion that many have reached is that SB 960 would allow illegally present aliens to wear the badge. The bill originally passed committee 4-1, has been read twice, and will soon get a third and final reading before it can proceed to the floor for debate.

SB 960 has sparked controversy, and the first to speak out is Skinner herself. At a March 22 Senate Public Safety Committee hearing, Skinner insisted that her bill “only allows those who are living here legally and have the legal ability to work here – through a visa, a Green Card – to become peace officers.” She added, “I just want to be clear on that.” Despite Skinner’s insistence, SB 960 is at best murky on the permissibility of illegal immigrants becoming law enforcement officers.

To give Skinner the possible benefit of doubt, SB 960 may be the consequence of her district’s inability to retain police officers. The Mercury News reported that Oakland is the state’s “most watched police department with both a federal monitor and strong civilian oversight.” As a result of the intense oversight, officers are leaving the Oakland PD in unprecedented numbers, from an average of about four per month late last year to 10 or 15 a month since then.

California Bill Lets Illegals Enforce Law

Despite federal and municipal oversight, in 2021 OPD investigated 134 homicides, the most since 2012, and the city endured a 21 percent increase in shootings. Crime rates in Berkeley and Richmond are equally terrible. In Berkeley, a crime occurs on average once every 70 minutes; in Richmond, once every 158 minutes. Berkeley isn’t the only challenged city in the state. The Los Angeles Police Department has 296 vacant officer positions and almost 500 fewer on-duty officers than it did this time last year, according to LAPD reports.

Whatever the solution is to the Bay Area and sanctuary state California’s rising crime rates and its dwindling number of police officers on the payroll, rewarding illegal aliens with the vital job of enforcing the law isn’t the answer. One of the existing provisions to qualify as a California police officer is that the candidate complete a background check that confirms his or her good moral character. Since little information can be confirmed about an illegal immigrant’s life prior to voluntarily and illegally coming to the U.S., no meaningful background check can be performed. Known for certain, however, is that entering the U.S. without inspection violates U.S. immigration law which furthermore means that the prospective police candidate’s first action was criminal.

Blue states like New York, Illinois, Oregon, Washington and California have pushed to promote illegal immigrants to the same level as legal immigrants, a grave injustice to the foreign-born who followed the proper procedures to attain lawful permanent resident status. Opening up good, albeit dangerous, jobs like police officer to illegal aliens is a disservice all the way around – to citizens who want protection provided by the most qualified and best trained, to citizens seeking high-paying jobs with affirmative benefits, and to the U.S. homeland which is always imperiled.

Specifically, border agents have encountered 838,685 illegal aliens since October 1, fiscal year 2022’s beginning, to February; Biden has released 37.9 percent, or 318,700. Add to 838,685, hundreds of thousands more migrant gotaways not included in the official total.

Assuming the pace at which agents apprehend or encounter illegals keeps up – 167,737 per month pre-Title 42 removal – the alien encounter total by fiscal year end September 30 will exceed 2 million. And if Biden releases aliens at the same rate, another unsupervised 760,000 illegals will be at large. Skinner’s ill-conceived idea to give law enforcement jobs to noncitizens, a category that may include illegal aliens, is foolish and dangerous.


PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

California Bill Lets Illegals Enforce Law

Migrant Surge Will Compound Housing Crisis

Migrant Surge Will Compound Housing Crisis

By Joe Guzzardi

The Alliance for a New Immigration Consensus, a cheap labor lobby with a fancy-sounding name, has set as its goal more immigration under the guise of helping employers find the workers they claim are in short supply.

The alliance’s letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell starts with the dramatic statement that “at no other point in recent history has the need for immigration reform been greater than it is today. Simply put, the system is broken.”

These are familiar refrains from the cheap labor and ethnic identity hucksters. The letters’ cosigners included religious advocates, dairy farmers, pro-immigration, refugee resettlement organizations, the Chamber of Commerce – “We can no longer afford to delay!” – and the George W. Bush Institute.

The GWB Institute has an aggressive pro-immigration agenda that includes, reminiscent of 43’s White House days, promoting amnesty, accepting more refugees and asylees, and citizenship for deferred action for childhood arrivals, aka DREAMers.

For the Bush boys, George and Jeb!, the apple doesn’t fall far from their father’s tree. Bush #43 pushed for amnesty throughout his eight White House years. The dismal 2016 presidential campaign of Jeb! centered on expanded immigration – a Wall Street Journal story quoted Bush’s critics and called him “an apostle for amnesty.” Father of GWB and Jeb, George H.W. Bush, #41, signed the Immigration Act of 1990, disastrous legislation that paved the way over three-plus decades for millions of imported workers that displaced American workers. George and his wife Laura are, even during this unprecedented period of an ongoing border invasion, unbending immigration promoters who, along with the powerful, deep-pocketed Chamber of Commerce, ceaselessly demand more.

Migrant Surge Will Compound Housing Crisis

In March, Laura and GWB invited four deferred action for childhood arrival recipients, an immigration lawyer and the American Nursery & Landscape Association legislative chair to the George W. Bush Presidential Center where the former president doubled down on the broken immigration system meme. To be sure, the immigration system is broken, but for reasons never mentioned by Bush or other supporters of higher immigration levels. For decades, congressionally approved, presidentially signed immigration laws have been blatantly trampled on while Congress ignores and often rewards the violators.

When Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas lift Title 42 at the end of May, officials expect 18,000 daily illegal immigrant encounters, an approximate 500,000 monthly total that should, but doesn’t, satisfy the most ardent immigration advocates. Not surprisingly, the half a million per month illegal immigrants that take up U.S. residency will represent the largest contributor to the nation’s future population growth. They will compete with Americans for jobs, medical care and classroom seats, and will help exacerbate the affordable housing shortage, an issue of grave concern in border states like California, Arizona and New Mexico. California’s median home price is projected to rise 5.5 percent in 2022 to hit $834,000. Exorbitant housing costs represent an insurmountable problem for newly arrived aliens who need shelter.

The Journal of Housing Economics researched immigration’s effect on housing costs, and concluded that an increase in the number of immigrants equal to 1 percent of a metropolitan statistical area’s total population was linked with a 0.8 percent increase in rents and a 0.8 percent increase in home prices. The same immigrant increase created a 1.6 percent rise in rents and a 9.6 percent rise in home prices in surrounding metropolitan statistical areas. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines a metropolitan statistical area as an urbanized area with a minimum 50,000 population.

Indisputable evidence – eliminating Title 42 as an illegal immigration deterrent – proves positively that more immigration is coming, although the final number, whatever that total may end up being, will never satisfy the Bushes, the Chamber of Commerce or the Biden administration. The donor class and elitists will score a big win. To Biden and his inner circle’s obvious satisfaction, unprecedented mass immigration devastates mainstream America.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Migrant Surge Will Compound Housing Crisis

Title 42 Going Out; Migrant Flood Coming In

Title 42 Going Out; Migrant Flood Coming In

By Joe Guzzardi


Since his first day in the White House, President Joe Biden has embarked on a nonstop journey to dismantle existing immigration laws, at first through Executive Orders, and more recently word of mouth. Biden’s criminal disregard for congressionally approved, presidentially signed immigration laws led to a 2 million-strong illegal alien invasion at the Southwest Border last year, plus 500,000 “gotaways” that eluded border patrol agents, and the numbers tick up daily.

On April 1, the CDC announced that it will end the Title 42 regulation on May 23. Title 42 allowed border patrol agents the wherewithal to expel, on the basis of COVID-19, some migrants who wanted to enter the U.S. and claim asylum. But at the same time, the agents processed family units and other so-called vulnerable migrants who were eventually bussed or flown to the U.S. interior.

The immigration crisis of the year past will soon look like a Sunday morning walk in the park. All hell is about to break out on the border. Immediately after the news broke about Title 42 and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ confirmation that the restriction would be lifted, Internet images of global migrants lined up to get past Mexican police, and proceed to the U.S. border, appeared on various sites.

Mayorkas, Biden’s co-conspirator in the dismantling of America, immediately began with double talk. Once the order is lifted, Mayorkas said that individuals will be processed under standard procedure. In a prepared statement, Mayorkas said that smugglers will spread misinformation about U.S. admission to take advantage of vulnerable migrants. But Mayorkas concluded with: “Let me be clear: those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed.”

Sounds tough, but no one believes him. Mayorkas’ statement about removal directly conflicts with his earlier pronouncement that simply being illegally present doesn’t qualify an alien for deportation. In other words, current or future migrants have no concerns about being returned to their home countries. If they wish to stay, they’ll stay. Like his boss Biden, Mayorkas is a great one for making up new faux immigration laws as he goes along, but acting on them as if they are congressionally approved. Existing immigration law is crystal clear: those unlawfully present are deportable.

Title 42 Going Out; Migrant Flood Coming In

Despite pleas from his fellow Democrats to retain Title 42, Biden shows no sign of backing away from his open border tolerance. At least two Texas Democrats have asked Biden to delay ending the policy until Southern Border apprehensions and encounters slow. U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Vicente Gonzales, a McAllen Democrat, joined several of their Republican colleagues earlier this week in a letter to Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. In part, their letter read: “… small border communities lack the appropriate housing, transportation, and healthcare infrastructure to manage the ongoing release of migrant populations into their jurisdictions.”

Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema, Mark Kelly and Joe Manchin implored Biden to enforce Title 42, but to no avail. Sinema and Kelly urged Biden to formulate an as-yet-undrafted replacement plan for Title 42. Manchin called Biden’s move “a frightening decision” that will lead to record-breaking illegal immigration during the current fiscal year.

Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels, National Sheriffs Association Border Security Committee chair, stated the obvious when he said that Biden has forsaken border law enforcement, that his Cochise County is “already beyond a crisis” and that border-related crime has cost local taxpayers more than $1 million. Under Biden, Dannels said that he’s seen the “erosion of infrastructure and the rule of law.” Checkpoints have been shuttered, and a Border Patrol station is down to a skeleton crew. In summary, Dannels, a 37-year law enforcement veteran, said what many Americans, whether they live on the border or in the interior, have already concluded: “We have been abandoned; let’s just say that.”

Veteran observers of D.C. politics can’t quite figure out Biden and his immigration policy. Mid-term elections are seven months away, Biden’s favorability polling among likely voters is in the tank; 53 percentdisapprove, and his immigration handling stands even lower at 59 percent disapproval. As unlikely as it may seem, the staunch America-last Democrats and Biden’s inner circle of globalists are content to lose their jobs, and take their party down with them, over an open border immigration policy that no one wants and harms everybody – first and foremost, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Title 42 Going Out; Migrant Flood Coming In

Southwest Ranchers Under Siege On The Border

Southwest Ranchers Under Siege On The Border

By Joe Guzzardi

Last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety said that its elite brush team apprehended 54 illegal immigrants attempting to sneak through private ranches after crossing illegally into Maverick County, Texas. Among those apprehended was a Mexican national who started a fire on a ranch and will be charged with trespassing and arson.

Earlier in the year, the same brush team assigned to Operation Lone Star arrested 33 aliens trespassing on ranchers’ personal property near the border. In all, Operation Lone Star has arrested 2,600 aliens on statecriminal trespass charges. The arresting body is a Texas state agency, not Customs and Border Protection which might have been, because of the Biden administration’s soft-on-illegal-aliens policy, conflicted about what to do next after confronting criminals.

Years ago, I heard first hand from Arizona ranchers how little interest the federal government had in protecting them, their property and their families. On Sept. 10, 2001, 9/11 eve, NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck and I traveled to Tucson. Roy was scheduled to give a speech, after which a retired CBP agent would guide us on a personal border tour along a portion of the 262-mile sector. The following day, 9/11, we had a prearranged meeting with ranching families and other concerned citizens. Despite the day’s tragic events, the ranchers, knowing that illegal immigration would be the focal point of Roy’s talk, nevertheless wanted to convene.

During the informal chat period that followed, a rancher I’ll call Jones came up to me to share his story about then-Sen. John McCain, a Republican and prominent supporter of illegal immigrants and their agenda. Jones told me that after years of mailing handwritten letters to McCain asking for federal intervention to protect his land and family, but never getting more than a form response, he decided to fly to Washington to personally meet the senator. On his first day, McCain’s secretary advised Jones that the senator was too busy to see him. On the second day, Jones met with the staffer who dealt with immigration. Jones promised that he’d return the following day, and pressed for one-on-one time with McCain. By the week’s end, Jones gave up, never having seen McCain. The senator knew Jones had valid grievances, but he didn’t want to hear them.

Looking back with the perspective I’ve gained from Biden’s disregard for citizens’ personal safety during his assumption of the presidency, showing a shocking neglect toward the unconstitutional border invasion, McCain’s insulting, dismissive attitude toward Jones isn’t surprising. Americans dismayed by Biden’s contempt for immigration laws, and the well-being that many of those laws provide, should brace for more lawlessness and chaos ahead.

The Progressive Congressional Caucus, chaired by Washington U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, recently issued its want list, what it called “Recommendations for Executive Action,” on immigration. In part, the list includes expanding or redesignating Temporary Protected Status to foreign nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen. At least 5 million illegal aliens from Mexico are estimated to live in the U.S. TPS, quasi amnesty, includes affirmative benefits which harm working or job-seeking U.S. citizens. TPS includes lifetime valid work authorization.

Southwest Ranchers Under Siege

Also on the progressives’ list is a demand to end COVID-related Title 42, which will create a greater-than-ever border surge. An anonymous but knowledgeable source wrote: “U.S. intelligence officials are privately bracing for a massive influx of more than 170,000 migrants at the Mexico border if COVID-era policies that allow instant expulsions during the public health emergency are ended.”

A third progressive insistence is to “raise wages and improve labor safeguards and protections so that employers can no longer use the H-2B visa program to underpay and exploit migrant workers, and U.S. workers.” A better idea is to end H-2B altogether which would truly help U.S. workers. The program has a long, documented history of American worker displacement, wage theft and other abuses.

Looking back at McCain on immigration, and then comparing him to Biden, the former Navy captain looks pretty good, a conclusion I would have thought impossible to arrive at a few years ago. McCain favored mandatory E-Verify, defunding sanctuary cities, and funding entry/exit systems, all inconceivable to Biden. But “a few years ago” was before Biden, the president who has criminally scorned immigration laws in their totality since Day One.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Southwest Ranchers Under Siege On The Border Southwest Ranchers Under Siege On The Border

SCOTUS Must Rule on Birthright Citizenship

SCOTUS Must Rule on Birthright Citizenship

By Joe Guzzardi

The rush to resettle thousands of Afghan evacuees and the Southwest border bungling prove one thing if nothing else – the U.S. has little interest in preserving its sovereign nation status. Illegal immigration tolerance and an eagerness to admit worldwide refugees aren’t unique to the Biden administration, however.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Republican and Democratic administrations have shown a willingness to look the other way at illegal immigration, create dozens of unnecessary employment-based visas that have diluted the labor market, and enabled foreign nationals to take coveted U.S. jobs. During the same 56-year period, Congress has refused to make legislative changes that could, assuming the legislative bodies were determined to defend the nation, reverse history’s course.

SCOTUS Must Rule on Birthright Citizenship

The U.S. is traditionally the largest refugee resettlement nation, and the most illegal immigrant-tolerant. These conditions can only continue if Americans don’t feel that newcomers are displacing them.

Among its other many immigration-related failures, Congress has steadfastly refused to end or even urge a Supreme Court review on birthright citizenship, an issue which has once again surged to the forefront as a major sovereignty concern.

On the Del Rio, Texas-Mexico, border, several Haitian nationals have given birth to U.S. citizen babies, and under the bridge, 300 mothers-to-be await delivery. At Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy, Afghan mothers have delivered three babies. The newborns are, thanks to a misguided federal policy that grants automatic citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, American citizens. Mothers could be Disneyland tourists, Neiman Marcus shoppers, birth hotel patrons, or migrants and evacuees, all of whom have little-if-any U.S. ties. Their children are automatically citizens.

Every year, American mothers give birth to about 4 million children. In 2021, immigration officials expect 2 million aliens to enter the U.S. illegally; up to 100,000 Afghan evacuees will be resettled, and President Biden promised to lift the annual refugee cap to 125,000. Aliens, evacuees and refugees will total a record 2.25 million. Most will eventually be entitled to petition their family members from abroad, a population-busting process.

No intellectual argument can be made that birthright citizenship and chain migration are sound policies that have America’s best interests at heart. While both sides of the aisle argue, let the Supreme Court decide whether birthright citizenship is legal, an action that the court must take immediately given nonexistent border enforcement. At the heart of the debate is the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment which includes in the opening sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The court must rule on the “subject to the jurisdiction of…” definition. Some scholars say that the phrase essentially means anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, but critics claim that the 14th Amendment’s authors hadn’t intended to grant citizenship to every foreign national born in U.S. territory.

While Congress and advocates on both sides are stalemated, criminals have been able to take advantage of the birthright citizenship loophole. In 2019, federal officials arrested 20 people who operated businesses helping pregnant women travel to the U.S. expressly to give birth to citizen children. Chinese mothers-to-be paid between $40,000 and $80,000 each to come to California, stay in upscale dwellings and give birth. Perpetrators included the Chinese national and the website You Win USA founder Dongyuan Li, charged with visa fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. Similar schemes have been ongoing, mostly without federal intervention, in the U.S. for more than a decade.

The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2021, introduced by U.S. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), would grant citizenship to any child born in the U.S. if at least one parent were either an American, a lawfully present alien or serving in the U.S. military, a reasonable approach to a critical and escalating problem. To date, only about 10 percent of House Republicans have signed on as cosponsors.

Only Canada and the U.S. among developed nations grant jus soli, the right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. Taxpayer costs to underwrite illegal immigrant births are estimated at $2.4 billion annually. With the borders wider open than ever, and Afghan evacuees arriving at unprecedented levels, the Supreme Court must intercede to help preserve 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.

SCOTUS Must Rule on Birthright Citizenship

SCOTUS Must Rule on Birthright Citizenship